Bit of feedback (no I'm NOT a student!)

[jjdugen]

Right, the winter doldrums are closing in, all projects completed, looking for something to occupy me for a little while before I have to endure Christmas.

A long time ago ( and in another galaxy etc.) one of the lads had a CB72, it came with a clutch side twistgrip switch for main and dip beams. Handy I thought, then forgot about it. But, the more I think of it, the more it occurs that their might be some mileage in the idea. My thoughts were to make it an indicator switch, far easier to use than the fiddly bar mounted things that are never in the right place. What would be your preference? (Or any other ideas like a manual fan switch).

I'm still working on a throttle/twistgrip front brake actuator, I know people say its not a viable proposition but I am not so sure (twist back for throttle, twist forward to brake). That should keep me entertained for a while.

If anyone has something to add to my list I've a couple of months to play around with small projects.
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[Andy_Pagin]

For scooters a floor mounted high/dip switch like cars used to have in the 1960s would be handy.
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[Teflon-Mike]

[iooi]

[The Artist]

I think it would be interesting to have the right side grip as a rear brake. Hands are far more sensitive than feet and it may reduce locking up. Could even have a tab sticking up on the grip so you can actually apply some force rather than just gripping it really tightly.

[G]

I believe BMW patented a design to allow throttle and brakes from a single throttle tube some years ago.
If you ride an electric bike without a freewheel installed you get a similar effect - sure not up to the same maximum breaking, but you do get pretty decent braking when you shut off the throttle.

For the right side brake - think I'd prefer a left side lever brake and say a centrifugal clutch for coming to a stop. This sort of setup is quite popular in some off-road bikes so you can control the rear brake with your foot off the bike (either because it's really nasty terrain, or for sliding into corners etc).

[jjdugen]

OK, thanks for the replies.
Indicators. Yes, I had thought along the lines of click forward - right, click back - left. It would be suitably detented so it would be a positive action. I do find that moving my grip around to locate and and activate indicators is my main niggle with bike controls. I also agree that self cancellation is something else to look at, I'm getting a bit peed at riding behind (quite experienced) mates bikes to cover their interminably flashing indicators. I'll put some thought into an inline module to time out indies after about 1 minute, something rugged and simple. As simple as an adjustable bi-metal strip should do the job methinks.

You got me thinking about the squeaze to activate main and dips, that could be done with a simple trigger type activation.... Hmmmm. I think that the usual clumsy switchgear method of a rocker on TOP of the cluster (how silly is THAT) has not been highlighted because so few people actually use their bikes at night.

Throttle activated braking. It is a very rare occurance that you have engine power whilst braking, although I do admit to 'heeling and toeing' under certain circumstances so I would leave the front brake lever as an alternative braking system. But for the majority of the time, especially in emergancies, I would far rather the quick transistion from throttle to brake that the twistgrip would give. I know ALL about covering the brake lever with a finger or two but there is a definite delay with the conventional setup.
Thanks again and any comments are welcomed.
____________________
The CBR900RR has been sold. Aprilia Falco worms its way into my heart.
Try Soi 23 on Amazon for a good read.... Self promotion? Moi?

[G]

I've often ridden a bike at night and never had a problem with the dip/main beam switch.

And even if I did have a problem, it's fairly rare that I'm going between the two - ie only an unlit country roads with sporadic traffic.

Self cancelling indicators would have to be smarter I'd suggest and linked to the speedo - so it doesn't cancel if the speed is 0mph.

When riding at a reasonable pace it very useful to blip the throttle on downshifts. Obviously this would cause problems for downshifts.
Similarly for doing clutchless upshifts - now instead of unloading the transmission for the shortest time, you're actually braking as well!

I'd presume this sort of system would be ideal for scooters, or cruisers* where they want the easiest possible ride with the least possible hassle and may not really understand the intricacies of bike dynamics.


*just for keggyhandler.

[stinkwheel]

[Visitor Q]

[stinkwheel]

[G]

Suspect you didn't have good enough tyres to flip you over the front either (if the brakes could), which is a quite likely possibility with a proper enduro/motocross tyre. Haven't done it on a motorbike, but have on a pushbike enough times, which gives you a decent bit of air when on a steep slope.

