Amberwolf's DayGlo Avenger, MkII

[amberwolf]

I didn't have time for a full finish cycle but I let it put another 0.181Ah in there, for a final voltage of 42.9V. This time I rode entirely with motor, no pedalling at all, and tried to keep the speed at 20MPH everywhere I could, which was probably at least 1/3 of each way, possibly more. Some places are 15MPH and parking lots where I have to detour a couple of places are better travelled at less than 10MPH.

To work:
1.375Ah
45.4Wh
19.96Ap
698Wp
33.75Vm
38.72V resting
2.35mi
21.02Wh/mile

From work:
1.528Ah
52.7Wh
19.95Ap
679Wp
32.57Vm
17.54Wh/mile
37.5V resting
3.003mi

So...there is definitely something on the way home that either slows me down long enough to not require as much power, or is helping me in some other way. It isnt' the wind, because it has almost always been stronger against me on my way home than to work, in the recent testing.

Now I'm going to do a rundown test, and not charge it until it hits LVC (or doesn't move the bike enough to be useful, which ever comes first), continuing the motor-only tests thru that time. Got another workday tomorrow with the same hours as yesterday and today, so we'll see what happens, if weather is similar/etc.

Next, I'll charge at work and see what it is like for the trip home.

[amberwolf]

Oh, I forgot to mention that the temperature of the controller was only warm, though the motor was fairly hot (it was not quite 100F out there today when I came home from work about 245PM). I suspect the controller temperature being lower than the "hot" it usually runs at is from being at WOT with no current limiting going on.

It *was* hot on the way *to* work at 730-740AM, when the outside temps were 20F cooler, but the pack was fully charged and forcing me to feather throttle a bit to stay down at 20MPH (WOT was more like 22-23, sometimes 24), for the first mile and a half or more.

[amberwolf]

Forgot another thing. A few days back I had gotten tired of the window tinting I'd used to dim the LEDs of the battery meter for nighttime riding just coming loose due to heat melting the tape adhesive. I'd meant to fix it just about every day since I put it on, and the only reason I didn't just do it right to start with was I didn't know how many layers it would end up needing to be dim enough to not night-blind me but to still be easily visible in midday sun.

So I cleaned off the tape goo, cut the tinting down to size, and installed it under the clear plastic window on the Fusin headlight unit. Looks much better now, still works the same.

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Everything off.

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Power on.

It's still kinda bright when riding canal paths or any other non-streetlamp area, especially places without headlights in my eyes. But at least it does not overwhelm my eyes trying to read the PDA's display (which is off in both pics), as it's backlight is not very bright; it's the old green monochrome Palm style.

Naturally, the best way to tackle this is some sort of inverse-light-activated dimmer, so that it gets dimmer in darkness rather than the way the headlight dimmer works (turning off when sufficient ambient light exists), using the same sensor the headlight dimmer does (to minimize components).

But I haven't had time to do that yet, in the approximately half year I've had the Fusin, and probably won't for a while yet, especially now that I seem to keep getting more dayjob hours (a very good thing, but chaotic in that almost never do I have the same schedule two days in a row, and each week is a different schedule, too, and I only get that schedule at best a few days before the week starts (often has been only the day before).

So, it's planned, but I haven't even tried to work out the circuit, since I need to determine what the existing headlight dimmer does first, so I can tap into it's light sensor.

[amberwolf]

Hmm....Either some of my posts are missing, or I have forgotten to post the results from the run-down. That's strange, because I am *sure* I had posted them. Of course, now I don't have any idea where the papers are I had jotted them down on. I guess I'll have to do it over again if I want to know the mileage/etc. I can get out of it that way.

More bad luck:

I bent *another* wheel on the way to work today; avoiding some unexpected and nearly invisible** but largish construction debris in a parking lot, I had to suddenly swerve quite far to the left very hard, and smacked that big metal box on the left side of the bike into the curb. The box mounting flexed and then rebounded, forcing the rear wheel sideways to the right, which is the direction it is weakest.

So it bent the rim about half an inch or so to the left at what at that moment was the bottom, road-touching part of the tire. It's so bad that I had to take the brake pad off that side, or it would only rotate past that point if I both put the front wheel's motor on full blast *and* pedalled in low gear as hard as I could.

Made it to work and used some pliers to loosen spokes on one side and tighten some on the other to mitigate the bend a little, but the rim is toast unless I take it all apart and see if I can bend it the other way, then re-lace the whole wheel. Would've used my spoke tool, but naturally today I didn't have any of my tools with me, so the spoke nipples I had to use the pliers on are also toast.



