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

[amberwolf]

i don't know what the embedded stuff is for sure. i suspect that the small bit they said is in my thumb is metal from some project or other over the years. but i think the bit in the knot is likely either a piece of my hand bone or a sliver of bonnie's tooth from when she got my hand instead of nana's face a year or more ago, when i think the bone wsa fractured too. (if it was; it felt like it)


unless i get desperate i don't think i could do self-surgery, not without anaesthetics anyway. :lol:


if i can get on ahcccs i may be able to have something done about it. if it doesn't get any better on the crrent tratment i'll have to go back anyway; at least right now it seems to be 'on hold', no worse but not a lot better, other than the pain being far less and actually being able to sort of use all the fingers again (instead of just pinky and finger next to it, and a little thumb).

i still can't type quite like i should, and it hurts to use the shift key so i am still not usually doing it since i never use the right shift only left for some wierd reason--i realy screw up my typing when i try to use the right. can't carry or lift or grasp yet, and evertyhin g in the back of my hand feels very tight--i cannot make even halfway to a fist eexcept with pinky and finger next to it.

 

[emmetbrown]

Hope you're getting better soon without any kind of surgery.

greetings,

christian

 

[amberwolf]

me, too. so far the swelling has gone down a lot; this morning it was almost normal but by the time i got done working tonight it was back to maybe half of what it started as. now that im home and resting and have taken the night dose of bactrim it's going down again, enogh to see wrinkles in the skin covering parts of the hand that had been swollen.

the knot itself is still both puffy and very enlarged and hardened. it is larger than my thumb's base knuckle at the point it webs to the rest of the hand. i cannot curl the pointer finger past the end knuckle of my thumb, just past an ok sign is all it will do. the skin on the back of my wrist is also still puffy, but reducing slowly.

the bactrim and higher dose than normal of ibuprofen is kicking the rest of my body around, too, though, and i'm really worn out, a little dizzy, sometimes a little nauseous, often uncoordinated, and photosensitive.

the good news is that i am now typing with both hands again, except for the left pointer finger (trying to let it rest because the whole finger itself is sore, bruised-feeling), but shifting is still difficult enough to skip it wherever possible.


more good news; i got $170 of dog food today for only $25, thanks to someone pointing out some extreme markdowns due to about-to-expire best-by dates. two mid-sized bags and two large-sized, various brands from ok to really good.


hard part was hauling them home, as the bike felt overloaded due to weight distribution problmes,and i think some wiggle in the bent-up cargopod and it's bent rails.



hardest part was loading them on the bike and unloading them (especially unloading). i actually had to put one of them in the center of the bike frame, so i was unable to pedal even if i had wanted to:


but i made it home ok, though i kept it down to 15-17mph most of the way because it felt wobbly in back. getting in the door was almost impossible, because i couldn't hold the handlebars with the left hand while pushing the seat with the other, like i usually do when it's loaded down, and i was already exhausted. so by the time i got it in the dogs were really frustrated with waiting for me and were about ready to jump all over me instead of sitting wiating like i've taught them to.



then just before posting this, i was making dinner and discovered somethign by accident: you can make a kind of version of a1 steak sauce (which i love but cant' really afford to splurge on) by mixing lea and perrins worcestershire sauce (which i got a gallon of for something like $6 or 7 from america foods in mesa) with ketchup (which i got free with a coupon from safeway), when i was getting everything ready to eat (steak from a clearance sale and leftover fast food fries someone at work didn't want, and some mixed veggies).

i put some ws in a little cup for the steak, and then forgettin i'd done that i put ku fro the fries in the same one. i was too tired to think of just carefully pouring out the very thin ws from the thick ku, so i stared at it, then just mixed it up with a spoon. :lol: licked the spoon and was so very surprised to find it's taste so like a1 that i almost fell down. it's not quite right, perhaps too much ku, but now i have another project goal. still, it's close enough fro now, and makes the clearnace not-so-great steak pretty edible.

