Cross-Canada by Ebike

[justin_le]

Hmm.. previous post didn't make it...

Anyway, nice job on the controller.

I think you found my list of desirable features and actually made one. Current mode throttle rocks, so does adjustable regen and cycle by cycle current limiting. I'll be real interested in how you implemented the sensorless mode too.

Right now the sensorless is simple crossing detection of the back-emf voltage equaling half the battery supply voltage, with various levels of digital filtering, and that works good enough down to about 5 kph, but for really low speed and/or low duty cycle measurements I'm going to try implenting measuring the back-emf during the PWM off phase as well, looking for the point when it crosses ground, and that should enable operation down to just 1-2 kph, effectively a standstill.

Next challenge will be to make a fully sensorless one that can start from a dead stop just like a sensored one. Think about that one as you are pedaling across the country...

That's going to be required if I want this controller to work with the internally geared/freewheeling motor setups in sensorless mode (required for some hubs like the Tongxin units), so it's on the agenda for sure.

I'm split on the epoxy. Great for water proofing. Sucks for future repair. If the smoke gets out of one part, the whole thing will be scrap (except for a few of us armed with pans of boiling water and dental picks).

Can you get through epoxy with boiling water? I seriously tried just about everything including acetone baths to not much avail. Certainly at this stage potting in epoxy was a bit premature, and I fried both my primary and backup controller when the golden motor overheated and (presumably) shorted the 5V hall line to one of the motor phase windings, and there was no way to do a repair. So when I rebuilt earlier this week I left the controller circuit serviceable, sealed in a nice polycarbonate enclosure.

Polycarb Controller.jpg (38.67 KiB) Viewed 2815 times

-Justin

[nutsandvolts]

Definitely going through Ottawa, and it looks like there's a chance I might make it there in time for the August monthly EVCO meeting, so if you guys have space for a guest speaker there are a few things I could talk about!

That would be great! I will talk to the EVCO executive about this.

Passing through this region, I recommend checking out the beaches in gatineau park quebec (just across the river from ottawa). Beautiful riding territory and a great place to cool off. The park is 365 sq km, 165 km of hiking trails, 90 km of mountain bike trails, and the trans canada trail passes through the park.

http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/gatineau/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatineau_Park
http://wikitravel.org/en/Gatineau_Park

logging my energy usage and speed statistics over the entire trip so far, with the data saved to a laptop once per second.

Cool!

digital camera setup on the handlebar, taking a snap shot once every 60 seconds, so at the end of the trip we'll have a 6-7 minute video of the country from coast to coast.

Yeah, thats the kind of thing I had in mind. I used to be very into "wearable computing" and wanted to do this kind of recording all of the time, and make a software multimedia player that would allow me to fast forward and rewind through any of my days

I am close to downtown ottawa, been buzzing all over this area today, it is most excellent biking territory, good bike paths, lots to see.
If you need some alternating current, you are welcome.

[pwbset]

Justin you're an inspiration. Period. Best of luck on your adventure. Should have plenty of tailwinds this time of year. If you happen to swerve off course about 60 miles south of the border below Cranbrook into Northwest Montana let me know and you've got a free bed and charging port. Hell.. I won't even be there so you'd have the run of the place.

[bspalteh]

Here are a few pics from Whiterock.

Did you make it to Hope? How is the charging situation where you are?

[justin_le]

Here are a few pics from Whiterock.
Did you make it to Hope? How is the charging situation where you are?

Hey Bernhard, that's great, thanks for the Pics and for all the hospitality. I owe you at least 1.6 kWh!

Anyways, the road to Hope was really wonderful at first, huge tailwind and I was sailing along for much of it at 40kph without any help from the motor at all. But then it rained pretty much the whole way from Abbotsford onwards. Total trip stats were 128 km in 3.5 hours, using 31.6 amp-hours with 4.9% regen. The charging situation is good here, (and the free unsecured wi-fi too). Most of the buildings have outdoors outlets but of all the options for stealing electricity I thought it would be most à-propos to fill up at the Petro-Can gas station.