**they had apparently *just* finished spray-paving/sealing where they'd cut out some asphalt for access to something underground, and glued it back in (rather than repaving), and when they did the spraying they just sprayed over a bunch of fist-sized chunks of *something* scattered around the parking lot in the exit lanes, rather than cleaning up their mess first and then spraying. Since they were utterly black, exactly like the road surface, and a really big shade tree's flickering shadows covered the area, I couldn't see that there was anything there until I was literally a couple of feet from it with no time to do anything but swerve around it to try not to destroy my wheels.

Well, at least I only toasted the regular rear wheel, and not the motor wheel.

I was disconcerted enough by the wheel damage that I forgot to write down any data when I got to work, so I didn't do it when I got home either. I recall around 45Wh heading to work, and around 39Wh coming home, but nothing else.


Yet more bad luck: Apparently my crazy sister must've caught my SLA charger (the little one I use for the lighting SLA) in the front door, somehow (it's plugged into a socket about a foot from there) when she left or came back a couple of days ago, and crushed the corner of the PCB on it, as well as the large electrolytic. Of course, she didn't just hand it to me, apologize, and explain what happened. She just plugged it right back into the wall, where it sat for hours getting REALLY REALLY HOT from whatever was shorted together. I have no idea if it's fixable; I have to reconstruct the traces on the corner and wire around them, plus replace the cap, then see if it's fried or not. As long as the transformer is not fried I can rebuild or replace most of the rest of it. I have no idea what the transformer winding or output is, though (probably 15V, maybe more), so if it's toast then all I could do is guess and try different input voltages until it works, and then try a transformer of about that output level. If I can't fix it I've got other ways to charge it, but I'd rather use this thing.


Further bad luck: a couple of days ago my window A/C unit somehow had a leak under a gasket that's supposed to seal the power inputs to the compressor. Moisture has ingressed and corroded one of the steel pins that goes thru a glass seal into the compressor, and vibration broke it off. At the seal. This is the wire that goes thru the thermal cutoff that prevents overheat of the compressor; it's either power input or power return; don't know which but it is a high-current connection. Thankfully it happened in the evening, so I didn't have to stand in sweltering heat, but then it started raining and I had to wait a couple of hours (in the quickly heating-up house) to work on it. Eventually I got it all dried out, tied and siliconed the wire and pin in place well enough that it makes a connection good enough to operate the compressor. When I turned it on, there was a heckuva spark so hopefully it welded itself together at least a little, and hopefully the tiedown and silicone will keep it there and mitigate vibration that would break it apart again. I thought I took pictures of it all but there is nothing new on the memory card, or internal camera memory, so I must've imagined the flash going off all those times. Meh.


Hopefully the rest of my week will go much better.

[amberwolf]

Well, I have to figure out what's wrong with the SLA charger. Transformer doesn't appear to be open or shorted, so it's probably a semiconductor.

In the meantime, I've installed the DC-DC converter Icecube57 sent me, which has two 12V outputs and one 3.3V. I'm just using the top 12V for now, but I need to go find the spec sheet and see if the two can be paralleled without diodes.

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There is not *quite* enough current capability for when my incandescent turn signals first start to light up on each flash cycle, so the LED taillight blinks on and off each signal flash. Eventually this kind of momentary overload could hurt the DC-DC too.

It doesn't draw much, only about 100mA from the pack with just the taillight on, and about 150mA with the brakelight on. Since the current is not steady long enough to get a good reading during turn signal operation, I am not certain, but I think it is around 500-900mA draw from the pack during each flash cycle (including the taillight).

I didn't do a good mounting job yet, it's just velcro-strapped onto the side of the SLA for now. I had to mount it at lunch at work, as I had not had time the last two days at home, after working on the charger, and I was worried the SLA was going to run down to where the lights wouldn't work and I'd need them when coming home at night especially. If I'm lucky I'll have time to think up a beter mounting tonite or tomorrow.

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I tapped the power off the wire coming from the headlight keyswitch, so now the lights are all switched by that. `

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[amberwolf]

Found the specs:
http://web.archive.org/web/200208160819 ... kp60xt.pdf
looks like the company itself doesn't do this type of product anymore:
http://www.cdpowerelectronics.com/ as referenced in their docs no longer exists; it's redirector ad page.
www.cdtechno.com is their corporate page but they no longer have anything like these anymore.

This appnote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200111150758 ... dcan09.htm
in Fig5 indicates that paralleling the outputs is actually desired in cases like mine where I'm not using them as separate 12V sources. So I'll do that as soon as I get the chance; should help the problem of turn signals blanking the taillight.

[amberwolf]

Hmm. Well, that didn't work out any better. Guess it simply can't provide enough surge current. I dont' think I can put big enough caps on it to do so either, without the surge current into them at power-on damaging the DC-DC. I'll live with the blinking tail, I guess. Attracts more attention anyway.

