Juicing Up Pictures

markz

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I thought it would be cool to post your pictures of juicing up your ride in public places, aka guerilla charging.

These two are from today and yesterday.
Ice Machine is a gas station/7-11/Tim Hortons
Grass is parking lot stall.

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I don't have pictures of this, but i used to ride my electric bike to the hotels i worked graveyards at as second jobs, and charge in the back office. I've done this at various high end chains and never had a problem :mrgreen:

The things you can get away with when there's no manager around :lol:
 
I had the luxury of finding a community entry pilon with an outlet, a stones throw from my usual 7-eleven juice up spot. 10 minutes of looking at my cell phone on that green electrical box, was more then enough juice.

 
CALGARY is a heaven for electric vehicle charging opportunities
Live outlets all over the place
Mainly outlets on parking lots originally for engine block heaters.
But I always look for places funded by taxpayer which I am one of them.
Like community centers,schools,etc
If you call it stealing....
I don't want to steal from private business versus taxpayer funded place - judge difference
 
miro13car said:

I always buy something when I do it at a store.
There are some places with no outlets, a strip mall near me, a community center, some schools even have no outside outlets and in the warmer times they turn off their parking lot outlets. Actually come to think of it I havent been able to find anything convenient at the Riverbend strip mall, just a rear door outlet with no place to lockup bike. Some gas stations will even lock their outlets, like a Centex near me, others will block outlet with ice box. I have my spots I charge up at, Subway, Home Depot, Grocery Store.
 
docw009 said:
Been to Calgary in September, July, and August. Good grief, looking at that snow makes me sick again ( I ate some bad ice cream last night and was sick all night).

Shy Town is better?

As for iced cream.... Depends on where you bought that ice cream, asians bought out The Little Ice Cream Shop in Marda Loop (fancy yuppy neighborhood) it was a great store when the previous owners ran it. Frosty's from Wendy's are not bad, can't get sick off any of that jazz, unless you are mixing up the ice cream with the "chicken" from that Chinese Restaraunt, its that other white meat ;) probably rabbit cuz theres so many running around. I am probably to blame because I let mine go, 4 or 5 decades ago.
 
makz
Correct
I also have noticed more electrical outlets turned off last summer.
But there are still plenty to plug in,
Compare Alberta to BC , just go there - no one damn live outlet in Chillowack, Hope, examples, was there by car couple of times
So Alberta is still a haven.
What we do not want is more ebikes and EV in Calgary , this will FOR SURE. result in shutting of power outlets.
 
Just 2km away from home and LVC kicked in...

Getting my monies worth, for that $1.05 coffee cup with no coffee. Everytime before no one said nuffin'

The red light is a little LED I put at the 20.50V output with XT90's, tells me if the outlet is live or not.



 
Why this red lght?
I use simple votage probe with buzzer.
This red light is clear indication drawing attention to you ebike.
Even if you spend at this place for coffee and you go outside to plug charger
How do they know you were inside drinking coffee???
I carry my own drinks , coffee also, why to spend 4-5 bucks??
 
The red l.e.d. is there so I know 100% that the outlet is powered, especially the outlets with gfci.

I have not had a problem yet, but I see your point, it is a 3000 mcd (high brightness) l.e.d. I know there are much less brighter ones like 50 mcd. Whats on the list (sooner or later) is ONE! compact charger, permanently placed on the bike, with cushioning (in pannier compartment, with cooling ducts, and silicone inside (Silastic)

The 3 laptop chargers have been working great for split pack charging. Only issue is last night I had a solder joint come loose on a battery side XT90, I think its the one where I layed the untinned wire end into the XT90 cup then soldered. Again, laziness. Sometimes I tend to grab the XT90 connectors by the wire and yank :oops: the battery side is taped up well for stress relief, not so on charger side. The XT90's I purchased was on Amazon so they are probably clones/counterfeits, but I do see other legitimate sellers selling Amass XT90. I may try Anderson Powerpoles next, the bigger ones like the PP75 or 120's because of its size not ampacities. The SB's look decent, but there has got to be a balance between size of connectors and the look you want. Right now I don't care much for the look, as you can tell.

Luckily I was at a 7-11 charging up, because I thought it was LVC.
$1.99 for a small roll of electrical tape from 7-11 got me home, another 4km.

This is what got me home, I wasn't going fast until I got near home, then I upped the amperes on that connection. It held up, probably 40A maybe 50A.
connector1.jpg










miro13car said:
 
I solder all my xt90s putting the untinned cable in. If you use a flux core solder the xt90s take so damn much solder to fill the cup that there will be tons of flux swimming around. So you'll easily wet everything with solder. Make sure to fill em up all the way, but don't dwell long or the terminals can melt the plastic and move around.
 
Marks
I see your point.
You want to see all the time that outlet is live.
I had several cases that power shut off during charging, but I have rather noisy fan in my charger .so that's my indicator.
 
It happened once or twice where I plugged the charger in and the outlet was not powered. I had to all the time feel if the laptop chargers were getting warm compared to ambient. Using a split back, have to be careful because if one section does not take a charge, then there is a possibility of draining a section well below normal voltages. Yes, I do need still need to install some voltage checkers (like Hobbykings) on the battery side, still using l.e.d.'s but switch it to low luminous white l.e.d.'s. Heavier duty plug in cable to parallel all 3 laptop chargers because the cable mess. I currently have two laptop chargers paralleled.