 

[amberwolf]

swelling except for the knot is practically gone; pics below. knot looks terrible though; is like someone left a shooter-marble under my skin.

anybody got an old mri machine laying around?


edit: oh, and *now* the skin around the knot itches just a little bit, but nothing like a typical allergic itch feels like--it's not even as itchy as a mosquito bite or similar--easily ignored.


View attachment 3

 

[amberwolf]

i put an sb50 anderson on the 12s3p lipo pack from mdd0127 and tested it out here on cb2 around the block.

but when i got home i accidentally reset the ca before i wrote down the ride data.

gotta fully recharge the pack, since it was kept at about half charge up to this point and hasn't been recharged yet. then maybe retry the ride tomorrow.

i did notice that at hard accel from a stop with 30-40 amps, it dropped from 46 to 42v, which seems like a lot, though it bounced back up to 44-45v quickly once the load went away.

 

[mdd0127]

They were at a storage charge level so they won't sag near as much when you top them off.

Your hand is probably itching because it's healing! Looks way better.

I have some exciting stuff to talk with you about but my battery is about to die. Be in touch soon!!

 

[amberwolf]

i was installing the mini limiter board on the meanwell you gave me with the pack, so i could test it out recharging this pack, but i apparently killed the meanwell.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=36100

i'll end up recharging it using the sorenson, but not till im sure i'll go test ride it.


my hand feels way better, too, but the pictures do not really show the knot very well. being unable to grip things correctly or essentially use the left pointer finger much at all is not helping things right now. i am hoping that will shrink, too, but i don't have any real expectations of that. the itching is extremely minor, and i only notice it if my attention is focused on the knot. discomfort trying to do things that stretch bits of my hand around/thru/whatever that area, however, is pretty high. not exactly pain-level, but if i forced it i'm sure it would hurt.


i was off work today, will be off tomorrow and friday, but a local friend is trying to get me in to get my hand imaged with various technologies, so i am not certain if i will be home either day. haven't heard back from him yet, so we'll see if it even happens this week. it'd be nice to know what's going on in there.

either way, if you feel like coming down or whatever, if i can be here, i will.

 

[texaspyro]

mixing lea and perrins worcestershire sauce (which i got a gallon

Try doing shots of L&P mixed with vodka... it'll put hair on your chest and cure what ails 'ya

 

[amberwolf]

or kill me and put me out of everyone's misery. :lol:

i put this pack
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=523374#p523374

on cb2 as the lighting pack for now to test it out for a while, and see how it lasts. in case it fails i also ahve the other pack on there, since it would suck to have no lights or to ahve ot hack into 3 or 4 cells of the main pack to keep lights going.

 

[amberwolf]

crossposted to/from the battery's thread:

used about 0.64ah on the way to work, and about 0.78ah on the way home. not recharging it yet, as i want to test if it has a working internal lvc to protect itself.

i suppose i could just let it sit and run overnight for that rather than being caught on the road without lights, but i still ahve the regular lighting pack on the bike if i need it. i'd rather do the discharge test under actual load conditions with intermittent use of brake light and turn signals, but constant use of lowbeam headlight and very occasional use of highbeam.



regarding my hand, all of the swelling has gone down and there is no pain except in my pointer finger, if i bend it in certain ways, or apply pressure even a little to certain areas. the knot on the tendon seems to be getting smaller too, but not very quickly.

 

[amberwolf]

A bit more used today, aobut 0.75ah to work, and 0.87ah home.

I also got a PM from a new member that joined because they saw my CrazyBike2 on their ride home, probably when it was parked outside my work, and was inspired to do something, too. Since it has the Endless Sphere "bumper sticker" from Spinningmagnets on there, it guided them here.

Hopefully they'll start a build thread on their project!


I get at least a handful of people a day staring at the bike, some of them genuinely interested in it, but so far none that I know of that came to ES and joined because of it, until now.



