Hub dynamo and electronics thread.

[sfuller]

I can't remember if it was in this thread or another electronics one, but there was some discussion about running the wire from a dynamo hub up through one of the new Salsa Firestarter carbon forks for use with one of the steertube mounted USB ports.  I think it's going to be impossible to do, as the steerer is carbon and the compression plug won't allow for any wires to pass through. I haven't removed the compression plug on mine yet but the crown area of the fork seems fairly solid as well.


Followup: I pulled the compression plug tonight and the crown of the fork appears to be hollow. There was a little bit of epoxy blocking off a good view from the top of the steer tube. You might be able to snake a wire in, but you'll still need to get it past the compression plug somehow. That or something like the Plug light be able to substitute for one.

[Lucid]

Phone stays off, packed away. For trips of less than a week, I get by with a charged Power monkey extreme battery for recharging any devices - much lighter and simpler than a dyno hub and converter. In AK the PM battery lived in my jacket pocket and stayed warm, just recharged devices in my pocket.

Don't get me wrong, I like the convenience of power on tap (the hub), it's just nice to have choices and tailor the setup for a trip.

[Lucid]

How many charges will this battery give a light battery, say like a mini newt 350?

[Marshal]

Dynohub/USB charger Learning Curve fully engaged.........

Today I finally had a chance to do a short 2.5 hr test of my new Sinewave USB charger (with my new Exposure/SP PD 8 dynohub)
http://www.sinewavecycles.com/collections/all
http://www.use1.com/exposure-lights/cycling-lights/front-lights/revo-mk1-dynamo

I used a USB splitter cable and tried to simultaneously charge my I Phone and a Sony CycleEnergy 2800mAh battery/charger.

I had the following results:
  
a) In 2.5 hrs at moving avg of 8.5mph the I Phone charged from 44% up to 48% (edit-the I Phone was in the Airplane mode)

b) In the same 2.5 hrs the totally discharged Sony charged up enough to still be running my Vista eTrex HCx GPS after 2.5 hrs but I cannot calc total charge amount till it stops, IE:I know the Sony with a full charge will run the etrex for about 22 hrs so that will be my baseline for calculating the % my 2.5 hrs produced.

In the mean time here is my problem:
Naturally the Sinewave USP kicks in and out at low speed (around 3.8 to 4.6 mph) so on some single track, random futz around stops, steep hill etc etc the I Phone sees then doesn't see incoming charge.  And it seems the I Phone always turns on when it sees incoming power.  So even after I turn it off, it always turns back on--needless to say phone will not charge up as efficiently when its running vs if it stayed turned off.
(Damm thing beeps every time it sees 'charge' so on a slow hill it beeps away as the charger kicks in and out--I can see this will drive me beepy).

Note: I have yet to test it but I doubt putting 100% of the Sinewave into the phone will gain enough improvement to be the solution.

So unless someone knows how to make the I Phone stay off when it sees incoming charge--the only solution I can see is to live with the fact the phone will never truly charge up unless I never drop below 5mph or to 1st charge the Sony and then use it to charge the phone ie: the I phone will stay off if it sees constant incoming charge from the Sony.

Comments, suggestions?

[Yogi the Barry]

Marshall,
I've never tried this... What happens when the iPhone is hooked up to a charger and it's totally turned off, not just put into Airplane Mode? Does the iPhone charge when totally powered off? If it does, then that would greatly speed up the charging, since the screen doesn't cycle on and off as the speed drops below and above the 5V output threshold. During the short and technical [a.k.a. slow] ride with my 4S hooked up to charge, I got tired and worried as I listened to the phone constantly beep as it sensed the charging voltage turn on and off. I just switched off the charger until I could stay on faster terrain.
BTW, your testing prods me to start my own testing before a multi-day ride. My system is a Revo hub feeding into a homemade switch/dock and a stripped down Kemo M172N [removed the plastic case, cut away as much of the potting material and even removed/shorted the toggle switch and then encased in tape and heat shrink. It's ugly now, but I wanted to save weight and make is more compact. Sinewave's charger was nice, but I'm cheap and the Kemo was about $40 less. As far as I know, the Sinewave and Kemo M172N are the only two USB chargers that do not cut out at high speed and have a nicely regulated output. IMHO, both of these two chargers could more capacitance in the circuit to act as a buffer to store charge when dropping down to a slow speed...
-Barry

Dynohub/USB charger Learning Curve fully engaged.........

Today I finally had a chance to do a short 2.5 hr test of my new Sinewave USB charger (with my new Exposure/SP PD 8 dynohub)
...

Comments, suggestions?

[Snowbd2u]

Marshall my pd8 is on the way.... And I already have the revolution with the splitter so I should in theory have some input on your same setup by the end of the month. But by then you probably will have it dialled! Have you used a light with this yet? Was looking at the niterider 700 lumina just wasn't sure about the charge it would take......

