DRP: Derbi Reactivation Project

[toratora]

Today the local BMW shop was demoing the new BMW e-scooters. I went down there to check it out. I'll be writing up a post about it too. After the demo action I went up to Twin Peaks for some quick snap shots, and a bit of fun riding around.

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[toratora]

Today was another attempt at getting the tuning right on the DRP. I started out with a 120 jet, and swapped it for a 110 jet. The bike did run better, but it's still not correct. While riding the H2O got up to ~55-60°C, and the EGT went up to around 540°C. The bike was still loading up too much.

I still suspect that the HPI could be a major part of the issue, but it was hard to follow the tach, because of the garbage Shorai battery. The gauges weren't working properly due to lack of consistent power. I did try to get this battery covered under warranty when it first acted up, but their customer service isn't very good. I wouldn't recommend buying their products for these bikes. If they aren't going to send behind them then what's the point in spending so much money? Lighter isn't better if it doesn't work!

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Loosening up the front hose clamp. Then the rear one too so that the carb can be rotated.
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Removing the main jet access port—17mm.
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Removing the main jet-6mm.
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The previous 120 jet.
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The 110 replacement jet.
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Button things back up.
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The plug.
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The plan was to inspect with the bore scope, but I couldn't get it to broadcast its wifi signal.

Still working on trying to figure out what's going on with it. This is a shot with the iPhone trying to see down in the bore. Didn't work too well, but it looks like way too rich. No carbon at all.
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Checking the tires. I usually run around 29lbs cold in them.
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The Kurvey Girl stems are just awesome. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
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[toratora]

Another adventure to the D-Store to watch the race, and then visit Twin Peaks. The race was heart breaking, and the bike is still running like crap, but I got some rather nice photos thanks to the time change.

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[toratora]

Hello my dear readers. Today I had to enlist the help of a Catholic Priest to pray over my bikes, and perform a lithium exorcism.

Years ago I sinned by buying into the lithium battery hype only to endure hardship and frustration at the hand of batteries that are just totally incompatible with these motorcycles.

Bill tells me that a lithium battery needs upwards of around 15 volts to charge, and the pathetic charging circuits on these little replicas produces nowhere near that amount. Thus the lithium batteries are prone to not charge up, and even worse burn out cells.

The first lithium batteries I tried were the Ballistics. These failed and were ultimately replaced with Shorais, which also failed. Yes they were significantly lighter than the 2.9 lbs batteries that replaced them, but if they don't work, then they are useless weight.

The best performance I've had with any battery in these bikes have been the Yuasa lead acid batteries. They are inexpensive, and work great. I probably should have ordered a couple of those, but I wanted something red.

After a fair amount of searching around I discovered a motorcycle battery company in Florida, with the moniker Neptune Power Products. They produce an AGM GEL Sealed Lead Acid battery specifically for motorcycles, and it just happens to be red.

Neptune refers to the technology an iGel, but really it's an AGM gel design—which as it turns out is one of the better technologies for motorcycles. It's a maintenance free design that comes with a 30 day guarantee, and a 12 month warranty.

The Neptune version of the YTX4L-BS (the battery type that these bikes employ) comes in at a reasonable 2.9 lbs., and costs about $23. Compared to the Shorai which weighs in at just under a pound, and costs around $100. The major different between the two is one will work, and the other (the Shorai) wont.

Another possible option would have been to go with the YTX4L-BS from Pirate Battery. It's not made as nicely, nor is it a GEL, but the guarantee is twice as long, and the warranty half again as long. However, it would not have been red.

[toratora]

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The QuadLock


The Ram Ball Mount








The Red Rocket Solution

For the trip to Japan I had planned some ambitious one man video production. I had done my research, but rat out of time to implement it in Japan. Getting back to things here I’m going to make an effort to practice the craft a bit. To this ends I’ve recreated the control center. Now this isn’t at the same level, but it’s a partial combination with which I can experiment.

The first item was mounting the QuadLock in such a manner that it, and the iPhone wouldn’t collide with anything. This wasn’t nearly as simple as one might imagine. Normally one would mount it on the half handle bar, but that would conflicts with the other controls, and collide with the upper fairing when the bars were turned.

For the Red Rocket I had devised a solution where a bar was mounted to the upper triple allowing for three phones to be supported by QuadLocks. In this case I'm simply going to start off with one phone. And mounting it to the upper triple ended up being the solution.

The next item to be installed was the Ram mount ball. This would be connected to a 1/4 20 tripod camera mount. For the DJI Mavic Air controller I ordered a bicycle mount. Which showed up in Japan without the proper parts to make it useable. This is one of the reasons things didn’t go as planned. In this case there isn't a mount available for the Parrot Anafi controller.

