Aurora Rally Equipment - Roadbook Holder

Hi Michele,

I am very sorry about the slow update, last week has been hectic. I know a lot of people are waiting for this thing to happen so I would like to apologise for the delays, but final polishing of the product took a little longer than expected.

We are trying our best to get this product to the market but if it does not pass our quality standards we will just keep going back to the drawing board, come up with solutions, try them and proceed. We want something that will be as innovative as it will get these days and believe it when I say it that these little things can really give you a headache sometimes...

Well here is were we stand at the moment. Each unit is assembled and manufactured to order due to the nature of this thing. I just don't have the same quality standards as others, so I want to assemble it myself and inspect it myself.

Below I will give you all the info you asked for so that you understand the unique nature of this product.

So !

Everything is threadlocked to make sure that bolts will stay where they should be for the rest of Mk I's life. Running 640 Adv makes me a little bit nervous when it comes to vibrations...



Using the proper tools to tighten the bolts and measure the output torque of the magnetic coupling is always a good idea so a torque screwdriver is on the tool list !



Each single Mk I is assembled by myself and another colleague to make sure we get the quality that we want to pass to the users. Every single part in Mk I is designed to get the maximum performance. In every aspect, rally use, crash performance, night riding, functionality.





Now, you asked for some product photos, so here we are...

This is the unit inside its box.

Notice the special o-rings that close the cover. This is how the cover is secured and it is watertight as Ethylene-vinyl acetate rubber (known as EVA rubber) is present in all the crucial areas. These o-rings are made out of special material and they have UV protection so they will not show the detrimental ageing effects that you see on rubber o-rings after prolonged use in sunny conditions. Of course if you live in the UK sun is no problem...

And this is the unit outside of the box...


Here is the front of the unit.

You can see the special 3M antiglare membrane which also protects the cover from scratches. Final versions may have a cover made from special antiglare thermoplastic.

Below you can see the rear of the unit. The o-rings are held in place so that you do not loose them when the unit is open. These are very (and I mean very ) difficult to break. We decided to put them on top of the cover so that in the unlikely event of a side impact the closing system stays intact. You have to hit the RB from the top to damage them but then again you would have other problems to solve before using the roadbook...


On the right side of the unit (looking from top) there are two metallic cable glands.

Both have high quality M8 circular connectors. One goes to the bike's battery and gives life to Mk I. The second is attached to the switch (4 pins for a DPDT toggle switch). If you have different configurations then you can modify the cables but we opted for the solution that the current flows into the device and it is distributed to where it should go from our own cabling.

We found that the roll tightness is heavily dependant on how much the user tights the scroll onto the shafts. If the paper is ''fluffy'' then the paper rubs onto the cover and it does not stay down. We are using a special plastic to hold the paper down which makes the operation very, very smooth. This can be removed, it can be cleaned and it can be replaced.




Finally to spice things up we added the following tool.
In the event of a crash, Mk I may sustain permanent deformation. This will effect the operation of Mk I. There is a specific air gap between the magnets to make sure the appropriate torque is transmitted. This gap can be checked with this tool just by sliding it between the magnetic pulleys. You check that everything is ok once in a while and if not you can contact us to guide you through a series of steps to solve the problem even if the unit has suffered a permanent damage after a crash.

Just to add to what extent we are testing Mk I I would like to present you the following Video and pics.
Not that anybody will try to navigate below sea level but it is a feature that will protect all the parts inside Mk I not only from water, but from sand as well. I know that this is an extreme case. But that is what Mk I will cope with. All the extremes. Somebody drops the bike into a river and it stays there, let us suppose for a minute. The roadbook of course will not be the only problem, but I would hate to manage to start the bike and then find myself without a paper roll.
There are other tests that we will upload soon, one is the freezer test. The roadbook is put in a freezer at -14 deg C and then we roll a 50mm scroll. The other will be the oposite. Leave half a day, during the day (I mean during the highest temps) to achieve +50 degrees C and then ask Mk I to roll a 50mm scroll. The one that you have seen (the one that is in the video with the 3 days of Serres Rally 2012) has passed both these tests without a single fault.










These static pics do not do full justice of what we are up to so do watch the video below...

<IFRAME height=480 src="//www.youtube.com/embed/enzdU4xmVkc" frameBorder=0 width=640 allowfullscreen></IFRAME>

Till later,
D.

Unbelievable that someone hasn't thought of making the RBs robust and waterproof before now:eek1. Every year we see Dakar footage of people falling over in river crossings and it's always worried me how you then navigate the rest of the day when your paper scroll instructions are drowned. Have you ever seen the mess water makes of highlighter on paper when wet? How about the strength of paper after it's been wet? I'm almost looking forward to falling over in a river in the Dakar with my Aurora Mark1.

