Five Shiny New Assemblies For The Recumbent Trike Project

Nothing is better than a day in the workshop when everything seems to fall right into place.  This was the case today when I put together five new assemblies for the TerraTrike recumbent body project that I have been working on. After having completed printing all of the parts that I needed for these assemblies on my 3D printer and picking up the necessary aluminum tubing I was ready to start assembling everything.

 If you have not seen the earlier post on this project here is what the planned fiberglass body will look like for my recumbent trike.  I had to first work out the mounts for the body and that is what I put together today in the workshop.

The five assemblies that are needed are shown mount onto the recumbent trike image above.  The front mount, two front wheel mounts, and two rear wheel mounts.

 This is a shot of the two rear wheel mounts that I put together.  The top mount is already assembled and the lower mount needs to have the holes drilled in the aluminum tube to mount the upper and lower pieces.

 

 Here is the second rear wheel mount taped together to hold the yellow 3D printed parts in correct alignment.  The holes in the yellow mounting parts worked out perfectly as guides for the drill press.  All I had to do was rest the taped assembly on a good sized board, hold it down and drill it out.  The bolts then slid into place the first time out.

This assembly is the front mount for the body all taped up and ready for drilling.  The upper tube has already been bolted together. 

 This shot is the front mount again with all of the tape removed and everything bolt up nice and straight. Looks great with the nice bright plastic mounts.

 Speaking of which all of the parts are printed with a 25 percent fill to make them nice and strong.  A hollow part would have a zero percent fill.  With the 3D printer the parts are filled with a honeycomb like pattern inside the parts to reduce weight and the amount of material used to make a part.

 

This is a complete shot of all the assemblies ready for the final assembly of the body to the trike frame.  I weighed all the assemblies and they come up to 4.5 lbs total. This will be good to keep the weight down in the body project. The best I can figure is that the body for the trike will weigh around 20 lbs or so.  Anything less than that will be a plus for sure. The trike by itself weighs 38 lbs so to add another 20 pounds to this will be a good number to shoot for.  I have found other human powered vehicles similar to what I am building weigh in excess of 70 pounds.  So to have it come in at 58 pounds total would be excellent.  Just will have to see when I get it all done. In the mean time I'll set these assemblies aside until I can get the body put together. Lots of work to be done before I can say it is completed.  But fun work.