Not sure if bonny's bike would have had that much engine braking; but yes, with a 4 stroke the descents are much easier as you just leave it in a low gear and let the engine do the braking. 2 strokes you often have to pull the clutch in to stop the engine getting 'pushed' too much.

[Teflon-Mike]

I have big mits; finding switches is often not a problem for me; only pressing ONE, sometimes is!

As G, hand operated back brake has been around a while, and is a 'thing' useful off road; trialing, I can tell you when you have stopped on a traverse, and are trying to balence the bike and hold it on the brakes and you'r right foot is the uphill side....

Been numerouse right hand 'back-brake' set ups over the years; I recall, I think it was Kevin Schwantz (Or GP Ace of that era. Revin Kevin just being the one who crashed most often and so most likely to be injured thus to need it!) Had a thumb operated back brake lever fitted due to mobility in his right ankle (I am now having memory meld and thinking Mick Dohan!)...

Also recall a complete right hand controll assembly, I think patented by NADB, that had just about everything in the right hand grip, and pretty sure some mechanism for it to be attached to a prostetic arm, with some of the controls on a bevil giear so a handless rider could twist his arm to work the grip, or some-thing like that.

NABD, is though good 'source' of inspiration for alternative control arrangements; chances are if it can be done, they have done it....

Brake on twist-grip.... Hynafrr... I'm not sure about.

Good idea, but... you only really have about 120 degrees of 'useful' rotation on a twist grip.

With newbies, so often they initially grip the tube at 'natural' grip angle, then start twisting to an unnatural one, and run out of travel.... its a common complaint on training, and getting them to grab the grip further round before they start solves it, in most cases... though some not so. Snowie, has very little hands, and she struggles, and has to double grip to get full throttle, even if she takes a pretty big 'ahead grip'.

Another curiocity, though; rev-braking. Snowie with her little mits does it frequently, but another oft encountered newbie niggle; after rolling off, reaching for the front brake lever, and applying, as they grip the brake, squeezing the grip, they actually roll the throttle back on....

An 'all in one' controil may be a help here, but, its the swings and roundabouts.

Back to that limited 120 degrees of twist; If you keep 120 deg of throttle, rolling off and then trying to apply brakes reverse twisting, is going to start applying the same unnatural grip postures.

Also, the more you braking you want, the further round you will have to twist the grip....

As you brake you TEND to be 'palming' the grip to react the upper body (about 1/3 your body mass, and the most 'mobile' under far more acceleration force than almost all other situations!) through the heel of your hand...

So... considerations; how do you arrange the grip so its still 'natural' and you aren't contorting your wrist, to effect braking.... and thinking particularly of gripes from sportsbike riders, with the racer crouch already putting a lot of weight and strain on the wrists as well as demanding less than ideal erganomics, with the bars so narrow, often acutely angled, etc... and do it within effective twist grip range? Robbing throttle travel, using faster action, makes throttle less sensetive; fine on a race bike, less so on a road bike or dirt bike where you want most sensitivity to balence drive.

Its a pretty involved technical challenge, if you think it through.....

And one I would have to suggest a lot of caution; brakes are, in vehicle design, something NO-ONE mucks about with lightly, and have the most stringent Design Assurance applied to...

(I started out studying Mech-Eng at Uni, before going to work in the Snake pit of an electric switch makers, becouse 'lecies think that switches are 'their' doman, becouse they are electric; and mechanics is just 'simple' levers and pins, and then wonder why bits break! My job to work out 'why', before going to work at Lucas, in the Advanced Technology Centre as Design Assurance Engineer... Brakes were not in my portfolio, I have to confess; I'd been working on a fancy 'data-bus' equipment control system; Merc or Jag of the time, with all the electric widgimo's, they reckoned to have over 100Kg of copper in the wiring loom, controling it all 'remotely'; concept was to use 'fly-by-wire' technology to reduce that to just three wires running right the way round the vehicle; Power +ve, Power -Ve and a 'data-bus' that caried signals from the switches to the devices and told them what to do. Project was staffed by Aero Division people, nicking the technology from Aeropspace systems, so when they broke the department up, splitting Aero from Auto, I ended up in the Aero Devision. HOWEVER... while it was still 'Combined General Resourse', we had loads of clever stuff on the benches; One of the headline 'projects' of the era was 'Smart Brakes'.. remember Lucas, best remembered as 'Prince of Darkness' and maker of ugly generic toggle switches, sealed beam headlamps and unreliable Dynamo's, also owned 'Girling' Brakes. Based at Dog Kennel Lane, Solihul, we were based closely to Land-Rover, and in years after, interesting to watch a lot of the 'Smart-Brake' technology I watched evolve, seeping into the 'Traction Control' and Drive manageament systems of contemprary Land-Rovers and Range Rovers....)