No time to work on anything else today, since the bad luck I had with the window A/C unit got worse. The below is really only related to this thread in that it has macguyvering and ebike parts in it, and involves motors and troubleshooting:

Woke up about two hours after I finally fell asleep to 90F temps. In my bedroom. The AC unit failed (the same way) again, and because it didn't pump correctly it just ADDED heat to the room instead of taking it out.

I was far too tired to fix it then, and had to get sleep so I could go to work about four hours later, so I had to shut all the dogs out of the room so they wouldn't come lay against me and heat me up even worse, then set the box fan on high across me and fitfully slept a little.

Got home from work around 730pm, started working on the AC unit by 8pm and determined I cannot fix it by 830pm. not only is it impossible to get it to stay connected on that corroded-off terminal, I can actually see tiny little bubbles flowing from the glass seal--I guess it's not sealed anymore either, and the R22 and lubricants in the compressor are very very slowly leaking out. That may well be what caused the corrosion in the first place, rather than water, perhaps. I don't know if that stuff is reactive like that when combined with air and moisture, in high temperatures.


Time to pull out the "backup" unit, which is an old one with it's own issues, given to me by someone a few years ago and not used a lot since then, except for a few months by my younger sister till she decided the noises it makes were too much for her. Since it is a slightly different size, it took about two hours to get it installed, and then it worked about 10 minutes before the air circulation fan in it died, spinning slower and slower and slower and finally stopping. Compressor still works nice, but no good if the fan doesn't move the air thru the coils (external ones to remove the heat from the unit, and internal ones to remove the heat from the room).

I messed with it for another hour or so, but I can't figure out why the motor is acting like this. It did not recover after cooling off, either. Freely spins by hand. I dunno. It's a sealed motor and I can't open it up. I pondered a few ways of driving the shaft by a belt to another motor, a friction drive to the squirrel-cage fan inside, and other things, but I just don't have the time to do any of them since again I have to get to sleep so I can get up for work in the morning.

I ended up disconnecting the internal motor entirely, but physically leaving it in place since I don't have time to take it all out of the window a third time. So now I have lashed a big box fan to the outside, running it's extension cord thru the window alongside the AC unit, and that pulls air thru the external coils to cool them off. That works really well, so well that with no air flowing thru the internal coils, they actually freeze moisture out of the air in about a minute.

Since it doesn't do any good to just freeze the air right at the coils, I had to find a fan small enough to fit over them but powerful enough to move some serious air thru them. I somewhere around here have some nice big muffin fans that run on wall power just like the box fan, but of course I can't find them. So I had to use a 48VDC version of that kind of fan, which will actually run on quite a bit lower voltage, fortunately. But not low enough to run on any simple wall-wart I had laying around. Had to use the other ebike battery pack, the 36V 9Ah NiMH pack I used to use on DayGlo Avenger. I charged it up (was already almost full) and it is now running the fan, and hopefully will last thru my sleeping, assuming I get to do so.

It's REALLY REALLLY loud, like a vacuum cleaner a foot from your head. I routinely use fans for white noise to help me sleep, but this is not the same kind of noise, and is really annoying. I have a lot of trouble with annoying noises, they actually make me angry and I have to work at it to get past that and try to ignore them (usually not possible, but I try really hard).

Since the room got up to about 100F during the day while I was gone, it's going to take a long time to cool down. It's finally down to 84F now, so at least I'm not sweating to death or anything. But the bed (waterbed) and walls and stuff are all still a lot warmer than 84F, probably mid-90s, and it's going to be a while for them to cool enough to let the air really cool down enough so that the AC unit can shut off periodically. It's been running constantly for not quite an hour, I guess. Might be more; I lost track fo time a while ago, since my brain is melted from heat and lack of sleep.

And I am still tired and will need to calm down before I can actually sleep. Hopefully posting this will be cathartic and I'll stop having it go round in my head constantly.


Tomorrow after I get off work, I guess I will be figuring out a way to hack the fan motor out of the dead-compressor unit into this one. They're similar but not identical, and they don't even have the same number of wires. I can figure it out, but it is going to take a while, and I will have to have the units both apart (and no AC running, of course) while I do it.

If I had the money I would just go buy a new unit. I am that miserable and tired of all this that I am ready to buy something new instead of recycling and repurposing old stuff for it.

[amberwolf]

Was so hot today that the bike motor controller blew up again, same way as before (sizzling capacitors, boiling out their electrolyte), about 1/4 mile from the house on my way to work around midday today. I got there in time despite only being able to pedal about 8MPH (as opposed to the 20 I can go with the motor + pedalling, without breaking too much of a sweat), but I was drenched and very close to being sick from the heat. Had to take my ice bottle I keep with me for spare water and hold it between my arms against my chest to bring my core temperature back down quickly; took about 10 minutes to get to just panting and sweating (from feeling like I was about to die).


