February 2019:
What do you do when simulation software’s & professionally built dynamometers themselves cost almost twice the seed investment raised?
Well, you get an old electric moped from scrap and modify it to fit your core components and take it for a test ride, coz, hey, nothing can validate your design as well as the real site conditions. Need I say more, that’s exactly what we did.
Error! error! error!
March 2019: Once the prototype was ready we were quite confident that within the next 3 months we would be ready and in all probability start shipping our units to all corners. Phew, ignorance is definitely truly blissful.
Below are the sequence of challenges (to sound optimistic) that were almost on repeat loop for the next 5 months,
Staring trouble-in layman turns the bike was stuck in 1st gear
Hall sensor signal issues- the complete torque was not being utilised
MOSFET/Driver/Capacitors Blowing up
PID co-efficient setting issues
Belt wear due to improper alignment
The back wheel bending -again due to improper alignment
Ghastly mechanical noises—you guessed it-improper alignment!!
Well, it goes on & on…