ANYWAY.... point is; commercially, developing new braking systems, and braking 'technology', the 'problems' are more often in proving it to be durable, robust and 'safe' as proving any actual benefit from it.... Engineers having nervouse breakdowns, trying to imagine 'What if' scenarios, worst cases, and just how dum a driver can be in a panic situation!

(Actually made qualifying on wing equipment for Tornado Jets, seem quite 'easy' some-times, TBH!)

So, back to switches... where my engineering career began!

Time Delay auto-cancell... not a goer, I'm afraid. Would HAVE to be worked off a pawl on the steering, so it switches off when the steering is retuirned to teh straight ahead... not wonderfully reliable on a car... (I was the one looking at lots of broken switch tangs, shaking my head; and putting compound switches onto a plywood test bed, with a steering column in the middle, and pneumatic rams switching the indicator and turning the steering wheel, making them turn on and cancell, once every three seconds, for days on end!)

If you use a bi-metalic 'contact', its going to rely on the current draw to warm it and release...

Neat idea as a mechanical solution, switch latches contact, contact warms, and as it curls, releases and returns against a spring...

But puts 'load' on the electrics and bi-met strips, are curiousely fickle, and would be more so on a motorbike, taking longer to warm up in cold weather, or in wind blast, than in more insulated car cabin.

A solid state delay timer may be more robust...

But how would you manually cancel the indicator? Eg: I want to turn left, realise momenterily that the road's blocked, so dont want to carry on indicating? You would still have to have a Push to Cancel mechanism.

Next up; I'm sat in traffic queue at traffic lights with right hand filter lane. Lights have short change delay, with priority to cross wise traffic. I'm sat there for ten minutes, indicators 'on'... how many times will they pig me off self cancelling, purely on a timer?

The devolved data=switch equipment system I worked on umpety years ago, suggests some possibilities though;

System used signal-switching through the data-bus, rather than direct feed control. Talking symantics here, becouse biggest bit of the project was aparently getting round patents; however;

Imagine having micro-processor 'brain' instead of a flasher unit.

Two push to make 'human Interface' controls, possibly three, depending on how you arrange them.

One for left, One for right, one for cancell... could be arranged in a rocker switch, or you could have 'double press' 1st contact tells brain 'on' second 'off', though possibility of double touch or switch bounce, would not be my preffered option, I'd go three contact arrangement.

Micro-processor, now offers the 0,5-1Hz square wave to light indies, and with sufficient current rating, robust enough to light LED mini-cators, or conventional tungsten bulbs, and possibly up to nine or ten points, for each corner, plus relay lamps, plus tell-tales, and flashing as indies or hazards; as well as 'smart' relaying the 'on-off' functions, so you get small bonus, in you can use very thin, low load signal cable between flasher and switch.

But third 'Push to Cancel' signal wire; reed switch or proximity sensor on the headstock & steering yoke; giving parallel 'make' when steering re-centred.

Would certainly be more robust, and reliable than mechanical pawl and contact systems, and suit 'bike' control topogrophy better, with switch 'remote' from steering area.

However, one thing, in a car, self cancelling can be a pain, cancelling indies 'shunting' as in traffic light queue, etc, or changing line on aproach to roundabout, where the left 'kink' on tyhe entrance can anoyingly, and pottentially dangerousely cancell a right indicator, when you intend to go all the way around, and you are most pre-occupied to necesserily re-apply indies...

On a bike, with more direct steering, and naturally more manouverable, and tendancy to 'wobble'.. I know aproaching such hazards as toundabouts or T-Junctions, I often wobbly the bars, to maintain balence for slow speed controil, rather than footing and holding stationary... liklihood of an unwanted cancell Ithink could be quite high.

