[TC19] Wingblade R

[Dazzzy]

This will be my first contest entry on EB, and to be quite brutally honest, i'm far from being technically minded, so i'm kind of out of my depth really. 

Decided to go with a Cyberpunk/Akira style futuristic concept bike, though i doubt it will be nearly as sophisticated or have as many features as many other entries do. 

So far all it's got is central hub steering at the front, (at the moment the rear echoes the front, but will be changed to something more conventional). 

I understand that digital entries aren't allowed, so please forgive the digital renders i'm currently showing. I will be building in brick once I've acquired a few more technic parts. 

Thanks for viewing.

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by Dazzzy
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[JintaiZ]

I love the color scheme and the building techniques. Best of luck in the contest!

[Dazzzy]

Just now, JintaiZ said:

I love the color scheme and the building techniques. Best of luck in the contest!

Thank you JintaiZ.   

I'm going with that colour scheme as I've recently bought the Ducati set. So mainly black and red will feature as i don't have any other colour technic panels at my disposal.  

[Jurss]

Looks good, and interesting solutions for wheels.

But those axle connectors will be usable just for static display.

[Dazzzy]

 

17 minutes ago, Jurss said:

Looks good, and interesting solutions for wheels.

But those axle connectors will be usable just for static display.

Thanks Jurss. 

I would ask you to elaborate, but i presume you're referring to the grey piece at the very most centre of the hub. I too fear it may not be up to the job, but i'll have to see when the necessary parts come in.  If it doesn't work, i'm afraid i currently don't have any other solution that comes to mind. 

[EDIT]

Oh i think you're probably referring to the black angled connectors as well, aren't you. If so, i think you could be right, as any downward force does look like it'll force them apart.  Back to the drawing board i guess. 

Thanks for bringing the issue to my attention. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by Dazzzy
Edit

[Gray Gear]

Very cool and intresting wheel setup, those rims are pretty much never seen in this forum. But the rest of the Body looks pretty fragile imo...

[Lakop]

I see you're developing a hub centre steering. I was looking into it myself. I like what you have done so far.

H

[Seasider]

Good interesting build so far.

only the final entry has to be physical bricks, you’ll see a lot of us use the various Lego CAD to work on our builds. I’m doing a lot in Stud.io at the moment and then every now and then building physically.

[Dazzzy]

4 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

Very cool and intresting wheel setup, those rims are pretty much never seen in this forum. But the rest of the Body looks pretty fragile imo...

Thank you Gray Gear. 

You're probably right in regards to its fragility. Hopefully i'll be able to make it a little more robust, as the build progresses. 

3 hours ago, Lakop said:

I see you're developing a hub centre steering. I was looking into it myself. I like what you have done so far.

H

Thanks Lakop. 

I found the centre steering hub a bit of a head-scratcher, but i'm hoping it works in real brick. 

3 hours ago, Seasider said:

Good interesting build so far.

only the final entry has to be physical bricks, you’ll see a lot of us use the various Lego CAD to work on our builds. I’m doing a lot in Stud.io at the moment and then every now and then building physically.

Thank you Seasider.   

It's good to hear i won't be the only one using digital builds initially. Have to admit though, i'm still trying to get use to using Stud.io after using LDD for most of my builds. 

 

Have (hopefully) made the wheel arms stronger/sturdier now than before. But as with everything, i'll only know for sure once i get the parts and start building. 

I'm also toying with the idea of having a detachable tilting sidecar, to add a bit more playability. As i doubt i'll venture beyond having a fake engine, suspension and gearbox as working functions. 

(updated pic showing the new arms) :

[Dazzzy]

I'm not 100% sure how i'm going to configure and style my bike, so i may do a little sketching next. 

I am a bit gutted though that the contest rules are fairly strict, as i came across a sketch i did around 6 years ago, and i'd love to bring it to life in Technic. 

I'm guessing it easily falls into the category of being a trike.  But personally I'd like to class it as a stand up carving/skating bike suit.   

Edited January 1, 2021 by Dazzzy
forgot a word

[Jurss]

Now it will be sturdier.

Will there be angine or something? Or it will really be something like skateboard?

[Dazzzy]

Thanks Jurss.   If you hadn't kindly pointed out the inherent flaw in the construction to begin with, i wouldn't have discovered it until i started adding weight on top of the platform/chassis. 