However I did notice that the holes on the back of the controller where the screws are set were just the right size that I could carefully thread the 1/4 20 camera mount. This seems to be working swimmingly, but will take some road testing to verify. It would be great if the manufacturers of these products would just put a 1/4 20 mount in the products.

There were some initial conflicts with these two units wanting to take up the same space at the same time, but with some effort of creativity a solution was discovered.

Recently QuadLock introduced a new Ram ball mount for their system. They also make a universal mount that can be attached to most any device. There may not be room enough for this mount on the Anafi controller, but if there were this would provide a nice solution, that would be more secure, and much quicker to mount and unmount the controller.

You may have noticed that the QuadLock tongues on the Red Rocket are red, and on the DRP it is blue. I have a red one that will eventually get put into play. Just didn't have a chance to get to it yet. But fashion must be abided.

One question that I receive numerously is why did the Red Rocket need three phones? Well if I could have devised a way to fund, and mount more of them I probably would have done so, because they can be quite handy. For instance there's navigation, music, and phone duties. These are the usually suspects.

Next up you have the need for one to fly the drone. That might seem like enough, but it’s not. The cameras mounted on the bike can also be monitored, and controlled by phones. There’s also the gimbals which can be controlled with a phone.

And sure some of this can be done on one phone, but if you want to be able to monitor, and control all these things, and pilot a bike switching between apps isn’t very convenient.

This is the closest I’ve gotten to realizing this entire setup. It’s only partially there, but eventually it should all be in place, and I can start testing with what I have now. The goal here is to be able to function as a one man production team.

Personally I think this is rather ambitious, and it might not actually be achievable just yet. The technologies are becoming available, and the capabilities of the cameras, gimbals, and drones are truly impressive where they are currently, but is it enough? We’ll be finding out.

[toratora]

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Hohem XG1 “wearable” gimbal


No available Real Estate


GoPro Hero 4 Session

One Man Camera Crew

Next up in the journey to One Man Camera Crew was camera placement. There are multiple locations for which I intend to mount cameras. It likely this is going to necessitate a fair amount of experimentation to find compelling shots that will work well within the limitations of the cameras, the bike, and the situations.

In the moto blogs that I've liked there’s generally a camera that shoots the front of the rider at a bit of an angle. This framing helps with the story telling. There’s also frequently a camera mounted behind the rider similar to the view employed by the MotoGP cinematographers. Clearly this an angle that works even if the frame is mostly filled with the rider’s bottom end.

On the Red Rocket this angle isn’t really an option, because that's where all the gear is mounted on the bike, but here in SF I can actually go for that MotoGP shot. For this purpose I'll be employing the Hohem XG1 gimbal, and just like with the current MotoGP cameras the horizon should stay level.

Still that’s a lot of mass to be held onto the bike with a tiny little sticker, so some sort of tether will be warranted.

Placement was determined by wanting to get more of the bike, and rider in the frame, but the off set look of the mount between the solo seat adapter, and the Derbi sticker is bothersome.

For the rider shot camera I had intended to use the GoPro Hero 4 Session—what I call Cubismo. It has pretty horrible battery life, and can only do a max video res of 1080p60—however it is small.

Like most GoPros the Session can be powered via USB while in use. Unfortunately this does remove the camera’s ability to survive Dihydrogen Monoxide. If it could have been mounted in the dash area this would be of significantly less concern.

I thought that there would be room for the Cube in the dash area, but even as tiny as it is there just wasn't any available space to mount it. Unfortunately this pushed the camera outside to the front of the bike.

It just so happened that I was able to find a location slightly past the left mirror that might work out. There’s a bit too much sky in the frame, but that might be okay. The testing is going to be important with all of these mounting positions.

Yes I am concerned that the mount is basically attached to a decal, but hopefully the power of the adhesive will out weigh the lightness of the Cube.

Once the rains mellow out I’ll be able to go run some tests. In the mean time I’ll just think up some more possibilities.

[toratora]

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During the video testing on Wednesday I finally had a chance to work with the Hohem XG1 gimbal. There’s a fair amount of info on it in the Remaining Gimbal thread. Since I had worked out the mounting for it previously things went fairly well. However, it seems I needed to tighten the adjuster screw much tighter than I had, because it slipped on me. This might be useful for a bit of a side angle for future shots.

For the most part the XG1 worked great. The horizon was kept appropriately flat while the bike leaned for the turns. I was able to track the XG1’s behavior via the phone mounted on the bike with the GoPro app. This is how I discovered the issues.

The first of which is the gimbal just turned itself off. Pressing the on switch brought it back to life fully functional again. The gimbal had a full battery charge, and it was only in service for about 20 minutes during the testing. This auto off feature appeared twice during the test.

