Ridehax Podcast (was :Endless Sphere Podcast / Ebike Nerdcast)

[knoxie]

8) 8)

Just listened to the podcast, very cool indeed!! nice show, good balance of topics and chat, great to hear in depth from Hyena too, what a great character! and yes I still think we are all brothers from another mother here guys, the stuff with the laser pointer made me laugh, been making my own lasers since the mid 80s! my Dad sold them back then and just like Hyena there I was goofing around with them years before anyone else had them, we could do another show just on those.

Interesting to hear about the 9C motors, one thing I have yet to see if the 9C motors go up a hills? does anyone have any footage of that? I would be interested to see how they compare to the geared hubs (BMC) and the X5, the X5 is a good hill climber the BMC is an amazing hill climber with its internal gearing at much lower power / voltages.

A really funny podcast as well guys, audio sounded great Troy! well done on that, I cant wait to hear the next one!! be great to get Jester on the show guys maybe get Jester and Hyena on there together!! Frock Versus RC!! ha ha that would rock I love the fact that like me Hyena and Jester stick to the local e-bike laws and never let the power exceed the legal limits :wink:

Also great to hear and I am assuming your girly made the opening credit to the show Troy! very cool 8) loved your snaps of your motorcycle trips too, me and my girl went everywhere on my yamaha XT600.... now have a beautiful son.. so no more motorbiking for us as a couple...means I get to go out on my own

Thanks again to all involved on the podcasts they are the highlight of my week!! keep them coming and have you contacted Justin yet?

 

[grindz145]

haha yeah a little. I didnt see the little plasma ball the first time around! It was a wiring short in one of the wires coming off my main pack. I had it jerry rigged on an old pack I was testing and it jarred loose with the rough surface. When your pack is capable of delivering over 250 amps a shorted 24ga wire very quickly disintegrates!

Hah! I thought it was just leaf or something haha!

 

[grindz145]

Thanks for the info AW. My goal is to be able to just output the audio with as little editing as possible, though I have been recording my audio separately as well. I didn't think the clipping was that untolerable, but I really am striving for good quality audio.

Well, for the best quality wihtout clipping, using the compressor will get you that, making all voices about even volume all the way thru the entire recording, as long as they arent' talking over each other (and even a little bit of that). So if you can just dump the audio file into whatever editor you like to use, and use whatever compressor it has (or a VST plugin if it'll take them, and there are winamp plugins for that too). THen just save as a new file (in case it turns out ot not be what you wanted or a glitch happens, so you can go back to the original), and upload.

If possible, do the original recording as WAV instead of any lossy compressed format like MP3, because it'll cause less artifacts if you keep it all uncompressed until the last step before uploading.

If you don't want to do any of the audio compression and stuff, then if you can put an MP3 of the original recording up where I can download it, I can use SONAR and the various compression plugins there to find the best settings for it, and then re-upload a copy to you (if you have a place I can drop it to, as I dont' have a place I can up it to for anything that big).

I ended up using a program called levelator, and it works perfectly. It screws up the music, but the rest is perfect!

 

[GCinDC]

Hey folks, our next guest will be a little known ebike enthusiast, someone by the name of Justin Lemire-Elmore. He's got a little operation at ebikes.ca.

We're setting up the time to skype with him this week, as soon as tonight. He's in China!

If anyone has questions they'd like us to ask Justin, please PM them, or post it here.

 

[Alan B]

I would like to hear about his plans to manufacture his controller.

 

[GCinDC]

I would like to hear about his plans to manufacture his controller.

Great. Can you be more specific?

 

[Alan B]

During his 2008 trip across Canada Justin used his own designed and built brushless DC controller. It had sensored and sensorless capability (which turned out to be critical for him) and some other interesting features like (if I recall correctly) a battery current throttle control (which helped him manage energy usage better, also important). It also had some interesting regeneration features, again important for the energy management on his long trek. Most of these features are not available on popular controllers and it would be good to have another choice in the market. I doubt if it would compete at the price of the China imports, but it could be a "high end" unit for more advanced users. Perhaps the programming could be opened up to make it possible to customize by third party developers.

Perhaps he is in China arranging manufacturing?

 

[knoxie]

8) 8)

Yes I was interested to know what happened with the controller, it was a great unit as it had the hall connections but could run sensorless which was important on the trip as he of course lost a hall.

I loved following him through Canada it was such great fun, he was so humble about it all as well

Looking forward to hearing from him, Justin is a star!!

 

[liveforphysics]

If I was a female, I would have Justin's ginger-afro-headed babies.

Very few folks in this world have stunned me with their intelligence. Justin is one of them.

He lives a bit like an uncivilized savage, like myself, and like most folks who end up making a positive impact in the world.

He buys a nice lunch for his crew weekly, and takes the time to listen to everyone's concerns in his company. A natural mediator and good listener.

Honest. If Justin tells it to you, you can take it to the bank.

A super 'Do-er'. Some guys are fairly smart but never get passed the drawing sketches stage. Justin DOES.

