Beer-Electric Hybrid
 

I only get 28 miles per gallon of Rainier, so I thought I would add some hydro-electric into the mix to help with the 24 mile headwind on the way home.


http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6015/...cdcabb99_z.jpg

Most of the parts are here, but I'll be on vacation next week, so it will be a couple of weeks before it's up and running. I'm excited!

Uh oh, now that I have read this and the original link, I have a bad feeling I will be testing out those numbers for myself. I'm going to need a bigger bike. And a helmet. Well at least I will be able to blame the scientific method for my excessive drinking / drunken wheelies.

Riding bicycles while drunk is perhaps the worlds most dangerous activity.
I know,cause I always end up pushing my bike home..
Wear your helmets and jocks cause you got some pain headed your way,lol

What Surly frame is that? also what are you running for a hub motor and batteries? I found out the hard way that small batteries couldn't handle the demands of a hub motor, but those are looking like model air craft batteries.

Ryland,
That's the Karate Monkey, their 29'er mountain bike frame. I'm running a front hub motor because I wanted to run an internal gear hub, and no electric hub motors are available with that. They all use 7 speed freewheels. The front hub motor isn't ideal but I'm looking for help with long straights into a headwind, rather than motorcycle-like performance.

The batteries are Lithium Polymer, 6S (22.2V) 5AH per pack, 8 packs in a 2 serial x 4 parallel configuration. 44.4V x 20AH = 888WH. Each pack is rated for 100A, or 400A for my 4-parallel configuration, which is 16X what my controller & motor can handle. Yes, there will be fuses :)

Finally got the bike assembled, and rigged up a simplified battery pack for a quick test ride. 30mph in the neighborhood (wearing flip-flops) generated a few smiles :)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4...8/IMG_1412.JPG

Now time for the "real" battery pack build.

I'm interested in details on how you put your battery pack together, and how you charge it.

I made some progress on the battery pack last night, and created a flickr set for the build-up:
Photos Here
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/...715e02_z_d.jpg

Cool! Does the motor being in front allow you to do some regenerative braking?

I would love to do this to a Quest (install front hub motors and a couple of kWh pack):

http://www.velomobilepro.com/images/...2010%20081.JPG

I went with the front hub because I wanted an internal gear rear hub, for commuting in the rain with less mess. This hub motor has a reduction gear and freewheel inside, so it can't support regen. Direct-drive hub motors do exist. My commute is so flat I didn't go for regen.

First commute on the electric bike!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6081/...b61dcd2d_z.jpg

Added my first "fuel log" entry. 685 MPG-E at 24mph average rolling speed :)

I have not looked -- does the fuel log do the MPGe calculation; or what conversion factor are you using?

34.02 KWH/Gal per wikipedia, and I'm measuring KWH at the wall with a kill-a-watt.

Another measured value from this trip: 33.6 wh/mi at the controller.

1,267 miles on the odometer after the first two months of commuting, 4 days a week. I love not driving my car!
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6039/...dc1cff67_b.jpg

Suprising 5 mph cuts your mpg-e almost in half.

Yeah, the aero drag goes up... exponentially :) Bikes actually have a fairly high CdA, so making them go fast becomes a challenge, unless you want to go with a recumbent and/or fairing.

Edit - oh yeah, I've been using a different charger power supply lately, and if I leave it on all night, the fans keep running. So the charger efficiency has dropped from 67% to 53%.

That's why the MPG-E curve is steeper than the WH/Mi curve. I measure MPG-E at the wall, and WH/Mi at the controller.