Brilliant stuff D

Great freaking work Dimitri!

Innovative design,

Incredible attention to detail,

Thorough testing,

This is the future!

Heya Paul

The testing, among others, I have to give credit to you as I still remember that poor HDB tower that was getting beat with the hammer...

Now, the good news

John received Mark1 and he installed it yesterday on his KTM 450 RFR. We will see this unit to the start line of the Australasian Safari 2013 on Friday. Thumbs up to John who installed the unit in such a sort time prior to the race . Then on the 27th we will see again this unit on the finish line and in between we will be following John's race as he is a man on a mission (The Dakar Challenge takes place in the Safari and it is a big opportunity for Dakar 2014).

John will also be using some datalogging equipment , something that has never been done before in this field. We will be gathering data from two dataloggers placed on John's navigation tower. A 3-axis accelerometer to measure g-forces during the Rally and a thermometer to measure the temperatures that the equipment is exposed to. These data will be logged by John and then we will use them to improve our equipment. By gathering data all over the world we will have just enough information to know the extremes (falls, crashes, global max and min temps etc) so that we improve the materials, the strength etc.

Installation details and photos are on the link provided at the end of this post but to give you an idea...





ADVrider link: http://advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22334236&postcount=130

Till later,
D.

I read this question on Johns thread. How does the unit work without the one way clutch bearings that are found in the F2R unit? Does it slip on the o-rings? or are there bearings/clutches that I cannot see?

Looks nice!!!!

Hi Matt,

Two small pulleys are attached to the motor shaft. From John's photo these pulleys are barely visible. These pulleys have one way needle clutch bearings attached to them. .
These, small pulleys, are connected via the special o-rings to the large, magnetic pulleys. One way motion is achieved by the clutch bearings. There are other, mechanical, ways to achieve one way motion without the bearings but they are more complicated and more expensive.

We will be doing some R&D into replacing both the one way bearings and the o-rings in the future with... ehm.... shhhhh.....

Awesome design, very slick
On my shopping list for sure.

Hey DRjoe, we appreciate the comments,

As most of the rally inmates probably know, JayBo crashed in the 2nd day of the Australasian Safari and he withdrew. I would like to personally wish him a full and speedy recovery. Dakar is just round the corner, but I think he will heal fast and be ok in time.

We got some serious feedback from John, we have the data from the digital temp and 3-axis accelerometer. There are no issues regarding the operation of Mk1 and that is a very good point for us at present. The internal was kept clear from the sand. At some point I will post photos of the shell to show the internals after a couple of days in the sand and dust.

We are really busy preparing the new website and I will take you through of what is going to happen in the next couple of weeks.

Our new website is here >> Aurora-Rally

It will automatically clear the cache so that you get the new things every time, let us know if you still going through old pages. They exist only in your computer
It is a big improvement over the previous one, we updated it based on the questions that we get through e-mails and through Facebook communication. It is easier now for the reader to understand the technology behind the scenes.

The main changes are:
A new page which explains the differences ((link: Why Mk1)) and a new page which visually shows the main advantages of Mk1 (link: Main Differences) . In general the layout is easier to navigate and there are some more tabs added to spice things up.

More products and collaborations will be announced soon. We have a couple of new innovative ideas and the nav tower section will get a new look during the week.

We have some more, very interesting international and national, riders on board and we are preparing their towers as we speak (well.. actually not at the same time... ) . We also got the data from JayBo's dataloggers. I will post soon graphs with the results, (both here and in the website) but to give you an idea, there is a spike in the data which is approx 11g ! :eek1 ...

One thing that we would like to point out, since we have started this venture to move things forward and not to clone ideas that already exist ,
Aurora's equipment revisions will be completely different from what you have seen. We will not create an Mk2 and force people to change roadbooks, back plates etc. We will go for Mk1.1, Mk1.2 etc. People will be able to upgrade their original Mk1 with the new parts. Being designed the way it is, people will be able to upgrade transmission, cartridge, shell, bearings, cover. Until we run out of options we will keep updating the current design. And because we embedded this thought when we started the design it is very easy to change and upgrade parts. This is as futureproof as it will ever get. You will get a certificate with the upgraded parts so when, if you decide to sell it the buyer knows that this has been upgraded.

