Quantative results when investigating tracking problems with a quad

Joined
Feb 7, 2008
Messages
4,575
Location
Nottinghamshire England
Hi all

This was posted by a partially sighted rider of a prototype quad made by Velomo .
He has done many [ I mean 1000's KM ] before he realised he had a problem with the tracking , because of this and because he had electric assist he was able to produce figures in watts and tyre wear to show how it affected the quad and riding it.

An astonishing realization that I would not have expected to be so extreme:
Somewhere further up I had wondered about the extremely high tire wear at the front. It only really caught my eye when I drove about 1300 km with @@Helmutdie Bremse before my 3rd tour and then the completely new big Ben Plus tires were down to the green guard. first thought of production errors, but after the Holland tour with 1Hz, the 2nd pair was almost as ready for another 900km.

I had never dealt with track etc before because I never had track problems or increased tire wear on my Nomad Sport.

So here in the forum I researched everything about track settings etc. and then started a call for help because I wasn't sure if I could manage it to some extent.

Anyway, I first took a closer look at the construction of the fastening of the tie rods and the steering system on the Green Mamba and felt it.

After that I came to the conclusion that if a clamp loosens slightly here and the handlebars snap - the track is adjusted or can be adjusted forwards or backwards. that depends on which clamp can withstand more..

the track can also change to the right or left if the clamp is not tight enough for the axis of rotation.

Then 2 events occurred to me:
1. on the 3rd tour with @@Helmutdie Bremse Quite early on - that's how we both think we remember - the handlebars tilted forward a bit when braking hard and @@Helmutdie Bremse just pulled it back - quite a bit with violence, which you shouldn't do naütlrich. there is likely to be a very high degree of certainty that the track has definitely changed.

2nd incident was shortly before the tour on one of my home laps:
the handlebars suddenly became very loose. the clamp on the pivot axis had come loose and the handlebars had almost fallen off.
At that time I simply pushed it up and tightened it again and didn't think much about it. there, too, the track has probably changed.

So I'm assuming that @@BuS velomo had already set the track in Weida and I can remember it too. that he had put Green mamba in his apprenticeship.
However, I can't remember that he asked me to sit in the seat when adjusting the track or checked the track to see how it looked under load.
but it could also be that I didn't realize it.

Furthermore, I felt very special on the last tour with @@1Hzwondered why we had to use so much more battery energy and at normal driving speeds of an average of 16-19 km/h we only got about 80 km far, whereas that was much less on the first longer tour with Helmut during the transfer from weida was. well it may be that I or @@1Hz was rather weak, but so much?.

So this morning I went to work again and measured the track using an aluminum telescopic stand at your defined height of approx. 17 cm from the front and back from rim flank to rim flank. Front quad and wheels aligned on a 40x40 aluminum square tube.

Track was about 6-8mm inwards at the front, which was a lot.
Laus @@BuS velomoit should be about 2-3mm..
according to my research, the track should actually be adjusted under load. I've tried that and it works quite well. I sat down on the seat with something template and repeated the whole thing. the track then goes together about 2mm more at the front.

Then I set the track to about neutral when it was unloaded and checked it again when it was loaded.
Then on a 22.5 km test lap, which I know very well and also in all weather and physical conditions. today really wasn't the best day. Quite a lot of wind etc.
what can I say. At first I thought I had the engine on at least at level 1-2, although I drove completely without an engine.
With a moderate load and bad conditions, my average was about 2-3 km/h faster than the days before, when I was even still driving with the motor in some places.

Before that, I always had the feeling that when you accelerated to about 18 km/h on a straight and then stopped pedaling, you slowed down significantly, which I didn't quite get my head around. Even the slight gradients didn't seem as if Green mamba was rolling there by itself. but she should.
After today, I know why.
I still don't know if the track is optimal now, but I definitely know that it's much, much better than before.

I tried to roughly classify it in watts.
Yesterday I drove up a 3-4% route at 17.5 km/h with a slightly optimized track, then with motor level 7
Repeated the whole thing again today. The same speed even more counteracting and the whole thing in level 6.
between levels 6-7 there is a difference of about 40W in my programming. The whole thing is current-controlled.

A few days ago, when my track was still completely off the mark, I just got to 15 km/h in stage 8.

So I guess very roughly that the adjusted track is about 40-80W power difference. that is gigantic. whether that can be? But that seems to be the case and with wide tires it should be even more. Now I have the marathon Greenguard in 47-406 on it before the big ben plus in 55-406.
And the big ben Plus, which was completely finished in 1200 km, is normally a very robust tyre. The rear tires still look very good and have done 45,000 km and are subjected to more stress when braking on tour than the front tires in my case.

I never would have thought that a misaligned track would make such an extreme difference.
you never stop learning, although I have to say that the construction of the tie rod mount should be fundamentally changed.
However, this has one advantage.
If you loosen the clamp, you can tilt the handlebars to adjust the track fairly precisely and easily if the wheels were already centered beforehand.
The whole thing is then stepless and the helical transmission is pretty good. So tilting the handlebars up by maybe 5 cm changes the feel by 2-3mm.
that would be practical for a roll test. loosen the clamp slightly and then tilt the handlebars a little while driving and then go and decide whether you want to brake or accelerate..
Of course it's not exactly accurate, but it's a first indication.
I would of course have noticed the whole thing much earlier if I had had more experience with the Green mamba on my home route.. but that was not the case, since I only had a few before the above-mentioned incidents drove there alone a few times. everything else is touring and I'm not a driver there either.


Long but a good read.
Paul
 
Joined
May 31, 2013
Messages
3,981
Location
South Benfleet, Essex, England, UK
Hi all

This was posted by a partially sighted rider of a prototype quad made by Velomo .
He has done many [ I mean 1000's KM ] before he realised he had a problem with the tracking , because of this and because he had electric assist he was able to produce figures in watts and tyre wear to show how it affected the quad and riding it.

