Tiny Car upgrades. Locking Differential, Battery, Switch, GO!

I I think >> Okay, while while it's been raining a lot, I decided I need to work on something that I can do, you know, in the rain. So, right now, I'm I'm in the outdoor kitchen, which is partly taken up by a solar panel. And this here car, yes, we we also have rabbits. I'll I'll do a rabbit video at some point. And okay, so I'm going to start working on some stuff on my other land that's a lot bigger than this piece of land. And I'm going to have to transport like, you know, rocks and stuff. Man, I got to get more rocks up here, too. Like rocks and sand stuff for concrete. >> Um, fairly long distances, you know, like 300 m from the shore. So, I'm thinking I want to use one of my vehicles. I have a I have a little bulldozer I've made and a little kids car that I've made. And I've got this kids car here, and I'm thinking it can become the dump truck. And we've been talking about it. I think what we're going to do is build a trailer. And this this solar panel uh also goes on top of this. It's got a little frame, blah blah blah. You've probably seen it before. Anyway, so I want to kind of like take this car and soup it up a little bit so it can handle driving through some rough terrain, pulling a decent amount of weight, that actually makes it worth it. >> Cuz if it can just take what I can take, doing a wheelbarrow, then that's not that useful. But if it can I mean, I guess even if it could just do the amount I can do in a wheelbarrow, at least it would save me some energy for other building. But no, I wanted to be able to take more than I can, you know, wheelbarrow. Are you putting all the rabbits on the car? I need to take this part off cuz there's something I need to talk about under here. >> All right, future emergency food. Watch out, guys. Yes, you're very snuggly and marvelous. This one's name is Chicken Nugget. >> Okay, Lily Rookie Chicken Nugget. Okay, under here, let's see. Okay, we aim in the right place. So, I've got a motor. This is a This is a motor that has gears in it. So, it's got a motor part here, and it runs at 171 RPMs. So, it's it runs pretty slow. And, you know, it's with the gears, it's it's it's really strong. uh strong enough that when it goes through here and it goes through a couple planetary gears to the wheels, the whole car ends up driving pretty slowly like uh like walking pace, but strong like it's it's strong. It can get up over rocks and stuff. I don't know. There's See this rock over here? I could drive up over that no problem. Like it's it's pretty strong. Um, the only problem is it's got, well, maybe not the only problem, but it's got just like a regular like Lego differential, you know, nothing fancy at all. Um, so it's got a I don't know if you know how planetary gears work, but this comes through, drives the the sun gear, which is the middle of the planetary gear in both drives. So, if this goes forward, it turns both wheels forward. But these two outer parts can also drive the wheels forward or backwards. Now, they're locked together with a a little gear here that won't let them both turn the same direction, which means that when this starts driving, these can't just let the pressure out by turning the opposite direction. So, the pressure goes to the wheels, right? However, the gear lets these turn in opposite directions. So, that's how the differential works. So, you know, if you're going around a corner, one wheel needs more speed, one wheel need needs less speed, then this little gear here ends up turning and these turn in opposite directions. Now, the the standard problem with the standard simple differential is that if you have one wheel like off the ground or one wheel in the mud or whatever, then that wheel will just spin freely and waste all of the turning power coming from the motor. So, you basically have one wheel drive unless both wheels are on the ground. But if both wheels are on the ground on solid ground, then you have two wheel drive. But if one wheel comes up or is just slipping in mud, then you just have one wheel drive and it's the wheel that's spinning freely. So you really have no wheel drive. So I want to make this have a locking differential, which means locking these two outer parts. So, if these can't turn, that means both wheels are locked to the motion of each other. So, if this turns, it will turn both wheels at the same speed, which is not great for going around a corner. But if I have a lever or something up in there in the front and I can just like like yank on it and have something press against these and stop them from from being able to turn, then I can do that anytime I'm like in some mud or a wheel gets off the ground and I'm just freewheeling and then both wheels will go forward just just straight forward, same speed. won't be able to turn very well doing that, but it'll get through, you know, straight through mud or whatever. So, I want to come up with something, you know, probably like probably like some at least the the first idea I had was just have like some lever up here that I can just pull back and down here where it's got a lot of leverage, it'll push a thing back that goes through and comes here. And I have another another like hinged thing that's attached there that will like under here will will push against both of those and it'll be hinged on the bottom there. So So you pull on this lever, it pushes the thing and that pushes the the thing and just locks them. And uh yeah, I think that I think that'll be really good. maybe have a little spring up here in the front to like to hold it open. So, it's not normally locked, but I mean, even if it accidentally engages and locks, all it does is makes it so the wheels turn at the same speed. So, you know, it's less efficient going around corners. So, not it's not like it's not like a big problem if it accidentally activates once in a while. You know, there there is another idea I've been thinking about, which is to put two motors on the car. But I think if I was going to do that, I'd want to have designed it that way in the first place. So if I put if I put one motor driving each wheel, then they can each go separate speeds and if one is off the ground, it's not going to the other one will still work, right? But