Speedmakers: Triumph Motorcycles
More from Hulu:
Hackstetter All-Wheel Drive
UPDATE 3: I received an email regarding this bike explaining the shenanigans in the comment section and am taking down comments related to the after market car parts company. Let’s give this bike a fair shake. In the next few months we may know more and be able to judge whether it’s a badass bike or falls flat.
UPDATE 2: Well this is coming off the front page. I’m not going to dig through all the sordid history of the people involved. All I can say on this one is see the bike in person if you are going to buy it. And I’m editing out the names in the comments because of the associated squabble.
UPDATE 1: We will try again to get the low down on this bike and if there is any connection as the commenter described below.
Cherry Hill, NJ – Rob
has developed and patented (# pending-CH) an all-wheel drive system for motorcycles. Production of the first 12 units will be starting in August to be sold in November. Although his first application of this technology is on sportbikes, the Hackstetter website notes that they are looking at police interceptor and sport touring use.
The Invex 998 is built from a 1000cc Kawasaki engine producing 205 bhp controlled by the patented “torque biasing” all-wheel drive system. An R-model track bike is available, though it will certainly throw a loop at most road racing organizations regarding it’s legality. In fact, the AMA confirmed back in 2005 that MX/SW motorcycles (like Christini AWD) won’t be allowed and that they would provide an unfair advantage. The S-model is a road going version that meets DOT standard for road use.
number 5 is currently for sale at ebay where you can see clearly see the chrome-moly trellis frame and the large rim-mounted brake rotors.
(Much of the information on the Hackstetter.com website is out of date so we have contacted Hackstetter to get some more information and photos of the bikes and will update accordingly)
Using Weldments for Frames
After posting the article on CAD modeling of frames, I was sent a message asking why I choose to make individual tubes when modeling a bike frame rather than using weldment features. This should help speed up the design and modification of the frame. Right?
Not exactly. The short answer is that example was simplified a great deal to cover the method. That article doesn’t show the detail that is required for most bike tubes when actually put in practice. For example, many of the tubes that I use these days are hydroformed or butted, which automatically makes them individual parts which works best as an assembly. The weldment features just won’t work for that. Even on tubes that appear straight on the outside, there are usually internal features which I prefer to keep in configurations of individual parts. This includes the internal profiles on a head tube for the selected bearings or bearing cups, the cutting of the slot and reaming of the seat tube, and the details of the bottom bracket. I suppose you could add those to the weldments, but it would be rather clumsy.
For anyone who is not aware of the weldment feature in Solidworks, it is a streamlined way to make structures using any tube profile you have in your library. It makes very quick work of mitering tubes, adding caps and gussets, and making cut lists. It just doesn’t make much sense to use it for bicycles.
Below is a shot of a typical bike frame. Not one of those tubes is a straight loft like you get in the weldment feature.
Bicycle CAD Model
Modeling a Fuel Tank in Solidworks
Another benefit of Solidworks is that it includes some very useful surfacing tools that you may not get with the base version of your other parametric modeling software. Take the projected curve feature in this tutorial on modeling a fuel tank in Solidworks as an example.
Milestones in Science & Engineering | Karl-Friedrich Dais: The Bicycle
From the Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht:
Clubman Bar Design
We are in the middle of designing a new series of titanium cafe racer hardware. Here I will detail some of the design process for our basic clubman handlebars. First, this will be based on the ever popular chrome bars similar to the type you would see on Carpy’s bikes. Having ridden around with these bars, I must say that they killed my wrists and had some clearance issues with round headlights on a couple of my bikes. Usually handlebars use terms like rise, pullback, center and width. After measuring a number of clubman bars, i realized that the rise and pullback mentioned in the catalog don’t necessarily match up with the bars. Since I’m not too concerned with the actual numbers but am trying to provide more comfort, I’ll build this model where i’m adjusting the angles and lengths rather than the typical terms. It is just easier for me to think about the modifications in that way. I can make the model give a report which will say what the rise, pullback, etc. is if it’s really necessary.
Center Line Sketch
From this starting point I will input a center line sketch measured off of the bars that I used on my old Yamaha. You could do the line sketch in 3D sketch mode with solidworks, but i think it’s easier for this design to make modifications to two separate sketches that intersect on a plane. So, i start on my front plane and draw a horizontal line from the center representing the section of the bars that will be clamped to the triple tree and a vertical line which offsets the handle bars forward a few inches. Then i did a simple fillet based on the mandrels that I have available. Simple enough, but you only have bull horns right now.
Weldment Creation
The next step is to take your vertical line and make a plane on which to draw the center line of the section which will hold the controls. I built this so that i can simply put in an angle off of center to adjust the angle off of perpendicular from center at which the grips will sit. Within that sketch I have another angle which is the how far off of horizontal the grips will be. With those two angles i can make all the changes I need.
Angle Modifications
Once the sketch is complete I’ll want to make a weldment feature. Solidworks does this in a very nice way. You simply select your stock tube profile and the sketch and it automatically builds swept shape. In Pro/E, at least the versions that I used pre-Wildfire 5.0, you had to draw a cross section on a perpendicular plane and sweep the shape. Not much difference, just a little bit more streamlined one vs. the other.
Now I’m ready to make my drawings with a cut list and notes for the weld joint and knurled areas. I’ll have a few sets welded to test, so I simply make new configurations where i change the two angles that I described before. Beginning to end this takes about 15-20 minutes.