Drive an EV and you too can score some free gas!

Filling up at Petro Can.jpg (62.46 KiB) Viewed 2780 times

[Lessss]

You are going to write on the back of that box.. TRANSCANADA BY ELECTRIC right?

[Bill Best]

Justin, how fast can you charge your batteries? What type of charger are you using?

Thanks for keeping us updated! I'm as excited as you to see the outcome of your adventure.

I'm sure you have plenty of friends in Toronto, but you can add me to the list of people willing to provide a place to crash & charge.

[Eric G]

....Good Luck to ya on this Cross Canada Trip Justin !!!!! You're an inspiration to us all.
... STAY SAFE ...

Eric

[mikereidis]

Most of the buildings have outdoors outlets but of all the options for stealing electricity I thought it would be most à-propos to fill up at the Petro-Can gas station.

Filling up at Petro Can.jpg

ROFL. Be discreet or Petro-Can will start putting coin boxes on the outlets like those pay air pressure stations.

[Lock]

...but of all the options for stealing electricity I thought it would be most à-propos to fill up at the Petro-Can gas station.

I *used* to do this but the fumes at the stations just smell sooooo bad now. Restautant/Bar patios are way better and more numerous...
tks
Lock

[dirty_d]

justin, holy crap that is a pretty advanced controller, what microcontroller and fets did you use on it? you said youre measuring the unpowered phase voltage relative to the DC bus voltage, so i guess your only taking ADC samples during the PWM on time right?

[Joshua Goldberg]

Hey Justin

I like you choice of ride. Did think the Tadpole idea was a highway accident waiting to happen and the ScooterBike needed a 20" Front Wheel to make sense.

My choice would be a RANS V2 with an Xtracycle conversion and Mueller Fairing but being as high in the saddle as you are is likely a bit safer on the highways.

Almost ordered a 5303 on a V2 48A for my trike, 20" front wheel on 80V but it won't be enough to haul my fat ass up a hill towing a trailer and so will likely order a 5304 from Kenny.

You coming through Toronto late August?

[Pheno]

Way to go justin. This is an awsome thing youo are doing. I dont know much about repairing or building e-bikes (much to the delight from my e-bike dealer) so for me to atempt such a journy would be hazordus to my well being lol.
That being said Im jellous. what a way to make a a name for your self and e-bikes. Good -luck and god speed

[justin_le]

If you need xtra battery when crossing Quebec to fight the wind alog the fleuve St-Laurent i can arrange you something begining by kWh .. that would be a pleasure to me to bring you some Sony konion pack for the end of your trip!

Hey Doc, for sure, I'll trade in my 8AH NiCad pack for some 16Ah or so of Lithium if you got it! Also, if you or others along the way have ebike setups with reasonable capacities and want to join along and ride together for a part of the trip that could pretty fun. I'm averaging between 35-40 kph, so I don't think anyone on this forum will have trouble keeping up.

-Where did you got the dc-dc for the led that can accept 100V at input??? i'm searching for some!.. have you built the circuit?

These circuits are based around the LM5009 buck converter IC from National Semi. It's only good for 150mA but for running a bunch of LEDs that is plenty of power. They also have a 350mA version in the LM5008. The chip makes it quite easy to design the converter around, but it comes in a pretty fine pitch SMT IC that is a bit of a pain for prototyping.

How do you plan your trip about the schedule over a day? mow much time do you plan to ride every day? have you a planning or you feel free?

I was planning to do two complete charge cycles on the ebike per day, so around 200 km, one run in the morning, 3 hour recharge/lunch break, and then another run in the afternoon/evening. But so far with all the time spent visiting people and just checking things out, (and sleeping in!) my average has been more like 130-140 km or so. It should pick up though.

-Justin

[justin_le]

Hey Justin
I like you choice of ride. Did think the Tadpole idea was a highway accident waiting to happen and the ScooterBike needed a 20" Front Wheel to make sense.

