Reelights

A recent comment on my blog led me to this website - an Australian distributor for the rather nifty Reelights. I had purchased a set of these previously from a local bike shop for a 'normal' bike and they work very well. From the site I saw they now had a version that fitted to a rear rack with a generator unit attached via a cable. Previously the light and generator were an all in one unit and therefore it had to be mounted at wheel level on the axles (either front or rear). These lights are very popular in Europe due to their set and forget nature - once installed they just work without ever needing batteries and they have no discernible affect on the bike's performance. This looked like a great new gadget for the trike so I ordered one!

In this shot you can see the light, the generator unit and the magnets that attach to the spokes and provide the power as they spin past the generator -

The installation was very easy and the thought that has gone into the product is quite impressive. For example -

• The generator unit can 'slide' once attached to the seat stay to ensure it can be positioned the correct distance from the magnets attached to the spokes.
• The magnets that attach to the spokes are well designed and could be attached to any wheel regardless of the spoke pattern.
• Any excess cable can be wound into the generator unit.
• The mounting bolts for the light are able to be adjusted to fit different mount points on rear racks.
• The light also has reflectors on either side.

A video of it in operation follows -

Now the Reelight company just needs to work out how to put a front light on a Christiania where there is nowhere to mount the generator unit!

And just another interesting footnote regarding the delivery of this light. It was posted in Melbourne on a Tuesday and I received it in Canberra the following Monday. On the Friday afternoon I ordered some computer memory from America (go Aussie dollar!) and it was this package that arrived first (about 30 minutes before the light!). Australia Post really needs to lift its game!

Electric vehicle show

An electric vehicle show was held today and it had something for everyone. From these 1917 Detroit electric vehicles (yes electric cars have been around that long!) that have a top speed of about 40km/h and a range of 50km -

Through to the showstopping Tesla roadster with a range of about 380km (this one drove from Sydney to Canberra without a recharge), a top speed of 200km/h and 0-100km/h acceleration in 3.7 seconds! It is a strict two seater and the 'boot' is full of batteries so it is not exactly the most practical car in the world but I would not mind one anyway -

In other displays one guy had even converted his ute to electric and piled all the batteries into a lockable box on the rear tray -

No petrol required here-

And of course lots of electric bikes were also on display. The one below is an interesting prototype. With a weight of just under 10kg it is (apparently) the lightest and probably the smallest electric bike in the world. The motor is on the front wheel and looks like it uses a cog to drive a series of notches built into the rim. The battery is built into the central tube and is recharged in place. The range is about 30km but it is not built for speed so it may take you a while to go that distance! The bike was imported by Switched on Cycles who I have done some test riding for previously.

Trike review

I came across this great review of the Christiania by the owner of one in Portland USA of all places! I was impressed by some of his modifications and he was equally happy to hear about how I upgraded the front brakes with the Avid BB7s to address some of the issues he is also experiencing.

Throttle issues

I have had some problems lately with the power dropping off. Initially I thought it might be because of the sub zero temperatures causing the battery to struggle a bit. However it also occurred on warmer afternoon rides and if I kept the battery inside overnight. And then one day it stopped working all together! When this occurred I noticed the red LED on the controller was flashing 5 times then going off and flashing again. A quick email to ebikes.ca and they informed me this was an error code for the throttle.

Closer inspection of the throttle cable showed a possible area of concern. The steering dampener situated underneath the cargo box seemed to be rubbing ever so slightly on the cable when I turned right. By wiggling this section of cable I was able to get the LED to stop flashing so there was obviously now a fault in this part of the wiring. I cut out this section and soldered the cable back together and all was good again. Sure enough the section of wire I removed did have some issues with the internal insulation and there was an intermittent short circuit occurring.

I rerouted the cable well away from the steering and checked everything else and it all seemed fine. The bike now powers along as it should. I only wish the controller was flashing this error code every other time I was looking for the problem!

Lots of trikes

Yes I have not updated the blog in a while - life has been a bit hectic!

