Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Thread looks good all around.

The tach work looks good and welcome! Analog tachs are re-scalable.

Type R... that's awesome...

It will be interesting to see if you can get enough variation out of that potentiometer to tune the entire scale... it may just do fine tuning.

As for RPMs. Idle is around 1800 (or lower), and top is around 8000-9000 on these engines. If the idle seems reasonable (not spinning the rear wheel) and you can do a max speed run somewhere that should set your bounds.

Other option: Some cheap multimeters now have a pulse count function. Since the motor fires once per rev, you could use that to tune the tach along with the engine (1800 hz = 1800 RPM, etc).

patthesoundguy wrote:way to go with the tach dude!!! That is super sweet! My question for you is where exactly did you connect that to. I had a tach that I tried to use with my spree and I couldn't get it to work as I didn't have the diagram for which wire was which on my old tach. And could you post the link to where you got that tach on ebay? Ill order one of those if its cheap enough just to have it for fun.

Thanks, if only I knew what I were doing , this was all based on educated guesses and my back round knowledge from all the toys I have put together over the years.

What tach were you using?, most after market ones will work off the negative coil lead (the black terminal on my NQ50 coil).
If the tach is off another engine there is a chance it was made to run off the CDI or ECU, in which case would mean it will run on a different wave all together and may not work.

Here is a link for the tach

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-52mm-Car ... _500wt_985

There is instructions that come with them.

the after-market tachs I have seen have had 5 wires, 2 for the back light, 1 red wire for 12volt positive , Black 12volt Negative, Green signal pick up (either ecu or negative terminal on coil).

noiseguy wrote:Type R... that's awesome...

It will be interesting to see if you can get enough variation out of that potentiometer to tune the entire scale... it may just do fine tuning.

As for RPMs. Idle is around 1800 (or lower), and top is around 8000-9000 on these engines. If the idle seems reasonable (not spinning the rear wheel) and you can do a max speed run somewhere that should set your bounds.

Other option: Some cheap multimeters now have a pulse count function. Since the motor fires once per rev, you could use that to tune the tach along with the engine (1800 hz = 1800 RPM, etc).

Thanks Noiseguy, I was guessing the operating RPM was around 8-10k maybe 12 if worked hard?.

As for adjustment I was able to tune it to read double the cars RPM through the whole rev range in my testings, via the potentiometer already on it and on the 4 cylinder position on the switch, the potentiometer was a bit sensitive with lots of adjustment, it made adjusting it a bit tricky but doable.
In the picture of it running it was about to stall and I had my hands full.

Should note there is a black glue on the adjustment screw on the potentiometer that they put on it to make it stay still, I just used a craft knife and broke it free

At the moment I am looking for something to make a new dial face, I want it to read 12k over the 300 degrees of dial by moving the numbers closer together, then recalibrate again which would be easier on the unit than asking it to ready up to the current 8k over the 300 degrees of dial , so is very doable.

I will try upload a vid clip of it in action once I have finished it

TGIF.......

mousewheels wrote:Thread looks good all around.

The tach work looks good and welcome! Analog tachs are re-scalable.

Thanks Mousewheels,

I reckon that Tacho's from RG150's , Kr150's and NSR125 etc. could work, but depends how they get their signal...

Breezy wrote:

patthesoundguy wrote:way to go with the tach dude!!! That is super sweet! My question for you is where exactly did you connect that to. I had a tach that I tried to use with my spree and I couldn't get it to work as I didn't have the diagram for which wire was which on my old tach. And could you post the link to where you got that tach on ebay? Ill order one of those if its cheap enough just to have it for fun.

Thanks, if only I knew what I were doing , this was all based on educated guesses and my back round knowledge from all the toys I have put together over the years.

What tach were you using?, most after market ones will work off the negative coil lead (the black terminal on my NQ50 coil).
If the tach is off another engine there is a chance it was made to run off the CDI or ECU, in which case would mean it will run on a different wave all together and may not work.

Here is a link for the tach

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-52mm-Car ... _500wt_985

There is instructions that come with them.

the after-market tachs I have seen have had 5 wires, 2 for the back light, 1 red wire for 12volt positive , Black 12volt Negative, Green signal pick up (either ecu or negative terminal on coil).

noiseguy wrote:Type R... that's awesome...

It will be interesting to see if you can get enough variation out of that potentiometer to tune the entire scale... it may just do fine tuning.

