2WD Semi-Recumbent Recycled-Parts Cargo eBike: "CrazyBike2"

[amberwolf]

When I finished checking out and doing some input-power-wire fixes to the Venom charger
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=395294#p395294
I tried to set it up on my laptop via USB, but even though the laptop detects the charger and does install teh drivers, the VEnom program itself doesn't seem to talk to the charger--not only does it not read any cell voltages, but it doesn't even read the charger's settings, which it appears it should be able to do.

I hooked up the most negative balance taps from the Vpower pack to the charger's balance connector, and just the negative from the pack, and set it to 7s, since the tap has seven wires. Theoretically that should give it the ability to read those first cell groups, but apparently not. No error messages, but no voltage readings either.

I did not attempt to start any charge or discharge operations, as I don't want to do anything other than monitor the cells while the bike does the discharging, but I suspect that I'd have to have it doing some operation via the charger before it would send any data to teh PC.

Maybe I'll contact Venom and see if they A) will answer and B) have a clue what I'm asking for.

 

[amberwolf]

All my projects are on hold again....I got this little letter from the city today, which says I have 10 days to clean up the property, including removing the inoperable vehicle (the parts car I have covered completely in the driveway), trimming trees, grass, etc., and removing all the crap my crazy sister keeps piling up on the front porch (instead of taking it away liek she should be).

Oh, and I'm sure I also have to move all teh stuff I ahve saved in teh backyard too, since it's a chainlink fence and thus can be seen beyond the property line. I think most of it will fit in the house, but hten I can't move around in it in the wheelchair, and I can't use the crutches because A) it hurts too much and B) the dogs tend to run into them and knock me down.

The catch with doing ANY of this is that I have my fractured leg kind of keeping me from lifting and moving pretty much any of htis stuff, although I might be able to use an electric weedeater / string trimmer to take care of the grass, while sitting in the wheelchair.


Apparently it started with someone complaining about the stuff of my sisters on the porch, so you see how karma comes back and does bad things when you try to protect yourself and others.


I've got less than ten days to deal with it before they fine me (a lot), which of course I can't afford.

Hopefully I can find freinds to help but it will be a challenge as most only ahve weekends to do that and I typically work weekends. My time during the week may be limited too, as I am trying to get hold of AZ DES for the completion of my paperwork for healthcare /etc assistance, to help with the bill for my leg, and also hopefully to help with the hours I am now not getting at work because I'm injured enough to be unable to do most things, so they have to give some of my hours to people that can still do those things.

This is going to be "interesting" to try to resolve.



Second node of commuting data, since I'm gonna run it down again to see how consistent it is:
39m 15s trip time
9.034miles
23.2mph max
13.8mph avg

29.7Wh/mile
5.247Ah
266.49Wh
62.26Amax

53Vstart
52.6Vrest
46.9Vmin

 

[docnjoj]

Usually (but not always)the magestrates that send out those kind of letters can be human beings too. I'd go talk to him/her and demonstrate your "medical condition". They may give you an extra month or two to clean up the place.
otherDoc

 

[Alan B]

Usually (but not always)the magestrates that send out those kind of letters can be human beings too. I'd go talk to him/her and demonstrate your "medical condition". They may give you an extra month or two to clean up the place.
otherDoc

This is likely, but you must contact them BEFORE the ten days are up and negotiate something.

A more solid fence might be worthwhile for the backyard. Can slats be slipped into the wire?

 

[amberwolf]

The little strips can be put into the chainlink fence, but I haven't got anything opaque to make them from, and definitely cant' afford to go buy them. I've pondered doing that for years now, but never found an affordable way yet.


I have a feeling that it is some realtors complaining, because there are two houses in the area being seriously fixed up, probably for sale (no for sale sign yet). Probalby a few other houses in the area got notices too.

Anyway, I called the inspector's office to see about an extension, and htye just said they'd have the inspector call back, no idea when or whatever, so I have to continue doing what I can.

In the last several hours today, all I have managed to do is to clear enough path in the backyard stuff (which isn't really that much) to get to the other wheelchari (used to be my mom's) and her old walker, too. Got them cleaned up and in the house, so maybe I can rig a towbar on the bike for the wheelchair, to take it and the walker to work and leave there to use instead of crutches whenever possible.

Oh, and I cleared the first bit of the back room so I can start cutting the junked carpet out in sections, then restack stuff on the cleared section, then cut more carpet, etc. It sucks but it's all I have that I can do---there's no way I can move everything out of the room and then roll up and remove the carpet in one piece; I simply couldn't do that kind of lifting and dragging even in the wheelchair. I can barely do what I already did today, and now I'm very worn out and hurting (even my fracture is throbbing; I must've hit it on something again).

One friend I described the situation to declined to help, as he is still exhausted from a trip he just got back from; he's also in his 60s so I don't blame him. Another friend hasn't gotten back to me yet.

