Affordable eBikes

Something unusual happened today - I stopped to gawk at a bicycle. 

It was a mildly smoggy winter morning in Noida, and I was driving down one of those long, flat, tree-lined service roads running parallel to the expressway when I went past a man riding a bicycle. On the face of it this was nothing out of the ordinary - the bicycle was one of those black, clunky, mass-produced models and the man seemed like a factory employee, with his head covered in a muffler, a small bag on his back, going down the road - except for the fact that he was not pedalling his bicycle!

I did a double-take, noticed a neat white bracket behind his seat, and realised that this one was running on a battery - an ordinary bicycle in its new avatar as an electric bike.

Having never seen such a thing before, I pulled up a little ahead, and requested him to stop. The cyclist gladly obliged, and with the pleased look of a man accustomed to such attention, explained that he had got this fitting at a workshop in Badarpur, Delhi. It had cost him about INR 15,000 and that the battery lasted him quite comfortably for his 40 km commute everyday.

These units are manufactured by new company called Accelero Cycles India Ltd., and sold under the brandname "eBik". Founded by a youngster named Anant Jain, this startup aims to make 'affordable, eco-friendly, motorised mobility for everyone'. 

How will ACIL take on established companies like Hero Cycles which has come out with a range of electric bicycles under the brandname "Lectro"? Is there sufficient demand for retro-fitted budget cycles? Does the enterprise have a network of service centres? As of now not there is not much information about this company in the public domain. 

The answers to these questions may unfold in the days to come, but one thing is sure - as of now, the company has at least one happy brand ambassador on this side of Yamuna!

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* eBik - https://ebik.in/product.html 

Solar Powered Vendors

The world is moving on -  coconut vendors are now equipped with solar panels!

Until last year the most popular - and affordable - lighting technology available to the vendors was the "petromax" lamp. Messy, polluting and hard to maintain, these kerosene powered lamps also thrived on a blackmarket for fuel siphoned from the public distribution system. 

Most of the kerosene lamps have now been replaced by LED panels.   A supply chain had evolved around this model in which entrepreneurs had started supplying a complete LED lighting set (light panel + battery + stand), to the street vendors for about ₹20 a night. After 10:00 PM they would go around collecting the lamps, and then getting all the batteries recharged again from an AC outlet.

Now vendors - especially those on the open roads - have progressed to next logical step: charging the batteries using solar panels. 

In this case, the vendor, Kasim, set himself a budget of ₹ 3000 and got a 40Wp panel, a refurbished 12V battery of unknown Ah rating and two LED panels.  He has also paid extra for a charger-box with a 2-pin plug. He got conned on three counts - the seller sold him mobile charger calling it an "inverter", the LED panel cost him ₹200 (available at ₹80), and the worst of all - nobody told him that he needs a Solar Charge Controller (SCC).

Since the SCC controls the fluctuating voltage coming in from the panels, and optimises the charge that a battery can take, Kasim's entire investment s likely to go kaput in a few weeks. 

Kasim's case illustrates the problems most of face while adopting a new technology. He is, of course, an early starter. While most of the other vendors prefer a battery-rental model (₹300/week), he must have worked out that an investment in panels would spare him rental expenses within two months. 

I have tried to help out at bit by checking at Lajpat Rai Market (Old Delhi), and telling him that SCC's are available at ₹ 350 (Shop no. 40, 6Amp, DeepSolar brand). Will he get one installed before it is too late? Or will he continue with his "jugaad" setup, get disillutioned with his panel set and return to the regular mode?

And then, even if he does get himself a SCC, it would be yet another component which comes with no quality assurance, standard ratings or guarantees. 

We have set ourselves ambitous targets for increase in renewable energy capacity. The focus so far seems to be on big companies and on turning vast areas into solar-energy farms. While this is necessary, it is also important to ensure that entrepreners like Kasim have access, not only to solar equipment of reliable quality, but also to information and guidance that helps avoid unnecessary loss of faith in a good source for off-grid, renewable sources of power.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_controller

* Charge Controllers - http://www.freesunpower.com/chargecontrollers.php

* Do I need a Charge Controller? -- http://forum.solar-electric.com/discussion/4518/do-i-need-a-charge-controller

- Battery AH * 2% * Vmp = Panel Wattage

* Do I need a controller? - http://www.mrsolar.com/content/faqs/when-do-I-need-a-charge-controller-and-why.html

* Solar Panel Selection Guide - https://www.bijlibachao.com/solar/india-solar-photovoltaic-pv-panels-selection-guide-understanding-system-quality.html

* MNRE Achievements - http://mnre.gov.in/file-manager/UserFiles/Achievements-of-Power-Coal-and-MNRE-Nov2015-English.pdf 

On Batteries

How do batteries work?

Until today my understanding had been confined to high-school lessons in physics: lead anodes, cathodes, and of charged electrons swimming through sulphuric acid.