The second issue that occurred was quite reminiscent of the Feiyu Tech WG-2 where it would get lost as to which way was up. During a left U-turn the gimbal became confused. Unlike the WG-2 however, the XG1 corrected itself when the bike was stopped. It may have done so during riding, but I noticed it right away and stopped the bike to reset the gimbal.

I also did some tests with the Hohem D1 stabilizer. I probably should have taken some photos of that setup too. It’s a bit quirky, but it did provide a number of interesting shots while trying to track the bike. More experimentation will be required.

I would really like to come up with a tracking solution that would work with the Sony 𝛂6500. There is probably a gimbal that can do it, and I should look into that possibility.

The D1 works with a phone. I used an older iPhone 6 Plus. The video was decent enough for the testing. I did add a GoPro mount to the top of the phone, and could have employed the Hero 4 Session, but for testing that would have added extra complications so I just went with the phone.

I also used the D1 for the walk around shots of the bike. These were a little more shaky than I would have liked, and the Smooth-Q with a GoPro might have produced better results.

I did edit together a little movie with the video gathered up during the testing titled Mononoke in honor of the decal on the front of the bike.

[toratora]

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I know I shouldn’t be complaining about 9°C, but it feels cold to me, and it is hard to wrench at these temperatures. I waited a bit and it warmed up to 13°C, which was a lot better, but still cold enough that the hands didn’t want to do what they were told!

Tomorrow, and Wednesday are likely to be rainy days so I had to get some wrenching action in today. Seems like hardly anything, but a little bit on a couple of the bikes was about all I could achieve today. Forward progress, even when tiny is still progress.

The Malossi petcock is very nicely made, but also very difficult to turn. The OMG petcocks are much easier, and I’m rather tempted to put one on this bike.

I had a nice long chat with both Scotty and Jeroen. From those conversations I decided to soldier on with dropping the jetting. They both said that with the HPI in play normal jetting procedures no longer really apply. Because the ignition is set up with a fair amount of advance already it was likely that the bike was stuttering because it was too rich.

Jerone suggested going to a 100 jet. I had a 110 in there, and the closest thing I had to a 100 was a 102. That seems to perk up the bike significantly. I didn't take it for a test ride, because there wasn’t enough time for it today.

I did warm it up a little bit, rev the throttle, and the bike is much more responsive. Probably Thursday, or Friday the weather will be more accommodating, and a proper test will ensue.

I’d really like to get a good look at the wash, but both of my bore scopes seemed to have failed. For now I’ll just have to be careful.

Tools to do the jet changing. Thankfully on this bike I don't need to pull any plastics to adjust the jetting. The hose clamps are 7mm, the access port on the bottom of the carb is 17mm, and the jets are 6mm. If the emulsifier comes out then a 10mm socket and wrench come in handy.

A couple of rags come in hand for the fuel that drains out when the access port is opened. Having one of these ports is so much nicer than having to pull the float bowl each time.

[toratora]

To shoot video there needs to be a location. I’ve been scouting for some potential locations where I could test the drone action that has a corner without traffic, and the drone could be setup sort of like a tripod. I had found a some places on the map, and figured today would be a good day to check them out.

Sadly all of locations happened to be where either I couldn’t take the drone, the bike, or both. I was able to have a nice chat with one of our local rangers who tried to help me with a fixit ticket. But my repair wasn’t quite up to par—so I’ll have to work on it some more.

The video shooting was a bust, and getting the ticked signed off was also a failure, but I did get to see if the jetting was better. It was better all the way to about 9K RPM where the bike would get on the pipe. Here again it was having trouble, and the stuttering was still there. It would actually make it through the stuttering in first gear, but couldn’t in any other gears. From about 7K to 9K though it was sort of ridable—it was all about short shifting today.

The leaner jetting is making it better, but not enough to get it over the hump. I could try an even leaner jet, but I’m a bit concerned that it might be too lean. It would appear that maybe the timing needs to be modulated.

I’m told that less advancement is like making it richer, which would mean that it needs more advancement, but that seems counter intuitive, and that I should set it to less. I need some better investigative tools.

[toratora]

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Everything seems to take longer in the winter time. I finally made some more progress today with the investigation. The bike is most certainly running too rich still. The plug looks rich, and the wash looks rich.

Ed brought by his DeWalt bore scope, and we got some quick shots of the top of the piston. These images clearly show that the bike is running rich.

Considering that this is with a 102 jet, I’d like to get a timing light on the bike to verify where it is at, and then compare it with today’s information.

From there then move forward with it by either going to an even smaller jet, or making an adjustment to the timing. Either way though it seems to be in need of getting leaned out.