Project blog for the Move With Freedom project "Morphing Handcycle." Twitter tag is #morphhc. Automatic Tweets go to @movewithfreedom. The MWF main website is at www.movewithfreedom.org
Credits: Note that the posts here come fast and furious, and they don't usually attribute credit where it may be due. So here is an overall list of credits on this project:
Rory McCarthy - Inventor of the Morphing Handcycle and of the Morphing Wheelchair, Product Designer. Rory is a highly experienced handcyclist who rode around the world in 1995. Rory gets these wild ideas in his head and begins sketching them out. Then we all work as a team to bring the ideas to reality. Rory is a co-founder of Move With Freedom.
Bill Warner - Co-founder, Move With Freedom. Bill is a high-tech entrepreneur and has been building handcycles since 1980. On these morphing vehicles, Bill has served as angel investor, design consultant, project manager and webmaster.
Alan Ball - Industrial Designer - Alan has designed many famous products for companies such as Cuisinart. He has an amazing ability to hear a concept and have a sketch in 30 seconds. (No kidding!) Alan is managing the overall design process for our next Morph that we're calling "Morph Out." (As in get it out to people!)
John Baron - Mechanical Engineer - John is leading the detailed mechanical design of the Morph and the key components that will make it function the way we want. Morph Out will take on some new challenges, such as a new way to lock the morphing, and a whole new frame design.
Graham Butler - Product Engineer - Graham is an independent designer, and founder of Intrepid Equipment www.intrepidequipment.com Graham did the detailed product design, mechanical engineering and CAD design for Morph II and for Morph III.
George Reynolds - Frame Builder, Welder, and In-the-shop designer. George runs welding and frame building shop in Derry, NH. George has a history of making unusual vehicles, and he is an amazing welder, and clever at solving mechanical problems. For example, he designed new, lightweight aluminum morphing hinges for Morph III
John Baron sent along these images of the morphing handcycle test rig progress. The goal of the test rig is to figure out how to get the best "float" so the bike goes down and comes up effortlessly.
Below is the gas spring we're using: http://www.mcmaster.com/#9416k51/=31aoi8
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I took Lucas and a friend to Water Country in Portsmouth, NH (lots of fun) and on the way back, I stopped at John Baron's shop to see the new test frame in action.
While 3D CAD is amazing, it's hard to beat RL (real life)
This sequence shows the new morphing configuration in action. Alan Ball realized that in order to get the low riding mode we want, we should have a frame that has "dual flanking members." Which means that the part of the bike that goes up and down (the wheel to seat part) will fit in between two outer support members. This means that when the bike morphs down, it can go much lower because you eliminate the interference that stops the downward Morph in Morph II.. (Actually that was done on purpose in Morph II...so it would be rigid once you got down.)
Now, as you watch this sequence, you can see the benefits. The bike practically folds on itself in the up position (we probably can't do that once the gas spring is installed). And in the low position, you'll see that it can go REALLY LOW. (also not practical, but hey, fun to see.)
Note that right now we only plan to use the middle set of pictures as a real range. The very first ones and very last ones are outside the usable range of the full design with gas springs. (We think)
Here is a brief video showing John moving the test rig.
Note the automatic seat leveling device. Here in the low mode, it is tilting the seat forward. Note the angle between the left strut, and the small upper strut.
Now notice that the upper strut is almost parallel to the lower one. This tilts the seat back in the up mode, thus reducing the forward seat tilt that occurs with the morphing up.
Discussion: There is a lot of new ideas in this frame design. John has figured out a lot of details already in building the unit. He is also planning to use one gas shock rather than the two found on Morph II. This will save cost, and save weight.
In early discussion of the Morph, Rory talked about a "Super Tight" mode where you could make the bike even shorter than you might normally use, say for really tight spaces. This frame can do that, when going all the way up and when the morphing arms nest completely.
This picture shows the arm positions (roughly) in the high rider mode.
Now check this out. The twin flanking members are fully nested, and the bike will get a good 3" shorter.
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One of surprising behaviors we found in the Morph III design was that once it got all the way down, it just didn't want to come back up. It just seemed to "lock" in the low position. The question is why, and how do we avoid this situation in the new design?
Alan Ball and I had a little online design meeting today, and here's what Alan proposes is happening. Start by drawing a line from the front wheel center to the rear morphing joint. Then draw a line to the middle morphing joint. In the Morph III CAD above, notice that the joint is below the wheel to rear-joint line. Since the way you get the bike to start coming up is to lock the front wheel and then roll the rear wheel forward, you can imagine that in this configuration, the middle joint will want to go DOWN. This explains the "locked" feeling. By the way, you can get Morph III to go up, but you have to lift hard. Probably to force your way past the over-the-center condition to the range where the mechanics work in your favor rather than against you.
Here is the Morph Out (same geometry as Morph II) design. Note that the triangle is flipped. Rolling the rear wheel forward with the front wheel locked WILL raise the bike. And the gas springs will be helping at the same time. We find that Morph II "floats" really nicely, and we want to have that same behavior on the next design. We're actually using the IDENTICAL geometry of Morph II, but will be using a different frame configuration to achieve that geometry.
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