They also let me know about a place called The Rusty Spoke, which is a local bike shop/repair/etc. co-op, whcih I don't think I'd ever heard of before. But for those in the area, it's down closer to central Phoenix, at 1023 Grand Ave. Website is http://rustyspoke.org and they are generally open on Sundays and Thursdays for the shop, with meetings and events and stuff at variosu other times of the week and month, including a Critical Mass ride every month on a Friday.

Unfortunatley I pretty much always have to work on Sun and Thu, but if I ever don't, I'll go down there to check them out.

 

[amberwolf]

On that lighting pack, the previous day I worked I used another 2Ah or so. Today yet another 1.5Ah. Still holding up. Shows 3 bars of 5 still; reads 15.something volts under lighting load. Sorry I can't remember what it was exactly.


My left hand is almost all better. I can use it as normally as I could before all this started, with the knot in the tendon (that I had thougth was badly healed bone) only a little bigger than it started out. I can close my hand into a fist without pain, but I still can't grip with the pointer finger very well, and it's joints all hurt more than the rest of the joints in either hand always do.


I now have a working welder, so I may be able to fix the damage from the collision with the curb in the accident noted recently. But so far it is holding up with out problems, even with 80lbs+ of dog food in that pod or resting partly on it.


The rear wheel needs adjusting; it either has a loose spoke (or broken) and needs truing or the damage loosened (or bent, or both) the axle, and I will see about fixing the rubbing caused by the problem tomorrow.

 

[Solcar]

Cool, the bumper sticker payed off.

 

[texaspyro]

My left hand is almost all better. I can use it as normally as I could before all this started.

Whoo hooo! Good to hear. Back to double dates!

 

[amberwolf]

Har har.

I got a fair bit accomplished today, but nowhere near what I wanted to. The main thing was to fix the bent up cargo pod rails, and to FINALLY put a welded-on actual seat mount, instead of the "temporary" blocks of wood and hose clamps I've had for the last couple thousand miles or more. :lol:

I also received some other stuff, one box a donation and the other purchased with some of the anonymous donation that got me the welder, and did a little bit of work on each of those.


First, the before pics:

Right cargo pod, top view.



Right rails:







The metal tore thru as it bent, here.



So...no way I'm gonna bend that rail back without some extra leverage. I dug out a long square tube I happened to also get at the same time as I got the ones actually on the bike:



Since I don't want to just bend the rail worse up forward of where the bend is, up where it's welded to the rest of the frame, I needed a way to help keep it parallel to the other rail while I torqued it over to the right. So I used a packing strap like I have on the battery box lid to keep it shut, thru the spokes over to the other rail.
View attachment 13


The bike by itself is not heavy enough to stay in place as I used the long tube to bend the rail back, so I loaded up 8x 12V 17Ah SLA in the other pod, whcih is something like 120lbs. That just barely held it down while I pulled...



It did work, though:


View attachment 2


I had to weld the cracked rail, and I also welded a thick bead along the lower edge of where I'd had to cut it out to access the wheel axle nut.



I still haven't unbent the box itself, but I expect that will require some expertise and help from someone else that has done that before. I already tried clamping it down and bending the walls back but that doesnt' work. I'm not strong enough, I guess.


Then I had to tackle the seat problem. See, several months ago, maybe more than a year (can't remmeber), the hose clamp I used for the front of the seat to clamp it to the bike frame failed, and I no longer had anything holding the front down, so I nearly fell backwards while riding.

In the last few days the seat has felt looser, and today I found one of the two clamps had broken


so I thought it would be a really good idea to fix this problem permanently. I considered briefly just welding the seat to the frame, but I need to take it off to get to things sometimes, and also to be able to get the battery out of the side pod. So...a solution not involving hose clamps was in order.