[Marshal]

[/quote]

Marshall my pd8 is on the way.... And I already have the revolution with the splitter so I should in theory have some input on your same setup by the end of the month. But by then you probably will have it dialled! Have you used a light with this yet? Was looking at the niterider 700 lumina just wasn't sure about the charge it would take......

Got the Exposure Revo/hub-- I really like the light so far- simple, small and seems well made/rugged

[Couloirman]

Marshal-- how did you attach the sinewave to anything-- mine came with two exposed cable ends that I have no idea what to do with. My dynamo lights from klite came with a rectangular plug that slides right into the SP PD-8x out of the box, seems like this one should have one too so I am at a loss for how to get this thing to work :/

[bmike-vt]

Snagged this online and it arrived today!!'

 



And this:



Have the RedEye matching light coming for the Revo. Tired of batteries!


Damn, what the F did Flickr do? That was painful. Took away the BBCode code?
WTF!

Oh. There is is, convoluted to get it.

[Area54]

Exposure stuff is very nice kit!

[bmike-vt]

very nice so far! no ride on it yet, pissing down cold and windy rain right now. have the wires taped on, but I'll need to do something nicer eventually. and i don't get what they are thinking with the tail light. am going to 3d print some sort of shim to get it at the right angle. not sure its going to work on the seat post once my bag goes on, so i'l have to look for an alternate location, which means rigging up a holder for it.

[megand]

Would love to see how you've got everything all wired up! You've got the same gear as me - but right now mine is still sitting on a shelf, along with some switches and heat shrink tubing I ordered, waiting for me to get motivated with a soldering iron.  (Still too much mud and slush outside to be super excited about properly testing it right now, but in a couple of weeks....)

[bmike-vt]

waiting on some stick on brake cable guides to finalize wiring - but got things wired close enough with tape and zip ties to test for 5 minutes tonight. am reworking my road machine too, waiting on some paul racer medium brakes on that one, but added a wired tail light that runs with my edeluxe and son hub.

the stable, (wife's bike is hanging in the basement for the winter... still):



stand lights working:


have not wired the usb werk yet.
really like the idea of a switch to toggle between light-off-charge - but don't have the electric skills to pull it off.
might order up a separate cable for the revo and have one mated in parallel (at the hub connection) to the light / usbwerk, and the other light only.

really have to deal with the lack of adjustment on the reedye. its pointing slightly down now. would love it pointed level, and i will likely have to move it to the seat stay when my rear bag is on... so i'm probably going to fab something to bolt to the eyelet on my fargo.

might test out the usbwerk and my garmin tomorrow on a short road ride - but fairly certain the stem mount on the garmin won't let me keep the usb plugged in... looking at right angle plugs here:

http://www.l-com.com/usb-right-angle-usb-cables-straight-a-male-to-left-angle-mini-b5-male

[Yogi the Barry]

Here's my Exposure Revo and Kemo M172N setup.
Stock output cable from dynamo runs to the middle of my connector plate, which takes the place of the steerer tube cap. Sealed toggle switch sends dynamo signal either to headlight [front connector] or the Kemo USB charger [rear].
Also, I'm using the taillight output from Revo head to power a LED as a dashboard light for the GPS. I'll be able to bike at night w/o having to run the GPS backlight and get longer battery life out of GPS. First tried a red... then amber... then wide angle white LED. My tired eyes needed the white light. LED draws about 20mA. Think I used a 150-180 ohm resister and a wire to stiffen the cable.
To match the stock Revo cable connector coming from the hub, bought 4mm EIAJ coaxial plugs, jacks, cables from Minute-Man.com. I can remove/add things without having to unsolder.
Trying 3.5 mm silicone o-rings over the plugs to try and seal out the water. Bottom of connector bracket and toggle switch are gooped-up with silicone sealer.
The Kemo USB charger, shown outside its usual home in the gas tank bag, has been gutted and trimmed to make it smaller and lighter. Removed the plastic housing, cut away some of the gummy potting material [be careful if you do this] and removed/shorted its built-in toggle switch.
To move the light back on axis and away from the GPS, there's little Ti bracket between the quick release foot and the light body.
Entire system has been used during a half-dozen night training rides, but real test will be AZT 300 in a couple days.
Will try to charge, in this order, Black Diamond Revolt helmet light, iPod shuffle and iPhone 4S during the ride. Of course I'll carry USB cables, iPhone wall wart and spare Li batts too...
Edit: 3-28-15 Charges BD Revolt and Shuffle, but iPhone 4 and/or 6 doesn't like the on/off cycling when you get down to HAB speed. Looking at Pedal Power V4 battery as cache instead...

[bmike-vt]

thats pretty sweet yogi... i like that dashboard light running out of the output. might have to think about how to do that... i use a little petzl e+ light for that sort of thing, in red. was thinking about picking up the little red light that exposure sells and making a cable for it.

did you shorten the stock Revo cable? do you know what cable they use (same as you list above for your mod - do you have a part number on the cable)? I want to add a quick disconnect and some length to the redeye taillight i'm running out of the output, but don't want to slice anything until i know what i'm getting into. i am thinking of picking up the gold plated quick connectors from sine wave or peter white (supernova parts).


thanks for sharing. awesome mods.