It will be our philosophy throughout the life of the company. Our new products, which will be announced soon, will have the same exact features as the ones I described above. We will have modular switches and modular towers. Therefore people will not have to buy the full Monty in the beginning. They buy the basic layout and then add more things. Antennae plates, toggle plates, main back plates etc More expensive to manufacture? Yes. But futureproof and that what we have been asked by lots of riders during our initial development. It makes the design more challenging, but that is why we are here

Follow us for the news during next week...
Till later,
D.

Here we are with the crash test,

It shows the material behaviour, at least what you would expect to happen in a medium size impact. Both the CF mixed weave and the Mk1 shell are flexible and this can be seen from the high speed video. May be with different resins and CF combinations somebody else can achieve a better result but we think that once the resing cracks, the part needs to be replaced immediately. Therefore for us is a no go as far as production is concerned.

We know that the more flexible a part is, the more energy it absorbs and the more likely it is to spring back and survive. And this can be seen on the Video. The aluminium has no spring back at all (the weight does no bounce back) and it takes all the energy of the impact. The question is, can the internals of Mk1 get damaged? Of course. We are not using Adamantium (yet ). But since the internals have a free, axial, play, they have some room for moving around as we saw in the transmission test video. Then, if the impact exceeds Mk1's abilities, the inner cartridge can be replaced without the need to use any tools. The key point here is that every single part will be available as a spare part.

A! The video...

<IFRAME height=480 src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OmQe3ekGEq0" frameBorder=0 width=640 allowfullscreen></IFRAME>

The roadbook was tested during the last 24hrs Rally Raid and Dimitris - Doc - Athanasoulopoulos (EXC250F), took the 2nd place behind the leader Vassilis Boudros (FE450). The Italians were out of race, so Pastori was not given the chance to fight for the podium. After 550 km and two special stages, the two riders were separated by just 7 seconds!

The weather was just hectic, just the best conditions to test the equipment!

Dimitris run the HDB tower, switches and handguards and mounting bracket and RB holders from Aurora. We would like to personally thank him for helping us developing our products even further and providing us with top notch feedback about everything.

Wow! That's really cool Dimitri. Congrats!

Long time no post, and we would like to kindly update what has been going on, both in the race field and in the lab.

Suzuki Rally team bikes are back from Dakar and we are going to get the units back to investigate them and analyse their condition after 5-6 days in the desert in the toughest rally in the world.



We have already incorporated changes in the design and all the owners have been updated based, not only on the Suzuki Rally Team, but also from elite riders that tested the unit and commented on its functionality/design.
Our main focus is still the transmission on this roadbook holder and so far this has been faultless. Not only we did not get any o-ring failures in the high temperatures of last Dakar, but the unit was able to be loaded with a whole stage and rotate it without any manual assistance.

Current and future customers are getting a video where we test their personal unit to confirm the transmission is operating without any faults with a 20m long roll. If it does not, each transmission will be tweaked manually by us, until it performs the way it is meant to be. And that is the beauty of the magnetic transmission.


After Dakar, the next International rally for us was Tuareg. The owner of the unit run a couple of days in Wales and then he run Tuareg where the unit, once again performed as designed. Even though Tuareg paper rolls rotate in an unorthodox way (top to bottom), the transmission did not need any manual assistance. To quote Duncan, the owner of the roadbook

Our main concern in this race was the ingress protection. Having followed Tuareg last year, we knew that sand is able to enter the roadbook holders causing all sorts of damages in the transmission. We were glad to hear that Mk1 was still as clean as new inside at the end of the Rally.


Having secured the transmission performance and the ingress protection, we are full steam ahead to get with on with the rest of the product range.

Tripmaster wheel bracket
We are currently testing a tripmaster cable bracket which is bolted onto the fixed part of the front forks instead of the axle bolts.

This will allow the bracket to remain fixed, even when the wheel is off and ensure that magnet alignment remains unchanged.

Ergonomic multi switch
A new ergonomic switch is being tested, on that can fully control two ICO's/RNS units and an RB holder.

The current version has two buttons for the RB, three buttons for trip No1 and another three for trip No2 (behind the first three).
There is the option to incorporate HDB switches on top of the master one to add more functions to it.

Redundant switch modules.
This is done in collaboration with Highway dirtbikes patented lever switches.
This unit consists of a module with two inlet and one outlet cable. In the inlets the two switches for the RB control and the outlet goes to the roadbook. Both switches run in parallel and the circuit protects the motor in case both buttons are pressed. It will be compatible with all the current main switch types (HDB, RNS, F2r) and of course compatible with our future multiswitch.