The Aussie distributor of the Christiania has a new website and if you look closely here you may even see a couple of shots of my bike (photo 82 and 83). Indeed looking through all the great photos I may even have some more ideas about what I can do to the trike!

Another electric bike

A local company was after some test riders for a range of electric bikes they are importing and I volunteered! I spent two days with a 'townie' style electric bike with a 200 watt hub motor in the rear wheel, 36volt lithium battery, pedelec system, brake cut off and twist throttle.

I had read a lot about the pedelec system where the motor operates only when you are pedalling. On this bike as soon as you started pedalling a nominal amount of power assist was automatically applied and you could then twist the throttle if you needed more power. It took some getting used to but I quickly got the hang of it and found it very easy to use. Basically I could just hop on and pedal! I only needed to worry about the motor if I hit a hill though unless it was really steep I could just drop down a few gears and not worry about applying more power with the throttle. I did two rides over two days - 17km on day 1 and about 24 on day 2. I recharged in between and the power gauge on the throttle never got below 2 lights (out of 3). I would estimate range to be about 40km depending on how much you use the throttle.

The battery locks in to the frame for security but can be unlocked with a key if you wanted to bring it inside to charge it up. Another key turns the battery on and off. With the motor turned off this bike is a bit hard going with only 6 gears so you would want to make sure the battery is fully charged up before heading out. With a 40km range though this should not be a problem.

I was pretty impressed for my first ride on a 'normal' electric bike. For commuting to and from work one of these would be ideal especially in summer when you want to arrive relatively fresh and not dripping in sweat. And if you did not have a huge cargo bike sitting in your garage like I do you could also load it up with a handy amount of shopping with the addition of some strong panniers. I also liked the style of the bike with the more upright seating position which is common in Europe but not so much here. All in all a great way to get around!

Let there be light!

The local bike shop received a stack of lights for our upcoming winter and I liked the look of the Cygolite MiliOn 200. Unlike other helmet mounted lights I have seen, on this one the light and li-ion battery are together in one neat little unit. The velcro strap on the helmet mount could have been a bit longer though as I was unable to mount it in my preferred position at the front of my helmet due to the large spacing between the air vents. It fitted very securely on the top though -

The light output is fantastic and simply does not compare to the lights I had mounted previously. The run to Scouts with my eldest is now done one hour after sunset and I can see quite clearly on the unlit bike paths with this light. It was a good thing too as tonight I saw that someone had dumped a bunch of old mattresses on the path. Further up someone had dumped all their tree cuttings over their back fence straight on to the path as well! Honestly sometimes I think I am just better off sticking to the road!

Sheldon Brown Memorial ride

Each year the LBS holds a ride around the local lake in memoriam to Sheldon Brown - bicycle guru who gave so much of his time to helping others. He replied to one of my email questions (of which he received hundreds per day apparently!) shortly before he died - it was regarding the torque on a Shiman Nexus 7 speed hub if you change to a smaller front chain wheel.

It was a great evening for riding and I enjoyed 'letting loose' on the trike around the bike paths without having the kids on board. Though I quickly discovered that a number of the paths are on a rather severe angle which meant I needed to do a bit of leaning on the trike so as not to tip! It is not so bad with a bit of weight in the front (ie if the kids were in the box) but the camber of roads and paths needs to be watched when empty! Some of the other riders who I had not met before were also a bit amazed at my ability to keep up on the hills until they heard the motor noise! It was a bit dark on the way home and though I was lit up like a Christmas tree I had trouble seeing the odd obstacle so may look at investing in a helmet mounted light that will enable me to brighten up the path ahead properly. I can't really use handlebar mounted lights as I have no room and the light would be blocked by the kids sitting in the box.

Some shots of the trike as the sun set over the lake -

Battery range part 2

Since the recent surgery on my battery pack I have done 7.85 amp-hours without any cut offs from the battery management system. So it would seem the early cut offs around the 6 amp-hour mark are a thing of the past! The minimum voltage this time around was 32.9, resting voltage was 35.8 and I used 288 watt hours.

