Cross-Canada by Ebike

[hejo]

Congratulations from Germany,
Thanks a lot for your impressive demonstration of faith, capability, humor and engagement!
Take a nice rest ...
(hopefully not too long, since we all cant wait until you offer this nice, advanced, waterproof, intelligent, interfaceable, programmable, efficient new regen controller) :lol:

 

[paultrafalgar]

... and the 10-LED front light!

 

[KoolKat]

A hearty CONGRATULATIONS from all of us Atomic Zombies! Very proud of you. Looking forward to reading a detailed blog or book from you soon.!!

 

[knoxie]

Hi All

I have been away over the weekend and had not net contact :x so glad to see that Justin has finally made it to the other side...! wooo!! what a top man, it was an absolute pleasure to check in and keep tabs on him over the past couple of months zooming in on Google earth and getting a sense of where he was going and what he was seeing was so cool to do in almost real time.

I hope he can now cool his boots and take the time he needs to relax and get back to life off the road, its going to seem strange to him I am sure, big big big EV congrats from this side of the Pond Justin, I am sure that you have inspired many more and will continue to do so as the news of your amazing journey spreads and is re-told, the first plug in hybrid electric vehicle to cross Canada, now that's something to be so proud of.

Looking forward to the pictures and data and posts over the coming weeks, I am sure you will have a million things to sort out upon your return though so keep chilling and lay your batteries and motor to rest, take some Justin Time!!

Knoxie

 

[Fire Mountain]

Many congrats! Glad to hear you made it through broken spokes, hurricanes and all. Kind of makes my commute pale in comparison...

 

[astroman]

Justin - super meeting you. Your journey bridged coasts and souls. It tested the metal of both you and your bike. Very well done sir, very well done.

"And I to my electrocycle Parked like the soul of the junkyard Restored, a bicycle fleshed With power, and tore off Up Highway 106 continually Drunk on the wind in my mouth Wringing the handlebar for speed Wild to be wreckage forever."

James Dickey (slightly paraphrased)

 

[Zoot Katz]

Hi Justin!

You blown and stretched our minds with your accomplishment.
You have set a unique signature in E-biking history.

Big congrats!!

Zenon

P.S. When is that train arriving in Vancouver?

There was no train leaving Halifax on the 30th. The earliest he can leave is Oct. 2.
That puts the scheduled arrival in Vancouver Oct 7th at 07:50 PDT.
A good hour for drinking BC Champagne, IMO.

(Information for Arrivals and departures : 888-842-7245)

 

[efreak]

Where are the Guinese people?

The first person to travel Cross-Canada on an electric bike! ...really.

Congratulations

like I've said before You are to electric bike movement like the Gibson , Marshall , Fender and Hendrix to electric guitar so real honour and previlage to be able to follow your trek and cheer you wish you all the best in the future you modest guy!

 

[Perfesser]

Hi Justin.
Are you catching the train back tomorrow? (Oct 2).
Come home my friend. Lets have a party (my place is offered).
(Oh yes, you can see my new milling machine too)
The weather has been wonderful lately.
I'm working on a new set up to make farings.
Just come home. You are missed.
-Karl

 

[solarbbq2003]

a small step for mankind........a giant leap for ebikes..........well done justin, inspirational and epic is all i can say

 

[justin_le]

It's the coolest thing, when you pull the left side brake lever ( and i say " lever " because there is no brake line.. just a wire !! ) the throttle suddenly becomes the brake level so you never really have to release the throttle.. just pull the lever and as you give more throttle with the brake lever pulled you get a progressive braking effect/regen.. takes getting used to but absolutely cool !!!

I recall the regen brake would cause shuddering at low speed, or if you let go of the throttle before pulling the e-brake lever. (?)

Hey Mike, that is a good recollection/observation. One of the main reasons I wasn't exactly volunteering the bike to ride is that the firmware for the sensorless operation was only at a most basic functional level at this stage. With a sensorless controller there is a speed below which the controller can't stay synchronized to the wheel because the back-emf voltage is too low to give accurate position readings. When the motor slows down to this speed, then the controller should either give up trying to power the bike if it is throttling, or if it is doing regen, then it should simply short out all 3 phase windings for a smooth resistance right to a stop. I hadn't implement either of these behaviours yet since I was planning to run with the hall sensors, and the sensorless code was only there as a backup and once I had it more or less working -- I was off! --.