Customised mounting brackets
This is already a service that we have, each mounting bracket is designed after communication with the customer so that the bracket has the space for the equipment that the owner will use. We have designed multifunctional brackets, that are able to take Speedo cap, Speedo cap V3 and either ICO ro RNS on the top right spot, so that the rider has the ability to change equipment depending on the type race (see top right spot on the second photo below. ICO is attached, but the space has all the correct holes to accommodate Speedocap or Speedocan V3).



Saddle covers with high tech gel
Saddle covers made from alcantara, suede or nubuck with high tech gel insert. Gel of specific geometry and thickness is being tested in order to have a good quality product for Rally use. The geometry of the saddle and the foam density play an important role, but the high tech gel means that the load is spread evenly. Comfort is increased in long distance races. Leather has been waterproofed from the inside and there is a membrane to ensure that no water will get into the foam after prolonged period of riding in the rain. Nubuck is thick enough so that it does not get torn, much thicker than suede and you can virtually leave it on the sun for long periods and it will just not get hot.



Unbreakable mounting brackets
We are currently testing them and we will soon upload photos and videos to compare them with aluminium brackets.


April will be (as every month is these days...) busy preparing units for customers, but stay tuned because we still have some aces up our sleeve

More great stuff Dimitri!

Cheers

Love the innovation

Long time since our last update here so better update you with some more exciting news!
It has been an amazing year so far, busy researching and developing, designing new products!

We are proud to announce that Aurora Rally Equipment (aurora-rally.com) and HighwayDirtbikes (highwaydirtbikes.com) will form a strategic business relationship in the areas of product development, engineering, prototyping and laboratory testing of motorcycle parts and especially high tech rally components.

The first step would be to form a Rally Research Group, which will consist of like minded companies focusing, will specifically focus in producing innovative Rally Racing parts, some of which will have a lifetime warranty, something unheard of in this industry.

Both companies will combine resources in the Navigation Tower, Rally Switches, Displays and RB holders. Aurora Rally Equipment and HighwayDirtbikes will maintain autonomy in the area of marketing and sales, with each company continuing to use its own brand and sales network.

This collaboration is strengthened by the fact that both companies will start the immediate development of Dakar based products for Team Rally Suzuki.

The first product that will be released is a control module. The first ever redundant system for rally bikes/

This product will be the first from a series of products that will have a L&#618;&#1171;&#7431;&#7451;&#618;&#7437;&#7431; W&#7424;&#640;&#640;&#7424;&#628;&#7451;&#655;!

For the switch, a lifetime fix warranty and for the control module a lifetime replacement warranty. This can be achieved because the highest quality components in the market are used. APEM buttons, Omron electronic equipment inside the module and Polyurethane cables.

The product allows the riders to control their roadbook holder using two switches connected in parallel, thus creating a failsafe system. Even if one switch fails, the rider can still operate the RB holder without any problems using the patented HDB lever switch.

Very soon the product will be available to the public as we are building stock at the moment.









As far as Team Suzuki Rally is concerned, all the new products will be used by the team and in collaboration with HDB we will continue to develop new things for the team. In June we joined them in a two day practice where the team tested some of the equipment developed.

The new multi switch can be seen in the photo. The team tested the redundant module as well.







There are more exciting news as the team tested the new Rally seat that we have developed, specifically targeted to long distance Rally riders.



The seat is filled with a high tech gel, and covered with Nubuck leather. Hidden seams increase comfort and special geometry gel is chosen to allow riders to stay on the bike for more than 6 hours without any problems. Team Rally Suzuki will run these seats in Dakar 2015 alongside other new components, so stay tuned for more exciting news !!

No updates for some time. Hows it going Demitri?

I think Dimitri is busy as hell building a complet bike to go around his roadbook equipment.

http://www.701rr.com/

Indeed he is

I missed this one...

Thanks @sidewayz_control and @MultiDoc .
Indeed the 701RR consumes vasts amount of energy compared to the Roadbook Holder, but we are on the right track. We have developed a mould with a special flexible resin to create a composite shell for the Roadbook. The flexibility is very promising and the weight of the Roadbook can be further reduced. So far there are more than 100 Roadbooks around, we only had one falure of the magnetic pulleys in a quad rider. Swapped his with billet pulleys and he went on to win Hellas Rally in the Quad category (Mr. Gary Aldington).
No other roadbooks have come back so I am pretty happy that everybody is enjoying the gear.



The other thing we are developing is a monocoque RB/Back plate. It pays off big time regarding the weight reduction and at the end of the day, the lighter it is, the better is crashes , so we are testing the Aluminium version in Albania Rally with Alessio Corradini. The bike will be used heavily off road and on road and then we will proceed to design and manufacture the mold to make this out of composite materials.



All in all dead busy