The local bike shop is organising a Sheldon Brown memorial ride tomorrow which will involve a bit of distance and some hills thus I'm charging the pack up tonight so I don't run out of juice half way home! I'll probably aim to recharge around the 8 amp-hour mark from now on.

Battery range

Seeing as the big trip in my last post did not flatten the battery I thought I would have another go to see how it was performing in terms of capacity. Unfortunately after not doing any top up charges last week it cut out after about 6.4 amp-hours which is where it has cut out on my previously. I should at least be getting 8 or 9 amp-hours so I sent an email query to Justin at ebikes.ca. As usual I got a reply very quickly! Justin informed me that yes I should be getting more out of the pack and that it was likely a cell balance issue. He offered me a replacement pack straight away or a chance to pull it apart and have a go at fixing it. I went for the chance to fix it as sending mine back to Justin overseas may have been problematic with our laws regarding postage of battery packs. And I was also keen to see the inside of the pack!

I was instructed to do a full recharge and then pull the pack apart and check the voltage of each battery cell. Getting it apart was fairly easy and I must say it is very well put together. As you can see from the photo it has 2 separate groups of 5 battery cells that are securely attached and wired together with some circuitry to manage the charging, balancing and low voltage cutoff (LVC) to protect the cells.

When fully charged each cell should be 4.15 volts or higher however one of mine was only 4.02 and Justin thought this cell might be prematurely tripping the LVC. To fix it I found an old charger that put out about 5 volts and soldered some alligator clips to the output wires. I attached the clips to the weaker battery cell (making sure they were the right polarity!) turned it on and waited.... and waited .... and waited for the voltage to increase. Eventually it got up to 4.04 and we were on our way. It took about 7 hours to reach 4.17 volts! I asked Justin why it was taking so long and he figured that given my charger was only 500 mili-amps, and that the cell was cutting out about 3amps short of where it should (ie at 6 instead of 9 amp-hours), that it would likely take about 6 or 7 hours to put another 3amps of capacity in to it.

So I got it all charged, put it back together and have been riding around this week to see how far it would go. Today I hit 8.5 amp-hours before it cut out! The lowest voltage was 28.9 and for the last little bit of riding (around 8.3 to 8.5 amps) it got a bit sluggish as I hit the 30 volts limit I had on the Cycle Analyst.  At 8 amps the lowest voltage was 33.3 so the last bit of use really drops the volts off quickly. The range was 42 km which I am very happy with!

So the battery is back on the normal charger and hopefully I will get a similar range next time without having to pull the pack apart again. I am confident that will be the case. As an added bonus Justin offered me 25% off any future battery pack I purchase off them in recognition of my receiving an unbalanced pack and the work I put in to hopefully fix it up! Outstanding!

A ride in the wet!

Well my 'big' (for me at least) bike ride to test the range of the battery went better then I thought it would. It was 11.5 km each way and I only used .87 of an amp on the way there and 2.24 on the way back! The trike was empty though so if I add 50kg of children I expect those figures would increase. However even if I double them that is still only about 6 amp hours for a round trip.

Though it is a hilly trip I was able to use the downhills to gather a fair amount of speed to tackle at least some of the next uphill. I have the Cycle Analyst set to a 23km/h speed limit and I found that this worked as a great 'cruise control' eg go down hills at around 30km/h then start going up the next one and as speed gradually dropped the motor would kick in around 23km/h and I could pedal in higher gears for most of the hill. After a while I could then kick down a few gears and pedal to match the gradually slower speed of the trike up the hill. By not maxing out the motor with this method the range seems to be quite impressive. The uphills are longer and steeper on the way back hence the higher use of the battery coming home.

I was not counting on the rain being as heavy as it was though! I guess this was a good test for the 'waterproofness' of the motor and all my wiring and it looks like it passed as no sparks flew!