An astonishing realization that I would not have expected to be so extreme:
Somewhere further up I had wondered about the extremely high tire wear at the front. It only really caught my eye when I drove about 1300 km with @@Helmutdie Bremse before my 3rd tour and then the completely new big Ben Plus tires were down to the green guard. first thought of production errors, but after the Holland tour with 1Hz, the 2nd pair was almost as ready for another 900km.

I had never dealt with track etc before because I never had track problems or increased tire wear on my Nomad Sport.

So here in the forum I researched everything about track settings etc. and then started a call for help because I wasn't sure if I could manage it to some extent.

Anyway, I first took a closer look at the construction of the fastening of the tie rods and the steering system on the Green Mamba and felt it.

After that I came to the conclusion that if a clamp loosens slightly here and the handlebars snap - the track is adjusted or can be adjusted forwards or backwards. that depends on which clamp can withstand more..

the track can also change to the right or left if the clamp is not tight enough for the axis of rotation.

Then 2 events occurred to me:
1. on the 3rd tour with @@Helmutdie Bremse Quite early on - that's how we both think we remember - the handlebars tilted forward a bit when braking hard and @@Helmutdie Bremse just pulled it back - quite a bit with violence, which you shouldn't do naütlrich. there is likely to be a very high degree of certainty that the track has definitely changed.

2nd incident was shortly before the tour on one of my home laps:
the handlebars suddenly became very loose. the clamp on the pivot axis had come loose and the handlebars had almost fallen off.
At that time I simply pushed it up and tightened it again and didn't think much about it. there, too, the track has probably changed.

So I'm assuming that @@BuS velomo had already set the track in Weida and I can remember it too. that he had put Green mamba in his apprenticeship.
However, I can't remember that he asked me to sit in the seat when adjusting the track or checked the track to see how it looked under load.
but it could also be that I didn't realize it.

Furthermore, I felt very special on the last tour with @@1Hzwondered why we had to use so much more battery energy and at normal driving speeds of an average of 16-19 km/h we only got about 80 km far, whereas that was much less on the first longer tour with Helmut during the transfer from weida was. well it may be that I or @@1Hz was rather weak, but so much?.

So this morning I went to work again and measured the track using an aluminum telescopic stand at your defined height of approx. 17 cm from the front and back from rim flank to rim flank. Front quad and wheels aligned on a 40x40 aluminum square tube.

Track was about 6-8mm inwards at the front, which was a lot.
Laus @@BuS velomoit should be about 2-3mm..
according to my research, the track should actually be adjusted under load. I've tried that and it works quite well. I sat down on the seat with something template and repeated the whole thing. the track then goes together about 2mm more at the front.

Then I set the track to about neutral when it was unloaded and checked it again when it was loaded.
Then on a 22.5 km test lap, which I know very well and also in all weather and physical conditions. today really wasn't the best day. Quite a lot of wind etc.
what can I say. At first I thought I had the engine on at least at level 1-2, although I drove completely without an engine.
With a moderate load and bad conditions, my average was about 2-3 km/h faster than the days before, when I was even still driving with the motor in some places.

Before that, I always had the feeling that when you accelerated to about 18 km/h on a straight and then stopped pedaling, you slowed down significantly, which I didn't quite get my head around. Even the slight gradients didn't seem as if Green mamba was rolling there by itself. but she should.
After today, I know why.
I still don't know if the track is optimal now, but I definitely know that it's much, much better than before.

I tried to roughly classify it in watts.
Yesterday I drove up a 3-4% route at 17.5 km/h with a slightly optimized track, then with motor level 7
Repeated the whole thing again today. The same speed even more counteracting and the whole thing in level 6.
between levels 6-7 there is a difference of about 40W in my programming. The whole thing is current-controlled.

A few days ago, when my track was still completely off the mark, I just got to 15 km/h in stage 8.

So I guess very roughly that the adjusted track is about 40-80W power difference. that is gigantic. whether that can be? But that seems to be the case and with wide tires it should be even more. Now I have the marathon Greenguard in 47-406 on it before the big ben plus in 55-406.
And the big ben Plus, which was completely finished in 1200 km, is normally a very robust tyre. The rear tires still look very good and have done 45,000 km and are subjected to more stress when braking on tour than the front tires in my case.

I never would have thought that a misaligned track would make such an extreme difference.
you never stop learning, although I have to say that the construction of the tie rod mount should be fundamentally changed.
However, this has one advantage.
If you loosen the clamp, you can tilt the handlebars to adjust the track fairly precisely and easily if the wheels were already centered beforehand.
The whole thing is then stepless and the helical transmission is pretty good. So tilting the handlebars up by maybe 5 cm changes the feel by 2-3mm.
that would be practical for a roll test. loosen the clamp slightly and then tilt the handlebars a little while driving and then go and decide whether you want to brake or accelerate..
Of course it's not exactly accurate, but it's a first indication.
I would of course have noticed the whole thing much earlier if I had had more experience with the Green mamba on my home route.. but that was not the case, since I only had a few before the above-mentioned incidents drove there alone a few times. everything else is touring and I'm not a driver there either.


Long but a good read.
Paul
I had the same experience on my Tadpole. E-assist masked the fact that the toe-in was far too great and it scrubbed through a set of Schwalbe Marathon + tyres in a very low number of miles. :(
 
Joined
Feb 7, 2008
Messages
4,575
Location
Nottinghamshire England
The frightening thing is :-

So I guess very roughly that the adjusted track is about 40-80W power difference. that is gigantic. whether that can be?

That is at least 50% of my available power !

Paul
 
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