The old adage of “90% finished, 50% left to go” seems to apply. As the photo below shows, the test bench prototype is nearly complete, mechanically.
Some of the other photos at Instagram show the internal gears in the motor / gear housing and other details.
It’s interesting watching it come together. While it’s obvious that several parts are still very much “prototype” (like the motor / gear assembly and housing) it’s a whole lot easier to envision the whole thing as a well-designed, integrated, whole.
The electronics wiz at Tangent was working on the control board firmware and doing some testing of the electronics on Thursday. It’s my understanding that Friday and Monday will be spent installing and hooking up the electronics, wrapping up the mechanical assembly, and firing it up for real on Tuesday.
Then while they’re testing it next week I’ll start doing some early stage installation of the second unit on my vehicle. Maybe even have it running on my vehicle by next Friday? We’ll see. That would be a major upgrade, in my opinion!