Happy New Year!

Happy 2008!

Tronbike 1.x has definitely been on the positive column for the year, thank you for the feedback and support.

Lots of ideas in the works, including and beyond a Tronbike 2.x.

First Commute, and Tronbike Alltrax Viewer 0.1

I rode Tronbike 1.0.2 to work Dec 26th. I took the backroads I use when riding by bicycle, and am learning motorcycles in general have all the disadvantages of a car plus the vunerability of a bicycle - all the blocked streets in Berkeley are seeing to that.

• Acceleration was good, and I didn't have any of the heat issues I had earlier. The ride is around 2 miles, maybe it didn't have a chance to heat up. It was also chilly outside.
  
• I have a stock 55W H4 bulb installed, which worked okay on the way home minus dimming when turnsignal and brakes were on.
  
• The bulb is wired so the light is ON only when/if the high-beam switch is activated (to save power/reduce load).
• I still await the H4 HID conversion kit. Should save 20 watts.
  
• I have LEDs and a LED flasher on order. I am going with some slightly newer tower like 1157 bulbs for front and brake lights. I aleady put in a set of 24 LED 1156 bulbs in my turn signals.
  
• I have heard nothing from the LED flashlight manufacturer (www.spider-fire.com) regarding spare parts. Boo.
• Stuck home without babysitter has reduced progress to SOFTWARE.
  
• I redid my existing gauge code to use the Python "pickle" serializer to create a datafile to link a reader and viewer process.
• I figured out the UI layout I am going to start with. The process of deciding what to show and doing the ergonomics to start/stop the process has been educational.
  
• I need to confirm working protocol between laptop and AllTrax.
• I need to confirm serial hardware connectivity between iPAQ and AllTrax.

My H4 CREE 550 Lumen LED Invention (and Smoke)

I received my "tactical" mounting rails for my monster LED flashlight today. RATHER than sticking with the plan of mounting the rail and sharing the light between motorcycle and bicycle, the temptation to put the 3 LED element into the DOT housing was too much. A proper H4 "LED" upgrade MUST be in the works somewhere in China, so I went for it to make my own.

1. I removed the bulb element from the existing H4 to expose the base and 3 wires. I isolated the case using electrical tape, cut the "low beam" wire to get it out of the way and had 1 wire to the center and 1 to the lamps aluminum case.
   
2. I then "welded" the lamp and H4 base using many wraps of the electrical tape, put the H4 LED into the housing, put the housing into the fairing (removing the mount points for the silly rails) and put the fairing on the bike.
3. I traced the headlight power wire and jumped it from the extra "RUN" position wire I have providing 11 volts. BRIGHT light, BUT then it started to flash like a bicycle blinker.
4. I fiddled around a bit to see if I built an RC circuit or something, but always flashing. I then wired directly to the first series battery, more flashing and faster.
5. I then jumped to the flashlight batteries and housing to see what maybe happened. No more flashing, but the brightness was way down. Was I overvolting or ??
6. Back to configuration of step 1, no flashing but dim. Every on-off of the lights now had one flash, then dim and dimming light.
7. Rather than the RUN switch tap, I tried directly off the DC-DC. More behavior as in step 6, one bright flash during "On" at the switch.
8. Back to the flashlight batteries. Flash on on, then nothing. At this point I assumed I broke something.
9. Confirmed something indeed was fried, original flashing of bright light just was not going to happen.
10. Took the fairing off, and the H4 LED invention out. I spelled burned PCB board.
11. Took the H4 LED apart and documented each step with the camera. More stinky.
12. Put the flashlight together again. I get a single bright flash from the LEDs, so I assume its circuitry vs LEDs.

The big mistake? FUSES, hello, and too much voltage.

Original Flashlight: 3.7 volts, 2400 MAH each LI-ION battery * 2 = 17.76 Watts-Hr Capacity. To fuse, I need to know peak amps. Assuming the light would go for 1 hour, thats 2.4 Amps at 7.4 volts - a 2 amp fuse inline with my futzing around would have been a good idea.

Anyway, lets see if the vendor has any lamps/spare parts available. I will try to insert pictures to explain th e construction above. For a brief moment, it was looking like the right solution, so I am saving my H4 base.