Landlord will be out of town this weekend, maybe longer, so dunno if she can send anyone over to help.

As soon as I can stand to lift and drag stuff again, I'm going to cable-lock the kennel trailer, with it's top off, to the powerchair, and use that to haul my crazy sister's stuff on the porch around to the alley. I figure it will probably take at least a couple of hours just to do that, with stops to rest and whatnot. I haven't seen her in over a week so I have no idea where she is or what she is doing, but she's going to have a bad surprise when she gets back. I can't do anything else with it but that.

 

[amberwolf]

Cant' do any more cleanup right now, so worked on fixing a problem I have had for a while with the chain catching on the hose clamp that holds PackA of the NiMH in place, only when I back up (not when pedalling forward). It happens mostly because slack develops in the top of the chain so it sags a bit and then catches on the leading edge of the clamp.

Normally it's not much of an issue since if it happens I just lean over to the right, move forward a bit, and it doens't catch. But with my leg the way it is, I can't lean to the right, so instead I have to go forward a bit and hold the chain off with my fingers while trying to back up more, and stay leaned to the left so I don't put any weight on my right leg. This is really hard, especially while trying to go up the step into the house (backwards) while seated on the bike, and also not catch the pods or the handlebars on the doorframe, or run over a silly dog trying to greet me.


Anyway, I still didn't care enough to fix it until last night, when I saw sparks from the clamp/chain scraping thru the NiMH's plastic coverings. I decided that was very bad, so once I could get to it today, I dug out some stuff to fix it with.

Between the NiMH and everything else is a sheet of plastic cut from the back of the packaging of my old Harbor Freight pop-rivet tool, basically the entire back of the package except the edges. It's not as flat as I'd like, with some ridges for package stiffness, but it was the easiest thing I could get to that was big enough in a single piece.

Just outside of that is a 3/32" or so thick aluminum plate, off the bottom of some defunct ECG module (the inside front panel of which was used a while back to mount the battery bag on The Velcro Eclipse, and the top panel of which was recently used to help spread the load of mounting the Vpower pack on the side of CB2, inside the black box). This is there to help prevent any chain contact with the NiMH, regardless of whatever happens with leaning and whatnot.

Then I made sure the NiMH is scooted over as far to the left as it can go, in the little SLA-sized rail I built from the bottom of a UPS along that part of the frame. The aluminum plate and plastic sheet are inserted between the edge of the rail and the pack, and pinned there by pressure from the pack as I tightened the hose clamp again. This also keeps the pack more upright and hoepfully will keep it from shifting rightward, allowing the clamp to stick out too much liek before.

The clamp itself is now much more out of the way, and is straightened a bit from the chain-catches with some pliers, but it still sticks out a bit and may be a problem still. I did move the bent-outward part up a bit so it shouldn't line up with the sagging chain, at least.
View attachment 3



I started to tackle the job of a hitch for the wheelchair,
View attachment 1
but I got so tired so suddenly that I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I ended up dozing off sitting there in the other wheelchair. Woke up a bit later to a dog licking my eye, but I'm still too tired to work with tools safely, so just a couple pics to ponder with for now.

Pardon the mess under/behind the bike (at the bottom of the pic); those are "oopsie" papers to stick over and pickup messes the poopie-dogs sometimes leave (they had no problems with this fro a long time, but now they do again, or at least an undetermined pair of them).

 

[Alan B]

Amberwolf, I would slip a piece of plastic tubing on the hose clamp to make it chain friendly. They can bump but it won't matter!

 

[amberwolf]

Huh....why didn't I think of that? :? Thanks!

I'll have to go find the various tubing I have later, but for now I can at least tie some clipstrip-plastic around it, in a roll. That plastic is what's used to keep the batteries themselves from touching anything, under their tape, and some of it is very slick and thick.

Or I can use some sodabottle or shampoo bottle plastic.

Not just at teh moment, though; I'm not getting up out of bed for anything for a while. Gotta keep this leg elevated as much as possible.

 

[amberwolf]

Ha--I wish.

Today I tried to work out a towbar for the wheelchair, but I didn't have enough time before work (after all the other stuff I'm trying to do now, all of which seems to take several times as long to do now). So I just used a doggie tie-out cable (I picked up a bunch of them super-cheap on clearance something near a year ago, to make various bike lock cables with, among other things).

It has the typical leash-type springclip on each end, which just happens to fit exactly thru the holes in the lower cargo rails. (Formerly those were rackmount equipment mounting rails.) I could find no way to string it up such that the front wheels were off the ground, which is what I wanted to do, without pulling it right up tight against the back of the bike. So I just looped thru the front legs and then the crossbar underneath, and going really slow, around 10MPH, the whole way.

