CamperCycle

While available materials is a large restriction, in essence the real restriction is weight. This thing must be as light weight as I can make it within the feature list. This of course greatly effects the types of material and techniques and the way to implement them.

Of course a long steel frame will not weight nothing. Neither will a battery, a motor or for that matter "me"! but even here gains are to be had.

For example, while the frame will be the heaviest part most likely, it will not be as heavy as the combined weight of a bicycle frame AND a camper frame. These can share structural parts between them. It also means with will be a lot shorten than the combination of a bike and trailer.

Another principle is that, where possible, an element should have at least 2 functions. If it is structural for the frame, there is no reason for it to be part of the seating system, wiring infrastructure or support for mechanical systems like the tank steering system (yes... going to do that). The seat of course transforms into a mattress and the hull is both protection, mounting area, surface for system integration like electrical, aerodynamics and making it look cool.

So the hull has many functions, but also, like our skin is the biggest organ, this is the biggest part, but it can not weigh a ton. After a lot of research, I decided that I'd make the bulk of the hull out of laminated XPS foam. People build boats out of it, so this should be doable and it is cheap. I still have to do the gluing, shaping and laminating experiments, but the core concept seems sound. Where needed sturdier re-enforcements will be added, but the whole shell should not weight more than 10 to 15 Kilograms and that is probably a high estimate. that stuff is really light!. (and even if re-enforcements are needed, I'll try to make those double as cable routes.

The seat matrass system will be wood foam and fabric and the center console and cooler will also be XPS.

I kept a lot of the original geometry because this seemed like the most sensible configuration to use. I compared it to commercial delta trikes and they often matched, but for various reasons some aspects have changed or added to.

The biggest constrain I have is materials. You do not always have a wide variety of choice when you are looking for cheap second hand donor parts and materials. You have to design with what you can get and that can have major ripple effects throughout the design.

for the rolling frame, I knew that I wanted full suspension, but the design and dimensions of these features were greatly depended on what donor material I ended up with. The first real buy was a parts bike for tuppence.

This is a kids dirt bike. Not the best, but it can take a beating. The frame is steel, as it should be so I can weld it and this basically dictated that the front and rear wheels wanted to be 20" with a 9cm wide hub. It also gave me a front fork with suspension, rim brakes, a 6 gear cassette and a crank shaft. So all the designs you seen with a crank motor you can forget about. Parts of the steering wheel could come in handy as well as the remaining tube sections.

It also came with a ridiculously oversized stand which I fitted to another bike that needed a replacement (That part alone in the shop would have cost me more than this entire bike did!)

The rear suspension was semi-dependent on the steel I could scavenge and what shocks I ended up with. I now have the shocks.
 

This set is for a scootmobile. A electric mobility scooter for people with various types of disabilities. These are quite simple and can take a lot of weight. These are 20cm from axle to axle and require very little redesign of the rear suspension albeit I decided that one major modification was needed. This is now the rough design of the rear section.

Looks pretty sane, but there is one problem here....

You see the problem here. Not having 4 springs, I did not want them to be mounted outside the suspension arms to reduce load. Well, put them in the middle then! that would be alright for the right arm, but unfortunately the left arm also has the drive shaft running through it and I designed the original to small. So this changes the dimensions of the arms, the steel box section, the attachment points for the upper frame bars and much of the gearing and drive system placement.

And still the final frame design has not been set in stone. Well, that is what scrapyard iterative design gets you!

The goals of this project are basically twofold. One, I need to keep busy to keep sane. Repair something ro build something, perhaps write some software or a write up like this (yes, this is now a therapeutic blog (if it wasn't already!)), read and do research, Try new and different things, design graphics or machinery. Basically to allow me to have a goal to let me use and practice the various disciplines I like. when ever I am able to do them and luckily the days where I am completely unable to do anything are rare and I'd like to keep it that way!

So that is the primary goal of designing and building. The goal of the build is real simple. I want a comfortable long range bike that shields me from the weather, allows me to rest when I need it and gives me back some range so I get out more which is good. With those two factors as a framework, I started the planning and design process.

For comfort, I do not want to have to get out when I need a lie down or to eat something. I want to choose the level of effort so it will have to be electrically assisted. I need enough space to store food, drink and entertainment so I can be gone for a few days. It should be somewhat modular, easy to repair or to replace parts.

I also need it to be cheap... very cheap. As I do not have a stable income at this point in time, the resources I can spend on this are limited so second hand stuff from the internet and thrift stores are my friend. Also alternative materials for construction help.

Then there is the fun stuff and the stuff you really do not need, but I want to build. Not only because I can, but sometimes it is the only thing I practically can do. Welding in the hospital is frowned upon for example were as just writing code on your bed is quite alright.

A lot of the pre-work has already been done and right now I'm already collecting materials, testing methods and writing basic code, but i waited to do a vlog on this when I knew this was getting serious, which It now seems to be. So the logs will first come in quick succession and when I'm up to date, the cadence will vary.

This concept isn't unique by itself. Examples are far and few between but some exist, mainly as thought experiments and proofs of concept. My main inspiration comes from Paul Elkins and his pedal camper experiment.

Basically he did a lot of the grunt work in measuring and testing. At the end he encourages people to take the design further so that is what I want to do. I took his sketches, applied them to my body size and available materials and came up with a rough skeleton on which I would build my version.

Then slowly I translated this into this:

My first change was to permanently extend the back for light storage like sleeping bags and a small cooler, this is pretty much is based on the original geometry and although through the iterative design process I have a lot has changed and a lot of the techniques will be different, the basic geometry will not change a lot.