Micro-processor here, could be used to 'help' fine tune the system, with some sort of validating 'lag' to sense for such situations, possibly checking against wheel speed rotation, to work out whats going on, and if indies REALLY ought to be cancelled or not....

THIS is where design and inovation, goes from that 1% of inspiration to 99% of perspiration, considering all the possibilities, permutations, scenarios, and situations that may need to be contended with, and not just making something that works, but is robust, and reliable, and works well, and actually solves more problems than it might make....

Interesting story for you; fifty or more years ago, Lucal released a simple electro-mechanical flasher relay for indicators. A balenced contact operated by a solenoid and a spring, so when the indicator was turned on, it first turned on the solenoid, that threw the contact against the spring, making indicators flash, but as soon as it did so, broke contact to solenoid, switching off the indie again.

Being mechanical, and housed in an aluminium can, usually bolted to the fire-wall of the car's cabin, it made a distinctive 'click-clack' niose, to accompany the indicator flash....

Over the next twenty years, cars took on more trim, and got quieter and quieter, until people started noticing how intrusive that click-clack noise was... But, mounted behind padded dash, and possibly on a plastic fuse panel, less so.

Then came the solid state flasher... flashing via chrystal driven transistors not mechanical contacts, it was cheaper, more reliable, and silent....

People grumbled at the lack of audible 'warning' that the indies were 'on'.... so manufacturers added an electronic buzzer....

Vauxhall, around 2000, held a focus group to decide on the 'best' sound for the electronic indicator alert to burn to microchip....

They offered little jingles and chimes, and all manner of 'ring tone' style sounds....

Of all of them, half voted a simulation 'Click-Clack' like the old Lucas electro-mechanical flasher, the 'best'...

Took them twenty five years, and thousands upon thousands of pounds of research to make something highly sophisticated that did the same job, and made the same noise, as that old Lucas Relay!

There's a moral in there some-where!
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[jjdugen]

Amen to all you say, Mike. My problem with conventional motorcycle/rider control interfaces is that too many disparate operations are combined in one very limited space. The only really 'free' area of the body is the left hand thumb, Right hand is entirley devoted to dealing with throttle/brake, left hand palm and fingers have to be free to operate the clutch. A rolling motion to operate the indicator twistgrip using the thumb against palm pressure seems to be the best ergonomic compromise I can find. As I say, early days yet.

As far as regulating the throttle twistgrip I take your point about total throttle travel. But, the forward, braking, component of movement would be no more than one eighth or so of total twistgrip rotation. Consider that two finger braking with modern systems can have a bike standing on its nose, the amount of leverage needed to operate a properly ratioed master cylinder should be easily accomplished by the 'power of the wrist'. As to wrist ergos, at most points of the throttle travel your wrist is potentially at a less than ideal angle, you alter your grip stance until it feels comfortable. Probably a better project would be to address bar adjustability at a reasonable price.

I like the story of the old Lucas indicator relay and its friendly 'click'. I have noted that many manufacturers have tried incorporating self cancelling indicators, Yamah notably. The best I have seen (electo/mechanical) was fitted to the early FZR's, a pickup coil on the speedo fed a decade counter in a 'little black box'. So much forward motion and the black box cancelled the indicators automatically. But... I am really looking for something stone age simple (and cheap). A bi-metal strip housed somewhere within the engine bay would run at a pretty constant temp. A simple screw adjuster to set its tension and wired into the pos feed of the indicator switch is about as simple as I can think of. It dosen't have to be timed to micro seconds, its just there as a safeguard against indies flashing away for miles on end.

So, I've been given lots of food for thought, but I'm a greedy pig so please feel free to bring another course to the table.

Cheers
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The CBR900RR has been sold. Aprilia Falco worms its way into my heart.
Try Soi 23 on Amazon for a good read.... Self promotion? Moi?

[Visitor Q]

For some reason the pic came out tiny. Anyway, that was stepped and mad, with a lot of packed stuff high up and skinny road tyres on. Ad the clutch was pretty snatchy at the best of times. Alright for traffic, but would have had to have a fair bit of speed to use it as a smooth brake...

I think I would have toppled if I'd have tried that

Seriously, I went through that very slowly. Deeply rutted clay mud at crazy angles on a high CG125 essentially.
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