New gadget brings digital Öhlins suspension to any bike

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Until now, when you wished to reap the advantages of digital suspension, the one route was to purchase a motorbike with it factory-fitted.

After all, such techniques have historically required ECU integration to manage rebound and compression circuits, and even spring preload in some instances – usually linking damping settings to the particular using modes.

Now although, a Dutch engineer has opened up the know-how for virtually anybody, together with customized builders, dedicated trackday fans chasing wonderful adjustment, or simply these with older machines seeking to improve their forks and shock – with a palm-sized management module designed to deliver the know-how to absolutely anything with two wheels.

Developed by Futuri Motion Tech boss Mark van Veggel, the ÖTX Controller is a plug-and-play unit that enables customers to independently management rebound and compression damping on electronically managed Öhlins TTX parts with out the necessity for a manufacturing facility ECU.

The concept was born through the construct of his one-off Ducati ‘Desmoto’ mission, which, alongside that includes a hand-crafted body, an extensively fettled Desmodue 1078cc V-twin and a smattering of elements from varied Bologna superbikes, additionally makes use of an in-house modified digital fork and shock set-up.

“One of the problems that needed to be solved on the Desmoto was that I wanted to use an Öhlins TTX EC shock from a Panigale,” he stated.

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“I grew up in a family with a dad who constructed customized digital circuit boards, so I understand how to construct customized electronics and design circuit boards.

“I started breaking things down, opening stuff up, testing things. I did the first tests for this controller about five-years-ago and got a rough prototype working. Then about two-years-ago I finished the final product.”

And now you should purchase one for your self for €340 (round £295).

Essentially, the ÖTX Controller is a compact interface that mimics alerts usually despatched by an ECU.

Built round a customized circuit board, it interprets person inputs through button presses and converts them into motor management alerts for the damper unit.

“It’s not hugely complicated once you understand it. The challenge was making it small, intuitive, and plug-and-play,” van Veggel stated.

Each Öhlins TTX EC unit options inner motors that are answerable for adjusting rebound and compression by various the speed of oil restriction by means of every respective damping circuit.

Van Veggel’s system merely faucets into these motors, permitting for ultra-precise adjustment on the push of a button.

To use the controller, an influence cable first must be routed to a 12-volt supply, two separate motor wires then plug into the suspension unit – one into the compression adjuster housing and one into the rebound adjuster housing.

Upon preliminary use, a fast calibration pairing routine is required to find out the complete vary of motion inside every adjuster, earlier than dividing that vary right into a collection of digital steps.

“The controller reads button inputs and translates that into motor control signals,” van Veggel defined. “For example, if there is 10mm of travel within the needle that acts on the compression or rebound valve, that is divided into 100 steps.”

That equates to considerably finer adjustment than a traditional guide shock, which at most, would possibly supply 20 clicks of damping management. Here, customers get 99 increments of tunability and three preset user-defined maps, which means separate configurations – corresponding to moist and dry – could be chosen merely on the press of a button.

Once a setting is utilized, the tune is locked in, which means the system could be disconnected and the bike 
will keep the damping configuration till the 
ÖTX controller is used once more 
for additional tweaks.

That opens the door to a single system getting used throughout a number of parts and a number of bikes. Although a person may maintain the system put in whereas operating the bike, the thought is to plug in, make modifications, then unplug and check out their new settings.

What the system isn’t designed to do is override an OEM digital set-up. Doing so would require unplugging manufacturing facility energy feeds and sensors, seemingly throwing up an error code. But for older machines – or customized builds – it provides customers the flexibility to retrofit electrical suspension, the place doing so was beforehand not doable.

Although van Veggel admits his system has a distinct segment use case, that hasn’t stopped it catching the eye of main gamers. Royal Enfield are among the many engineer’s buyer base after the Indian big referred to as upon an ÖTX Controller for the preliminary suspension set-up on their experimental Himalayan EV idea.

Looking forward, van Veggel is already exploring extra superior functions, working alongside a software program engineering colleague on a good smarter, track-focused model, and extra…

“That’ll have no screen, remain attached to the bike and be controlled via Bluetooth or possibly CAN bus. It opens up things like GPS-based suspension settings or even lean-angle-based adjustment, where the bike changes suspension behaviour corner by corner based on how you set it up.”

Plans are additionally afoot to develop a tool with 4 motor wire retailers, opening up the capability to tweak fork and shock settings concurrently, whereas rising curiosity from the automotive sector may result in a tool able to configuring all 4 corners of a automobile coming to market.

For now although, van Veggel’s consideration stays firmly centered on two-wheeled tasks. Watch this house for extra merchandise coming to the market quickly.

The MCN take

This may not be helpful for the lots, however for a choose few folks it can seemingly show an especially helpful gadget.