Last week I was driving at 90 km/h on the A1 motorway on my way from and to a next meeting as suddenly TW560 started losing speed. No noise, no grinding, no error messages – just no acceleration. Eventually, after changing the controller display to show raw inverter messages the inverter showed me a F06 error and rebooted gracefully just to show the same error when attempting to accelerate again. As TWIKEs in general roll very well, I didn’t have to leave the right lane immediately. After 3 reboots, I knew that something was definitely wrong. A few hundred metres […]
A Christmas present from TW560
December 23, I finish work and drive to my Canadian friend’s place to have some pre-christmas drinks. My wife has already arrived. We have snacks and many, many drinks. After midnight, we both get into TW560 and boot DFC30 (DreiFels Controller 3.0) and want to drive home. Within one second, I know something is wrong… The battery warning light (which, under normal circumstances, never, ever, is on for more than a fraction of a second) glows and nothing happens. A few reboots later, my feeling tells me we’re going to go nowhere tonight. As most of the readers of this […]
Display troubles…
Just after arriving back from my one-day-trip to Feldkirch, TW560’s display started acting strange, showing confusing information. My TWIKE was working fine overall, so it wasn’t any serious problem. I suspected this to be the same problem I experienced during my 2011 trip to India, where challenging roads made a daughter board from TW560’s new controller from Dreifels a.k.a. DFC 3.0, come loose Let’s dive in and fix this problem, shall we? All that needs to be done is push the daughter board firmly back onto its contacts. (newer boards are held back by cable ties). Where is the cable […]
repairs: TWIKE broken canopy tube
during the last few weeks, my TWIKE was making some strange rattling noise from time to time. one of the last weekends i started to search more in-depth and found the culprit very quickly: a canopy tube had broken just around the locking mechanism. a few years ago, TWIKE 560 took part at the WAVE 2011 India. during this trip we at one point hit a pothole nearly as big as the TWIKE and were unable to slow down in time. the result was a broken locking pin and tube. this year’s canopy tube failure may well be a result […]
Repairs: replacing the charging cable signaling pigtail
during the last few weeks, TW560’s been behaving strangely. whilst driving – and more annoyingly – at red lights, my TWIKE started to claim that it was ready for charging, although i was either driving or clearly not wanting to charge, since i was standing at a red light. it’s a really annoying and potentially dangerous problem. unlike newer ev’s, TWIKEs come with a non-removable charging cable which directly connects to the inverter. detection of drive-readiness is achieved through a dummy socket in the vehicle’s interior. my current problem was a bad contact or broken cable, since the problem was […]
Repairs: when a TWIKE wants to go on and on
Just a few weeks ago, i started to have a special effect when trying to switch TW560 off using the main switch for the controller: it would not react immediately, but slightly later. it was just a minor inconvenience and i meant to write the usual TWIKE-suspects an email regarding their ideas, what could provoke this delay, soon. as always, life is hectic and since dreifels’ controller has an ultra-low consumption sleep mode, which deactivates itself after a definable period of time, i didn’t feel too concerned, when for the first time, i was no longer able to turn off […]
seats: replace or repair?
any lightweight construction made of plastic is prone to crack either under high amounts of structural stress or after a certain amount of time has passed and the aging process makes the plastic brittle. TWIKE seats are a very simple, somewhat comfortable and (in their pure form, a thin mat directly on plastic) extremely light. however, check any TWIKE and you’ll find that usually, the shells are cracked and in varying states of disrepair. after a certain amount of wear and tear or time the TWIKE pilot literally sits on the frame without any other support. given enough money, remediating […]
better than new!
wow, that went fast! was my first thought, when i got maya schnyder’s email. she wrote me that the hood was ready and that everything had gone well and she was happy with the result. as i have written before, maya’s understanding of quality and work satisfaction match my own closely. because of this, i was really looking forward to the new hood. i schedule a friday afternoon with some meetings in berne and tell her that i would like to thank her by having a beer after the work is done. her answer is equally surprising and unsurprising: “i’ve […]
new plexi hood, work in progress
after starting the task of replacing my front windscreen after an act of vandalism – maya sent me a selection of pictures to get an idea of the complexity of the task at hand and the progress she was making. it really feels good to know how things are coming along. i thought this info might be of interest… TW560’s windscreen replacement – the world’s LAST NEW TWIKE plexi windscreen.
Vandalism – Day3
The next day promises to be be a brilliant one – all the grey clouds are gone and i make my way back to delémont. i get off the train and am truly looking forward to a very relaxing ride back home when, coming around a corner, i am greeted with a very unusual sight. from a distance one thing was clear, TW560 had been pushed over and the canopy was open. i had a very bad feeling creeping up in my stomach. getting closer things turned out to be worse than expected! TW560 had been pushed around, rolled around, […]