Wherever possible I did not come to a stop, but rather had to try rolling stops like almost every car does, but at the traffic lights this wasn't possible, only at the intersections where there were only signs and no traffic around. If I saw a lot of traffic I slowed down so that I might get there about when it would all have passed, and usually it worked out.

Despite going so slow, not a single car honked at me or had anyone yell at me, though several pedestrians laughed as I went by (I'm sure it was quite funny to see this bike with crutches sticking out the back of the seat and a wheelchair in tow). Only one SUV-type gunned their engine to swerve around me (where all the others passed normally, many with signals!), and even they completely went into the next lane to do it.

I had only one problem, and that was at a turn with big mushed up asphalt ridges, where the front right tire of the wheelchair must've caught on that, and dragged sideways, because it popped the tire off the plastic rim. I cannot get it back on there, either, by myself. Fortunately I can still use it just fine, it's just that the RF wheel is now about an inch "higher" than the LF, so unless I lean toward the left-rear I don't get much traction on the left large wheel on the slick linoleum at work. The chair will stay at work until I am better, and I'll use the other chair at home/etc.

Third node of commuting data, since I'm gonna run it down again to see how consistent it is:
1h 3m 12s trip time
13.84miles
23.2mph max
13.1mph avg

28.3Wh/mile
7.700Ah
392.48Wh
62.26Amax

52.6Vstart
52.2Vrest
46.9Vmin

Wierdly, I got regen readings this time, where that NEVER happened before. I do not have ebrakes hooked up ATM, either, nor did I change any wiring or connections, so I do not know why (which is a bit worrisome).

REGEN: 0.2%
0.0223Ah
-2.78A

I've gotten negative A before on the Amin, but never more than a few mA, IIRC. Certainly never this much, and Regen has always been zero.

It'd be nice to use regen to slow the ibke down as the brakes aren't really enough, but it's wierd that it would suddenly start happening. Also taht it would happen only when I am going slowly (I think I saw when it happened, as I saw negative A on the lower right of the main screen for a moment, just as I was checking my speed once, on the way to work--I was at about 12-13MPH and decided to let off the throttle some but not completely, and that's when i saw it. Might've happened more than once here and there, but I don't know.

I read you were using curtis controller for your crazybike2 with a powerchair motor .

I just wondered then if you were also able to get the low cruise ( if you could call it that ) speeds you'd normally on find on a mobility device s as well ?

I'm not sure what you mean by low cruise, but it could go at whatever speed it's commanded by the throttle, entirely dependent on the gearing chosen and voltage at the motor. Since the bike itself is unstable steering-wise under around 8-9MPH, and requires too much arm-power to keep it balanced, I don't ride it below that speed if I can help it. If someone else were to hold up the bike so I wouldn't have to do that, I could run it at less than 1MPH if desired.

Same thing with the 2QD before the Curtis, and the heavily-modified ScootNGo before that.

 

[amberwolf]

I ended up messing up my second full-drain test of the Vpower, because today before work I realized that it would probably only have enough power to get me partway to work, and given the time of day and traffic, I didn't want to risk that being in the middle of an in-traffic maneuver, since I cannot pedal at all right now.

What I thought I would do first was to just use the NiMH, but I had forgotten I had used it already for enough to run it down quite a ways, and forgotten to recharge it afterward. So it was down to maybe just a couple of Ah avaialble in it. I could tell this just by how it felt when I sat ont eh bike to move it partway out the door so I could move some stuff thru the room this morning. No way I was going to get to/from work on that, and it takes too long to recharge and then cool off.

So I recharged (partially) the Vpower pack, meaning I have to start over with the capacity test, and so I reset the CA, too. I did note down all the numbers from it the other night after work, but forgot to note down yesterday's usage on a trip I started (but didnt' finish due to my leg and other bits of me hurting too much) to the store.

When I got home from work today I also didn't note down the commute data; I scrolled thru it to look at, meant to go get a pen and do that, then for some reason I reset it just before doing that and then realized I screwed up. All I recall for sure was 27.0Wh/mile.

So the third set of commute data from the interrupted cycle is:
1h 24m 12s trip time
18.58miles
23.2mph max
13.2mph avg

28Wh/mile
10.26Ah
521.32Wh
62.26Amax

52.2Vstart
51.3Vrest
46.5Vmin

Again I got regen numbers, still don't know why:
0.04%
0.427Ah (I might be one decimal place off, but this is what I wrote down)
-2.78Amin

Gotta see why i get regen because I *want* regen braking, I just want it to happen when I ask for it, not just whenever it happens.

 

[Alan B]

I also get small regen numbers, and don't have regen enabled. I think it happens when the throttle is backed off, for a brief moment there is some regen. I suspect it happens when power is being applied but not quite enough to overcome the current speed. There is a window when the FETs are still pulsing, since they conduct both ways when they are on, for some small amount of regen.