My next project will be to do a frequency analysis so that I can try to predict the vibration issues if any using titanium tubes.
Note: Our comparison of CAD systems has ground to a halt. Turns out Dassault Systemes has great customer service and the other two are lacking in ability or desire to get trials out to buyers. I have the Siemens NX disks loaded in my computer, but it’s taken three weeks to get the reseller to get the license to work. Perhaps that is the best thing that can be said about Solidworks. Their licensing works. One thing about the licensing of NX and Pro/E that always bugged me was that these companies are so worried about their software being pirated that they make it a pain for their paying clients to use. Meanwhile, Solidworks with their simple automated activate/deactivate has been cleaning their competitors clocks. It’s kind of too bad, because NX 7.5 looks awesome but I may just never know.
For more information on parts design in Solidworks, check out these books:
SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible
Engineering Analysis with SolidWorks Simulation 2011
2011 AACME Motorcycle Show
Phoenix, AZ – The annual Arizona Antique and Classic Motorcycle Enthusiast show took place this past weekend in Phoenix. Each year that we have attended this show has grown and there are always new contenders popping up among the bikes that repeatedly make the show. Most notably this year was a pair of Rickman cycles and a 1908 Excelsior board track racer, all in better than showroom condition.
1974 Rickman CR900
The first is the Kawasaki Z1 based 1974 Rickman CR900 which, I believe, was the one purchased at the Antique Motorcycle Auction in Las Vegas, NV in January. Rickman was a world renowned manufacturer of motorcycles from 1960 through 1975 founded by Don and Derek Rickman. By 1975 they ceased production of complete motorcycles and then only sold accessories. Their company was then purchased by MRD and renamed MRD Metisse after their nickel plated frames.
Next to the CR900 was a Rickman framed BSA 441. These brazed frames became popular in the early days of motocross and desert racing. Kits were and still are available for a variety of British bikes (and some bikes from Japan and the continent). Check here to see what they currently have available: Rickman Motorcycles
1969 Rickman BSA 441
Finally, we have here a 1908 Excelsior board track racer. It is an excellent example of how far the motorcycle has come. Just over 100 years ago this was the pinnacle of motorcycle technology. Now we look at it as though it is an artifact from the stone age. Leather drive belt with tensioner, skip tooth chain and sprocket, and linkages instead of bowden cables. Still it is a truly beautiful bike. . . and yes, I would like to take it for a spin.
1908 Excelsior Board Track Racer
Check out more pictures from the AACME show here: AACME 2011 EVENT PICTURES
More information on Rickman Motorcycles:
Motorcycle Road & Racing Chassis: A Modern Review of the Best Independents
More information on Excelsior Motorcycles:
Excelsior the lost pioneer: the story of Excelsior motor cycles
Beyond the Law
Once again, i had Hulu playing some movies in the background while working. This one is a kinda crap movie, but it’s cool to see all the places they filmed in AZ. Supposedly the story is based on a true story of a cop infiltrating a 1% club.
On Any Sunday
Thanks to hulu.com, you can watch streaming movies in a legit fashion. Here’s a classic!
Solidworks Basics – Tube Miter & Weld
At Teknikka Designwerks we made the decision to go with Solidworks as our CAD system of choice. It is very similar to Pro/Engineer but there are numerous interesting little features that make it much more user friendly. Here is an example of one of the most common functions when designing chassis – cutting tubes in assembly.
There are many ways to layout a chassis in CAD but some work better than others depending on the material you are using. For instance, when I design a carbon fiber frame it is built as one part but driven by an underlying sketch with all the appropriate geometry. However, when making a weldment from a tube set I create an assembly with the geometry sketch being a stand alone component and hang the tubes from a coordinate system. This allows you to make all your miter cuts in the assembly where they will be able to automatically regenerate when you change the angle at which the tubes intersect.
The attached pictures show how easy this is to do in Solidworks 2011.
1) The first step is to drop two of your tubes into an assembly. In this example I used two of the same lengths of tube for simplicity. They are sitting perpendicular but this same process works with any angle. As you can see, these tubes are not trimmed at all.
2) You need to now define your cut. This may need to be done in a few different ways depending on the complexity of your tube shapes and shop capabilities. This is just a straight tube that can easily be cut by taking the outer diameter of your tube and offsetting it by the dimension of the gap you want.
3) This shows the completed cut. If you want to change the angle of intersection the cut will follow the vertical tube and always cut the horizontal tube. Simply changing the mate angle or your underlying sketch (depending on how you built your assembly) will automatically regenerate with the new geometry.
4) Finally, you are ready to define your weld. This feature has been changed for the 2011 release of Solidworks and is very simple to use. Simply click on weld bead, select the surfaces you want to weld and define the characteristics you want. From there it builds an path and lays the weld in place. There are many options for intermittent weld, length of weld, etc. All of these details are carried into the drawing with the feature. So the annotation is already done!
5) And here is the final weld in your assembly.
6) And here it is changed to a 20 degree angle.
I still need to do a little work to figure out the best practice for the drawings, but I have seen demos where cut lists and weld lists are inserted into the drawings.
If you are interested in purchasing a seat of Solidworks visit www.solidworks.com and if you are in Phoenix visit Digital Dimensions . To see more of our work visit Teknikka Designwerks
SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible
Engineering Analysis with SolidWorks Simulation 2011
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