I think maybe one of those little clip on microphones would work. Usually earbuds work in the same capacity and have a mic on the cord. Also, if you can find a bucket of the same diameter, you can chop off the rim and make a collar for it to make it sit better and not slide around especially if you can get the contour of your shoulders in there.
Good to hear from you and see you again. Yes, when you stay busy working, you don't have time to do much else. But l am so glad you are still working at the motel. Sharon seems like she would be good to work ror. And bonus that you can stay over in winters.
Welding is actually pretty easy to learn at the basic level. A welder who goes to school probably learns a lot more theory and engineering. Its something you could pick up pretty quick if you had someone to show you how to get started. Go find someone if you're interested.
Good to hear you're doing OK Carlin! It doesn't sound like much would need to be done to the KLR-650 to get it up and running! Do you think the local po-po would give you any grief going to town and back on it? Totally understand not wanting to do much in the heat. Houston lately has been between 90 and 100 degrees F and I have to either get started very early or right before sunset to get anything done so we certainly understand. Is the e-Bike getting you all the way to and from Sierra Blanca? There is another channel, I think Dust-ups ranch which is just south of you doing some interesting things trying to rejuvenate the land - perhaps you've seen him going through. Again, good to get an update Carlin! Stay safe and try and keep cool!
Yeah law enforcement doesn't seem to worry too much out here, I'd probably fit in with the quads and ATVs in that regard. Its more a matter of cost vs reward for fixing the motorcycle. The electric bikes are working well, I finally have good range and decent speed. If I go forward with the Bomber bike, then I'd have stronger wheels and less flats. None of the choices are exactly cheap in the end. The motorcycle is still the lowest priority.
No a fan of rattlesnakes other than they eat the field mice! Just bought a fat-tire Gotrax F2V2 e-bike for local trips to the grocery. Equipped it with a folding basket on the rear and a suspension seat post. Honestly, at 59 I never thought I'd be on a bike again but enjoy the heck out of this thing and save $0.20/mile on gas compared to firing up the F150 truck for short trips. You trailer looks pretty solid! I wasn't sure how you were going to attach it to the seat post so I was giving a big thumbs-up when I saw the insert you came up with - good idea! Looks like it will take a load too! With the weight down low I figure it (hopefully) doesn't affect your center of gravity. Can't wait to see it in action! 😃
Yeah an ebike for short trips sure makes a lot of sense, as long as you don't die in traffic! When I lived in Austin, it seemed like everyone was trying to run over me, not a big boost to my healthy lifestyle! I'll probably be testing the trailer with a real load this week, I'll try to post an update.
Now that I am working I can afford some food and gas for the generator. I'm a long way off from a truck, but it is still a nice idea, thanks for the comment :)
@@CarlinComm lol, well food and gas are important. Just seems like you are working lots of hours and a truck is so important. I have a 2008, but it gets the job done. Do you ever watch "Frugal Off Grid" seems like some of his water catchment and storage could really do wonders for your land. He is in Arizona High Dessert, so not sure if you get less rain.
I hope you are well, apologies for not isitin, turns out I have epilepsy. And a few other fun things. But, I learned something, we are doing off grid ding wrong here in the US we should be using 240 inverters then stepping down to 120.. Or converting to 220 appliances. But using a step down transformer. Actually makes us more effincet. I learned something called KVA. And then a few other things. Hmmlike the plants. So desert is a thorny place... I wonder why?
Yeah still here, sorry haven't had much time to post any videos lately. Interesting about 220 vs. 110 inverters etc, I wonder if its worth the trouble, by the time you lose the efficiency in the conversion again. I saw a science program once that said that maybe the thorns help the plants harvest moisture from the air. But I've never seen any actual investigation of that idea. Who knows?
It's a matter of scale. I could see doing a hybrid system. Golf Cart has "some" solar, there is only so much roof space. Then have MORE solar at home. So the Golf Cart could self power and recharge itself as its driving. Then when you get home, plug the house solar into the golf cart, but still use the golf cart battery to power the house. On my Solar Delta Trike, it has plenty of battery to do a 25 mile ride now, and if I ride it to work, the 175 flex panel I have on it will now fully charge it in 4 hours at work, so then I ride home, starting again with a full battery. But that's not enough power to run my house. If you could bridge the battery in the house and the battery in the Golf Cart, and use them both at the same time, that makes sense. But you'd also need to make sure the Golf Cart had enough power to drive when you need it. I've also tested a small generator on my trike, as a range extender, and that seems pretty practical, not very noisy, and you only run it if you need it. Cheaper than buying a bigger battery, too.
@@cliffandrews Its a messed up world, to be sure. Income from RU-vid is down to about $50 a month, where I can make that on about a half day working one of those real jobs. Haven't had much spare time lately for editing and uploading the videos.