I *had* planned to bike to K-mart nearby to checkout air conditioners to see what kind of money I'll need to save, but that's out now. Tonite was going to be spent on fixing the AC unit but now it has to be spent fixing the bike and figuring out a way to "heat proof" it.

Pointless babble below:

When I got home my crazy sister had left the front door open just a little bit (letting in the 104F air and letting out what could've been 85F air if she hadn't done that), and had lights on all over (wasting money on the electric power for them plus the A/C let out), and was washing her hair in the kitchen sink, again, after many discussions about not doing that because she always clogs it up with her hair.

Then I go to let the dogs out, and see muddy tracks in teh back room (not all that unusual, except that I haven't let them out yet), and there is a bucket full of soapy bleachy water that already has some of it gone and muddy footprints all around it so obviously the dogs have already been outside while it's there and they've been drinking from it, before I got home.

Crazy sister found the bucket in the alley and was washing it, she says, and thought the dogs "knew bleach was bad for them". Yeah, sure, they can read ALL the warning labels!

Plus, she's not supposed to let them out at all, because she doesn't seem capable of distinguishing whether they are back in or not when she closes the door and leaves the house, so they could get locked outside and die of the heat. (since she has many times "put away" the big pot I have out there for their outside water, even though of course she well knows it is THEIR WATER)

And as I sit here typing this, the A/C unit quits. Just shuts off. Great. I went out to check it and the box fan outside the A/C unit keeping it cool has died, and the A/C compressor overheated and shut off. I hosed it down to cool it off (too hot to touch even on the outside of the A/C unit) and waited another few minutes, turned it on for a moment, and the compressor does at least startup, but now I haven't got anything that will keep the air flowing thru the external coils.

I can put a sprinkler on it that will keep it wet that may help some, but it's not enough unless I have so much water going that it floods the front yard.

I've now dug up up those little computer/server fans (actually these are from an old Sony 1" studio VTR) and will put some of them on the external coils. Then I can hopefully be able to wait until it is cool enough long enough (a day or possibly two, dependng on fabrication time and if I have to also work those days) that I can live without any A/C long enough to take both of them apart and make one working unit out of them both. For tonite, I have to at least make the thing work well enough for me to have some A/C, as it was already getting almost 90F in here, and was still 100F outside and nearly dark! Now it's 95F out there *and* in here.

Then I still have to fix the bike. At least I have most of tomorrow and Sunday off.

I can't seem to get a break. Oh, well, I'm getting used to it.

EDIT: actually, I guess I might get a little break--a friend has a "standalone" AC unit that uses a dryer-hose type air vent to the outisde for the waste heat, that may help in the meantime. But we have to dig it out of a densely-packed outdoor storage unit in the middle of the day tomorrow.

[amberwolf]

Well, at least until the fans melt, I have A/C:

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If it is cool enough tomorrow then I will put them inside the A/C housing, behind the coils, so they can push air across them and not be heated by the air from the coils (which is at least 125F at the *backside* of the fans, possibly higher).

But I have to take the whole thing out of the window to get the case off to do it, and by itself that's probably 20-30 minutes. Then another hour or two to get the whole original fan out and seal off the inside from outside again, and mount the fans inside. Then at least that same 20-30 minutes to put it back in the window, probably twice that since I'll be tired and hot by then. Oh, well, what has to be done has to be done.

It's possible that the fan motor and electronics from the newer dead one will fit right into the old one, but that's unlikely. If it did, I could just stick it in, and be done with it (I hope).


THis is the inside fan that runs on 48VDC (since I had to use the other fans on the outside).

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On the right edge of the pic is another fan hanging there to push the air directly at me, and for when the AC isn't working.

THe bike battery is just to the right of that fan, on the windowsill.

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I just charge it before I go to sleep and before I leave and it ought to run the fan fine for as long as I need. I don't want to leave the charger on it, but it'll be fine. Fan only uses about 600mA (rated at 700mA on the label, but it doesn't draw that at these voltages), so it should run for quite some time, at least 10-12 hours, before the pack gets anywhere near LVC levels.


We'll see how it works over the next few hours/etc, but at least for the moment I'm not melting.

[karma]

pics of the controller?

[amberwolf]

Yeah, well, those will come. I'm still trying to cool off; I fell asleep a while ago (more like passed out I think) when I finally got to sit down after the A/C was working, and I am still not very awake (but I can't sleep now). Also the camera battery is charging. Well, probably charged by now since i stuck in there before i sat down.