 

[amberwolf]

I'd think that too, except that it never happened before, and nothing has changed that I can think of.

At first I thought it might be that it's now the Vpower pack rather than NiMH, but it didn't do that at the race, nor in any of the pre-race testing. :?

I still need to open up the controller to actually enable regen on it and to setup a CA-DP connection to it just for some experimentation.

 

[amberwolf]

From the ArizonaHelpingArizonans mailing list, I got a couple boxes of assorted bits and pieces, including a couple of hydraulic car jacks. Dunno yet if they work or not; not really a lot of time to check stuff out right now.

The only thing I thought of using them for so far was to build the cylinder into a self-raising jack for the bike, to mount "upside down" to it so it could be used on any roadside repair or home service, etc. Heckuva kickstand.

If there was an easy way to actuate them quickly, I could put stabilizer wheels on there instead, but these are the type you have to turn the screw a bit in one direction, then pump up to jack up. To do the reverse you ahve to turn the screw the other way to let the pressure back into the reservoir. I can't think of a quick and easy way to automate that so I could press a button on the bars and have it lower the stabilizers so I could use them while on-road at stops and whatnot.

 

[amberwolf]

I have not been keeping track of usage data like I should. Too much going on right now and I forget or just end up with a bad attitude when I do remember, and don't bother. :|

Had to stop at the store on the way home; end of this week's sale tonight, with half-off chicken breast and 1/3 off veggies, etc., gotta stock up while these sales last.

Anyway, I forgot about having to do this, so I dind't remember to shift the Vpower pack forward and put the other pod on there, so I had to get creative about carrying evertying home:

I strapped the backpack (with about 1/4 of the stuff in it) between the rear seat bracket (that the lights are mounted on) and the top of the Vpower pack's case. The "front" strap of the pack is secured over the bar, and I tied the loose ends of the shoulder straps to the bungee cord that secures the lid of the Vpower pack.

Then the other bungee I kept in the pack "just in case" is secured from teh back of the cargo rail up thru the top handle and over the seat bracket, then back down to teh rail on the front. Surprisingly, this arrangement held perfectly fine thru the entire ~3 miles home.


The only real issue I had was not tipping to the right at stops, so I now have a much more throbbing leg due to having to push back with it to keep from falling over a couple of times.

Oh, and my back tire doesnt have nearly enough air in it for this kind of load; guess I must've had a puncture somewhere along the line and the Slime filled it but let some air out. Don't know when; it's not flat but it's only got maybe 15-20PSI in there. Tough to ride this way. Gotta air it up before next ride.

Load on the bakc right now is...whatever the Vpower weighs (25lbs? 30? I forget), plus the crutches (2-3lbs?) plus my minimalist tools (2lbs?) plus about 40lbs of groceries, plus about 4-5lbs for backpack, work clothes, etc. Worst case, about 80lbs.

(I had some other stuff to post about in there somewhere, but I've dozed off at least twice writing this, and I don't remember anymore. Wish I could stay asleep).

 

[amberwolf]

I remembered one thing I wanted to post:

I am still having incredible trouble backing the bike into the house with my leg the way it is, so I want to see if I can power it in instead, to get it up over the step/doorjamb. Right now, half the time I have to get off the bike, wedge myself against the doorframe and a crutch, and try to drag the bike in past me, because I'm too worn out or hurting to get it over the danged step.

So I did some searching, and found a post that might be about it but it has a dead pic so I am not sure if it is (or what pads, since it's not in the text). Might just be using the wrong search terms, but I looked in the various XC/"infineon" info threads to no avail. What pads on the typical XC 8xx series controllers would be used to switch to reverse mode (if possible)?

I also asked over here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=399897#p399897


I also opened it up and took some pics of what pads it has and whatnot (but somehow misplaced the camera afterward, so can't upload the pics yet ).

While in there, I found that the blue/yellow wire pair that has bullets attached (the only ones like this, male on yellow and female on blue), are attached to EBS+ (yellow) and a pad near the voltage regulators called "SM" (blue). I cant' find any info about the "SM" pad, either. I have run the controller with and without that connection, with no difference I can see.


I checked for shorts or anything on the BK and GND pads that might cause the intermittent regen, and found nothing. I soldered them together, and verified regen does work this way, whenever the EBS- is shorted to ground (yellow and black wires to outside of case).

I don't have room on the right side to add an ebrake lever, and I'm not awake enough or with good enough coordination right now to wire up the relay I keep meaning to on the brakelight lever. So for the moment I just wired the ebrake to the Stop-Run-Stop knob on the right control cluster, which I can reach ok with my thumb, if I take it off the throttle. The knob is made so it connects while on Stop, but not on Run. Dunno why, but it means brakign happens in either direction it's turned, and only allows throttle in center (Run).