Was originally planning to take the SooterBike, but it just didn't have cargo storage or the battery mounting space that the Xtracycle had. So I just took the scooterbike seat and attached it to the Xtracycle bike. Problem solved.

Riding on the freeways here sometimes with pretty narrow shoulders I'd be nervous on a tadpole for sure.

My choice would be a RANS V2 with an Xtracycle conversion and Mueller Fairing but being as high in the saddle as you are is likely a bit safer on the highways.

Exactly. I do feel the extra wind drag. But than I've got a 5304 on board to take care of that

You coming through Toronto late August?

Yeah I'll be there to convince your wife what a wonderful idea it is to ride an ebike across the country, no worries. -Justin

[justin_le]

Justin, how fast can you charge your batteries? What type of charger are you using?

Hi Bill. Good question. My original goal was to be able to recharge the ebike from dead flat in about 2 hours. A couple years ago I scored a large stash of these Vicor DC-DC converter circuits (model VI-264-20/F1) off of ebay:

300V -> 36V converter module

Vicor DC-DC.jpg (26.51 KiB) Viewed 2853 times

The input can vary from 200 to 400volts DC and the output is factory set to 36V at 6 amps, all in a tiny package. I mean really tiny when you compare it to most ebike chargers which only have like a 2A output. By putting a 1MOhm resistor between the Trim and the +S leads on the output side the output voltage was tweaked up to 41.5V. So the original plan was to connect a voltage doubling rectifier out of the wall, rig it up to the input of this DC-DC module, and then feed the output adjusted to 41.5V straight into the batteries, using the internal current limit of the device to make it behave like a 6A 41.5V CC/CV charger.

Original DC-DC Charger Circuit.GIF (4.09 KiB) Viewed 2837 times

Unfortunately that arrangement would overheat and go into thermal shutdown within just a minute or two of charging. Apparently even though the output is current limitted to 6A, it is also not supposed to exceed 170 watts, which at 41.5V is more like 4 amps. So, I had to rethink things a bit and wire up a feedback circuit using an op-amp and a current sensing shunt resistor in order so that the Trim pin on the DC-DC converter would be governed to run a constant current output rather than a constant voltage. I don't have time to sketch the schematic right now, but in short it ended up with a potentiometer with which one can dial in the desired current, from 1A up to 5A, as well as orange and green LED's to indicate which charging state it is in.

Homemade Charger Insides.jpg (80.39 KiB) Viewed 2837 times

At 4A it still gets hot and shuts down after about an hour, so either I need to pour water on the heatsink on a regular basis or tweak it down to 3A to make good use.

Anyways, So I have two of these homemade units, one commercial 36V 4A lithium charger, as well as a 36V 4A NiMH charger. So in the case with all four chargers plugged in I can have 14 amps or so of charging current. But having 4 chargers to wire up and connect is a bit of a pain, so I usually just connect 2 or 3 of them. What's the rush eh?

Justin

[justin_le]

Hi Guys, here is a link to a map that shows the trip progress to date. I haven't done any 200+ km days yet, but that'll start happening soon enough.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=4570+Main+St+vancouver+bc&daddr=Marine+Dr+%4049.203230,+-122.964670+to:Columbia+St+%4049.200250,+-122.914090+to:Columbia+St+%4049.203029,+-122.908132+to:St+Mary+St+%4049.208250,+-122.904650+to:Agnes+St+%4049.209210,+-122.901730+to:1st+St+%4049.209672,+-122.902370+to:Pattullo+Bridge+%4049.207780,+-122.894610+to:King+George+Hwy+%4049.184290,+-122.845570+to:King+George+Hwy+%4049.061260,+-122.813040+to:152+St+%4049.038360,+-122.801150+to:15547+18+Ave,+Surrey,+Greater+Vancouver,+British+Columbia,+Canada+to:16+Ave+%4049.031210,+-122.492590+to:Fraser+Hwy+%4049.057560,+-122.403740+to:Hope+BC+to:7500+Highway+3,+Manning+Park,+BC+V0X+1R0,+Canada+(Manning+Park+Resort)+to:Princeton,+BC,+Canada+to:Penticton,+BC,+Canada+to:Vernon,+BC,+Canada&hl=en&geocode=5553290908090033970,49.203230,-122.964670%3B8973161381717632412,49.200250,-122.914090%3B186245244822985837,49.203029,-122.908132%3B13469460028352247205,49.208250,-122.904650%3B7606419782233851260,49.209210,-122.901730%3B1846262224137290578,49.209672,-122.902370%3B1121102226801290441,49.207780,-122.894610%3B16719400504480869075,49.184290,-122.845570%3B11295929828244341107,49.061260,-122.813040%3B12298672677532115428,49.038360,-122.801150%3B4105363344561278198,49.031210,-122.492590%3B13062809792576733182,49.057560,-122.403740%3B77913603779624531,49.136020,-120.618570&mra=ls&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13&sll=49.265395,-121.34802&sspn=3.068394,5.625&ie=UTF8&ll=49.720928,-121.201172&spn=1.583941,4.449463&z=8

