bike4life
Well-Known Member
ok so heres what i can do.... when i built the hitch, i designed it for 2 axis. My trailer length is 35". So what do u think i should do, add a stop block to the hitch so i cant exceed like 75 degrees or should i just weld the swing part shut as a solid entity. The question is would i actually be able to make turns without the hitch swing part. Like in trucks and stuff, i think they have a ball hitch? My trailer is 15" by 35" so if i have a tongue length of 1/2 or 17.5" that forms an acute triangle with sides 15" base w/ 17.5" height. Cut triangle in half to get right triangle. To find angle tan^-1(7.5/17.5) which is 23 degrees. 23*2=46 degree pivot angle because i cut it in half. Personally i am thinking of adding stop blocks to restrict the swing to 75 degrees. what do u think??View attachment 86963
without getting into hairy geometry, a couple principles show up just seeing the angles. I found the longer the tongue, reduces the pivot angle. perfection in turns would be an infinitely long tongue, catastrophic failure is a certainty at pivot angle above 90 degrees. to scale, this is a 3 x 2 trailer with tongue 1/2 of trailer length. you can see the angle is ~75deg. already approaching a bad situation lol (15 deg steering input and you're in trouble at a moderate slow speed.)
juggling some vectors, I see best is actually no pivot from the top looking down! you don't want a trailer 8' behind you, you'd like it close as you can get, like 6" or less from your back tire. at any length of tongue this'd make a really big pivot angle, so we remove the pivot and the trailer can only steer you through your handlebars, which you have control, and this makes the lever arm of any torque from engine very long, and gentle for you to control, regardless if it's 1.5hp or 6.5 haha.
with 1 dimensional hitch (vertical movement only), the tongue length is from handlebar stem to the drive axle. comfortably long, simplest design. add a flexible hitch like a ball, and the force vectors multiply the uncomfy steering torque and possible jackknife situations are there @ any tongue length less than 1/2.
so the simplest connection to the bike is solid, but up/down movement is good and safe. 1 horizontal bolt to the trailer
1 drive wheel or 2 makes no difference in this model
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