I wanted to use the Start button just below it, but that button has it's outer contact wired to ground and the case of the housing, which would ground it to the bike frame (whcih is 12V ground, and theoretically also bottom of the traction pack ground). But I do not want to risk shorting something in the controller to chassis ground if it is not already at that ground, which I don't know for sure. Better safe than sorry. So I used the SRS knob instead, for now.

Anyway, after all the wiring, I did off-the-ground tests to see if it worked as expected. Took some doing to prop up the front end with a metal box to let the wheel spin, cuz I can't lift it right now.

I was hoping that the throttle would control regen variably, but it doesn't. Maybe if I brought out the BK and GND wires to a switch, and engaged them only *after* throttling up, then it would do so. But it doesn't do it with BK shorted to GND in the controller.

It does at least work correctly with full regen braking when using the SRS knob, verified via the CA's Regen page. Didn't do much testing other than to be sure it works.

But I noticed something else different, and wondered what I'd done: The CA showed idle current of about 200mA, when it had been about 70mA. Made me start pondering, and looking for problems with the wiring I just added.

At some point I shut off the CFL headlight/taillight, and found usage went down to the usual 70mA, which was confusing.

Eventually I found that the ground wire for the throttle was pinched under the hose clamp of PackA, the NiMH I'd remounted a few days back. Ooops.

So, that tells me that most likely grounding the ebrake ground wouldn't hurt anything, but I was tired enough I decided to leave the brake wires on the SRS switch instead of moving it to the Start button. Maybe later.

Anyway, I fixed the pinched wire and found no connection to frame /chassis ground to the cotnroller, now, and the CA usage was back to normal.



So now I have regen braking, dunno how hard it will brake, or how well it will work with the Vpower pack vs the NiMH. Should be an interesting test. Save some wear on brake pads, anyway.

Also gotta remember to recheck the axle nuts often now, probably after the first few hundred feet of testing tomorrow (today, really), as a first check. Don't want to rip the wheel off just braking.


Oh, also, I aired up the back tire to 50PSI again; it's holding fine over last few hours so hopefully it's not a slow leak or aything.

 

[Alan B]

Looks like the DX3 pad controls reverse.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7361

 

[amberwolf]

Cool--thanks! I missed that part somehow.


Now for an un-bike-related rant, because I'm pretty upset right now:

So because of the city notice that I had to get all the "items stored outside visible from beyond the property" gone, I started cleaning it up, which yesterday (with the help of a friend) included my crazy sister's stuff. I had to move it to the alley because like most of the other stuff I have to clean up I have nowhere else to put it, and she has been advised of this since before I put it out on the porch.

Today I wake up to the police banging on the door, asking why I did this. I explained it and they gave me the address of a place to go where I might be able to get her something called an emergency mental health check, that might get her the help she needs. I'd always been told before whenever I asked anyone (including the police) that she'd have to ask for the help; I stopped trying to find out years ago because of that, since she will not do so. Now there might be hope, so tomorrow I will try to get down there and see what I can do. I also have to work tomorrow afternoon, so I have to leave there in time to get to work, too--hopefully after I have talked to them, rather than before.

Another neighbor called a few hours before that, and left a message that I'd done the most horrible thing, and she said she was going to talk to the neighborhood watch and see if they would press charges on me for it. I didn't get the message until after the police visit, as I was still sleeping.

I called her back to explain the situation, but apparently she changed her mind somewhere in there, because the police went back over to her place (where I guess my sister was at that moment), and convinced my sister to go with them to go down to the place for checkout. I talked to the neighbor a while longer, and she agrees with me about my sister's condition and that she needs help, and I don't think she's pursuing anything she'd said in the message now (but I don't realy know).

I guess I must have been horribly wrong about evicting her, the way things are happenign back to me now. Start back with the minor stuff with the roofers and container and crap, then a number of things leading up to the bike race crash and leg fracture, which directly leads to me getting less work hours (about 20 this week, a bit over 20 last week, and about 16 (less than half of what I was getting before this) next week), which will if not fixed soon lead to me being unable to pay bills and rent. And now all this--the city notice, police visit, possible charges (for what, I don't know). What's next? Hit head on by a car on the way to work?


Isn't it wonderful how trying to get something awful and frightening out of your life just brings loads more bad things in?

 

[amberwolf]

Pics first. I thought I had taken a couple of good pics of the solder side, but they're so blurry you can't even see all the markings, much less read any of them, so I didn't bother posting them. The component side I did get ok, but apparently still can't hold a camera still (as evidenced by the artifacts):


View attachment 1

and a pic of the SRS switch:

currently used as ebrake/regen switch.

When I called the place from my rant above, they didn't know anything about whether she was checked in or not, and said that all they could tell me was that I could come down to file witness paperwork to try to get her some help, but couldn't tell me anything else. They also said they were open 24/7, so I decided I should go down there right after work, to get paperwork started ASAP.

