2DOF Build Log Thread

ALL the PGsaw motor's IN that exact STYLE ive gotten have been 1/2"

Cool, so I guess their tolerances are just tight. Better than being loose for sure.

I also had to Tap mine in, I Do Not suggest you take Anything off on the lathe.

agreed, if it dont fit right, use grease and a bigger hammer

No grease needed, its the powder coat/paint job that ususally takes up that last wee bit and makes the shaft tight.

Hahaha, that's always an option too. I can probably get away with just wrenching them in and having something to hold the shaft in place so the motor doesn't back-drive.

You will 100% need some type of pinching/bolting together of the threaded rod and the Gear box output shaft.

Yeah, I'm planning on threading a grub screw through the hole in the shaft into the bolt.

A couple more updates. My seat has arrived and I'll be driving down to the border tomorrow. The ball joints are set to arrive next week. I'll be picking up the metal from the supplier as soon as I get the mounting dimensions for the seat.
My flex coupler arrived. You'll notice I said flex coupler. I only ordered one by mistake... and it's the wrong diameter to boot!

It's looking like my school shop doesn't want to let me use their welder, so I may have to either borrow one from a friend, or rent one from a nearby equipment store.

As far as sizes of metal go, do you think I could get away with 0.065in (1.65mm) steel tubing? My local stores deal in imperial, and my options as far as thickness goes are either that, or 0.1in (2.54mm) wall thickness.
I obviously don't want any wobbliness in the frame, but every saved pound means my motors will run better.

Well at least your didn't spend 3X on the Coupler's to find out you ordered the wrong one's,


As far as wall thickness is concerned, Ill let some of the more experienced welder's take that one.

Seat and rod ends have arrived!
Unfortunately so have finals for this semester, so I don't know how much will be getting done within the next few weeks.

Finals are done! Although I may not have access to my welder until a bit later, I look forward to making some progress now. I've got some of my metal cut and have mocked up the top frame. The person who was supposed to sell me the driveshaft flaked out on me like people on kijiji do oh so often .



I finished all of the high priority cuts at the school shop today, but unfortunately it's closed for Christmas now, and I won't have access to it after that. I'm thinking of just buying a drill press and an angle grinder to finish them up on my own. I'm sure I'll need them in the future at some point.

Question for those with the experience. When mounting my motors to the base frame, does it matter if I mount them in-line with the front axis of the frame like so?

Or should I angle them inwards so the CTC lever is in-line with the rod connecting the motors and the seat, like so:

Hello again everyone! Sorry for going dark there for a while, work/life got in the way and I was suddenly very busy.
I managed to make some progress over the weekend, I finally made arrangements to use a welder , and I've got the top part of my frame done up.

And I've cobbled together a temporary mount for my pedals using the slider that came with the seat.


Progress should be more steady from here on out.

Lookin good Tim, Keep it up.

Update time again! I got a lot done today. The top frame is completely done, and the bottom frame is nearly there. The only things I have left to do are the motor arms and proper CTC levers (the ones in the pics are placeholders for now). How thick of a steel do you guys usually use for the levers? I have a lot of 1/4 inch bar stock lying around, but I'm worried it's going to be too thin.




My hall effect pots are set to arrive on monday, so I'll probably start wiring up my power supply and driver boards now too.

1/4 is perfectly fine for levers.

Update time again! So all of the mechanical parts of the sim are fully assembled now. I made better mounts for the motors out of thicker angle stock, and I plan on putting a bar between the motors like @noorbeast has done, but I'm waiting on the lathe in the workshop to come online for that.


So I set about getting the H bridges working, wired them up, started SCM3 aaaaaaaand they promptly caught fire.... It turns out when I wired them up three months ago I got one of the input polarities backwards. Always check your wires folks!


On another note, what heatsinks do you guys usually use?