Interesting power generation projects from the crew of HackerSpace Adelaide

Paul, VK5FPAW, after a challenge from the Adelaide HackerSpace crew, has bee putting together a pedal power rig to power his HAM radio rig for the WIA WIA National Field Day on the October 23rd. Perhaps other HAM radio contents too, like the WIA Spring VHF-UHF Field Day is on November 20th & 21st. More events on the WIA Calendar.

Over at; http://picasaweb.google.com/pschulz01/PedalPower, Paul has a few photos of his pedal power rig. The stationary trainer is a nice way to mount everything. The alternator is a 50A Bosch. So far Paul has spent about $250.

I'm looking forward to hearing Paul, VK5FPAW/StationaryMobile on air on the field day ;)

73, Kim

MTB on the road

I spent some time over the weekend working on the mountain bike I picked up. The complete bike is less than half the weight of my old MTB! Its all aluminium, with the inch wide double walled with eyelets. Currently setup as a single speed, about 70 gear inches. Seems a good balance for pootling around the small hills here. Will fit road tyres at some point in time. Looking at fitting my rack this coming weekend. Then lay up all the gear for a short tour.

bicycle hacking imminent

grabbed a few bikes from a neighbour that was having a tidy. two BMXs, mainly for the wheels, for the long wheel base(LWB) recumbent that I've been wanting to make for a while. I made a LWB bent over at Lyns place but it has issues and needs a fair bit of work, mainly brakes and gearing. The steering is now sorted.

Also grabbed a alloy MTB that fits well enough and has a disk up front. Put a straight 26" on the back and it feels ok. Need to tweak the chain line, or drop the 1/8" chain for some thing a little more modern.

Been putting more thought into some touring. Still don't have a destination in mind. I think I want to explore the top end of Tassie and some of the northern NSW coast. Those are both big trips, so I think I better start with something smaller, closer to home and flatter =)

So anyone with suggestions of interesting places to cycle tour around Adelaide, Hills and surrounds please let me know.