to do that right now would be a little tricky because the way this works, the central gear in the planetary gears here, the sun gear, uh, they're connected to each other. They're I put a bar through them or something so they're solidly connected so that one sprocket can turn both of them. Now, if I if I want to power each one separately, I'd have to move this over and that over so I could fit two sprockets in there. That's not a big deal. However, then the sungearss are not connected across to the other one, which means they're they'd just be kind of more floppy. So, I'd have to reinforce that whole situation somehow. Right now, when they're connected to each other, they're like locked. They they support each other. Like they they keep each other lined up and everything, but if I separate them, yeah, they're gonna I'd have to do something to lock them in place. So, I think I think I'm just going to keep keep it the way it is. Oh, while I got this all apart, I might as well go over everything that worked amazingly and everything that didn't. Pretty much everything on this car that I did before, oh, came out great. like this. This top cover comes off super easily. I'm actually I was a little bit surprised when I started taking it apart and it was so easy to get apart. Man, I really I really did myself some favors doing a good job of that. And then up here, the steering is awesome. So, I made this years ago. It's uh you know, it's got the steering wheel here which comes down to a little sprocket which turns a bigger sprocket. So that means this is geared down. So you know this this turns, excuse the squeak. I might need to oil this a little bit. Oh, right there. Um, >> so this turns slower but has a lot more strength. And this connects to these two push rods which turn the wheels. And you know, geometry nerds are going to tell me you can't have your push rods at 90°. They're not 90°. They come in a little bit. They come in a little bit. So that means when your wheels turn, I don't know if you'll be able to tell on the camera, the outer wheel turns a little bit less than the inner wheel. See, the inner wheel turns a a steeper angle because it's going around a a tighter curve than the outer wheel. But yeah, this this whole steering works so well. It's really good. And then there's zero suspension to speak of, but the car doesn't go fast enough to need it. And you know, the tires are pretty pretty big and bouncy, so that's all fine. And uh yeah, other than that, it's just really simple. I welded the the the steel the stainless frame together years ago using a bunch of solar panels and two uh two pairs of vice grips. One to ground the material and then the other one to hold a stick like a welding stick. It totally worked. I mean, it's my welds are not pretty, but this it's held for a lot of years and like me and four kids getting on this thing all at the same time and driving it around. And then uh one thing I was worried about is if this would be strong enough, but it's totally been strong enough. This this whole situation up here, like this is just a pipe that's kind of bent to bent around the ball bearing and then bolted. And yeah, it's been it's worked totally great. No problems at all. I do I do think I should oil this a little bit. It's been running dry for years. Maybe Oh, that might be useful too. Actually, keep that there for a minute. So, first I'm just going to make the part that pushes against the gears. I just need like a hinged. If I cut this chunk out here, hinge it at the bottom that can press against the gears, right? Yeah. Now, if I'm lucky, I can build this pretty much just out of scrap metal and keep my non-existent budget intact. All right. Isn't that a terrible start? I always keep my rivet middle leftovers so I can do things like use them as hinge pins and stuff. Just a bit of finicky jobs there. Yeah, looks good. Okay, according to my measurements, that should put the thing at about the right height. This is my ancient plug-in drill. One of them. These things are awesome. They never die. Oh, they used to make things so good. Jamie, why do you make your own rivets? I don't know. Cuz it's cool, man. Oh, look how nice those look. Jamie made rivets. So much nicer than Well, okay. Pop rivets are cool, but I don't need to waste a pop rivet on this. I can get to both sides. And these little pieces of tubing are basically garbage. Bent that a little bit. Oh, you're going crooked, aren't you? Not too bad. Nice. So Jamie, why do you spend all this time making your own hinges? Why you just go to the store? First, on the land mass where I live, there is no store. My house is the store. Second, I used to live near stores. I used to live like not too far from a Home Depot. And often, I would go to the store, stomp around going, "This isn't going to work. This isn't the right size. Where's the This is the wrong material." And I'd stomp around the store for like half an hour trying to find something that I could take home and modify to become what I needed to be. And it would take so long. It was faster if I just made it myself cuz then I would get the thing I need with the material I want with it in the size and blah blah blah. And it's way faster than and then I don't spend gas and I don't spend anyway. Let's go. Okay. All right. Now, I need a push rod attachment point right about somewhere around here. I'm thinking if I drill a hole through the side of this bolt, then I can put a pin in it and then, you know, my rod can kind of fit in there. Kind of I can put one of these in there. There's still enough thickness. All right. Carefully, carefully with the plates. Don't break the drill bit, Jamie. Yeah. Isn't that bad? Well, I guess that's this piece done. Just have to Well, I guess I can drill the holes in the that here. Then I have to take it up and drill the holes in the car where it attaches. All right, I got that thing on there. Seems to be doing what it's supposed to do. Just put a couple rivets down there and there. And yeah. Okay. And I was thinking about it. And for the thingy up here, I'm just going to have a little push button cuz it is pretty easy to push this back. And I don't know how much how I don't know how much I'm going to use this thing. So, I might just push with it