Oh, and the controller actively shorts the battery but not a dead short, as it doesn't blow the fuse. (40A? I forget). Just brings the LED meter down to "dead" and dimly lights up the "dead" light. All while sizzling of course. So it had to be left disconnected from the battery.

ok, maybe i will sleep a little, dozed off twice writing this.

[amberwolf]

First, pics of the controller. Really, I dont' see any problem, just like before. I'll have to take the caps out and test them, or just replace them. Then retest and see if anything else got toasted.

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The rest of the post is about the A/C stuff and my transporter console:

The external fan solution with those four little fans worked great for most of the night, even while it was raining. I thought they would die from the rain, but they did not have any trouble at all, as far as I can tell. WOrked better actually, because of the cooling the rain did on the coils, keeping the fans from getting hot. Didn't freeze up like the previous (Goldstar) unit did when raining, though. So either it doesn't have as great a differential as the Goldstar or else that 48V fan has such a great airflow thru the internal coils that the coils don't have a chance to collect enough moisture to freeze it. Either way, it does work in rain, at least.

But...after daybreak the unit kept stopping the compressor, presumably from overheating (>150F air at the fans). I don't have the patience anymore in this heat to keep re-fixing it; I've *got* to get the bike fixed, too, and other stuff...and I can't wait for whatever programs there are for this kind of thing to figure out if I'm worthy, once I find them and fill out whatever paperwork they have (seems to always take these kinds of places weeks, if they even ever get back to me).

So today while helping a friend move my transporter console

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back here so I can build a new base for it and do some other fixing for it to be displayed at Coppercon next month,

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Click for closeup of the funny sticker on the end:

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we also looked at a few places for new A/C units. Prices for one similar to what I already had was about $100; 5,000BTU. But I found a Kenmore display model on clearance at Sears for a 10,000BTU unit for $131 (was $200 originally). Faceplate was falling off, and they said there wasnt' any paperwork or remote for it, but I didn't care, that's a lot of cooling power for the price, from what I could find, and I need as much as I can get.

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Obviously I don't care what things look like as long as they work. (I had to mount it in my bedroom's bathroom window rather than the bedroom proper, and remove the door from the bathroom so air can flow freely between the two. Currently just a regular table fan is helping force air circulation between the two, but I'll make a duct to do this later, for more efficient air circulation).

Paying for it, well, it'll come out of all the other household budget sections this month and I'll have to catch up next month or the one after that, hopefully. (if I can keep up the hours at work it won't take all that long, I hope).

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For now it is nearly mounted correctly in the window, but is not fully secure, so I left a rack cabinet from an old HP tape drive system (wish I had the drive--they have kickass motors in them) under it to help hold it up until I finish securing it tomorrow (or whenever I finally have the time and am not melting or exhausted).

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Since the tape drive that was in it is VERY heavy and is all within the front foot or less of the rack, in the top half (where it's open in the pic), there is a MASSIVE ballast bolted to the bottom of the rack in back, which is as heavy as the whole rest of the cabinet, and two extendable legs with adjustable feet that stick out the front, to keep it from tipping over. I used those legs/feet with their screw-in tips to force the cabinet to push against the wall and not roll around.

Turns out they did have the remote for it, and the paperwork, and brought it down to the pick-up dock with the unit to load it in my friend's truck (had to cheat like this because I haven't had the chance to fix the bike's controller yet, and it's too hot for me to haul the trailer plus ~70lbs of A/C unit plus the bike (even if I take the motor and stuff off) if I am only pedalling. I'm just not healthy enough anymore, though I am slowly getting better.


Now for the interesting part. The remote looked oddly familiar, though untl I got home I did not realize why. It is identical to the remote for the Goldstar unit that died, except it doesn't have as many buttons:

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The old Goldstar remote operates the new Kenmore A/C unit, too. The Goldstar is several years old, so that's actually a surprise to me, even though it is evident that LG (inheritors of Goldstar's technology) built both of them, years apart. The interior design, layout, and parts choices are virtually identical, too. I think the Goldstar was a great unit, lasted for years, so I have hopes that the Kenmore will as well, based on what I see of it.

Maybe if I am clever enough, now that I have a working unit in the Kenmore, I can now take both the Goldstar and the other unit and combine them to make one working unit, using the Goldstar's controls and electronics if possible.

[karma]

good deal on the air unit. love the console

[amberwolf]

It's my favorite prop of all the ones I've ever built. I think the tricorder (which I don't have anymore after it blew up) was my second favorite. My third is that crazy giant ugly gun made from a crutch and stuff, which I've still got around here somewhere.

It was also fun to make; it's nearly the only project I've ever been able to do *with* someone else, actually working side by side with them on it, over about a month. And the cool factor vs cost/complexity ration is HUGE, too.