As for RPMs. Idle is around 1800 (or lower), and top is around 8000-9000 on these engines. If the idle seems reasonable (not spinning the rear wheel) and you can do a max speed run somewhere that should set your bounds.

Other option: Some cheap multimeters now have a pulse count function. Since the motor fires once per rev, you could use that to tune the tach along with the engine (1800 hz = 1800 RPM, etc).

Thanks Noiseguy, I was guessing the operating RPM was around 8-10k maybe 12 if worked hard?.

As for adjustment I was able to tune it to read double the cars RPM through the whole rev range in my testings, via the potentiometer already on it and on the 4 cylinder position on the switch, the potentiometer was a bit sensitive with lots of adjustment, it made adjusting it a bit tricky but doable.
In the picture of it running it was about to stall and I had my hands full.

Should note there is a black glue on the adjustment screw on the potentiometer that they put on it to make it stay still, I just used a craft knife and broke it free

At the moment I am looking for something to make a new dial face, I want it to read 12k over the 300 degrees of dial by moving the numbers closer together, then recalibrate again which would be easier on the unit than asking it to ready up to the current 8k over the 300 degrees of dial , so is very doable.

I will try upload a vid clip of it in action once I have finished it

TGIF.......

thanks for the link much appreciated! Tach on order let the fun begin

thanks for the link much appreciated! Tach on order let the fun begin [/quote]

No worries Patthesoundguy .

a small update, measured the circumference of the dial with the piece of card board shown, then with some simple maths split it into 11 segments (was going to be 12 but thought it would make the numbers too close together), should note the from 0rpm to 1rpm the segment I worked out to be 72.8% of the size compared to the rest of the scale segments, so I did the same when I re-scaled it



I used the same face, just sanded off the old measurements with 360 grit wet and dry sand paper



Now for the next part of the testing, this is just a test face



As I have moved the numbers closer together to fit more in I am wondering if what I would call the Lazy 0 to 1,000 RPM segment will shrink with the re-calibration, or if that lazyness is just part of that distance of needle sweep and it will be part of the 2,000 RPM segment, I will need to test this and may need to alter the first couple of markings to suit, maybe this weekend.

Breezy, this is certainly a fun build to watch and your skillz with the fiber and resin are awesome! If it counts for anything I think the carbon fiber racer is a great idea

I will be following this thread and hoping to see more of your body part forming process!

Breezy wrote:thanks for the link much appreciated! Tach on order let the fun begin

No worries Patthesoundguy .

a small update, measured the circumference of the dial with the piece of card board shown, then with some simple maths split it into 11 segments (was going to be 12 but thought it would make the numbers too close together), should note the from 0rpm to 1rpm the segment I worked out to be 72.8% of the size compared to the rest of the scale segments, so I did the same when I re-scaled it



I used the same face, just sanded off the old measurements with 360 grit wet and dry sand paper



Now for the next part of the testing, this is just a test face



As I have moved the numbers closer together to fit more in I am wondering if what I would call the Lazy 0 to 1,000 RPM segment will shrink with the re-calibration, or if that lazyness is just part of that distance of needle sweep and it will be part of the 2,000 RPM segment, I will need to test this and may need to alter the first couple of markings to suit, maybe this weekend.[/quote]


Hey that test face looks great! can't wait to see the finished product. I may have to mod mine like that and customize the face, or as all of my friends say Scooterize (Because My Nickname is Scooter)

Looking good indeed! Nice work, good to see you working on this

Fishman43 wrote:Breezy, this is certainly a fun build to watch and your skillz with the fiber and resin are awesome! If it counts for anything I think the carbon fiber racer is a great idea

I will be following this thread and hoping to see more of your body part forming process!

Thanks Fishman43, I have not really played with carbon fibre before, played with chop strand and woven fibre glass a little, have had no training in it. but I must say that carbon fibre is waaay easier to use than fibre glass, but it costs 10 times the price

mousewheels wrote:Looking good indeed! Nice work, good to see you working on this

Thanks Mouse, I did about 15 mins of testing today, I will need to look into it in the weekend, I need to confirm my findings better, I ran out of sunlight, I think the lower revs part of the test face needs to be altered, the top revs 4k and up I got bang on I think......


And Patthesoundguy Aka Scooter, I will try and post up some measurements for the dial once I have found what is accurate and tunable, though it could be different for you...
My boss started to call me Scooter too, It didnt stick, good old Breeze has out lasted

Breezy wrote:

Fishman43 wrote:Breezy, this is certainly a fun build to watch and your skillz with the fiber and resin are awesome! If it counts for anything I think the carbon fiber racer is a great idea

I will be following this thread and hoping to see more of your body part forming process!