Anyways, the consequence of that is that the controller would attempt to stay synchronized with the motor and do regen well below the speed at which this is even possible, and that's where the heavy chugging came from. In sensored mode, then the regen and all was naturally smooth right down to zero rpm but since the rain in winnipeg took out one of my hall signals I couldn't let people test it this way.

Justin

 

[Pheno]

Way to go Justin.
It was a pleasure to speak to you as you made youre way to burlington I was realy sorry I couldent join up for a short ride with you unfortunatly i couldent get the time off work. I will miss the posts and all the adventures you share along the way but im sure I speak for every one when I say Congratualtins..........WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO SURF THE NET FOR NOW!!!!!!!!!!! lol

 

[justin_le]

So I finally got around to adding the last line in my cross-canada trip stats spreasheet. Truro -> Halifax.

From one coast right to the other, zigzagging at times to catch interesting people and interesting routes (and occasionally due to getting lost), here is how it all adds up:

Total Distance: 7110 km
Total Energy Used: 100.7 kWh
Captured Regen Energy: 2.4 kWh
Net Energy Used: 98.3 kWh
Average Speed: 33.4 km/h
Energy Usage: 13.8 Wh/km
# of awesome people: countless

and of course, total energy bill: $8.57

I was at one point considering just using a flat 10 cents / kWh for the cost calculation since that seemed like about the North American average. If this was the case, and I didn't have regen, I would have gone overbudget, but the regen kept me just under the 100 kWh mark. That was cool.

 

[mikereidis]

Congrats on trip completion Justin ! I presume you took a quick dip in Halifax, but left the bike on shore....

One of the main reasons I wasn't exactly volunteering the bike to ride is that the firmware for the sensorless operation was only at a most basic functional level at this stage.

Good call. I stupidly convinced my wife to try my bike and accidentally left power on, with a throttle with spring removed. Fortunately no major injury/damage...

With a sensorless controller there is a speed below which the controller can't stay synchronized to the wheel because the back-emf voltage is too low to give accurate position readings. When the motor slows down to this speed, then the controller should either give up trying to power the bike if it is throttling, or if it is doing regen, then it should simply short out all 3 phase windings for a smooth resistance right to a stop. I hadn't implement either of these behaviours yet since I was planning to run with the hall sensors, and the sensorless code was only there as a backup and once I had it more or less working -- I was off! --.

Anyways, the consequence of that is that the controller would attempt to stay synchronized with the motor and do regen well below the speed at which this is even possible, and that's where the heavy chugging came from. In sensored mode, then the regen and all was naturally smooth right down to zero rpm but since the rain in winnipeg took out one of my hall signals I couldn't let people test it this way.

Justin

I see. Couldn't you have code/circuitry that still worked even if 2 of the 3 halls were dead or intermittent ? I imagine it'd be enough resolution to interpolate and create virtual hall signals for the missing ones. Might even work better than Back EMF, although some responsiveness would probably disappear. (???)

So your regen was somewhere around 2.3% overall then. Seems to match or exceed the 1-2% figures I've heard elsewhere, including for hybrid cars.

When I get regen, it will be interesting to see what could be done in the steep, never-ending Gatineau Hills or similar. Those hills KILL my batteries in short order, but they're much fun to go down; will be less fun/fast with regen though... I'm speculating as much as 7-15% regen recapture in highly hilly areas with some decent DC-DC conversion efficiency (or perhaps FETs to switch battery pack to 5s4p instead of 20s1p).


I guess you had no substantial up and down steep large hill areas to cross in your trek ? If you did, I'd be interested to know the regen efficiency over that portion of your trip.

Cheers, take a nice break and get back designing/building soon...
Mike.

 

[paultrafalgar]

No need to speculate, Mike. Take a look at Justin's spreadsheet. The leg from Manning to Princeton gives 17.7% regen and the leg from Revelstoke to Rogers Pass gives 12.6% regen. If you were to look at that in Google Earth I'm betting those were long downhills.

 

[miro13car]

I doubt safety of bike on the road with 110km/hour speed limit was mentioned here.
It is scary to ride on 80km/h road just meters from speeding cars , but on 110km/h road ?????
In Germany as above German poster hope will confirm you can ride for 100kilometers away from any roads and it is illegal to even try to enter highway, shoulder or no.
Speaking of roads infrustructure - crumbling for years and Harper goverment obssesed with saving money, same in Alberta , horrible asphalt in Calgary, just shame of goverment sitting on 9Billion surplus
MC

.

 

[miro13car]

BTW
what happend to UN rating of Canada - the best to live, why is so silent about it

 

[mace1934]

Justin,

I was away from an internet connection, so missed the wonderful day when you arrived in Halifax. But

"Cheers from Halifax, -Justin" ,

even though read a couple of days after the event, brought tears to my eyes.