The little cases on it's base are the very same kind they used on the show itself, but only one is painted similar to theirs (the gray one). The other two I had made before they had actually used them on the show; I had found these 30- and 15- cassette carrying cases at KMart and just thought they'd make cool cases for some of my little props.

The gun in front of the cases is made from a grip off a paintball gun, and I think part of a barrel from one, with some cases off Panasonic camcorder batteries for the rear part of the gun, and some other bits of junk, and all painted black.

[amberwolf]

Well, with all the stuff that's been happening this weekend (mostly dealing with my crazy schizo sister) I never got the controller fixed (still digging thru my stuff for compatible capacitors--since I seem to have misplaced my DMM with capacitance tester I am just going to replace the main ones again and see if it works).

So today I put the Fusin hub/wheel back on, and then remembered that I had yet to get the bent rim fixed. Well, I had to live with it if I wanted motor assist to work, so I just did what I could with the rim and got it another 1/8" back toward true, but I really need to take the wheel apart to fix this, and replace the rim, since I probably can't rebend it back enough to let the spokes true it the rest of the way.

Also, because I did not have a spoke tool with me when the original accident happened, I screwed up a few of the nipples with my little pliers I had to use at the time, so the spoke tool won't work on them. Today I used a flatblade screwdriver for part of adjusting them, but some need to be turned so tighly that the screwdriver slipped and tore up the slot. I can dremel a slot 90° to the original to continue, but if I toast that one too then I'd have to use pliers just to remove the nipples.

I don't have any other 12-gauge nipples to replace them with, except maybe the ones on the 9C wheel, which I don't want to mess with since that wheel is fine, true, and works. (just the controller doesn't, at the moment). So it's possible that when I do rebuild this wheel, I'll have to use regular bike spokes and nipples to replace those specific ones, if I have any the right length, since I may not be able to properly tension the spokes with the damaged nipples.

I'm considering splicing the 9C into the Fusin's controller harness but I am not sure how well the Fusin will run the 9C and am afraid I might toast the Fusin controller, too. Then the only spares I will have are some old analog Crystalyte controllers (which I think are pedal first? can't remember) that should work, but which I'd need to figure out the wiring for phase/halls.


More fun about to happen, too, since on my way home from work the main lights started flickering, then the power meter went to "dead", with no motor response from the Fusin. I thought it was the controller, but it wasn't. Then I thought maybe the DC-DC failed internally and was shorting the pack, but that wasnt' it. Turned out there is something intermittent in the 13Ah NiMH pack, probably in my kluged add-on harness to it--under vibration it'll come back, but only for an instant.

I couldnt' get it to come back permanently while on the road, so I had to wait till I got home to verify, and it does work ok with my 9Ah pack (the one being used on the kluged-together A/C unit until Saturday). So now I get to take the 13Ah NiMH pack apart to fix, too, starting with my wiring, being the most likely place for failure.

Fortunately riding home was at night, and a little cooler than daytime, (waaaay cooler than it was at midday when the other controller died on the way *to* work). Plus the Fusin has nowhere near the cogging resistance that the 9C does, even though I have disabled the freewheeling in it. Enough to notice, but not enough to cause me grief trying to pedal it.

With the 9C, I had to shift to the granny ring in front to even get going from a stop, and barely could go halfway up the scale of rear gears even when going (yes, I am a wuss; my knees hurt too much and I am not strong enough). With the Fusin I could actually start from the two lowest rear gears when on the largest front ring, but could use the full range of rear gears when on the middle ring.

So the Fusin is a blessing for a few reasons. If only I hadn't bent the rim.


Now I've got to (probably unsuccessfully) try to get *some* sleep before opening shift at work tomorrow early morning (after having closing shift tonight). So no progress on anything till tomorrow after work at the earliest.

[amberwolf]

Yesterday was kind of a wash; got home so tired that I didn't really get anything useful done with all the little naps I didn't mean to take.

Today I managed to find a cap to replace the main cap in the 6FET again, and that fixed the problem. I didn't try testing the other caps but none sizzle now (just the big one if i put pack voltage across it).

I decided to keep the Fusin on DGA for now, and put the 9C and Lyen 6FET on a "spare" bike built for the purpose tonite, The Velcro Eclipse:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20595&start=0

More to come as I have time to work on things.

[amberwolf]

I found the problem with the 13Ah battery--the bladefuse holder's clips were slightly spread apart, and so the fuse would vibrate out of the clips. I tightned them by squishing them together a little, and also added a little foam inside the holder lid to keep it from coming out even if it vibrates.