Electric motor range

Am only now getting back into riding the trike regularly as the kids are back at school and we were away for Christmas and New Year.

I have been careful not to overtax the battery and have only twice hit the BMS cutoff (on recharge cycle 1 and 3) after I had pulled about 5 or 6 amp hours out of the 10 amphour pack. The cutoffs both happened whilst going up some sort of monstrous hill with a full load of groceries. However I only use the motor when going uphill so I guess that is the only time it is ever going to cut off for me!

My most recent recharge (prior to any shutoff) was when I had pulled 6.2 amp hours out of the battery and it still seemed to be travelling pretty well with minimum volts a fairly good 34.7 (at least I think that is fairly good as on previous charges I had dropped to 32). To date I have always recharged after about 5 or 6 amp hours and I am averaging about 7 watt hours per km actually travelled. However that includes travelling downhills and on the flats where the motor is not used at all.

In the next few days I plan on doing a big ride with a fully charged (and now hopefully well worn in) battery towards some of the more distant attractions we take the kids to. This trip involves some pretty horrendous hills that go on for a while so it will be a good test to see if I can get there and back on one charge and how many amp hours I can now pull out of the pack before it shuts down.

Rear rim brake installed!

The rear rim brake is on after some great work by my LBS (as usual!) -

It works really well and today it passed the big test of riding down hill from school fully loaded with the two boys and the school bags on board! It has no where near the stopping power of the front disc brakes of course but on the descents it slows me down quite smoothly. When heading into corners it also works well at smoothly reducing speed where as the front discs tend to 'swerve' a bit when trying to brake in turns. So just a matter of getting used to them and being careful not to overuse them on long descents and risk heating up the rims to much.

I also now have another parking brake thanks to utilising the old brake handle that used to control the front disc brakes. Here it is on and then off-

The brake mount is very secure with just the two hose clamps in place so I have decided to not worry about the bolt meant to go through the top as this would greatly interfere with the wheel lock on the reverse side of the frame. For added strength though I will put two more hose clamps on the upper parts of the brake mount in such a way that they don't interfere with the wheel lock.

The wheel lock went on with a bit of encouragement - I had to mount it on a slight angle to allow clearance for the hose clamps. Because of this angle I had to place a few washers behind it to bring it out from the frame slightly to allow free movement of the locking mechanism -

Brake mount installed

Well it is a bit hard getting anything done during school holidays but managed to temporarily install the brake mount so I can see how it will fit with the frame lock. First impression is that I should be able to mount the frame lock on the reverse side of the brake mount with some longer mounting screws or maybe the odd zip-tie!

The brake mount seems very secure even with just the metal hose clamps in position -

I am not going to drill the top mounting hole until the brake is installed and everything is in the right position. I have a habit of drilling things only to find I should have had the hole in a different spot!

The rear wheel also needs a bit of spoke re-tensioning / truing so plan on getting the that and the brake sorted all at the same time at LBS next week (when the kids are finally back at school!!)

Brake mount arrives

The brake mount arrived very quickly from Gaerlan Custom Cycles and the owner was very helpful with my questions along the way. Highly recommended!

A picture of it is below. It looks like it will fit quite well on the trike. My only issue will be that my wheel lock (similar to this) mounts on the other side of the frame where the brake mount will be. The top centre bolt of the brake mount will interfere with the current location of the lock but pretty sure I can get around this though by not having the lock sit flush with the frame.

Next project for the trike.

Have not done any riding or blog updating for the past few weeks as we have been away on holidays interstate. Am keen to get back on the bike once the maximum temperatures come down from the current 39 degrees celsius!

My next little project will be putting a rear rim brake on the trike as a backup to the disc brakes up front and also as a 'drag' to just slow me down a little when going down hills. The previous back pedal brake was good for these two purposes but obviously I lost that when the hub motor was installed. The plan is to use a 'Vbrake adaptor' from here (scroll down a bit) to install some brake studs on the rear frame. Stay tuned for the progress on this!