I'd personally like to go with an electric powertrain, as it would be fairly easy, but for this contest we need to display some working mechanisms, so i will be attempting an engine of some kind. Please ignore the skateboard title, if you click on the pics. It was just a working tag line. 

[Dazzzy]

This technic style of building is an even harder challenge than i thought it would be.  For every step i think that i'm making forward, just ends up being two steps back. 

Slow progress really but have managed to correct a major error i hadn't noticed.  Had a major clearance issue with the steering, but it appears to be sorted out now. Unfortunately though, it doesn't look quite as nice as it did before, but i guess it's function over form. 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Dazzzy
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[Bluehose]

Escuse me, does this count as a two wheeled bike ? (Regarding the contest's rules)

[Dazzzy]

2 hours ago, Bluehose said:

Escuse me, does this count as a two wheeled bike ? (Regarding the contest's rules)

Apologies i should've explained, it's just a place holder for now.  You are indeed right though, i think as it is it would fall into the category of being a trike. 

However, you have just given me an idea that comes down to how the rules could possibly be interpreted. 

It's an ambitious idea and would look mighty strange, (not that it doesn't already ). But what about, having each rear swing arm acting independently, with a sidecar attached to one swingarm,  and a fairly big panier attached to the other swing arm. I suppose both could have differing kinds of spring to help balance it too. Would be some kind of cruiser concept. 

 

Small update pic. 

[Dazzzy]

Another small update pic. 

Playing around with the idea of using a steering rack based steering system. It looks messy, but it's about as clean as i think i can make it unfortunately. 

[Jurss]

Now it becomes clearer, that this will be nice, flat "floor" of bike.

I'm afraid, that steering is not ok, first was better. two connectinons by gears means, that there will be noticable slack, also that upper one will not connect firmly to horizontal. And more, it won't be possible to put steering staright, as those two gears will make some angle,it is not "straight" connection. Better try some linkage.

[Seasider]

I think your 2 rear wheels are illegal by the rules @Jim ? But if they’re on a single axle you could switch to the Harley Davidson fat tyre which uses 2 rims to create a single wide rear wheel.

[Dazzzy]

3 hours ago, Jurss said:

Now it becomes clearer, that this will be nice, flat "floor" of bike.

I'm afraid, that steering is not ok, first was better. two connectinons by gears means, that there will be noticable slack, also that upper one will not connect firmly to horizontal. And more, it won't be possible to put steering staright, as those two gears will make some angle,it is not "straight" connection. Better try some linkage.

 

Thank you for the helpful advice Jurss.   

I did fear the space between the teeth of the gears may cause some slack/latency, but had kind of wrote it off as negligible.  Also there's 4 gears connected all of which has 12 teeth. So the steering will centre correctly straight, (have tested it out).  Unfortunately when testing the gears it threw up a new problem, due to spacing they tend to bind which is obviously no good, so back to the drawing board i guess. 

I think i may try using linkage like you've suggested instead. 

1 hour ago, Seasider said:

I think your 2 rear wheels are illegal by the rules @Jim ? But if they’re on a single axle you could switch to the Harley Davidson fat tyre which uses 2 rims to create a single wide rear wheel.

Thanks for giving me the heads-up mate.    Though the spur of the moment brainwave i had ,(split rear swingarms, one tyre serving the side car, the other tyre supplying the drive to the bike), has already been shot down by Jim.

It was always my intention to go with a bigger rear tyre, but neither the Harley Davidson or Ducati rear tyres appear to be in Stud.io, so i improvised to get a visual taste of how it could look. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Dazzzy

[Jurss]

If You will keep this

1. You need some bracing there

2. so, there are some 2 more gears? If so, then Yes, angles will be OK.

[Dazzzy]

5 minutes ago, Jurss said:

If You will keep this

1. You need some bracing there

2. so, there are some 2 more gears? If so, then Yes, angles will be OK.

 

Cheers mate.    

Yes, 4 gears in total. It's hard to see in the render but there's an identical gear in black, sitting directly below and meshing with the grey gear above it.  So once all the transitions are done, the vertical shaft gear mimics the original horizontal black gear that's meshed with the steering rack. 

And yes you're right, i can see from your illustration that part would definitely need bracing, otherwise it will skip out of contact wouldn't it. 

I'm hoping i can find an alternative solution by using linkage arms instead of gears, like what you've kindly suggested.  Also hoping it'll take up less space and wont rely on system plate usage. 

 

[Seasider]

On 1/4/2021 at 8:58 AM, Dazzzy said:

 

Thank you for the helpful advice Jurss.   

I did fear the space between the teeth of the gears may cause some slack/latency, but had kind of wrote it off as negligible.  Also there's 4 gears connected all of which has 12 teeth. So the steering will centre correctly straight, (have tested it out).  Unfortunately when testing the gears it threw up a new problem, due to spacing they tend to bind which is obviously no good, so back to the drawing board i guess. 

I think i may try using linkage like you've suggested instead. 

Thanks for giving me the heads-up mate.    Though the spur of the moment brainwave i had ,(split rear swingarms, one tyre serving the side car, the other tyre supplying the drive to the bike), has already been shot down by Jim.

It was always my intention to go with a bigger rear tyre, but neither the Harley Davidson or Ducati rear tyres appear to be in Stud.io, so i improvised to get a visual taste of how it could look. 

Yes only the standard width tyres are in stud.io. But if you connect 2 rims together but 3L pins and mount the tyres you have to them that gives the same width as the Harley rear wheel. The Ducati rear tyre is somewhere in between

[Dazzzy]

On 1/5/2021 at 7:00 PM, Seasider said:

Yes only the standard width tyres are in stud.io. But if you connect 2 rims together but 3L pins and mount the tyres you have to them that gives the same width as the Harley rear wheel. The Ducati rear tyre is somewhere in between

I was considering placing 2 rims the proper width apart to achieve the proper width of the Harley tyre, but didn't get around to it. Thanks for the advice though. 

 

Progress is being made but it's very slow.  I've now changed the front arms as they were a tad too bulky, and i wanted to achieve a bit more lean, so i slimmed them down slightly.

It doesn't look anywhere near as neat now, and due to adding some steering bump stops to the front wheel, it's reduced the steering angle a little. Still i feel it was necessary as i hate the feel of the tyre rubbing on the arms when steering. Also decided to go with a wider tyre up front (Ducati rear), which i'm sure doesn't help things but i think aesthetically it looks better.

Have also gone with grey springs for the suspension, as they seem about the right strength needed, but i may change them back to the yellow ones when more weight is eventually added to the bike. 

 

With regards to the rear wheel, i finally got my hands on a Harley rear tyre, (yay!).  .....However, that threw up a couple of new problems. Basically, i wanted to run a drive shaft rather than a chain drive, and at the same time i wanted to keep it as tight as possible to the tyre. I thought i'd be able to get away with using one single Ducati rim, (offset to one side) and fit the sprocket assembly in the void of the empty side of tyre case. Unfortunately 2 things became apparent , 1)  The un-banded tyre side deforms way too easily when pressure is applied to it, it's just not stiff enough to hold it's form.  And 2) no matter what i tried spacing wise, the tyre and wheel refuses to sit centrally between the arms holding the wheel. 

So I've decided to go with a similar set-up as i did up front with the front wheel, and just use angle pieces to build a centrally mounted wheel. It now sits perfectly central between the 2 rear arms.

Will be hopefully be posting a couple of progress pics a bit later.    

Edited January 7, 2021 by Dazzzy

[Dazzzy]

Please excuse the quality of the pics, will do better ones the closer it get's to being finished, (which will be some time ).

As can be seen, i still need to work out the steering system, and i haven't decided on the overall bike length as yet, so it may reduced or extend a bit. 

 

 

[EDIT]  Please excuse some of the colours used, i'm going to hopefully replace them so it coordinates better.  Also, just realised the direction of the rear tyre tread is pointing the wrong way.  Will fix it.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Dazzzy

[Dazzzy]

More slowwww progress:

 

After giving myself a headache thinking over it (not a technically minded person), i finally figured out i'd need to have 2 arm connections to make the bike steer correctly. Although it looks like a huge unresolved mess at the moment, i'm really happy that the front wheel and makeshift handlebar, actually hold their steering angle when the suspension is pushed down on. (yay!). 

 

I may change where the handlebar is placed and bring it a lot closer to where the front wheel is, but i'm at a point now where it can go a couple of directions i think.  I may go for a touring look (think Honda Goldwing), or i may go for a drag bike look.  Still haven't decided, so the placement of the rear wheel is just a placeholder.