Riding 48 Volts - Yippee!

I installed a switch on my pre-charge resistor on the advice of ElectricMotorSport's Todd Kollin. I did this using a chunk of lexan which also acts as a safety cover over the main switch and fuse lugs. I now have 4 switches to activate to go from dead to a motor armed position. I also finished installing the charger wiring to the batteries and cleaned up the AC side wiring with a lightweight powerstrip.

The extra power has transformed Tronbike 1 into something a bit interesting. The acceleration is awesome, I didn't ride long enough or on a "real" enough road to get top speed, but I was going north of 30, which felt really fast - actually the fastest I have been on a motorcycle. It feels quick enough to make my own inspirational You Tube video.

The effect of going from dead silent stop to zipping up to speed reminds me of joyriding snowmobiles as a teenager - just aim, hit the throttle and hold on. Unfortunately, this isn't on a frozen lake, Berkeley is full of busi-body traffic, pedestrians and speed bumps/humps. I need to find a better weekend test track.

The side effect of power and my jackrabbit starts is heat - the motor was really hot to the touch, and didn't cool for a long time.

TODO

• Get headlight working, daylight here is short. Hacking the H4 bulb with LEDs from the CREE is my latest thought.
  
• Get a temperature probe, on or around the motor. Plan for a fan/duct work/liquid cooling system.
• Get the iPAQ working, we need a fuel gauge. Travis of evfr.net says the Alltrax needs serial isolation even during runtime (rather than just under charging), need to confirm.
  
• Get some battery terminal covers for goodness sake.
• Get 1 foot cables for the chargers.
  
• Re-mount the motor 1 inch higher to get the chain off the driveline protector. This will be tedious, perhaps requiring a new mount if there is not space to re-drill.
• Consider adding a 5th and final battery.
  

48 Volts Revving!

The controller is not fried, its just that 12 volts is no longer enough to fire it up in the presence of 48 volts. I have an email to Alltrax asking WHY?

I have the Alltrax KEY ON position jumped to the solenoid, using 48 volts to turn on the controller when I hit the moto's "RUN" position. Problem is the preload resistor across the solenoid allows the controller to be on when the main power switch is on. A trickle passes through to the motor too when the throttle is set, I am not sure this is going to work longer term. I will try the bigger preload resistor as prescribed in the Alltrax wiring diagrams, maybe that will quell the trickle.

BUT that said, the revving at 48 volts is really impressive - this thing is going to be a whole lot meaner on the street, should break 35mph.

In other news, Santa is getting me a "Kill A Watt" to measure power consumption - I hope to have this in line with the chargers to indicate how muchs its costing to charge up, and to determine how efficiently I am charging (or not). Actually, I need a DC version of the Kill A Watt to measure fuel level (this is what I am building with the iPAQ).

Rev 2 Underway

The parts have come in, family illness has prevented much progress.

• Rear-stand from "discountramps.com" came in, just barely fits to lift the rear of the bike by the swingarms. This will allow me to adjust the rear wheel, and or rev the bike now that I have taken off of the center stand.
• The 550 Lumen CREE X3 light has come in. It is truly awesome as far as brightness. Its designed for paintball and military applications (its a flashlight), I am ordering appropriate mounting rails and inticipating removing the current light. It should weigh much less. I want to also look at sharing the light with my bicycle.
• And batteries. I got 2 more batteries and installed them last night, including the wiring. However, attempts to use the DC-DC converter have failed thus far - I see voltage but I need to iron out what is ground for the converter and the bike at large, because using a single battery I was a able to cheat before. Its all fitting so far, I need to try placement/install of the new chargers once the DC-DC issues are ironed out.
  
• I burned a large part of today's possible progress time trying to get serial connectivity confirmed on the iPAQ, between my laptops and the iPAQ to test the controller-reader software. I am using a nasty USB to Serial converter that I don't trust, so will try to take it out of the equation. I tested on my linux Thinkpad and then old iBook with similar failed results, just no comm between the 2 parts with or without null modem. I have a bad feeling the guage will be a project in and of itself.