But the place is at least 12 miles from home (about 11 from work), and I wouldn't want to be stranded, with only about 20 miles range on the Vpower pack (freshly recharged yesterday and left to balance while I did cleanup, thru today). (there are two places, actually, but htey are equal distance, and one is out toward Sun City where neighborhoods are decent at night, and the other is downtown, whcih I don't like even in daytime, and sure wouldn't go to at night--even in daytime I wouldn't bike down there and leave the bike unattended).

So I charged up the NiMH as mcuh as there was time before leaving for work, about 4Ah worth, enoguh to start getting cells warm but not likley into balancing yet. I figure I shoudl get about 7-8 miles out of whatever juice is in there, with conservative riding.

Also figured the trip (about 24-25 miles expected) would be a nice test of regen and stuff, at lower speeds, as I planned on staying 12-15MPH wherever possible for power conservation. I decided to play a game with myself, of keeping amp draw under 4 if possible, at all times. COuldn't do it on some stretches of roads where I had to go faster due to traffic, or during acceleration.

Overall it turned out to work very well for conservation, as I made it all the way there and back with power to spare (about 1.3Ah, perhaps a couple of miles' worth) in the Vpower pack, and not having to use the NiMH at all. Considering I am not pedalling at all, because of my leg, that's pretty good for a bike as heavy as I am.

Data from trip:
2h 8m 26s trip time
27.01miles
24.6mph max
12.6mph avg

18.7Wh/mile
9.762Ah
508.34Wh
58.92Amax

Vstart
51.7Vrest
46.7Vmin

1.1% Regen
0.1131 Regen Ah
-7.94A regen peak

Considering I was decelerating from very slow speeds most of the time, as I generally coast to a stop when possible anyway, it's not surprising that the Regen numbers are so low. I did not use Regen at all during the commute to work itself, as the pack was still fully charged. I waited till after work, on the way to the place, to use it, and all of that was at <15MPH, pretty much, for the regen. A great deal <12MPH, for that matter.

It feels like it completely cuts out around 8-9MPH, about where the bike gets hard to balance when coming to a stop. But it definitely helps, and it does do a significant amount of deceleration. I can feel the bike "surge forward" if I am regen braking and then turn it off to let it coast again, even from 12MPH, so it's definitely doing some braking, even if not as hard as I'd like.



Unfortunately the whole trip was a waste of time: In order for me to file the paperwork they need, I have to have witnessed her crazy behavior within 24 hours (48max and that's pushing it), and it has to be something that is life threatening either to herself or by her to others. Oh, and someone else that is willing to come in and fill out and sign paperwork has to witness the same incident at the same time. Great--somebody might have bothered telling me that BEFORE I took a 25-mile round trip by bike out there.

Since I havent' even seen her in the last coupleof days at all, just heard her out in the streets yelling at nonexistent people, then I can't do anything to get her help. Despite having watched this go on for a couple of decades, nothing I have ever seen her do would be relevant to this. Stuff like suddenly waving around knives and pots and pans in the kitchen while I (or others) are in there doesn't apparently count as life-threatening, or dangerous, either. :?

In fact, almost no incident would ever count even without the time limit, because I have lived alone (except for her) for the last couple years, and might as well have since late 2005 or before, when my mom was sick and in and out of hospitals/hospice, because my other sister that lived there hardly ever came out of her room (partly because of my crazy sister), and appeared to avoid all contact with her if possible. Rarely would my non-crazy sister and I be in the room together when incidents did occur. Same thing for when I had a friend move into my mom's old room as a temporary roomie, as she didn't come out of there much either, at least not when I or my other sister would be out.

I took the paperwork home anyway, so I could maybe eventually get her help. Still, to be able to witness an incident at the same time as someone else also willing to sign it is just not very likely.

 

[amberwolf]

Charge data from overnight:
Vpower Pack (LS-CA):
52.0Vstart
59.5Vfinish
4.00Ap
635.62Wh
11.62Ah

So about 2-ish Ah of balancing, I guess, so far.

Off to work now; no extra long trips so no conservative riding today. See if I can test out the regen from higher speeds (20MPH).

 

[amberwolf]

First note is that the SRS switch is really annoying to use for a brake. Not so much during it's use, but remembering to flip it back to Run, and also actually getting it all the way onto the Run position without pulling or pushing it onto the Stop positions even a little. Naturally, being a "kill" switch for the original ICE on the Honda, it was designed to be more sensitive to Stop than to Run.

I thought for a moment about drilling a hole in it's tab and putting a pull spring on there for Run, and something as a stop to prevent it from going past Run into Stop, but that gets so complex to setup I'd rather just work out a microswitch on the brake arms, which was my original plan a long time ago anyway. I just have to re-find my microswitches, which I had dug out for doing that on DGA and never got done either.