In other news, karma apologized for the A/C unit, and fed my dogs for the next month and a half. $312 worth of dog food. For $23, simply because the shelf spots for them were taken over by other brands of food.

I bought it while at work today, but now I have to bike back up there with the trailer to haul it home, in 106F heat. Oh, well, that's life. As soon as the battery is recharged from the to/from work trip, I'm off.

[amberwolf]

Trip was a success, and I only had a wheel fall off once.
Full account is here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewto ... 89#p300489

Power usage on the trip (using the Fusin motor/controller and the 36V 13Ah NiMH pack):

121Wh total
3.25Ah total
16.7A peak (controller limited, ran the whole way on "low" setting).
4.941 miles total (less than usual due to some shortcuts I took walking the bike/trailer across no-thru-intersections that normally I would have to ride at least 1/4 mile out of the way to get around).
8.3MPH avg

Outbound (unloaded):
2.22 miles
44.4Wh
1.25Ah

Inbound (loaded with 200lbs+ in trailer):
2.721 miles
76.6Wh
2.0Ah

DSC03092.JPG (61.21 KiB) Viewed 1090 times

[novembersierra28]

hehehe must have been quite the ride, I remember when I rode in 100F heat, temples begin pulsing and I feel sick when that happens, can't imagine how you managed it, but as you said, that's life!
How's the bike getting along?

Trip was a success, and I only had a wheel fall off once.
Full account is here:
viewtopic.php?p=300489#p300489

Power usage on the trip (using the Fusin motor/controller and the 36V 13Ah NiMH pack):

121Wh total
3.25Ah total
16.7A peak (controller limited, ran the whole way on "low" setting).
4.941 miles total (less than usual due to some shortcuts I took walking the bike/trailer across no-thru-intersections that normally I would have to ride at least 1/4 mile out of the way to get around).
8.3MPH avg

Outbound (unloaded):
2.22 miles
44.4Wh
1.25Ah

Inbound (loaded with 200lbs+ in trailer):
2.721 miles
76.6Wh
2.0Ah

DSC03092.JPG

[amberwolf]

hehehe must have been quite the ride, I remember when I rode in 100F heat, temples begin pulsing and I feel sick when that happens, can't imagine how you managed it, but as you said, that's life!

Well, it's a lot drier here than where you are, so exercising in 100F there would probably make most people sick. Even when it's "really humid" here, it's probably not as much so as there. That said, it still sucks when doing pedal-only rides in this heat; even beyond just how my knees feel. WIth the motor, it is far easier on me in many ways. Some things I need to do would not even be possible anymore without the motor (like hauling lots of heavy cargo).

How's the bike getting along?

It's ok so far, but it needs an overhaul. Rear rack/pod is getting kinda wiggly. Not a lot, just sort of a not-quite-stiff feeling. I'm not sure if it's metal fatigue in the aluminum panels or if it is just working loose, or if (much worse) something is wrong with the aluminum rear triangle of the bike itself.

I sort of suspect the latter, because even unloaded the back end doesn't feel right anymore. I need to take the rack and panels off completely and check for cracks, before I smear myself on pavement when something comes off under load at speed.

I've still got the Fusin on it, and will probably switch that over to the Velcro Eclipse, and put the 9C back on DGA; it definitely makes a difference when hauling stuff, trying to take off from a stop, even when current-limited. The Fusin could easily handle the Velcro Eclipse, and is a little more "stealth" than the 9C. And lighter. Since TVE doesn't have a big enough space in the bag for the big NiMH pack, using the smaller motor with the smaller pack makes more sense from a range standpoint, too.

[amberwolf]

Another care package from Ianmcnally:

DSC03117.JPG (24.13 KiB) Viewed 899 times

DSC03119.JPG (34.15 KiB) Viewed 899 times

A few ebrake handles, the two-wire kind, which I actually sort of need right now for The Velcro Eclipse so I can test out regen braking on it.

A couple of dead controllers; a Crystalyte pedal-first and an instant start that looks from the outside like some of the Infineons (haven't had time to open it yet).

Three bundles of spokes; two are unused and one is from a rim that's coming in a separate package, which I can use to replace the bent on on the Fusin. The spokes themselves are too long for the 9C and too short for the Fusin, at least on a 26" wheel (might be perfect for a 24"), but the nipples will be useful for the Fusin re-rimming assuming the threads are the same. The used spokes have washers on them, which may prove useful in other relacings.

A thumb throttle with a wire broken out of it's connector (easy to fix, if that's all that's wrong).

Two keyswitches that appear to be about the same as the Fusin's, for power capacity.

Two 3PDT switches, one of which I'm going to test out Auraslip's phase-lock idea, along with a flip-cap to prevent ever accidentally switching the lock on while riding/etc.