Some pondering led me to a thought: I have all those red steel rails I'm going to build into cargo pod rails on the new bike. They have some smaller pieces to fit them into big square frames for signage, with the little pushbutton clips that fit into holes in the tubing:


So if I cut off a stub of each size, and put one part on the cargo pod rail frame, and the other on the seat's under-rails:




and the seat part fits over the rail part


With the idea that I'll re-bend these:

so they fit inside the now much shorter stubs on teh rails, allowing me to "lock" the seat down onto the rails. For now I am not doing that because I ran out of daylight, and it was cold enough after sunset that I had trouble manipulating things, thanks to my aching hands.

At the moment, the fit is tight enough that I don't think I'll fall off of it; it's not wiggly at all and doesnt' flex like it did with the clamps. It fits together fine, mostly because I welded on first the rear pegs to the cargo rails, then set the seat ends on them and set the seat on top of that held down with bricks, and tack welded the seat ends onto the seat's lower rails. Then I did the front ones.







I'm hoping to get to the final stage of this on Monday, my next day off.

 

[amberwolf]

Also, with due forethought and consideration of the warnings and problems others have had, I took advantage of Dirtdad's (Comcycle's) 1/2 off charger sale threads,
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=35274
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=35270
and used some of the same donation that got me the welder that let me do the fixes above to buy two chargers. One for the current pack on CB2, and one for a spare for it and also for the Vpower pack or an RC LiPo pack built from the donated packs I'm repairing over in this thread:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=34661
(FWIW, I'm always looking for more defective packs from those that would rather dispose of them than fix them. )


I've been charging the pack using the Sorensons, taking it off the bike and back to the only accessible 220V outlet where I can use the fast charger (which at 10A only takes 10-15 minutes to charge from a typical work commute), or using two little Sorensons for slow charging when I do not need to quickly charge it up (which at 90mA takes quite a while, over 2-3 hours or more, to charge from the same work commute). But the dogs sometimes knock the little ones over or trip on the wires, and they are heavy linear supplies that waste a lot of power, (though the heat is welcome in the winter) and I don't want to continue using them for this.

I had planned to figure out if the Meanwell donated by Mdd0127
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=36100
could be adjusted up to the 58.3V I need to charge this pack up to 4.15V/cell, but I blew it up probably with ESD when I was installing the Mini Meanwell Current Limiter (it worked before that, at a lower voltage meant for a 12s RC LiPo pack). I haven't gotten back to the repair on that one yet; I'm waiting on a part and I need to do full schematic reverse engineering of it to make sure it's all otherwise ok before i install the new part after it gets here.


So, anyway, I have been pondering a charging solution that I coudl take with me elsewhere for >20 miles trips that have outlets along the way or at the destination, and the sale came along, and one of the chargers was exactly perfect, at 58.4V, capable of up to 4A. It's a KingPan charger, and those have been known on ES before, including some mod threads. (sometimes people call them KingPower instead of KingPan, apparently)

Manufacturer page shows it is a 90W charger, but that might be an average, based on my results. Or mine might be a model they no longer make?
http://www.kingpan.cn/en/Product-19.html
Seems to be some adjustment info here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13571
and this thread specifies one with the same model EP6004JL as mine:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21229
that says theirs is from Ecitypower.

I have an aluminum case "48V" 240W lithium charger from ecitypower (model EP6004JL) that has a voltage range of 50.5V to 70.3V which I use at 55.5V for my 15S LiFePO4 pack

Some googling on KP6004JL finds some Chinese-only pages that when translated with Google appear to state the same things as Russell, but for KingPan's company name instead of Ecitypower. So I think this is what I have.


Kinda funny but here on the right end of the label, it specifies to ONLY use it with LEAD ACID batteries, yet the left end of the label says specifically Li-Iron (LiFePO4) or Li-Poly:



It came with the typical wrongly-used IEC type AC-designed connector:

and it uses the same kind of connector for it's AC input power cord, which makes it VERY easy for a noob to plug their AC cord directly into their battery pack and blow the BMS or the pack itself. Or worse, start a fire if nothing actually blows but instead just fails and heats and burns.