Map to Vernon.gif (75.56 KiB) Viewed 2824 times

The electrical energy consumption stats are as follows (Net Ah, % Regen, Net Watt-hours, Distance, Time):

Vancouver -> White Rock 17.15 Ah 7.97% 623.5 Wh 46.96 km 1:37:20
White Rock -> Hope 31.70 Ah 5.07% 1223.2 Wh 128.14 km 3:38:00
Hope -> Manning 27.42 Ah 2.94% 1055.2 Wh 67.46 km 2:14:24
Manning -> Princeton 15.79 Ah 17.72% 610.5 Wh 71.33 km 2:09:54
Princeton -> Penticton 34.90 Ah 5.04% 1347.1 Wh 120 km 3:36:00
Penticton -> Vernon 44.01 Ah 4.70% 1717.0 Wh 119.7 km 3:32:00

So current sitting at just over 6.5 KWh of electricity used to go some 554 km.

I'm in Vernon right now and heading to Revelstoke tomorrow. Anyone along the way please feel free to drop me a line.
-Justin

[paultrafalgar]

For those of you who like spreadsheets here's one I knocked up quickly with Justin's data. Please check it for errors. The last column is an attempt to get a view of how the power consumption varies with speed; I guess the differences could be due to hills climbed. Some industrious soul might want to get that from Google maps/Earth

JustinTransCanada.xls

Microsoft Format

(108 KiB) Downloaded 133 times

[seanreit]

For the Americans following along, we pay .105 a KWH down here in Texas. As I'm understanding it, Justin has gone 550 KM on 60 cents American. If I have messed up a decimal place, please let me know.

[paultrafalgar]

For the Americans following along, we pay .105 a KWH down here in Texas. As I'm understanding it, Justin has gone 550 KM on 60 cents American. If I have messed up a decimal place, please let me know.

Can't see anything wrong with your calculation, Sean. GREAT! isn't it. But don't tell those oilmen down there or they might not like it
P.S. Tell everyone else though!

[Lock]

...differences could be due to hills climbed.

Ahem... yes, there are hills in BC <grin>... Vernon about 1,140 ft above sea level!
Not sure what route Justin is taking but if TransCanada Hwy up ahead are Rogers Pass 4,340ft and Kicking Horse Pass 5,340ft.
tks
Lock

[Zoot Katz]

For the Americans following along, we pay .105 a KWH down here in Texas. As I'm understanding it, Justin has gone 550 KM on 60 cents American. If I have messed up a decimal place, please let me know.

Electricity in BC costs $0.0655/kWh. So that's $0.36025 CND worth of hydro generated juice. Or just less than eleven cents per hundred miles.
If those rates held across the whole country (~4000 miles) he'd be spending less than half his ten-dollar energy budget.
Or about 5% of what it would cost to do it in a diesel Smart car without 95% of the fun.

Bikes Rule!
GO JUSTIN!

[Lock]

If those rates held across the whole country...Bikes Rule! GO JUSTIN!

(And he is not EVen fully-faired!)

