Looking for Diabetic Adventure Bikers!

[fjwbrady95]

Hi all,

I'm a final year design engineering student at Bournemouth University, and currently working on my main dissertation/project.

For the project, I'm working towards designing a "Shock-Mounted Insulin Refrigerator for Overland Travel". I rode my GS to the Sahara this summer, spending days at a time wild camping away from civilisation through both Europe and Morocco, having an incredible time. This made me realise that it must be incredibly difficult, if not impossible for riders with type-1 diabetes to be able to do a similar kind of trip, due to needing to keep their insulin refrigerated, especially in very hot conditions.

Therefore, I'd love to hear from any of you that have type-1 and your experiences with dealing with your insulin on long trips. At this point, I'm also looking to gain some form of market scope, as obviously it will be a fairly specialist product and not just a cool box strapped to a bike!

I hope to hear from some of you soon!

Fergus

[daveuprite]

Interesting project Fergus. I'm not a diabetic so no first hand experience. Why 'shock-mounted'? That's quite an exposed place to put it. I did see some kind of solar powered back pack designed to cool your back - maybe you could apply that principle. More than just a fan I think. Might be worth looking into. Solar seems the obvious answer unless of course you link something up to the bike's battery and it charges up as your ride (the opposite of heated grips I suppose). I've always felt that the braking energy of bikes is often wasted (as heat mainly) when it could be harnessed (as happens on the latest electric cars).

If your device could keep 10 bottles of Estrella cool and safe on the back of a Beta enduro bike I might be in the market...

[fjwbrady95]

Hi Dave,

I apologise, by shock-mounted, I mean the 'refrigerator' is mounted to protect the contents from the continuous impact and shock experienced during overland travel (particularly with the glass vials that insulin often comes in); not mounted to the bike's shocks! One of my lecturers thought the same thing, so I should probably change the way I phrase the project description....

I've thought about using solar in some capacity; the problem is with the product more than likely to utilise the bike's 12V battery power when riding, the main time of day that the refrigerator would need a form of auxiliary power is when camped up at night....so obviously solar would be no good then!

It's much more important, but I can't justify a beer fridge as my final-year project

[zimtim]

Wouldn't necessarily need to be shock mounted.
a lot if not most now use
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=insul ... e&ie=UTF-8

which are plastic and disposable and should ideally be stored between 2-8c except for the pen that is in use that can be kept at room temp for a few days .The needle for these are not only disposable with the use of a sharps bin that has to be collected by local authority.

There a couple of people on the HUBB that are diabetic and do quite a lot of touring/adventure riding perhaps put a post up there asking for help

it could be a good idea but do not overthink it

[Andi_Archer]

Just a thought but could you design the "refrigerator" on the principle used for a Peltier cooling plate

[fjwbrady95]

Wouldn't necessarily need to be shock mounted.
a lot if not most now use
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=insul ... e&ie=UTF-8

which are plastic and disposable and should ideally be stored between 2-8c except for the pen that is in use that can be kept at room temp for a few days .The needle for these are not only disposable with the use of a sharps bin that has to be collected by local authority.

There a couple of people on the HUBB that are diabetic and do quite a lot of touring/adventure riding perhaps put a post up there asking for help

it could be a good idea but do not overthink it

Cheers for the information; I have been going into the project only thinking of the old glass vials for some reason!

As @Andi_Archer Peltier just posted, a Peltier-method cooler is my likely method of refrigeration, so will likely still need to shock-mount the unit to protect any fans being used and various electronics.

I'll repost in the HUBB and see what happens!

[Andi_Archer]

Just a thought but you could incorporate the electronics and fridge vanes in a short tool tube with a temperature indicator on the outside that the files could be dropped in to. The electronics themselves could be coated in epoxy and whilst it would prevent repair it gives good mechanical and vibration protection. The device could then run from an external 12volt or 5 volt feed much like a GPS unit.

[fjwbrady95]

Just a thought but you could incorporate the electronics and fridge vanes in a short tool tube with a temperature indicator on the outside that the files could be dropped in to. The electronics themselves could be coated in epoxy and whilst it would prevent repair it gives good mechanical and vibration protection. The device could then run from an external 12volt or 5 volt feed much like a GPS unit.

A tool tube-esc form is something I've been considering actually, I'd like the unit to be able to obviously be compact and easily removed from the bike for portability, with an auxiliary battery providing trickle cooling. This would enable the unit to run independently of the bike's battery overnight, during stops or in case the user fancies a hike.

Thanks for the epoxy recommendation- I recently worked for an industrial PC company and I found epoxy coatings to work pretty well for keeping components safe for maritime uses, so hopefully will work really well on a bike!

[zimtim]

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/travel/keepin ... -cool.html

[fjwbrady95]

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/travel/keepin ... -cool.html

I haven't actually seen that article yet- very intetesting. The Medifridge is the closest thing to a relatively similar product to what I'm looking to design, that I've come across thus far, will have a deeper look into that.