@@CarlinComm Yup, messed up world for sure. Yeah I hear YT is pretty much poo-poo anymore for making money. Well anyways good to hear from you.......Take care 👍
Neat idea with the solar controller for a trickle charger on Aux cattery- might try this in my ‘72 Dodge R/V Aux battery… just trying to figure out where to mount the inverter lol
@@CarlinComm so update- added the HF solar controller but it will not operate under 15v because solar panels run at 23ish volts. Alternators run at 14.7 and very rarely go about 15 volts which is the min to operate controller. Thought of adding a voltage doubling circuit, but I’m going to try a different controller from ebay 12v 30 amp. How’d you accomplish this?
@@mattboyer7812 I don't have that truck anymore, but at some point I did switch to some ebay pwm controllers. If you can afford a better set up, Victron makes a nice looking charger that goes between the alternator, starter battery, and "house" battery, can send power from alternator, solar, etc, and bridges everything together intelligently. Those blue boxes are expensive, but I think probably worth it. They also usually have Bluetooth to your phone so you can see what's happening.
@@mattboyer7812 Also, at this point, Lithium (LiFePO4) is very cost effective, so even if you don't plan on buying lithium batteries, make sure your charge controller etc are lithium compatible.
Just found your project. I'm about to start building a solar Delta recumbent trike myself! Just doing research to see what others have done. I am planning to make mine for longer trips, so I am using 4 100w solar panels for a little more range/faster charging. My motor is 3000w 72v. I will be putting the motor on the front wheel just in front of the pedals, so i can have a very short chain, and the steering will be in the back. Similar to a moba.
Instead of the hitch contraption, consider a short piece of spring coil. Weld a fender washer to both ends and connect to trailer and bicycle with nuts and bolts.
@CarlinComm I have 12 months remaining on this Northwest assignment 🙃 moving to another apartment 🙃 we move every 6 months 🙃 it's either San Diego or Japan
What capacity are your batteries? You talked about drill batteries before is that the current setup? LiFePo4 batteries keep dropping in price I've seen some 100 ah 12v under $180 that'd be around $700 for 48v 5kwh. 200 watts current over an hour trip 12 miles under 20w/mi. At about 100 pounds in batteries even if you double it and estimate 40w/mi it should cover a full trip to El Paso and back before factoring in the solar panel. Factoring the solar panel 48v 50ah 2.5kwh for closer to $400 and only weighing 50 pounds might work better
The one battery with a label says 14 amp hours, so at 50 volts would be 700 watt hours. I agree, LiFePO4 is interesting, I'm looking at that. The battery packs I have now are surplus bike shop rental batteries, not full capacity but mostly working. Stay tuned!
@@CarlinComm sound good, was thinking about acquiring land in West Texas I’ve been looking at but not sure about the water supply. I just purchased the Eccotemp tank and solar but indecisive if I should move out there.
I also built a recumbent trike, the solar roof on that is amazing. I've seen people put a solar roof on a bicycle and it usually isn't as good as you'd think. It is very windy where I live, that tends to just blow you off the road. Intuitively it seems like a great idea until you try it.
I have seen people put the second panel in front, either cantilever from the frame, or attached to the handle bars. Usually the front panel is smaller, like a 50 watt panel.
All solar panels, no matter where you put them, increase wind resistance. No free rides. The hope is they produce more power than resistance. If you're careful, it can work.
Cool build. I've seen people build custom battery packs using individual cells. Maybe you could get old cheap batteries, put them in a tube shape to fit the water bottle area. Maybe put them in pvc pipe or something. Maybe another solar panel in the front, free of and above the wheel, could give more charging and maybe balance the weight some more. Take care!
I spent a lot of time trying to build batteries when I started. Out of 3 spot welders, none of them could create a strong enough bond. They worked, but the road I live on is very rough, and the batteries would keep failing. It was very disappointing. I also used tool batteries, they worked pretty well, they are made much stronger than what I was able to make. Some of the battery packs I have came from Battery Hookup . com, they're usually pretty good. I've not yet tested the front solar panel, but that is something I'm interested in trying, it could balance a cross wind out a bit and push some weight back forward. I ended up taking this off though, because I have the 6 miles of very rough road before I get to the pavement, and I don't often need to go all that far, so 1 or 2 batteries, without the solar works well enough. When I really did good with the solar was a couple years ago, I rode about 4000 miles, that's when it makes sense, you don't stop to plug in, you just wake up every day and keep riding. Good times. Thanks for the comments!
@@CarlinComm I think we might have seen the same video. The welding of so many looked difficult. That is a great idea with the tool batteries. Anything easier to work with, for testing and proof of concept. I look forward to seeing any future updates.