Charismatic and lovable. His passion for ebikes just bleeds out of him and into the people around him. After 5 minutes of hanging out with him, you all ready know you could trust him with your life, and he would never let you down.


I have a boat-load of bad qualities keeping my decent engineering/tinkering skills close company. I'm a dick. I enjoy watching people and things fail. I'm unreliable. I'm unresponsible. I'm reckless. I'm the worlds worst shipper in history. I smile when I think of batteries blasting fire onto peoples groins.

Justin has better engineering/tinkering skills, and unlike myself, he is responsible and helpful and loving and wants to see people happy and healthy riding ebikes. It's like a super-hero of awesome skills all in very friendly and balanced package topped with a giant fluffy red afro.

 

[knoxie]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Ahh Luke you make me laugh!! he he, but yes you are right Justins enthusiasm really comes over on the videos that I have seen of him, I mean anyone that can do what he has done in such a relatively short space of time really is somebody!

He is a bit of a deity in ebiking terms, sort of an ebike Buddha! so pleased to see him and all the team settle in to the new workshop as well, I for one am so looking forward to hearing from him. I expect that he is in China to keep tabs on the quality control of the kits and also to visit many of his business friends that he has now made over there, I think it is this direct intervention that is leading to the increases in quality of some of this kit, the guy from stokemonkey also did the same thing, got there, hands on to ensure that they stick to the QC sheets.

 

[Hyena]

Awesome, I can't wait to hear the Justin podcast!
There hasn't been one since I was on and I starting to worry I was nerdcast poison, but it sounds like the wait will be well work it!

Also, Luke has a terrible man-crush on Justin :lol:

With good reason though

 

[liveforphysics]

Awesome, I can't wait to hear the Justin podcast!
There hasn't been one since I was on and I starting to worry I was nerdcast poison, but it sounds like the wait will be well work it!

Also, Luke has a terrible man-crush on Justin :lol:

With good reason though

It was bromance at first sight.

 

[GCinDC]

Justin's lost in China! Just kidding... we're still trying to schedule... I have a feeling he's very busy over there, and hopefully enjoying himself... :lol:

In the meantime, we had another special guest last night: Doctorbass!

Troy is hoping to upload the podcast soon. Stay tuned!

 

[grindz145]

Episode 9 with Doctorbass! : http://troyrank.com/2011/03/29/episode-9/

 

[karma]

good cast justin's next? :wink:

 

[grindz145]

good cast justin's next? :wink:

Hopefully! He's a very busy man though, and we'll get him on when he can find the time.

 

[grindz145]

Just found this fun fact for DoctorBass:


Christopher Lloyd Trivia: He's a devoted bicyclist. He once rode through Italy, pedaling from Milan to Venice, over the Dolomites, along the Amalfi coast and to Naples.

It explains so much.... :lol:

 

[Thud]

Wow,
I missed this thread till today. good to hear the general discusion & really enjoyed listening to Dr,bass & LfP....good job guys & keep it coming.

 

[GCinDC]

Wow,
I missed this thread till today. good to hear the general discusion & really enjoyed listening to Dr,bass & LfP....good job guys & keep it coming.

thanks! we're talking to justin tomorrow night and johnincr next saturday!

 

[beast775]

awesome,cant wait.

 

[karma]

nice

 

[knoxie]

Great podcast this one guys! audio quality was amazing! sounded like you were all sat round the same mic! some great stuff from Doc, I hadnt had chance to listen to this even though it has been posted for a week so today I downloaded it on to my phone and took my ebike out on a nice 25 mile hybrid run, bit of peddling bit of throttling, great to hear so much from the DOC, I didnt realise he was such a relative newcomer? guess I think we have all been tinkering with this stuff for years :lol: Doc your English is great! I could listen to you all day such an interesting podcast.

Thanks again Troy and Greg for getting these podcasts sorted out they are really great fun, Justin is going to be a 2 parter! I just know it 8) looking forward to that one,.

If folks have browsed this thread but not listened to any of these podcasts seriously download them and take them out on your e-bike rides

Knoxie

 

[GCinDC]

good news: we talked to justin on saturday night!

bad news: after 5 minutes, he suddenly turned into a robot. an alien robot. and he was on a roll too, talking about the new ezee motors. i hoped it was just me who couldn't hear him. that the podcast would be ok, but no. if he was intelligible, we probably would have continued but he wasn't. we tried and tried to reconnect but alas (the communist hub motor giants clamped down on the bandwidth?). we'll try again when he's back in CA and the dust has settled a bit from his trip.

 

[karma]

:wink:

 

[grindz145]

(the communist hub motor giants clamped down on the bandwidth?)

We have verified through precise IP triangulation, and a magic 8 ball, that this was the case.

I can't wait to actually get to the meat of the show though! We'll have to wait a few weeks until Justin has time to catch his breath. Imagine leaving your business for 3 weeks, right after you just moved your shop around. Crazy.