DSC03140.JPG (13.85 KiB) Viewed 899 times

I can send a flip-cap to Auraslip for his, too. (but I think I will put both switches to use as locks on DGA and TVE)

Some Crystalyte-style connectors/pins and Anderson connectors (will be very useful soon, to change the ones on the 9C and Lyen controller over, as soon as I have time--make it easier to swap motors and controllers out for testing and experimenting. Maybe on the Fusin, too).

12-volt NiMH charger, to go with the other 12V worth of NiMH F-cells, originally from the big pack sent to me that's now on DGA.

Two not-quite-working WattsUP:

DSC03121.JPG (9.33 KiB) Viewed 899 times

which doesn't read any voltage, just current:

DSC03123.JPG (8.63 KiB) Viewed 899 times

I thougth that was really bizarre until I took the velcro off the back and saw this:

DSC03129.JPG (37.77 KiB) Viewed 1072 times

where it appears to have had a little overcurrent at some point. The shunt solder melted and dribbled down onto other components:

DSC03134.JPG (37.55 KiB) Viewed 1072 times

I can clean up the solder, so assuming no electrical damage occured, it might work after that.
The other WU has a severe display problem:

DSC03122.JPG (7.06 KiB) Viewed 899 times

which could be the LCD or the MCU. If I hold it just right I can see text flickering within the dark blocks on the LCD top line, so something is happening and it's not "dead". If it's just the LCD, perhaps I can combine the MCU board from this one and the LCD from the green one, and make one working one.

Hachi was curious during the unpacking and picture taking at first:

DSC03132.JPG (69.48 KiB) Viewed 1072 times

But she got bored pretty quick.

DSC03133.JPG (63.91 KiB) Viewed 1064 times

None of the others even came over to check it out (too hot, probably).

Now I have to go get TVE ready to ride out to meet a friend with a truck, to pick up a dead treadmill from Freecycle.

[amberwolf]

Got the treadmill, nice motor and some other stuff.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewto ... 15#p303915
Probably gonna use parts on my in-progress cargo bike.

[amberwolf]

I spent a part of last night retruing the rear wheel, which I had not gotten back to after I whacked the bike on that curb and messed it up a bit back. Put the brakes back together back there, too, and finally had rear brakes again.

Headed off to work today on it and hit a stupid pothole I always manage to miss, turning a corner, and messed up the rear wheel so bad that I could not even spin it past that point against the brakes, which were pinned against the cargo rack side plate by the rim. I had to gimpily walk the bike home the 1/2 mile or so in the heat and humidity, then take Velcro Eclipse to work instead. I was already late by the time I reached the house, as it took at least 45 minutes to go that half mile. (I'm no longer a fast walker with these knees the way they are, especially basically carrying the heavy back end of DGA the whole way, while trying to steer it at the same time.)

I'm just glad I had put TVE together and tested it out last week, or I'd've been a lot later to work, since I'd've had to replace the rear wheel on DGA first. Now I can put that off until I have time for it, which will probably be Saturday. Today I worked closing shift and tomorrow I work opening, and then have to go help a friend try to save a harddisk. Rest of the week I need to be working on my TNG transporter console and the UFP club's classic console so that they will be ready for Coppercon and the UFP's anniversary gathering.

[amberwolf]

The bent wheel problem above turned out to be a couple of broken spokes, which when swapped out were able to retrue the wheel to at least not rub the brakes, but I didn't get it far enough to put the brakes back on yet.

Yesterday on teh way home form work I was passing by a thrift store and they were about to toss out some stuff that hadn't sold, including these (still strapped to DGA):

DSC03166.JPG (51.83 KiB) Viewed 1036 times

They're a pair of skis, which might be usable in part as leaf springs, for a trailer if not for a bike. They don't have any holes drilled in them for shoe clamps, which makes them nicer in that I get to decide where to put the "weak spots" those will create. I am not sure what they are made of internally yet. Nice color, though.


When I got home, the other box from Ianmcnally showed up:

DSC03167.JPG (37.23 KiB) Viewed 870 times

That rim will replace the bent FUsin rim until I get a way to unbend it. Won't be able to do the work very soon, though; tomorrow is full:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewto ... 62#p306462
and next week I work every day but Saturday, and that day I have to finish anything left to do on the transporter console(s) and attend the gathering they're being shown at.

Unexpectedly there is also a Slime tire liner in there, which I can also definitely use, and another 12V NiMH charger with pack thermistor (whcih I also need).


In other news, a local friend found an ACE Hardware closing down that had all their stuff half off, and picked me up some DayGlo paints and white primer (among other things), so DGA will again glow brightly, once time permits properly stripping it down and repainting it.

[karma]

i had no idea you took rims i have a closet full