CroBorg Super Commuter

Took a ride today and tested the "Peak" accessory on the AVG Blade helmet pictured above. Riding into the sun presents two problems - sun in the eyes, and sun lighting up the (dirty/scratched) face shield making it hard to see, especially into the shadows.

The peak accessory sits right above the visor when it is in the up position. It makes pulling the visor down slightly harder but it can readily be grasped off-center, or pushed down from above, again off-center where the Peak accessory is not in the way.

With an upright or slightly leaned forward riding position as we have on standard bicycles and on this GreyBorg Warp it is easy to tip the head slightly and block the low sun, and provide a bit of shade for the face shield to facilitate seeing. It appears to me this will do the job. It might not be as well suited for a recumbent as the head angle might not be comfortable, but that will have to be tested.

This test was into the evening sun, the final testing will be on the morning commutes. Hopefully I will get some in this next week.

In other news I received the pannier rack for the BikeE, but that is info for another thread. :)

I also received a pack of RFID key fobs. They were a couple bucks for 10. Amazing. They appear to be well made. I plugged in the USB RFID reader and read all of the fobs and cards I have. Slick! I also tried to read the badge from work, no dice. It must be on a different band. When I get caught up on some other projects I will get back to the RFID project. Today I had to fight with plugged pipes, what an expensive and time consuming mess. :(
 
Sissy :mrgreen:
 
Alan B said:
Due to fog and big storm coming in I'm not going to Borg to work for another week or so. :(
Click to expand...

Having the same issue here. Rain every day pretty much. Got caught in some of it on the borg today while riding. Did the last 5km to get home at 60+khp but still got soaked. Borg seems fine thank goodness!
 
patrickza said:
...

Having the same issue here. Rain every day pretty much. Got caught in some of it on the borg today while riding. Did the last 5km to get home at 60+khp but still got soaked. Borg seems fine thank goodness!
Click to expand...

Good that you made it safe. It is storming now, tropical storm from Hawaii with big wind and lots of rain. Up to 12" rain over a few days a bit North of me, hopefully we won't see that much.

I refueled the SUV yesterday, expensive but at least gas prices are somewhat down, under $4. Looking forward to some good weather soon.
 
Hi, can you rephrase your energy expenses for me?

With my SUV, I get to drive about 330 miles / full tank. I usually pay about 120CHF for a full tank, which makes for 0.36 CHF per mile or 0.24 CHF per km.

For electricity at my house, next to the 40 CHF per month to be connected to the grid, I pay 0.038 CHF per kWh. With a charge of 0.6kWh, I realistically can do my commute, so that would be 0.0228 CHF per km.

Therefore, if I would do my 15km commute by car every day, it would cost about 7.2 CHF per day. With my bike, it is about 0.684 CHF per day.

With 200 workable days in a year, that is 1440 CHF by car, and 135.8 CHF by bike.

What are the calculations for your SUV and your Borg in your area of the world?
 
Great questions!

I have some of this on my website linked in my sig, but those are more aimed at my mountain bike which is more efficient than the Borg, but less efficient than my Recumbent EbikeE.

So for the Borg,

My commute is 26 miles and the round trip is right at 20AH at about 70 volts, or 1.4 kilowatt hours. So that's a bit over 50 watt hours per mile, or about 35 watt hours per kilometer. This is my least efficient ebike, but it offers a lot for a daily commuter in safety and confidence on the rough roads we ride.

At $4.00 per gallon and 20 mpg the 26 miles takes just over $5 in fuel daily in my small SUV (1998 Toyota 4Runner). At 200 days this would be $1000 per year. At 15 mpg it costs $7 per day or $1400 per year. I get somewhere between that for the hilly and serpentine commuting path. Call it $1200 annual or $6 per trip.

At $0.20 per kilowatt hour and 90% charging efficiency the Borg costs about $0.30 daily to charge. At 200 days this would be $60 per year.

So the Borg is about 20 times cheaper than driving the vehicle, energy cost wise.

In my case I charge at work more than 50% since it is uphill to work, so my actual out of pocket energy costs are less than half those indicated for the Borg.

Note that my Recumbent is about twice again as efficient as the Borg, so about 40x cheaper than the car, and it is comfortable, but not as safe and I feel every bump with no suspension. :)

edit - fixed error in wh/km number.
 
Um.....Alan. How can your WH/k be more than your WH/mile?
otherDoc
 
docnjoj said:
Um.....Alan. How can your WH/k be more than your WH/mile?
otherDoc
Click to expand...

Good catch. Just checking to see if anyone out there is actually awake :)

I did the wh/km calc with the half commute distance instead of the round trip. Not used to looking at those unit values, so didn't see it instantly. Should be better now.
 
Hmm. Thanks for the numbers.

With my cromotor, I am usually in the 25-30Wh/km or 40-48Wh/mile range. Then again, the combined weight of bike (15kg), battery (10kg), motor (10kg), and me is approximately 100kg.
 
I've been busy and mostly away from the forum here. A quick dump catchup:

Weather has improved so commuting regularly on the Borg again. 4/5 days this week so far, and probably will use it today as well for a clean sweep this week.

Have passed 2,000 miles on this ebike. Rear tire appears to be more than 50% worn (have not measured recently). Front tire has little wear. Batteries have over 150 cycles on them, including one deep cycle. Still seem to be in good shape. No flats aside from the one, and no spills or impacts aside from a half pound bee to the helmet a week or two ago. No damage on that one but sounded like a golf ball hitting the helmet. :) No other failures.