So after testing it on a meter:

and getting the expected voltage, and testing on a scope and getting a nice flat DC output (sorry, no pic), even with a 40W lightbulb as a load, it was time to test on the pack.


I put it on the pack with some jumper leads first:

which was down almost 3Ah from my work commute yesterday and some other test riding today after fixing the stuff in the previous post. Charging started normally, at 3.99A (close enough to the claimed 4A on the label), at 219W.
View attachment 22


This dropped as charging raised the pack voltage, until about 45 mintues later it was down to less than half that,
View attachment 21
and it would continue to drop in current until when it was nearly full, it was at less than 70mA. I don't know if it would have shut off when full, though, as one of hte dogs tripped over teh cord to the wall and pulled it out while I was cooking dinner. We'll see tomorrow when I recharge it after work.

I want to be able to just plug it into the bike, so after I was sure it would work, I changed the IEC connector to andersons PP45:



Naturally, I had to also take a peek inside so:
Handy slide off or pop-off lid (after you remove the top two screws on each end)












View attachment 13









Next are some pics of the unpacking, just for completion's sake. Also note that even though my address was given correctly to Dirtdad (Comcycle), and he/they got it correct on the invoice both electronically as sent to me and printed as in the box, the last two digits of the street address were somehow decreased by one when UPS got or created the shipping information. This wasn't ultimately a problem, but I saw teh UPS truck go by Thursday (before I headed off to work) without stopping, when I knew they should have this package on it. So I checked the tracking page, and found a note that they had an invalid address, and called them up to see why. Fixing it took only a moment, and they rescheduled delivery for today.


The only other issue is that there was ZERO padding or packing material in the box, just the AC cords, chargers, and a paper copy of the invoice with a note "Use Kyozou on this one", but I don't have any idea what or who Kyozou is, so I assume that was a note for whoever was supposed to pack the box, which they forgot to take off before sealing it up. Nothing was damaged (that I have seen so far), but having no packing or padding AT ALL with lots of extra space in the box for things to rattle around in is pretty shoddy.

Comcycle package (small) along with another with donated defective RC LiPo that arrived at teh same time. (note that the actual stuff sent in the RC LiPo package was smaller than the chargers, but was extremely well-packed, with plenty of box around it to protect it from OOPS...er....UPS).













Teh other charger I've only verified with the meter and the scope w/load. Haven't verified if it will do 3A or not.

 

[amberwolf]

For those that care, I realized (after how long? ) that the CA's main page displays of "Ah" are not actually the Ah used up during a cycle between resets. They are the *total* of Ah used *and* Ah regenned (or charged). The actual "used" Ah is displayed on the Regen page, where Ah toggles between Fwd and Regen Ah, where Fwd Ah includes all Ah that passes from battery to controller side of the shunt, and Regen Ah includes all Ah passing the other way.


Not only is this a useful bit of info for those that have regen and keep track of usage, but it also means that anyone like me that uses regen and didnt' realize this before has actually been noting down the *wrong* Ah usage, making consumption look lower than it actually is. Probably not by much, but there you go.



On today's commute, I used another 1.8Ah on the lighting. Somethign that seems odd: Even though my work rides are the same length, and typically have the same lighting usage, the Ah usage on each one has increased from each previous one, as the lighting pack gets lower in SOC and voltage. (It's now down to about 14.7V, and two bars on the built in SOC meters).

So, let's see:
1.8Ah today
1.5Ah previously
2Ah on my store trip day
1.6Ah the day before thta
1,4Ah before that
for a total of 8.3Ah, or about half of the rated capacity of that pack. Since it says it's down to two of five bars on it's SOC meters, it's so far close to it's rated capacity.

 

[Alan B]

Switching regulators draw more current as the voltage drops. Essentially they draw somewhat constant power, though their efficiency isn't constant so that changes things a bit.