I've had no issues with circuit breakers, each laptop charger is 2.5A (input) 120V(ac).
I've had one issue of an outlet I have used all the time before, now unpowered. It is a spinning sign aka pylon. But there are a half dozen alternatives within 50 meters. Just not at the place I like to eat, and be in full sight of my bike.

It is odd, how some strip malls are void of outlets. Also odd that some schools have no outlets. Some outlets are locked, like a christian and a public. But I have used their parking lot, block heater outlet.
 
@ Walmart at the other end of town.
I was made in the shade, at the Waltons smokers hut a stones throw away.

Little did I know, there was an outlet + bike rack at the Crappy Tire next door.


 
When I toured, and always needed to find a hot plug, I carried a little led night light to test them.

It was often hard to find a plug out here in the west. New buildings have zero outside plugs in general. Or, they have two ice coolers and two coke machines using up all the plugs, along with you can't reach them at all behind all that metal.

My towns city parks are bogus, all outside plugs invariably turned off. Lame, especially for a city so proud of their solar panels on every city building.

One trick I learned,, a building that is for sale, including residential houses, often has the power on, for showing it. And of course, nobody around to chase you off.
 
I ran into that situation today, deep in the NW of the city. Very large strip mall built in 2000, has the usual big box stores, Costco, Michaels, Sports Chek, Crap-O-Rama, Canadian Tire and more, Home Depots are good, though this one had at tool rental side of store, one cord coming out of a gated area, with one plug. I have two plugs, though I really should put all three chargers on one HD cord. The deal with HD is that they need to Juice Up their scissor lifts, so I lock my bike up to the lift, and charge up, and plugging the lift back in. This HD, sadly did not have a Subway in the store, but one a HD parking lot + Montana's restaurant away. So I couldnt keep an eye on my e-ride as per ush.

This is from Seven-11 about an hour ago. Stood right beside it. Same spot where a month or two ago some crackhead tried to take it with the U-lock on the back wheel, I noticed his sketchiness when he walked by me, but I was 8 steps behind him. Luckily no spokes were hurt in that movie.

 
dogman dan said:
New buildings have zero outside plugs in general. Or, they have two ice coolers and two coke machines using up all the plugs, along with you can't reach them at all behind all that metal.
The problem there is sometimes they place the ice/coke right in front of plug, but its a good sign when your out of juice and you come across a ice/coke machine(s)

My towns city parks are bogus, all outside plugs invariably turned off. Lame, especially for a city so proud of their solar panels on every city building.
Yeah that was like last week, water fall community sign, 4 outlets and nuffin'

One trick I learned,, a building that is for sale, including residential houses, often has the power on, for showing it. And of course, nobody around to chase you off.
Yeah that is a great tip. Not many new stuff for sale around where I roam. Churches are good though, they are everywhere. Even the inside of a grocery store entrance, I did that once at Safeway. You know where the telephone/cab phone is, and free reading material, and carts. School parking lots in cold climate for vehicle block heater, done a half dozen times.

Some building even lock their outlets now. I ran into that at a Centex gas station.
 
chargers on both my EPLUS drive ebikes are built in Pelican cases right bolted to frames.
I need only less than 1 meter power cord to plug into outlet.
for me rule number one - do not show any cables/cords attached to bike. so they see motor in rear wheel but they hardly see cords going from bike to outlets.
 
I have had no problems at all with recharging, I have done it on countless different Starbucks patio's (basically the sidewalk) with the way the bike looks now. I got my spots that I know are energized. Perhaps 10% time I'd cover the battery with a hoody, more so to protect it from the sun, but sometimes to hide in case someone comes a looking.

Today the only place to lock up my bike, for a drink break (no recharging) was a step railing. Rear wheel motor and battery showing, jetting out about 1/5'th of the wide sidewalk. Out of a dozen or two people that were walking by, only 2 really turned around for a few second look. It was in Bridgeland, on a Saturday so yuppies.

I plan to clean it up a lot! The battery is old, lost more then half its capacity. What I'd love to do, is place 18650's into a large bicyclists water bottle. Playing around with some new 18650's I'd do three rows, 1st row of 3, 2nd row of 4, 3rd row of 3. Be a nice fit. Spend some money on a good thermo epoxy (Auckland Grainger) and extra 18650 sleeves (Fast Tech). Probably get 3 "levels" into one "water bottle". I got 25R's so 7.5Ah per bottle is great! I'd roll out a custom casing. I've seen a few long distant riders have 2L (1/2G) bottle holders, but I'd just want 15Ah into two "water bottle". I'd still get plenty of distance, probably 3x what Im getting now.

Here is a pic, in the slums, Southview (Forest Lawn). Amazing how they get amazing views and the houses on the ridge probably have no significant less value, next to who knows how many crack houses and grow ops.

Overall, I probably did 58km today. Mostly cruising, some fishing (no catches). Too many people out on a nice day like today.
That is a new $31(cdn) Shimano crank, 24,34,42..... KMC soon ;) Its the effort that counts right :thumb:
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On da train, yes rain 8)
View attachment 1




Hmmmmm what else I got on my cell phone camera....



miro13car said:
 
^^ I also wanted to tell you guys & gals that if a parking lot outlet is not operational, go and try the other ones because this parking lots outlets seem to only have one parking stall that is operational. I remember charging up at the exact same outlet last year, so tonight I grabbed one that had shelter but it was no good, so I went ahead and went to each one, about 8 outlets, knowing full well the one I went on today was good to go!
 
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