Ahem... "Hydro" rates are smoke and mirrors... HELLO?

Ontario just announced another electricity rate reduction... Yer quoting official rates that really just pander to the ignorant electorate (voters)...

Ontario "Hydro" is cheap if you ignore those swimming pools full of heavy water and nuke waste... In BC, like Ontario, I expect crumbling infrastructure that was paid for decades ago but not kept up (like Ontario highways and overpasses.)

I always say to my daughters (the two that I know of) Thanks Kids! ...for inheriting our National Debt...

Yer shoving the costs of (20th-Century) excesses on to future generations... it's a flawed (20th Century) economic model...

Pls. don't quote numbers w/out context
[/Accounting Hat Off]
tks
Lock

[John in CR]

...Ahem... "Hydro" rates are smoke and mirrors... HELLO?

Ontario just announced another electricity rate reduction... Yer quoting official rates that really just pander to the ignorant electorate (voters)...

Ontario "Hydro" is cheap if you ignore those swimming pools full of heavy water and nuke waste... In BC, like Ontario, I expect crumbling infrastructure that was paid for decades ago but not kept up (like Ontario highways and overpasses.)

I always say to my daughters (the two that I know of) Thanks Kids! ...for inheriting our National Debt...

Yer shoving the costs of (20th-Century) excesses on to future generations... it's a flawed (20th Century) economic model...

Pls. don't quote numbers w/out context
[/Accounting Hat Off]
tks
Lock

Lock,

I'm sure the food Justin has to eat to supply the energy he uses while pedaling costs far more than even your "fully loaded" electric rate, whatever that is since you didn't quantify it. BTW if you really put on an "accounting hat" you'd realize that your accounting leaves out the National Assets, not to mention the economic stimulus that the 20th century spending created. Did your great grandparents and grandparents say thank you to your parents and you for having to spend all that money to create the infrastructure to begin with? The only true cost that you touched on is if there is a cost in human suffering created by poisons to the environment, and in that regard I am in 100% agreement, otherwise cost is just a paper number and debt too is meaningless without considering the assets. Governmental accounting is such a crock. It's only record keeping and a proper accounting of nothing.

I'm sorry, but I believe your viewpoint is jaded and fundamentally flawed. The 20th century was the greatest in history, and the 21st will be even better as the forced conversion is made from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources.

Justin, you're getting great mileage especially considering that load. How much are you pedaling? Here's an idea, keep track of your daily food consumption too during your journey. Then do some flat segments on electric power alone, and others with maximum pedal assist. Then you'll be able to clearly demonstrate how EV power is better than human power, not just better than smoker power. You'll be helping to feed the hungry too.

John

[Zoot Katz]

If those rates held across the whole country...Bikes Rule! GO JUSTIN!

(And he is not EVen fully-faired!)

Ahem... "Hydro" rates are smoke and mirrors... HELLO?

Ontario just announced another electricity rate reduction... Yer quoting official rates that really just pander to the ignorant electorate (voters)...

Ontario "Hydro" is cheap if you ignore those swimming pools full of heavy water and nuke waste... In BC, like Ontario, I expect crumbling infrastructure that was paid for decades ago but not kept up (like Ontario highways and overpasses.)

I always say to my daughters (the two that I know of) Thanks Kids! ...for inheriting our National Debt...

Yer shoving the costs of (20th-Century) excesses on to future generations... it's a flawed (20th Century) economic model...

Pls. don't quote numbers w/out context
[/Accounting Hat Off]
tks
Lock

True. I'd not taken into account what might be considered "externalised costs". Like ambulances, law enforcement, ashtma, water pollution, highway crews, and the cost of free parking included in the price of my food with the currently prevailing transportaion modes.
Infrastructure replacement costs will be huge unless we change our way of getting around.
A bridge for bicycles, one mile long, two lanes wide, could move as many people per hour as one twelve lane wide for cars, four lanes for buses and three lanes for automated trains*.
We sold our souls when we tore up the rails.

*According to Ivan Illich.