[Yogi the Barry]

Kinda running out time to get ready for AZT so this will probably be my last look at this for a week or more, but...
Minute-Man has all the plugs, jacks and cable assemblies in the Philmore section at:
http://www.minute-man.com/acatalog/Philmore_Plugs_and_Jacks.html
The EIAJ standard that fits the stock Exposure cable is the 4.0 and 1.7 mm [yellow] model I believe. All these parts are pretty cheap, but need to add up to the $20 order minimum. I had LEDs, but they probably carry them too. A few bucks at a Radio shack will also get you the LED and resister.
I shortened the stock Exposure cable at the hub and kept the original plug end.
I tried red and amber LED lights to illuminate the GPS screen, but I didn't like it. Third time is with a white LED. I also tried side lighting with the LED, but the light needs to almost come straight down onto the screen... More later...

thats pretty sweet yogi... i like that dashboard light running out of the output. might have to think about how to do that... i use a little petzl e+ light for that sort of thing, in red. was thinking about picking up the little red light that exposure sells and making a cable for it.

did you shorten the stock Revo cable? do you know what cable they use (same as you list above for your mod - do you have a part number on the cable)? I want to add a quick disconnect and some length to the redeye taillight i'm running out of the output, but don't want to slice anything until i know what i'm getting into. i am thinking of picking up the gold plated quick connectors from sine wave or peter white (supernova parts).


thanks for sharing. awesome mods.

[bmike-vt]

Good luck on AZT!
And thanks for the links...

Got my first dark ride in on the Revo this morning. Impressed.

[sfuller]

The Kemo USB charger, shown outside its usual home in the gas tank bag, has been gutted and trimmed to make it smaller and lighter. Removed the plastic housing, cut away some of the gummy potting material [be careful if you do this] and removed/shorted its built-in toggle switch.

I'd be interested in hearing/reading more about this particular mod and the reasoning behind it.

[Yogi the Barry]

Re: Modding the Kemo M172N
I'm a hopeless weight weenie and wanted something as small and dense as possible. Peeling/cutting/trimming away the case, potting material and toggle switch didn't really save much weight [10g?], but it did make the unit quite a bit smaller [I'll weigh it when I have a chance, but forgot to weigh it before modding]. With my connector/switch setup upstream of the Kemo, I didn't need the Kemo's built-in switch. If I wanted to charge something, I unpacked the Kemo, plugged it into my connector plate and flipped my own toggle switch [under the top left corner of the GPS in the photo].

Re: How did the Revo/Kemo light/charger combo work on the AZT 300?
I got lucky and had two opportunities to charge [at 120V wall outlets] my iPhone at convenience store stops, so I can't comment on phone charging. However, I did successfully recharge my Black Diamond Revolt USB helmet light while riding during the day. Revo light worked great, as long as I could ride above about 6-7 mph. If I was riding slower than that, having to HAB/CAB, then the light output diminished to almost nothing. Not a problem for a non-technical trail, when supplemented with a dim helmet light or moon/starlight. Worst problem when trying to rely on the dynamo/Revo light was when riding technical terrain at a 4-8 mph rate. My brain got taxed as the light output ramped up and down. Keep the bars straight and life was good. Sawing away at the bars, due to terrain/balance/brain-fade issues and making the light wander all over the place, made it mentally challenging to ride with just the bar light. My eyes would want to follow the light beam and not stay focused on the trail. I'd have to crank up the light from my helmet light to override the disco light show from the bar light. BTW, I have low gearing and can spin as low as about 3.0-3.5 mph, without having to HAB, but I need to see well enough to stay balanced at that slow of a speed. Distilled, I'd sacrifice some of those high-speed lumens for a more rapid light output increase/turn-on when riding slow. So, other than wanting more light sooner, very happy with the Revo. It was very comforting to know that I always had one light that didn't need to be charged, managed, rationed...

I'd be interested in hearing/reading more about this particular mod and the reasoning behind it.

[Enzo149]

might test out the usbwerk and my garmin tomorrow on a short road ride - but fairly certain the stem mount on the garmin won't let me keep the usb plugged in... looking at right angle plugs here:

http://www.l-com.com/usb-right-angle-usb-cables-straight-a-male-to-left-angle-mini-b5-male

I have the Revo with the USB werks. Wired in parallel and it works great. Silicone the back of the connection to prevent water intrusion. I ran the wires up my fork tube together in heat shrink and have the cache battery on my handle bars underneath a feed bag strap. I have charged my cell phone galaxy 4s and garmin 810 using the USB werks and charging was quick and steady. Thanks to PW cylces for helping me get it set up. With 810 I had to get a specific USB cable for charging. The cable that it comes with for data transfer will shut down the GPS when plugged into a straight power source.