When the Morph is working right, it is truly magic. You float on the gas springs, and with virtually no effort, you can make yourself float up to talk to people, and then glide down to high-speed riding position. Morph II, our 60-lb steel prototype had the magic. But Morph III, which had the benefit of weighing in at only 40 pounds, lacked the magic. Why? Well, there are lots of reasons that we know, and maybe some we don't know. Morph III used locking gas springs, and they didn't have the same amount of force. We didn't get as much float. But the mechanism was different also.
So we went back to the Morph II design, and carried that forward into the MorphOut design. And we decided to make a flexible tester so we can try out designs in the morphing frame easily and see how they work when we sit on them.
This is the first version of a text rig to work out geometry for the MorphOut design. (We call it MorphOut as in getting out to users. Goal is to build five bikes and put them in people's hands soon!)
Here is the e-Drawings file for the SolidWorks model: You'll need the free e-Drawings Viewer (for Mac or PC)
This is the CAD for an improved version of the test rig. This rig includes the ability to overlap the morphing arms, which we believe will be crucial for the eventual finished design. This added complexity to the test rig, but we thought it would be worth it to have a more complete view of how the design will work.
Here is the e-Drawings file for the SolidWorks model: You'll need the free e-Drawings Viewer (for Mac or PC)
Below are progress photos from John Baron as of July 19th. The Telestrut tubing will allow us to bolt on anything we need as we proceed with our tests.