It does still work for now, but takes a lot more of my attention and deliberate action than I like; it's just not natural enough to use (yet). The Start button would be a better choice, and I might yet do that instead, but I think if I do it'll be the Horn button (which is isolated) and instead wire the horn to the Start button...no, wait--the horn itself is grounded to the frame, and so is one side of the Start switch, so that can't work either. Dangit.

I guess it's down to setting up the microswitch on the brake arm.



ride data from yesterday; note that it only includes the data from the trip home, as somehow I accidentally reset the CA while getting off the bike at arrival to work. It does also include a side trip to the store on the way home, doing groceries just like I did in the pics above, with backpack over the Vpower pack's box and cargo pod full of groceries on deep sale.

Trip to work and from work to store was pretty fast, but much of the trip home was fairly slow due to the load and imbalance.

19m 29s trip time
3.774miles
20.3mph max
11.6mph avg

23.4Wh/mile
1.717Ah
90.836Wh
61.49Amax

59.5Vstart
53.0Vrest
43.6Vmin

3.4% Regen
0.0587Ah Regen
-7.58A peak Regen

Charge data from overnight:
Vpower Pack (LS-CA):
53.0Vstart
59.5Vfinish
3.91Ap
192.62Wh
3.48Ah


ride data from today:
18m 47s trip time
4.761miles
22mph max
15.2mph avg

27.2Wh/mile
2.513Ah
131.07Wh
62.9Amax

59.5Vstart
52.9Vrest
47.1Vmin

2.3% Regen
0.06Ah Regen
-7.26A peak Regen

charge in progress

 

[amberwolf]

Charge data from overnight:
Vpower Pack (LS-CA):
53.4Vstart
59.5Vfinish
3.94Ap
184.2Wh
3.329Ah

Ride and charge data from today after a nap.

Also, I am going to try to get reverse working. I just dont' think I can keep pushing the bike back up and over the doorsill anymore.

I think I'm going to need to dig up those switch clusters I got from GCinDC a while back (forget which kind of ebike they came from), and use one of the switches on it for the reverse. WHile I'm at it I might get lucky and find my microswitches, as I had all that stuff in one place around the same time.

 

[amberwolf]

Looks like the DX3 pad controls reverse.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7361

Apparently my EB812 does not have this pad.

I have the X1 X2 X3 pads but there is no pad near them that could be DX3.

It's supposed to be from Ecrazyman, and AFAIK it's an 846-based unit.

So I spent a while searching and so far haven't found this particular board layout in a picture or thread anywhere that might help me identify if it does indeed have a reverse or not. There's too many missing/damaged pics in some threads for me to tell if they might've had this info, which doesn't help. Probably they didnt', but I don't know.

This one is close:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22430&start=0&hilit=eb812
but it does have the DX3 pad and mine doesn't.



Additonally, crossposted from this thread:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=402402#p402402
Interestingly, I have now verified this two-level regen issue exists with the Ecrazyman EB812 controller I've got on CrazyBike2 as well. AFAIK it's an 846-based unit, but I can't read the chip number even with the best light I have; have to find the magnifying glass wherever I put it.

I found this thread again (saw it before and forgot about it), because I thought something was odd at first, after I hooked regen up finally a few days back. Last couple of work commutes I verified that it gets less amps when braking from above ~15MPH than after speed drops below that, and I'm pretty sure I can feel that the braking becomes significantly greater below that speed than above.

I am only using the regen via EBS short to ground via a Stop-Run-Stop switch on the ex-scooter controls, with the regen pad shorted to ground inside the controller to permanently enable it. AFAICT I don't have the option (without programming it, if possible) of variable regen via throttle (although it could be useful if I did, if regen braking was hard enough to warrant it (it's not, at the moment)). I tried a few variants of operating the throttle vs the brake lever, and none of them do anything beyond just activating the regen at the same level every time, with the brake lever. Either I'm not doing it right or it's simply not working (or not activated).

I am replacing my Stop-Run-Stop brake switch with an actual brake lever to make it physically easier to brake and throttle at the same time, so my next work commute will show me if that is all the problem was, or if it really doesn't have variable regen on this unit.


Battery is a Vpower/CammyCC 48V (59V fully charged) LiFePO4 pack that does support regen thru the BMS (charging is done thru the same port as discharge).


Anyway, the real problem I have is that this 2-speed regen thing, with lesser braking at higher speed is a problem...I wonder if there is a way to defeat this?

 

[amberwolf]

Nothing new on defeating the two-level regen thing yet, or the reverse pad.

Brake lever is much easier to use than the SRS switch, though.

It's already got it's own return spring in it, so it doesn't have to ahvea cable from brakes pulling it back. That's pretty much the only reason I used the plastic one instead of a metal one I also have, that has a very weak return spring that's insufficent to return it without a calbe, too.