@@gotreactions The spotwelding process itself wasn't so bad, just that none of the spot welders I had were doing enough "heat" to make a good spot weld. After I bought 3 different ones, I kind of abandoned that. Maybe I'll go back to it later. The next project will be an update to the recumbent trike I built last year. Not sure when I'll get to that though, hopefully soon!
That's a nice experiment. I thought that if I ever tried something like this, I would bring a couple 300 watt folding panels. I would bike for a few hours with just batteries and then rest an hour or two and during that time put the panels out. On a sunny day, the panels would be able to double my range pretty easily. The trick would be to find a good way to store the panels on the rack so that it doesn't cause too much wind resistance.
When they're folded up they wouldn't be too bad for resistance, that's true. What I've found, is if I'm riding with the panel constantly charging, even if I'm using more power, its constantly helping. I think I could go further and faster with the constant charge, rather than stopping to charge. But it all comes down to the details. Also I've never tried it what 2x 300 watts of panels, that is a lot of solar. Would be nice to have that much! I rode from Texas to California on one 100 watt panel, back in 2022, somewhere along the road I found another 100 watt panel, so then I rigged it up, so then I had 200 watts. That was enough. I mean, more is always better, but it was good enough, to help me pull a trailer with all my stuff. I was pretty overloaded on that trip.
I experimented with tilting on the one wheel trailer for the 2022 solar bike ride, and fortunately I tested it on a windy day. It was uncontrollable in even moderate wind. Also, I've been blown right off the road on my electric bike, with no solar panel. Wind here in Texas is unforgiving. That's why I talked about the panel being flat, level to the ground. This one I tested at over 20 mph bike speed, in a significant cross wind, and it was not an issue at all. Thankfully!
Colin, what about putting arms to raise the solar panel to aim it at the sun? You would need arms on both sides. The sun would be on the opposite side coming home. Rock on Dude! ❤❤
The next project will be a rebuild / evolution of the Delta trike. THAT will probably have tilt able solar, because I'll have all my weight below the panel, so I'd probably be able to control it. Wind here is pretty fierce, so I have to build it conservative. Some of the guys I saw on the 2022 solar bike ride I was on that had trikes did have tiltable panels, and they could steer with one hand, and adjust the panel on the other hand, while riding. And, if its a strong wind, you just put the panel flat, level to the ground, and you're able to control it then. I got blown off the road a couple times on the bike, without solar. Its rough out here! Thanks for the comment, stay tuned, more to come!
Good to see you on video again. Yes, you have been there quite a while. It makes a difference when you own and build, l think. Roots! Looking forward to your next adventure. Be sure to take us along too!
Good to hear your doing okay Carlin! Still trying to get away from work to come up and hang out for awhile. Bought another 20 acres adjacent to my 'north' 220 acres so I have to get moving soon. Keep everyone updated sir!
Some how I missed this post. Anyway, I recently found a channel from a guy in your "neighborhood" so to speak. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-D6fl8dap5nk.html Sounds like he's on your road but way farther south. He's trying to bring water to the desert. Just tossing this out as an FYI. Take care!
Back in the late 1970's a friend of mine and I made two bike trailers out of hand trucks. We removed the original axle and replaced it with one that was almost twice as thick and was a foot and a half wider (9" on each side) which game them more stability. We change the cheap tires from some of better quality. Then we took a couple of Kmart frame backpacks off of the frames, and placed them on the hand trucks, and drilled cotter pin holes to mount them with. Then we had a stout curved tube welded on to each one to use as a hitch. The hitch mounted on the seat post with a U bolt. We pulled those makeshift trailers for 7,000 miles, and as bike trailers were basically unheard of in those days, just about everyone we talked to wanted to know how we made them. Total cost in 1976, about $40 each.
Put a button on the highest powered headlights have.So when you press the button the light goes off and so in the car is coming just turn off the most powerful l e d I haven't don't worry about it
Not gonna lie, hose clamps are great for bikes. I use old tubes as rubber isolation to protect the paint (i ride a ratty ATB) but they hold stuff super well and are dirt cheap
I totally agree! My current ebike battery is mounted to the frame with hoseclamps and duct tape :) I just didn't feel like fabricating something more elegant.
@CarlinComm I watched a video yesday regarding the possible release of this motorcycle and recalled your video from years ago 😎 good luck and stay strong and safe 👍
Thats a good idea. A dolly makes a great bicycle trailer. I've been thinking about building a bike trailer. I'm leaning towards a goose neck seat pole hitch, maybe. I've just tried a different way of lubricating my bike wheel hubs with a grease gun. It did make peddling easer.
I've done so many versions of the bike trailers over the years, I did at least one version with the goose neck hitch, they all had pros and cons, its worth experimenting with at least.
No worries! I made some tweaks last night, after a 1 hour ride, it fully changed in about an hour. I'm happy with that. And it pulls about 850 watts at the AC plug in.
