I've been trying to think of away to incoperate some flex in to the tower but without it getting bouncy, I don't know why I didn't think of using plastic. It's the obvious choice now Ive seen it used. I have my road book on rubber mounts as well. When new it was ok but now on rough tracks it moves so much i cant read it. I don't think you would get that problem with plastic. I think I'll try replacing the two side plates on my tower with plastic and leave the rubber mounts out. Thanks for the inspiration guys.
Watching the video it looks like his nav tower is quite wobbly. Not sure how legible the road-book would be while moving.
Got the alloy plates to make the blanks. Then off to a mates to use his router hopefully this arvo. Maybe by monday I'll have a proto . . . .
Wellno luck with the cutting boards. the ones I found were either PP or PE LD I think. I will say though that the boards I found were quite hard to bend. even in 8mm thick. When looking at the video about the before mentioned nab tower he can flex it with relative ease compared to the material I got. Hence I still don't know if there is something different with the material that I can't figure out. HDPE is pretty tough. The material that is in his tower looks quite thick and I can't see that it would flex that much. :huh Any thoughts?
Had another watch. Looks like it. about 28sec in the bending motion from the front doesn't seem to flex any of the green parts or even the mount to the frame. So.........(said with a :huh) what do we think the spring is that reacts like this. If the idea is that plastic has a higher elasticity and enough strength to do the job then Delrin/LD PE/HD PE would be up to the job and easy to make in a backyard. Hence I'll use the alloy plates until I get the design sorted and then make for out of plastic and see what results. Some of these projects just evolve to much while they are in the process
I have worked before with HDPE and PE and It depends on the geometry of the tower (the connection with the frame to be more specific). It can easily flex that much and it will produce the spring back effect. It is a good material to put on the bike, almost indestructible but difficult to work with. I would always prefer mechanical connections if I was working with it as somebody made clear before. I have welded PE with great success before but I would not do it on a Rally bike as it will be a major setback if anything goes wrong. I am building my own nav tower at the moment, using aluminium and ss. So far it is less than one kg. As far as the vibration is concerned I would try the dampeners that the 640 Adv has from the factory. I am building also a bash plate but it is going as slow as a snail at the moment ... The plan is to check the space that I have left behind the fairing and put as many things (spares, tools etc) as I can fit in there... As soon as everything is designed, the plan is to use wood (for the bash plate) and wood or cardboard to make a mockup of the parts and see if the geometry fits ... So far, the 3D of the bike helps a lot ... Any comments greatly appreciated ...
HDPE has about 1/3 the density of aluminium and about 1/8 that of steel so you can make it plenty thick before it gets too heavy. I've made chain sliders and guards from it. Easy to work with and can be bent permanently with some heat from a heat gun. Just can't glue it - gotta bolt it (or any mechanical fixing). Welding is possible but I haven't tested in bendy/flexy applications after welding.