ATV Electronic conversion: Final part (part 2)

Previously in the story, I had finished winter-long update of cheap Chinese kids' ATV whose 2-stroke engine gave up way too soon to electric one, and then kid overloaded and burned out electric motor in less than 20 minutes of driving.

So I ordered a few more parts. I got new motor, 300 watt one now (previous 350 watts) to lessen load to battery a bit, and larger (104-tooth IIRC) rear sprocket to replace previous one, to bring gearing down even further (and to reduce load to motor, also upping drive torque a bit).

Sprocket was more challenging to change, as compatible sprockets with three-point attachment at radius I needed wasn't available in larger sizes. In the end, I just driller holes to old sprocket (original one, for different chain) and bolted that together with new one. This moved chain line a bit, but adding a spacer to motor sprocket fixed this.

Replacing motor was also simple, take old out, new in. This time I however added a thermal fuse in between motor and controller and zip-tied it against motor housing. Thermal fuses are handy as they permanently blow out when temperature rises too high, protecting the motor from overheating. Of course I used handily available Abiko connectors for that so it can be easily changed (also, soldering thermal fuse to a wire is very, very difficult; heat from soldering iron will blow it very easily!).

And now we're rolling again. Thermal fuse blew relatively soon (30 min or so), but that's okay; I used fairly conservative (low) temperature value at first. And it's easy to change so I think we're good to go now.

Now, for next iteration (if I were to make one, I'm not planning to anytime soon!) I'd look for more powerful engine; 500w 48v or something like that, and try to work out gearing so that top speed would be about the same (20 km/h). This would hopefully make the load on engine lower, allowing driving in more difficult terrain.

I did dream about converting a motorbike, something old 250-500cc bike like Suzuki GS500 to electric, but based on my calculations I'd need about 10kW of power to have nice "city-bike" with top speed of around 100km/h. I'd be okay with that power figure, but such motors, along with suitable battery packs for it, are just impossible to get here, so guess I'll be buying a ready-made bike sometime in the future - when they start bringing those here, that is.

Vacation that won't be

I've said this before, but American (as in US of A) work culture never ceased to puzzle me. Culture appears to worship working, with expense of everything else. So many people work long hours, take no vacation and come in work when sick. I get that often it's about fear of losing the work for not being "busy enough", but really, such attitude is self-defeating.

It's well known that humans can't just work and work without losing efficiency. Working long hours seems productive, but with absolutely no exception, at some point the productivity will fall of sharply. If you don't have sufficient time to rest, productivity will plummet. Eventually you are only occupying a seat while producing even less than theoretical someone that work for four hours a day, four days a week schedule.

And then there is vacation. Some even seem to take a pride of never taking one - or they just fear being left behind. Like the work hours, this will backfire eventually. We aren't robots, we're not wired for working so much. A good vacation - week minimum, preferably two, without any work - will reset your brain and make you much, much more productive afterwards.

I have a small business, and because of it I can very rarely be fully away from work for longer time. I have unofficial personal policy of never bringing laptop with me when on vacation to force myself to keep away from work. I still have phone with me to answer calls, and email on phone, but I purposefully use very minimalistic email client to make using it as painful as possible to keep myself away from it, aside for things that just need to be addressed immediately.

It also helps that I have somehow managed to train my mind to drop trivial phone calls from my mind immediately. A customer may call to ask for something, I answer, and just minutes after the call wife can ask who was it and about what. And I have no recollection of that call. It was not something that I need to remember so I don't.

This makes vacations to work very well for resting. I usually bring a tablet (no email or work there, just games), loads of books and just relax. Swim, read, eat, drink, sleep. It works miracles.

All this is came painfully obvious to me just now, as first time in 15 or so years we aren't taking a vacation at Mediterranean or elsewhere further away. Partly because of Covid, partly for other reasons, but either way we aren't going. That appears to bother me way more than it should, and I came to realize that I always look forward of that week or two of just being away, relaxing. It just seems so impossible to do "back at home".

All the photos here are taken by me during our travels (from top: Söll, Austria; Dubrovnic, Croatia; Rethymnon, Crete/Greece; Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia) . At least I can browse them and dream of relaxing vacations on upcoming years... (and yes, I also do very painfully realize the environmental costs involved...)