The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Recumbent Bicycling

Cruisin’ the streets

  • ATX Lithium Ion 18650 Cell Capacity

    The 2016-11A and 2016-11B cells produced the overlapping red and green curves, with the gritty section due to crappy battery pack connections:

    Li-Ion 18650 cells - ATX prot - bare - Ah scale - 2016-12-17
    Li-Ion 18650 cells – ATX prot – bare – Ah scale – 2016-12-17

    The lower curve comes from an old unprotected cell harvested from a defunct media player and retrieved from the to-be-recycled pile.

    I picked 1 A as a reasonable value for their intended use in flashlights and maybe a helmet camera. Unlike some other cells in the recent past, these deliver 3.0 A·h, reasonably close to their rated 3.4 A·h capacity at a (presumably) lower current.

    Replotting the voltage vs. energy delivered doesn’t show any surprises:

    Li-Ion 18650 cells - ATX prot - bare - Wh scale - 2016-12-17
    Li-Ion 18650 cells – ATX prot – bare – Wh scale – 2016-12-17

    The voltage declines more-or-less linearly, without the relatively flat discharge curve for smaller cells, which explains why the J5 V2 flashlight becomes seriously dim after a few hours. On the upside, that allows a reasonably accurate state-of-charge display.

    Assuming the Sony HDR-AS30V camera burns 0.1 W·h/min while recording (which is a fancy way of saying it dissipates 6 W), then it should run for (10 W·h)/(0.1W·h/min) = 100 min from one of these cells fitted as an outrigger. The best of the NP-BX1 cells for the camera delivers something like 90 minutes from a measured capacity of 4 A·h at 500 mA; I don’t know what to make of those numbers. Perhaps the camera runs the NP-BX1 cells below the 2.8 V cutoff I’ve been assuming?

  • Left on Maloney Rd from Rt 376: Eyes Right!

    We’re waiting for oncoming traffic to clear before making the left turn from Rt 376 onto Maloney, on our way to the rail trail:

    Maloney Rd Intersection Conflict - 2016-12-07 - waiting
    Maloney Rd Intersection Conflict – 2016-12-07 – waiting

    Traffic’s clear, we have the green, we’re turning, and the car exiting the gas station starts accelerating directly at us:

    Maloney Rd Intersection Conflict - 2016-12-07 - turning
    Maloney Rd Intersection Conflict – 2016-12-07 – turning

    Mary shouts, I jam to a stop, the driver jams to a stop, I proceed, the driver then proceeds to turn in front of the truck behind us:

    Maloney Rd Intersection Conflict - 2016-12-07 - rear view
    Maloney Rd Intersection Conflict – 2016-12-07 – rear view

    There’s no signal aimed into the gas station, so you must use your best judgement to determine when to enter the intersection. I’m not in enough of a hurry to (try to) ace out a truck, but ya never know …

  • Sony HDR-AS30V vs. Lithium Ion 18650 Cells

    These items came near enough to produce an irresistible force:

    Sony HDR-AS30V vs 18650 cells - side view
    Sony HDR-AS30V vs 18650 cells – side view

    How can you look at that layout and not jump to the obvious conclusion?

    The front view suggests enough room for a stylin’ case:

    Sony HDR-AS30V vs 18650 cells - end view
    Sony HDR-AS30V vs 18650 cells – end view

    You’d need only one cell for the camera; I happened to have two in my hand when the attractive force hit.

    The camera is 24.5 ⌀ x 47 tall x 71.5 overall length (67.8 front-to-door-seating-plane).

    The ATK 18650 cells are 19 ⌀ x 69 long, with the overlong length due to the protection PCB stuck on the + end of the cylinder. You can get shorter unprotected cells for a bit less, which makes sense if you’re, say, Telsa Motors and building them into massive batteries; we mere mortals need all the help we can get to prevent what’s euphemistically called “venting with flame“.

    Although I like the idea of sliding the cell into a tubular housing with a removable end cap, it might make more sense to park the cell over the camera in a trough with leaf-spring contacts on each end and a lid that snaps over the top. That avoids threaded fittings, figuring out how to get an amp or so out of the removable end cap contact, and similar imponderables.

    I think it’s possible to drill a hole through the bottom of the camera at the rear of the battery compartment to pass a cable from a fake internal cell to the external cell. Some delicate probing will be in order.

    In round numbers, those 18650 cells allegedly have three times the actual capacity of the camera’s flat battery and cost about as much as the not-so-cheap knockoff camera cells I’ve been using.

  • J5-V2 700 lm Flashlight: QC FAIL

    So I picked up a J5-V2 Tactical Flashlight as a possible bike headlight, on the basis of a 750 (“max output”) lumen LED, zoomable beam, and use of standard 18650 lithium cells (rather than USB charging). The geometry required to stick it on the Tour Easy remains a puzzle, but an az-el dingus replacing an upper fairing mount may work well enough.

    Anyhow, it seems the LED in this flashlight fell on the floor during assembly, where the (silicone?) LED emitter lens picked up a remarkable amount of dirt:

    J5-V2 Flashlight - LED crud
    J5-V2 Flashlight – LED crud

    The inside of the front focusing lens carries an array of scratches or, perhaps, a greasy fingerprint that serves the same purpose:

    J5-V2 Flashlight - internal lens scratches
    J5-V2 Flashlight – internal lens scratches

    All vendors tell you to contact them before posting a critical review, although they often don’t provide much in the way of contact information. I sent a note with photos to J5 through their website’s contact info; having not heard anything after three days, I’ll fire up the Amazon return process …

  • Road Conditions: Rt 376 Brush Clearing

    This might have had something to do with my email and followup from the Dutchess BPAC leader, all with absolutely no feedback:

    Overgrowth/Rt 376 SB - cropped overgrowth - 2016-10
    Overgrowth/Rt 376 SB – cropped overgrowth – 2016-10

    To judge from the shattered stems lining the route, NYSDOT positioned an articulated rotary mower vertically and ran it along the guide rail, cutting the Japanese knotweed more-or-less flush with the rail, then cleaning up most of the debris. Absent glyphosate treatment, the bushes will return in full force next summer.

    Even though the disintegrating pavement isn’t any more rideable than before, not having weeds brush our elbows and grab for our eyes makes for a much more comfortable riding experience; now, we’re set for the peak Halloween-to-Groundhog-Day riding season.

    As NYSDOT says: “Maintaining roads goes far beyond the edge of the pavement.“

  • More Kickstand Plates

    Having recently left the last of the kickstand plates somewhere along our route, I bandsawed, belt-sanded, and Forstner-drilled a new set:

    Kickstand plates
    Kickstand plates

    The slightly rectangular shape extracted four plates from of a scrap of 3/8 inch plywood, with almost nothing left over. The fourth plate had already found its way into the under-seat bag by the time I thought of a picture.

    My can of fluorescent red paint having lost its mojo since the most recent application, these shall remain unpainted forever more; as even forget-me-not red seems to have little effect, that may not matter.

  • Running Lights

    New Cadillacs have thin white LED running lights along the front edges, with angular chromed trim below:

    Cadillac running lights
    Cadillac running lights

    Their SUVs have matching vertical-stripe taillight / markers; it’s obviously a stylin’ thing. If it weren’t for the power, I’d run LED strips along the edge of the fairing & seat frame on our ‘bents.

    Probably due to having read Glory Road at an impressionable age, those lights always remind me of Heidelberg dueling scars:

    Adolf Hoffmann-Heyden -- Dueling scar
    Adolf Hoffmann-Heyden — Dueling scar

    Cannot be unseen…