The Honda SRS and Start cluster, minus it's brake lever.


Regen with throttle doesn't *feel* like there is any difference in braking, but there is most definitely a difference in regen current--just about double! Basically, if I pull the brake lever and then ram the throttle all the way up, I get almost 16A of regen current, where it was almost 8A without that.

I think I will have to add the programming cable in order to test any further by altering regen settings, but I'm afraid of screwing up default settings (not knowing what they might be) to something that doesn't work like I want it to or am used to, or worse, bricking the controller. So for now I'll let it be.

I did run across the EVG (I think that's teh bike name?) bar control unit I was wanting to use for the reverse switch.

Not mounted yet, until I find the pads to hook it up to there's no point. Probably gonna use the N/E switch for reverse. Don't really have any use yet for the other controls, but might see if wiring up the Lights switch to the X3 pad or X1 pad will get me a different throttle response than normal (faster or slower). X2 should already be the default normally-enabled pad if it's like I think these things work.


Some ride data from last two commutes:
20m 7s trip time
4.829miles
21.6mph max
14.4mph avg

25.7Wh/mile
2.410Ah
126.96Wh
60.36Amax

59.4Vstart
53.1Vrest
47.2Vmin

2.7% Regen
0.0664Ah Regen
-7.93A peak Regen

Charge data from overnight:
Vpower Pack (LS-CA):
53.1Vstart
59.5Vfinish
3.93Ap
148.2Wh
2.688Ah

Next day's commute including a store trip:
28m 6s trip time
6.141miles
20.4mph max
13.1mph avg

28.4Wh/mile
3.383Ah
181.75Wh
61.24Amax

59.4Vstart
52.8Vrest
47.2Vmin

3.3% Regen
0.1129Ah Regen
-15.4A peak Regen

Charge data from overnight:
Vpower Pack (LS-CA):
52.8Vstart
59.5Vfinish
3.92Ap
211.83Wh
3.856Ah


In other news, I got more stuff rearranged in teh house, and got the 'scope cart moved into the bike room for now (was in the kitchen, and a PITA to get around in a wheelchair or on crutches or a walker):
View attachment 4
Also, while a friend was here helping me move stuff outside and sort it into piles of trash and recyclables, as well as stuff I am keeping (less than a third to be kept so far of what was moved), he gave me a pair of interesting power cables previously from some IBM rack equipment:

The wall-plug is a typical 230V twist-lock type, but the other end is something I never saw before:

Too bad he couldn't get the mating connectors for those; they'd be useful.

They are quite heavy and thick cables:

and are 300V, 10AWG,

might make some nice thick phase wires from controller to axle. Too thick to fit in the axle itself. Also could be used for battery to controller.

 

[amberwolf]

I forgot to post about the lights earlier.

While doing cleanup outside this afternoon, I found a box with another 45W 12V halogen identical to the one that fell apart in my first test a page or two back. That was odd, because I did not know I had a second one; apparently these were from something else and not the scooter headlight I thought they were from.

Then a couple of hours later, I ran across the scooter headlight (or rather, the bulb from it) that I thought I'd used before. Turns out it's a 24V bulb. It has no markings, but it is unusably dim and orange on 12V, and looks like about 10W on 24V, relative to the 45W bulb and teh 20W I tested next. It has a socket on it, but it's a piece of junk and one of the clips in it disintegrated just plugging this bulb back in after taking it off.

Around the same time I found the scooter bulb, I also ran across this old robotic arm that came from a tape-retrieval system, from an old data archive setup. It has a camera (presumably so the operator can read the labels on the tapes) and two halogen lights on it, each 12V 20W, in metal clips (not full housings).

I took one of the clips off and temporarily hose-clamped it around my CFL headlight housing, just as I had done on the last halogen experiment. This one doesnt' have the lens assembly glued to it like I did the last one, mostly just for simplification. If it turns out to work ok as-is, but need more of a beam, I might work out a lens for it.

It doesn't have a full mirror-backing, and lets a little light thru the reflectors, but not enough to worry about. It's also not nearly as bright as the 45W, but I do have two of them, so I can mount the second one if the first does not do the job.

I might end up needing to use that light switch on the EVG controls for lights, after all. For the moment, I am just leaving it unplugged from the 12V charge-port of the 12V system except when I need the light.

First road test of it will be tomorrow night after work, as I am even now, after a few hours rest and a couple of naps, way too wiped out to ride. I don't think I could even get the bike out the door right now, much less keep it upright and steer.

 

[Alan B]

Those look like reflectors that are designed to allow the IR through, and reflect the visible. They leak a little. Used in projectors and other applications where the heat is unwanted on a slide or optics. They put a heat reflecting glass in the forward direction and airflow across the bulb and reflector to carry the heat away.