The
Hog
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The
Hog
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The hog was originally made from two ten speeds in 1990. A KHS and a Schwinn World Tour. On the front is a 406 bsd (20") wheel with Comp Pool tire. The rear has has a really skinny 27 inch tire. That's a foam and plywood seat with an ultra expedient appolstery job. The whole frame telescopes for leg length adjustment. Note the really short handlebars. This bike was pretty fast in this form because the closed body angle got my glutes into the action well. On the flip side it was hard on my knees and back, since the pedal forces where higher, the seat was unforgiving and the extremely tight seat angle. Still not bad for a first recumbent. |
 The first version of the electric Hog. That's Al Krause behind me with his cardboard and deck cement fairing. |
Electra Hog |
| At some point the Hog must have donated parts to another project or just fell out of favor. It was at this point that the Hog was volunteered as a test bed for small electric vehicle design. The first incarnation had two 20 pound lead acid batteries, a Volvo starter motor (that's what was sitting in the donor car in my cohort's driveway,) and a auxiliary battery relay for a motor home (or caravan in the UK) as the main power switch. Al worked at an Auto Stereo installation place and so had access to these Bosch relays, which were to be used to switch between 12 and 24 volts. |
We wired it up the night before the race and were ready for the first bench test which I will give you the formal name of later. We prepared ourselves for the first test by having a couple of diagonal cutters close at hand. I forgot to check whether it was set to the 12 or 24 volt mode. So when we hit the 'on' switch it sounded like a sledge hammer hitting the motor and drive line. I immediately switched it to 12 volt mode at which time the wiring started to melt down and the batteries began to smoke and fizzle rather nastily. Al and I cut wires like you wouldn't believe. From then on this was know as the smoke test and forever gave us a healthy respect for lead acid batteries.
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| So we nixed the 12/24 volt switching and just went for an 'on' and 'off' with a momentary switch at the handlebars operating the Motor home auxiliary battery relay. It was real simple. Maybe too simple. We took it out to Willits California for the Tour de Mendo at the Alternative Energy Expo and Rally after very little testing. Al Krause and I flipped a coin to see who would get to ride the Hog and who would ride the support vehicle, Al's high performance cardboard bodied Mad River recumbent. It was a fateful toss and I got to ride the Hog. Little did either of us know how lucky I was. | The Hog went great! It seemed like it was cruising at about 25 mph no problem. I tried not to lean on the throttle too hard to save batteries and a motor that was only meant to run for 15 or 20 seconds at a time. About a quarter of the way into the 5 mile ride, Al reported to me that the motor was smoking "like the Red Baron had been shot down". There must have been a lot of old oil in that motor that was overheating. So the remainder of the race was me using the throttle ever so intermittently and Al riding along side giving me a push. I wish we had pictures but we were being guys in the Dave Barry sense of the word. |
 Here is the second version of the electric hog. |
 Another veiw showing the reenforced fork, battery pack, motor and primary drive. |
| The next version which is depicted above had the same batteries only three of them and the same drive line. This time I got an actual electric motor, designed for the purpose and an electronic pulse width motor controller. This one worked much better. | It's down side was that with the gearing it was a motorized cycle and required licensing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles and insurance. So I road it around a little very carefully. It went up hills great and down them nicely of course. It also had all the controls on the handlebars; two shifters, the throttle, and the brakes. It was tricky keeping all that together. |