Vacations, Rain, Distraction and Serial Comm

Not much progress, I am still waiting for a chance to try 1.0.3. Following a brutal weekend of family maintenance, its now raining and I am ill.

I decided to give the serial connection to the iPAQ another shot using a NULL modem in case the cable I had had a NULL modem, as implied by a web site I ran across. Tore the bike down to expose the serial port, plugged it in and still no go. I then took the iPAQ and cable inside to connect to my desktop machine, plugged it in with all combinations of NULL modem and not across both ports, and still no dice.

Time for a new cable, this time an official COMPAQ part (191008-B21) to replace the knock-off. Not only is the cable suspect, but the battery is a P.O.S. as well, barely holding a charge almost as bad as before. Likely old, degraged LI-ION stock.

I've been watching for more suitable donor bikes and cars for the next potential project. A boss at work on the Tesla list is getting impatient and might ask for his money back - looks like I won that EV race.

H.I.D. Installed, Version 1.0.3

The Ebay'ed $35 H.I.D. Conversion kit came in from Hong Kong over the weekend, and its now part of the Tronbike 1.0.3 "light me up" release.

The ballast and controller were surprisingly big, but they worked under a quick "bench test" and were pretty straight forward to install. The "hi-beam" function in the bulb mechanical, but like the H4 bulb before it, is disabled so I only have lo-beam.

I yanked out 3 burned-out instrument lights that backlight the tach, temperature meter and speedometer - I'm only using the speedo and a tiny bit of its 220 MPH range. I'm pondering gutting it, replacing it all with the IPAQ, a bicycle computer and maybe a BBQ thermometer. The signal indicators and the green neutral light are the other used bits but any light/led might do if that part goes. Putting all the above under the stock instrument lenses might be cool, - time to look for a scrapped ZX-11 cluster!

At lunch I ran into Todd Kollin of Electric Motorsport. He vaguely remembered me and reminded me to install fuses and to keep the lighting legal. I promisedto stop by after the rains. Like the whole EV community, he was really only truly interested in the gauge software I am working on. There is something
there.

LED Bulbs for the Brakes, Signals and Running Lights

The bulbs and LED flasher relay from "www.autolumination.com" showed up today, I just installed them and took some comparison pictures.

The bulbs look great, brighter running lights than stock (LED on your left above), but the signal/brake activation is a little less dramatic than I'd like. I went with the 27 LED "SMT Tower "1157 amber and red pairs from, and re-used some 1156 LEDs left over from my car LED project - I can imagine growing a pile of these LEDs as the technology keeps improving. I have a pile of 1156 and 1157 incandescents leading the way.

In the images below, I have replaced 1 LED and then the 2nd LED. Pardon the "Jesus Movers" hiding my plate.

The flasher relay was really impressive too - I could run various combinations of LED or standard bulbs and it balanced them perfectly. I zip-tied the rubber mount from the original relay to the new relay, allowing me to mount it in the standard location.

Hopefully a little less power draw overall, now I am awaiting the 35 WATT H4 HID.

A Quick Tronbike Operation Cost Analysis

After the video shoot, I rode for 4.8 miles in city traffic to run an errand. During recharge my "Kill-A-Watt" used
up 0.91 KW-Hr. I am paying about $0.12 per KW-Hr from PG&E, so the ride cost me

0.91 * $0.12 = $0.1092 ~ $0.11

or roughly,

$0.11/4.8 mile = $0.023/mile.

The number looks higher than a Tesla, but its tiny compared to my 20mpg Porsche 911:

1 mile/ 20 mpg = 0.05 gallons * $3.60 (premium) = $0.18

and the 50mpg (mostly highway) Hybrid

1 mile / 50 mpg = 0.02 gallons * $3.25 (regular) = $0.065

I would assume the ZX-11's normal engine would be around 35-50 mpg, but only carry a max of 2 passengers :)

Tronbike 1.0.2 Video

With the help of my lovely assistant on camera, and a little old iBook/iMovie editing, I got a very quick video up of me on the bike:



We need a tripod, and an-on bike mount, and some TIME for the next shoot.