Thanks Fishman43, I have not really played with carbon fibre before, played with chop strand and woven fibre glass a little, have had no training in it. but I must say that carbon fibre is waaay easier to use than fibre glass, but it costs 10 times the price

mousewheels wrote:Looking good indeed! Nice work, good to see you working on this

Thanks Mouse, I did about 15 mins of testing today, I will need to look into it in the weekend, I need to confirm my findings better, I ran out of sunlight, I think the lower revs part of the test face needs to be altered, the top revs 4k and up I got bang on I think......


And Patthesoundguy Aka Scooter, I will try and post up some measurements for the dial once I have found what is accurate and tunable, though it could be different for you...
My boss started to call me Scooter too, It didnt stick, good old Breeze has out lasted

LoL Breeze is a really cool name though. The band I work for as a sound tech gave me the name Scooter back in 2001, for two reasons... 1 I have always driven a scooter of some description, 2 Scooter on the muppets is the one who makes the show happen in all situations, I do that for them. Im even Uncle Scooter to my niece!

Some unusual test results



see the new markings.... really need something better to calibrate with other than my car, its rather awkward, this has proven to be rather tricky


CORRECTION, 8th June 2012, after some testing with my square wave generator it looks like I was wrong, it is more or less linear, but the first 1cm or so at the beginning and end of the needle sweep is lazy

Good info! Interesting how the tach became a little more non-linear with the rpm re-scale. I wondered about that with the Sun tach too - but that model turned out ok. Testing as you are doing is good when rescaling.

I think if you put work into calibrating at 2k and up, you will cover what's needed.

-- Simple two point calibration --
With a few components and a 9vAC 'wall wart' transformer, you can get 50hz (3000 RPM) and 100hz (6000 RPM) cal signals safe for the tach input.

mousewheels wrote:Good info! Interesting how the tach became a little more non-linear with the rpm re-scale. I wondered about that with the Sun tach too - but that model turned out ok. Testing as you are doing is good when rescaling.

I think if you put work into calibrating at 2k and up, you will cover what's needed.

-- Simple two point calibration --
With a few components and a 9vAC 'wall wart' transformer, you can get 50hz (3000 RPM) and 100hz (6000 RPM) cal signals safe for the tach input.

Hey Mouse,

Yea it did become a little less linear, but there maybe some human error in there too, that hertz generator sounds like a good idea, but I would not know where to begin.
is this sort of what I would be after? http://www.overunity.com/6857/diy-simpl ... generator/
I guess I could simplify this a lot by making it only 1 wave and piggy back it with something like this
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/9999Hz-LED-D ... 3132wt_905

This part is not finished, will not be finished for some time.....

Cardboard foundation



Bogged and shaped (sanded with 40 grit, no need to make it smooth), then placed clear packaging tape over it as a mould release



Then on with the carbon



then once set, pulled carbon off and removed the cardboard and bog mould



then a cardboard mould for storage compartment



as per before on with bog then followed with clear packaging tape (yes its unorthodox but it worked so well for me)



On with the carbon, once it was set as per before, removed the bog and cardboard framing



How I am mounting the speakers, 6mm thick alloy tapped for small threaded bolts



then with carbon fibre off cuts resin and stuck on, looks a little rough, but it will not be seen...



then covered the whole kick panel in resin with black pigment, did this so that no little bits of blue should show through any little holes in the carbon weave

(not sure why it looks white in the Photo, I think the garage light hit it funny, photo taken at night)



Resin the dash/glove box to the kick panel, here is a sneak preview of how it will sort of look

there will be 1 sheet of carbon going from the top to the bottom, and wrap around by bout 10mm onto the front to secure it and make it all smooth and nice



the speaker shrouds will be painted gun metal grey just like the rest of the bike.

The compartment will have some packaging tape placed on it, then a 3 layer skin of carbon moulded over it (this will be the door), then I will cut out the hole and place a couple stainless hinges, and modify the old key seat pop as the lock, and weather seal the door using rubber self adhesive tubing like what you would use around a house door



it is a little rough at the moment, but once done should look good, was not going to post this till I had the final product, but it may be some time and it would be good to keep this thread going....

the front of the kick panel is going to be gun metal grey, the horn shroud is carbon fibre