GigsVT's Journal: Hybrid Bike: Functional

My Hybrid electric bicycle is functional now.

Here are some Pictures.

Earlier pictures show reject design ideas, later ones show the stuff that worked :)

The main problem I had is that because the alternator was producing more voltage than the battery, the alternator would take all the load and stall the gas motor before the battery discharged at all.

To make them balance the current use, I installed two very large 110 watt 0.3 ohm resistors in parallel between the alternator output and the battery. 0.15 ohms seems like just the right amount of current to not stall the motor normally.

It will only stall the gas motor if the battery is very drained and producing a low voltage and sucking lots of charging amps, and I'm going up a steep hill, or I'm going up a steel hill very slowly for some reason (like I had to stop and start again). In that case I have to modulate the electric motor throttle, turning it on and off repeatedly to avoid stalling the gas motor.

I still have to pedal a good amount, especially on hills. Pedalling at the right times keeps the speed up above 10mph, which is where the electric motors operate most efficiently.

I plan to install larger electric motors and/or play with spindle sizes on the friction drive system, to get a more optimal power arrangement.

The main disadvantage of a friction drive system is that it's always one drive ratio. This is not as bad with electric motors, but they suck huge amounts of current when going at very low rpms, and that huge drain is very wasteful, most goes to heat.

What type of hybrid?

[turg]

I see an electric motor and batteries, but can't see what makes it a hybrid motor.

Re:What type of hybrid?

[GigsVT]

There's a gas trimmer motor driving an alternator. That's the picture with the red motor thing in it.

Re:What type of hybrid?

[turg]

Oh yeah. Now that you mention it, I see the pull cord and the spark plug and the gas cap.

By the way, the second #8 returns a 404 error.

Regenerative Braking?

[nomel]

Have you thought about using braking to turn the alternator? Maybe gear it so it really gets going. That would be awsome. I guess you would probably need a flywheel though to slowly charge the batteries, and a big heavy flywheel wouldn't be a good idea on a bike for multiple reasons :)
You would probably need some kind of clutch system and a chain drive to the alternator to enable the braking.

Need to somehowe make this thing chain driven. It'd sure make modifications easier, I would think. If only there wer