on my like on my heel or I guess I can do it with my hand, but if I use it a lot, then I'll put a hinged thing here that goes over this. So, it's like a bigger thing to push on. But I'm just going to see how it goes with this. There the hole. I think it's fine. Now, since I want to use this thing a lot more, I'm going to put a good battery in it. I did have a couple of these old lead acid batteries. Those they're not very good. They were they were actually pretty used when I got them. I put them on here because I was like, "Whatever, I'm just going to play around with it." But now I want to really use it. So, I want to put like a pretty good size battery. A lithium one. Lithium ion. Lithium iron phosphate battery. Differential locked. Differential unlocked. Locked. Unlocked. Great. All right. I need one of these. Then I need one of these. Yeah. And then I need this third. Okay. Yeah, that right there. Okay. Oh my god, what a gorgeous day it is today. Not too blasting sun, but nice and dry. The mud's starting to dry up. Oh, this is so good. Oh my god, guys. I don't have anything for you. Just All right, snuggles for like two minutes, but then I got to work on this. Okay, there's piece number one right here. Nicely riveted on. Excellent. Piece number two is right under this battery, which I stole out of my boat. And let's get piece number three in there. Beautiful. Now, that should protect the battery from rain. And this will protect it from most of the rain and sun. I got to protect it from overheating. So, if rain is coming in real steep and gets over this, this will stop it. Rain can't get in from the side cuz this and then air can still flow through so it's not going to overheat in there. Beautiful. Okay, now I need to What's the next thing I have? Oh, yeah. I have a charge controller. I need to attach a charge controller up here. Connect it to the solar panels. Charge the battery. I just zip tied this charge controller up. And I'm starting to wire in the battery, but I also want to wire the rest of the stuff in while I'm doing that. So, this switch is a two direction switch. So, it'll go forward, reverse. But I also want speed. I could put a second set of contacts here. So, it could go slow forward, fast forward, slow reverse, fast reverse. The problem with just having one switch though is if someone bumps it, they'll turn the car on, right? So, I'm just going to have this switch be the forward reverse or, you know, nothing. And then I'm going to put another switch probably against this little pole here. that starts as at nothing off and then goes to partway on and then all the way on and partway on the electricity will go through this here stainless steel coil of wire which is just a bunch of resistance. So partway on will go through here and that'll make the electricity go slow. So that'll be the slow speed and then full power. This this doesn't go very fast anyway. You can just have two speeds that'll be sufficient. So, I need to make a switch that has off and then two ons. All right. An hour later, I've got this here switch. It's just some uh copper pipe, you know, smashed and bent and some holes. I got to loosen that up a bit. Anyway, if I put it this way, gravity will keep it off. It's not going to accidentally turn on. And then connect that for the slow speed. Connect the other thing for the fast speed. This is just a piece of PVC pipe from some thing that I made and took apart like ages ago. All right. Zip ties. Okay. It's connected. Connected. Connected. It's connected. I think I think that's it. Well, let's give it a try. All right, battery cover. Oh, so much confidence. I did it right. We're even putting the cover on. Where's the cover? Oh, go over the phone. Right. All right. Rabbit check. No rabbits under the car. All right, rabbits. Don't go into the car. Got my eye on you. Stay over there. Okay. Forward. Did I put it the right direction? All right, the speed's working. Everything. That's slow speed and then fast speed. Fast speed. I should be able to drive over all this stuff no problem. Nice. and back it up. A lot of space, but let's do it. All right, we got a 14point turn here, man. I love this steering. It maybe not. Hey, get out of the way. Nice. You know what? We got to park out in the sun somewhere. Going in reverse. Oh, not going too fast. Oh, that is so good. And I got two switches. I can turn them both off so that if some kids come accidentally bump one and turn one on, it doesn't turn on until you turn both switches on. And this one is pretty hard to accidentally turn on. Oh, beauty. Dude, now I need some mud so I can test out my what do you call it? My my differential lock. You know, I'm just going to try driving a little bit with the differential lock on. Oh, yeah. I can feel it's hard steer. Definitely hard steer. All right, let's turn it back off. Ah, beauty. Now I got to teach my kids to drive this thing and they can start transporting all kinds of materials. Oh, wait. I need to make a trailer first. Oh, that's so good. Love it. All right, now I need to make a trailer. I can drag around with that thing to move mater Oh, wow. I made a mess in here. Oh, somebody go get the broom. Oh, I got the broom right here. Nice. It's like some kind of garage in this kitchen or something kind of maniac comes in here. Look like someone parked a car. The What the This is my kitchen. Oh my god. Crazy maniacs driving their cars in the kitchen. Don't drive the CAR IN THE KITCHEN. GET OUT. OKAY. In all seriousness though, that thing is so fun to drive. Oh, it's so fun. So fun to drive. Oh, it looks good, too. Look at this little guy. What a cool little car. Yeah, I love it. I kind of want to drive it some more. You know, I'm not really going to be able to tell if my locking differential is good until I enter a situation where I've got some wheel slippage. So, who knows when that's going to happen. I mean, I could make up some thing here where it's going to do it, but I I got to wait till it happens for real and then, you know, real life situation, not some laboratory madeup nonsense. All right, I think it might be dinner time. What do you think, rabbits? You want some snacks? Watch this. Here we go. Bunny, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy. Oh my gosh, it's raining.