Congratulations, Justin!

 

[mikereidis]

I doubt safety of bike on the road with 110km/hour speed limit was mentioned here.
It is scary to ride on 80km/h road just meters from speeding cars , but on 110km/h road ?????
In Germany as above German poster hope will confirm you can ride for 100kilometers away from any roads and it is illegal to even try to enter highway, shoulder or no.
Speaking of roads infrustructure - crumbling for years and Harper goverment obssesed with saving money, same in Alberta , horrible asphalt in Calgary, just shame of goverment sitting on 9Billion surplus
MC

.

AFAIK, 100 KMH is the maximum legal speed in Canada and on Trans Canada Highway; many parts are lower.

Regardless, the "average speeder" (Perhaps 20-30+ % of drivers) does 120 KMH, in part because most cops won't bother with you at that speed. Some do MUCH more, like 160+ KMH, but that is rare-ish, although 130+ is semi-common.

Most people would give a bike on right side of highway as much room as they can. Even on city streets, at least 50% of drivers seem to go entirely in other lane for me.


TRANS CANADA BIKE LANE !!! Just give us 1 meter of good pavement at right side of highway, and send some sweepers over it once a month or so. Educate car drivers if you must; "Share the Road" !

What would it cost, assuming work is done while normal work is done for highway ? A few pennies on the road dollar ?

TCBL, TCBL !!!

 

[jerryt]

Read and enjoyed your great adventure. Surprised that you answered my email a few weeks ago but thanks for that. Wishing you a safe return home.

 

[mikereidis]

No need to speculate, Mike. Take a look at Justin's spreadsheet. The leg from Manning to Princeton gives 17.7% regen and the leg from Revelstoke to Rogers Pass gives 12.6% regen. If you were to look at that in Google Earth I'm betting those were long downhills.

OK, thanks; haven't looked at the spreadsheet. Even in regular Google Maps with Terrain "Manning to Princeton" looks pretty gnarly...

But of course I'm interested to know how MY routes would be affected. Or any routes where you go up and down regularly, as opposed to one big long hill. Regardless, I'm getting OT here, so will save further OT-ish-ness for another thread and another day...

 

[Zoot Katz]

No need to speculate, Mike. Take a look at Justin's spreadsheet. The leg from Manning to Princeton gives 17.7% regen and the leg from Revelstoke to Rogers Pass gives 12.6% regen. If you were to look at that in Google Earth I'm betting those were long downhills.

OK, thanks; haven't looked at the spreadsheet. Even in regular Google Maps with Terrain "Manning to Princeton" looks pretty gnarly...

Revelstoke to Rogers pass is 71.3 km on the spread sheet. It does represent a net elevation gain of 880 meters or 2887 feet.
There's lots of rollers and uppy/downy crap on the way. He used 14.46 Wh/km on that leg. Regen was entered as only 1.2%.
The Manning to Princeton leg was 67.46 km with a net elevation loss of 702 meters. His 8.46 Wh/km and 17.7% regen was one of those tuck-and-go rides!

His average speed going UP to Rogers Pass was greater so I guess the five extra days of pedalling were starting to pay off too.
The next leg from Roger Pass to Golden was another down hill screamer. That's where the 12.6% regen is entered. It's also his highest average speed {39.65 KmH}

A missing data point is the size of his quads before leaving Vancouver and after arriving in Halifax.

 

[Zoot Katz]

I wanted to be able to do about 100-120 km per charge, and with a heavy setup like this that meant at least 1.4 KWh of battery capacity, figuring about 12 Wh/km, assuming a cruising speed of some 35-40 kph.

You were pretty close to bang on.
Average Wh/km, 13.38. Average speed; 33.36 KmH, with a buck forty-three left over in the energy budget!

 

[recumbent]

So this story about me crossing Canada for the first time ever in a plug-in electric vehicle, it's not really something that is meant to be told now. All of you reading this surely appreciate the significance, but for most people I think the significance will only be apparent 1 or 2 decades from now. At least that's what I hope. Justin

Good to see you made it safely to the other side of the continent Justin.

The fall colors must of been spectacular along the eastern part of your journey, congradulations.

 

[mikereidis]

A missing data point is the size of his quads before leaving Vancouver and after arriving in Halifax.

ROFL. That's TWO missing data points. I'd prefer at least one measurement per day, or hour, much more might be noise but we'd need a graph to see.