Good to know on the CA. Important detail about the amp hour displays.

 

[amberwolf]

The thing is, the main drain by far is an incandescent (halogen) car headlight. Perhaps those also draw more current as voltage drops? I suppose I should check that.

The only other things on the lighting pack are an automotive LED brake-light bar with a simple resistive voltage drop/current limiter and series LEDs, and the turn signal lamps which are "12VAC" LED MR16 units--I'm sure they have switching regulators in them, too, but they are not on enough to account for very much current draw (almost certainly not the amount I am seeing).

To be absolutely sure of the phenomenon I think I am seeing, I would have to do timed tests with each of those loads at the house, at various stages on the discharge curve, and see if it still takes mroe Ah for the same duration at lower voltages.

 

[Alan B]

Easier and more accurate to remove time from the equation and just measure load current at different voltage states. Quicker yet use an adjustable power supply.

 

[sangesf]

Amperage loads drop as voltage drops using a "12v 55w halogen"..

On my last test(s)...
On a 12.8/13.2v battery, a 55w will draw ~4.2a
On a 9.6/9.9v battery, a 55w will draw ~3.0a
On a 3.2/3.3v cell a 55w will draw ~.7a

It's not exactly linear, I'm guessing because of resistance chances as the bulb emits more light / heat and since it has no kind of regulation on it to keep the resistance constant, the amp draw also changes by a variable amount.
(Just my layman's guess)

 

[amberwolf]

I expect the halogen to increase resistance as voltage drops because then current drops and then temperature drops. I just haven't tested it on this one, and I am not sure what else would cause the apparent increase in usage on the same trip.

Easier and more accurate to remove time from the equation and just measure load current at different voltage states. Quicker yet use an adjustable power supply.

True. But...I wonder if the internal resistance of the pack itself is going down as it's SOC gets lower, and maybe that allows more current flow? Doesn't seem like it would make sense, though. And I don't even think it could work like I'm thinking anyway, because the load resistance isnt' getting any lower (or shouldn't).


Anyway, today I used about 1.7Ah, and reached zero bars on the display. It's recharging now on the big Sorenson, at 16.5V 2.5A (out of a max of 16.8V 3A).

So total Ah out of the pack was 10Ah, over 6 ~5-mile commutes and one ~2-mile store trip (done on the same day as my work commute). We'll see if cycling it gives it more or less capacity over time. (my bet is less).

 

[amberwolf]

I forgot to note that today a fourth person besides me has now ridden CrazyBike2: one of my co-workers. I feel a little dumb because I had my camera with me but forgot that, and so didn't get any pics or video. It was uneventful, as he was just taking it for a quick check-out in the side parking lot, but he certainly had the EV grin!


He was impressed enough by it to ask afterwards that if he bought a trike (kinda like the ones at Walmart and such) how much would it cost to convert it to electric. I discussed some of the problems with such trikes (especially turning at speeds greater than 10-15MPH) with him for a few minutes, but we had to get to working so we'll have to go back and discuss it some more later, and figure out what kind of bike he would really like to ride, before we start talking what it would take to convert it.

But I think I've made another electric bike rider.

 

[texaspyro]

I forgot to note that today a fourth person besides me has now ridden CrazyBike2: one of my co-workers.

And they all lived through the experience! (or did they?) Will wonders never cease? Do CrazyBike riders get a certificate? Neck brace? Get taught the Secret Handshake? Paper bag with holes in it for their eyes to cover their head while riding so nobody will know that they are crazy enough to get on that darned contraption?

 

[amberwolf]

Well, Liveforphysics got on it and rode a short distance in the pits at the Death Race I broke my ankle at before bringing it back to me, saying that I was a braver man than he, and he woudln't ride it on the track. Of course, that was with the death-wobbly-fork, rather than it's normal stable configuration, but still....

Many people think it's interesting or cool or whatever, but very few will actually get on and ride it. So...maybe there ought to be some sort of award. :lol: