[MOC] Orange Motorbike

[JLiu15]

I've wanted to build another bike MOC for quite some time now, seeing that my Stealth Bike from 2 years ago had plenty of room for improvement. I wanted to make one that drives much faster and remains more stable than my Stealth Bike, and to get as much speed as possible out of the PF system.

The idea for a second bike came after getting the 42054 set on discount. I saw the tires as a perfect opportunity for a bike, as their size means that I can make a bike large enough to fit all the electronic components inside. I also found that they are not easily tipped over, which is advantageous for a bike model. To reduce friction, I connected two L motors directly to a single wheel geared 1:1, which was a lot of speed for PF. In fact, I was very surprised that I did not have to use RC Buggy motors (which I don't have) to get such speed.

The MOC features a modular build, with the rear wheel/suspension part being attached to the main body which housed the battery box, and the steering mechanism coming off of it. The suspension worked well and had decent range, and is not overly stiff. I used an interesting mechanism for the steering, which involved a servo motor controlling 2 links that steered the front wheel. However, I had to reduce the servo's angle to 45 degrees in the profile designer, as making the full 90 will cause the servo to stall. A small turntable allows the wheel brace (I'm not sure what you call that) to pivot as it steers, and there are handlebars that work.

One thing I wasn't so happy with about this MOC is the large turning radius. Because I found large steering angles made the bike tip over easily, I had to make it small, and making U-turns in a reasonable space is nearly impossible. Another thing I didn't like is how steering must be done at low speed to prevent it from tipping over. This was worsened by the fact that it was quite windy the day I filmed it, which made it hard to control.

Overall, this is a MOC I'm pretty happy about. I got lots of speed out of using just PF elements, and it did not become sluggish as weight was added on during the build. It was lots of fun driving it around, and remained quite stable without the use of support wheels

Video: 

Photos:

Edited March 4, 2018 by JLiu15

[Maaboo the Witch]

Looks brilliant! Bulky yet streamlined.

[JLiu15]

3 hours ago, Maaboo35 said:

Looks brilliant! Bulky yet streamlined.

Thanks :)

[Permo]

Cool !

I was planning to do something just like this, got the tires in last week and my colors are orange and black haha...

Two motors on the rearwheel could be geared up instead of down, plenty of power there and will make it go fast instead of 'fastish"

I like it.

[JLiu15]

39 minutes ago, Permo said:

Cool !

I was planning to do something just like this, got the tires in last week and my colors are orange and black haha...

Two motors on the rearwheel could be geared up instead of down, plenty of power there and will make it go fast instead of 'fastish"

I like it.

Thanks!

I guess the word "fast" is relative. Compared to what they can pull off with RC Buggy motors it's not, but compared to how much speed you can normally get out of PF motors it's pretty fast.

[JLiu15]

UPDATE 3/4/18

I renamed this MOC to "Orange Motorbike" because "Monster Bike" sounded dumb. I've also re-uploaded the video, as there were black bars around the screen in the previous upload and some scenes weren't so great.

[1gor]

Well, this is a monster (off-road) bike 

[JLiu15]

5 hours ago, I_Igor said:

Well, this is a monster (off-road) bike 

Yeah lol. Just felt like monster bike sounded too lazy 

[degenerate]

Looks and drives great, but the insane wheelbase bothers me endlessly as someone who rides bikes

[JLiu15]

11 minutes ago, degenerate said:

Looks and drives great, but the insane wheelbase bothers me endlessly as someone who rides bikes

Thanks!

I see, it's  kinda too long for a bike. This was definitely a "function over form" MOC; I paid much greater attention to how well it performs than how it looks.