Solar charging of electric bike

ok now that the electric bike is functioning with feedback on speed and battery status what's next?
Walmart had these solar chargers on sale
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Rayovac-High-Performance-6V-Solar-Battery-Charger/37424618

for $10!!!

We got two of them because only two were available :(
Now two of these in series can charge the 12V batteries...

May have to put in some safeties so that we dont fry the batteries (the bike is 24V with two 12V in series and would have to charge them in parallel)

Electric Bike enhancements

The first thing Rithvik wanted was to know was how fast he was going!! what is it with boys and speed and fast cars and trucks? Adwait suggested we add a battery status as he was thinking how far can I go and return without the battery running out. Recall the battery was sized for 30 min but we dont keep track of long it was run before fully charged.

1. Speed: A simple hall effect sensor on the spokes and a magnetic pick up to time between pulses and with diameter of the cycle known we know the speed. Thankfully someone has already built this device with additional info such as time, distance.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0792YQ65C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

2. Battery status: From almost 20 years ago battery modelled as a huge capacitor and internal resistance and SoC (State of Charge) can be determined from voltage and current.  A lot of info can be estimated purely from battery voltage and such a device exists for 24V.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E0SDTBO/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Now we know how fast we are going and how much energy we have left Yay.

The electric Bike

All this started 15 years ago when I first saw the prius. I believed that electric vehicles were going to be the future (aka jetsons). I had bought a 4 wheel drive truck which I wanted to convert to a electric drive vehicle with the option of using gas. Unfortunately it needed a timing belt change which would have cost more than what I paid for the truck. After Changing the timing belt the truck ran for a month and had to be sent to the cemetery. (BTW toyota makes vehicles that run forever truck had almost 200k miles). Rithvik had been talking about how we have spoiled the earth and need to have clean mode of transport which triggered the old  idea and we bought a kit from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/electric-Bicycle-Conversion-HOMEMADE-Modified/dp/B01DBK1UJ0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1529903616&sr=8-6&keywords=250w+electric+bike+kit&dpID=51kAPLOcbUL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Now I did not realize that it did not come with a battery and it was meant for a bike with a rear axle which would accomodate a sprocket on the other side to allow for pedaling and electric drive.

Being the cheapskate (cost efficient) I figured it can be modified to accomplish the electric bike.

Rithvik had the awesome idea to hold the batteries in a basket on the handle. We found a office CD box in walmart that would do the trick. We went to several battery places to find a right battery (24V) and finally had to settle for two 12V deep cycle battery with 7AH so that we can have atleast 30 minutes run time.

The kit was mad for a 26" bike, and it wouldnt fit our mountain bike so we adapted Rithvik's bike.

The maiden run by be went ok, but when Rithvik's rode it, his enthusiasm the motor torque twisted the bracket and broke five spokes.

Another run to homedepot and with fender washers installed the bracket held and Rithvik had a blast riding it after I test rode it. 

The batteries are deep cycle gel lead acid batteries to stick to our budget (Li-ion batteries would be better but 4 x the cost but are lighter). Lead acid have more history of data and I have a state of charge circuit from 16 years ago that will allow us to estimate the health of battery unlike the iphone.

To do:
- add a speedometer, maybe even a gps receiver to show where this bike has been.
- add a cool oled display to show state of charge and speed and time left
- modify or add freewheel to be able to pedal if out of charge.

A SLR adventure

After a long time I dusted off the SLR camera from the bag and marched to R's soccer game. Curious friends saw the big lens and after me taking their picture wanted to see the result. I had to tell them to wait for a week. They were shocked that ASLR short for Analog SLR still exists!!

R didnt understand why he couldnt see his picture right away. here's the picture of the camera

The camera was my dads splurging in 1988 summer in Madras. I nationalized it during their trip to P town.

This is the first I was using 400 ASA film and underexposed a lot of pictures. I also need to work on focusing on the subject.
Overall the camera is calling my name to take more pictures. Smile FLash

Gulti's guide to slimmer you

- plan to eat and stick to it. no ifs buts

- dance your weight away pick a song and dance away . change song every month

- maintain a positive attitude. not what cannot be done do what needs to be done

- make life simpler food cleanup etc

behind the scene

we watch all the music videos..

scratch that i was watching top 50 songs and wondering about
- music
- dance sequences
- lyrics
- background and props
- background dancers

so many things that go to make an awesome vid and the lead actors get the credit.
perhaps they do bring the act together and also choose the songs.

just food for thought

corporate web security

so you have email and password
you have computer log in and password
hours entry system and password
banks and password
credit cards and password
personal emails and password
in all these to increase security there are more and more stuff to remember
so i have used a base password and variation of that
then there are systems that require one capital and lower case with numerals and special characters

does this increase security or most likely people like me are going to use same password and srore it in a file conveniently called pass words