Deep cycle happened weeks ago when the overnight charge apparently disengaged before complete. I suspect the line cord was loose. I did not notice until halfway to work. I quit using the motor when the voltage was low to avoid damage to the $800 battery pack (18S 20AH Lipo). Pushed the heavy bike up a couple hills and pedaled the rest of the way into work. Eventually put 19AH back into the pack and watched the balance carefully. That was a full discharge (I'm charging to about 4.16V/cell so not quite full capacity).

Have been bulk charging at both ends for most of the usage since early days. I check the balance every couple of days as it nears end of charge, and it has not strayed.

Regen is working very well, I especially like it when descending my 15% hill. I use it far more than the dual front brakes, they are mostly for safety and stopping below 10mph.

Soon I will move the regen from a pushbutton to a rear brake handle. Have not yet sorted out a rear disc, is difficult to fit on on the Cromotor. Let me know if someone has solved that.

Having some trouble with the right hand side rear axle nut with Nordlock coming loose. The hardened flange axle nuts with teeth may not provide the right surface for the Nordlock to work properly. The left hand unit stays tight. The right hand one only loosens when regen is used, of course.

Not much excitement on the commute runs. Which I prefer. Beautiful vistas, lots of cars stuck in traffic to glide by, but there is the occasional exciting moment. A few days ago as I threaded up through the winding turns in the park in the morning, alternating between bright sun and darkness under the trees, a pedestrian (in an area where there are never pedestrians) crossed the road in the shadows wearing dark clothing right in front of me without looking. If I hadn't seen them and changed my line through the curve (and that was difficult with me in the sun coming around a curve and them in the dark) I would have center punched them with 150kg of bike and rider at about 25mph. I have video of them never looking my way at all as I whizzed by them about six feet behind them as they crossed the spot I was originally headed for.

I have been collecting lots of video. Have to post a sample at some point. Boring and relaxing as the pavement and trees slide by, almost like tunneling through the forest.

The bike handles like a dream at these power levels and speeds through the winding somewhat rough roads in the park. Clocking 26 miles a day, round trip. Takes about half an hour each way. Parking in the office at one end and in the garage at the other, charging both ends. Using about 13 amp hours one way and 10 on the other due to more climbing in the morning, of the 20 amp hour pack.

I don't ride in the rain and mostly avoid darkness though I have almost decent lights. But forget the wet, at least for now, without fenders and really sealed electrics.

I'm having a bit of cover cracking due to the forks bumping them at full lock. Have to figure out a way to absorb that force without pushing on the cover.

Enjoying the electric vest on the cool mornings. Added a set of bike arm covers when I wear short sleeved shirts which is most days. Over that I wear the vest, a medium jacket and then the green light biker's visibility jacket.

I got a 'peak' for my AVG blade helmet. VITAL piece of gear. This allows a band of shadow on the visor so you can see into oncoming sun.
 
Alan ,I'm working on a brake puzzle too. I took spacer off the motor, lined up the holes in a rotor that has material in the needed areas, drill new holes for attachment of rotor, spacer not needed then. Or then get a 10 or 12" saw blade and make a new rotor.
 
cassschr1 said:
Alan ,I'm working on a brake puzzle too. I took spacer off the motor, lined up the holes in a rotor that has material in the needed areas, drill new holes for attachment of rotor, spacer not needed then. Or then get a 10 or 12" saw blade and make a new rotor.
Click to expand...

I have been thinking along similar lines. Wish someone would make a kit. :)
 
Ijz1Modx

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Have you thought about sell your Recumbent and get the Recumbent with suspension. It might give you better handle the bump and super efficient?

Alan B said:
Note that my Recumbent is about twice again as efficient as the Borg, so about 40x cheaper than the car, and it is comfortable, but not as safe and I feel every bump with no suspension. :)
Click to expand...
 
chroot said:
Have you thought about sell your Recumbent and get the Recumbent with suspension. It might give you better handle the bump and super efficient?
Click to expand...

Might do that sometime, though the suspension will increase weight and lower efficiency somewhat, and probably not improve handling.
 
20130429_110442.jpg


Here is the new eBrake lever installed on the Borg. It is nice to have a "rear brake" lever again, but it is quite different from having a normal rear brake. It is effective above about 7 mph and on a steep 15% descent holds velocity to about 11 mph which is very useful. I still want a full rear brake but this is a nice improvement over using a left hand thumb pushbutton to trigger the eBrake.
 
Updated the Cycle Analyst V3 to the current firmware, prelim5. Lots of new features. The calibration of the shunt was buggy on the old code (beta12?) so I'm going to have to start over on that. Set now for 1.000 milli ohms, and it seems to be roughly close.

Currently I'm not letting the CA do any throttle modifications as the firmware I had was buggy on that, so I made an adapter that left out the throttle override control wire.

Weather has been great lately and I've started carrying the D7000 DSLR on the bike so I should get some more nice photos.

Odometer shows 2642 miles.
 
DSC_0330.jpg


Friday I visited the launch ramp area of San Pablo Reservoir with the GreyB.org during my commute home. The covers are sure bright. I hear they are working on new covers that have color embedded into them. My covers have a few cracks so when they are available I'll have to dress up the bike. Perhaps blue would be nice.
 
The new Cycle Analyst firmware read 11.9 amp hours on the commute in, and the charger indicated 12.3 amp hours. However the meter that I use on charging reads 12.3 amps when it is actually 12.0, apparently due to the shunt heating up. The meter does read 12.0 at first, then drifts up to 12.3. So the actual amp-hour reading is likely about 2.5% high which means the CA agrees quite closely with the charger, within about 1%. I've never had agreement this well before, even when calibrating it each time it would jump by more than that the next reading, so clearly there was some problem in the code that has been rectified. Great job Justin!
 
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