Now an enquiry from a friend in Japan is beginning to improve my understanding of an essential device that has become so common place that we not only take it for granted but also miss out on the wide range of batteries in the market now.

Here is an interesting video produced by EngineerGuy - Bill Hammack, University of Illinois:



If you decide to move on from lead acid batteries, the videos take you tthrough other interesting stuff like - the various uses of copper, Qweerty vs. Drovak keyboard layouts, magnetrons in microwaves and the connection between nutmeg and tantalum (!).

Coming back to batteries, they now come in serveral types -  AGM or dry, deep cycle or solar batteries. Unlike automotive batteries which are designed to give out a big burst of energy to start the engine, the AGM/Deep Cycle/Solar batteries are designed to discharge over a long period of time.

This is quite useful when you want to have, say, a streetlight running on solar panels. The panels absorb energy during the day, and keep the roads lit up all night on a single charge.

What if the such energy could be stored to run power-hungry equipment like freezers, microwaves and flatscreens? How would that work?

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USEFUL LINKS

- AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) battery technology - http://www.solar-electric.com/agm-battery-technology.html/
- Running a microwave on a 12V battery - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeY4qE2afvU
- Winiversal Inverter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZhrqvYBqCE

* Power Inverter FAQ - https://www.donrowe.com/power-inverter-faq-a/258.htm
- AMPS X 120 (AC voltage) = WATTS -- This formula yields a close approximation of the continuous load of the appliance
- WATTS X 2 = Starting Load
- Induction motors such as air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers and pumps may have a start up surge of 3 to 7 times the continuous rating.
- The auxiliary battery should be connected to the alternator through an isolator module to prevent the inverter from discharging the engine start battery when the engine is off.

HP 'Stream 13' Laptop - "Something Happened"

If you are thinking of buying the HP Stream ultraportable notebook with Microsoft Windows 10, please reconsider. And if you have already purchased one, please accept my heartfelt sympathies.

I suffer, therefore I empathise.

The HP Stream's biggest strength (price, portability) comes with a a major liability - a 32 GB SSD. It is, no doubt, quite fast but the limited space ensures that you will soon suffer death by a thousand MS updates.

You cannot really afford to block the updates because it could be a security risk, and if you do enable them, the space available is so little that the machine just gives up. Over the past few days I have been struggling to install the free Windows 10 updates, in vain.

Today, I called the helpline (18001021100) and they suggested that I download the "ISO files" (3.11GB) from here. So I first downloaded a "Media Creation Toolx64" (19MB). Then, after burning a couple of hours and 4GB worth of data, all I got was a cryptic messge - "Something Happened - 0x80070070 - 0xC19001DF". 

Something happened?? WTF?? I had followed all the instructions given to me and downloaded the ISO files on to an external HDD which had more than 450 GB of free space. Now, after 'something happened' there is nothing to show on the HDD that anything was ever downloaded. 4GB worth of files has just disappeared into thin air - for the third time!!

So there you are: HP sells you a machine that has a C-Drive with 32 GB of space, of which Win-8.1 takes about 25 GB. Microsoft and HP have a deal for free upgrade of Win-8.1 to Win-10, but they never tell you while buying the machine that Win-10 requires at least 20GB of additional free-space for installation, which the HP machine is just not capable of handling. What a great way to fool customers!

If you are in the same boat, here are some links you might find useful -

• About "Something Happened - 0x80070070 - 0xC19001DF" - http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/windows-10-error-message-something-happened/376cd1d2-ac15-472d-afd6-09138dc329e1 
• Windows 10 - System requirements - http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/windows-10-specifications
• HP Stream - Memory Problems - http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-and-Software/hp-stream-running-out-of-space-due-to-windows-updates/td-p/4960154/page/2

UPDATE - 8 Dec., 2016 .............................................

Purchasing an HP laptop ("Stream 13"s.no.-5CD5120TJ3) will now go down as one of my worst gadget decisions so far.

Almost exactly a year after my purchase, in Aug., 2016, my HP Stream 13 laptop refused to boot-up.  The nearest service center listed on HP website - "Progressive Infotech PL" refused to handle the servicing saying that they no longer partner with HP. Why, then, is this company listed on the HP website?? No answer.

The next option was carry my laptop to JABIL at Sector-18 Noida. I handed over my laptop on 3 Aug., 2016, showed them the original invoice and warranty papers, and was assured of a response 'within three days'. After five days, when I called back for a status update, it was clear that no action had been taken. Instead, I was asked the same questions I answered earlier.

JABIL got back to me two weeks later and told me the mother-board would have to be replaced. A few days - and reminders - later, I finally got back my HP Stream-1 laptop with a new mother-board. I re-loaded all my applications and got back to work.

A couple of months later, in Oct., 2016, HP laptop started acting up again. It show "601 battery error" and work only when plugged in to the mains. Oddly, this error occurred only intermittently. One day it would show "601 error" and, on the next, the laptop would working perfectly fine with 100% battery, and 4-5 hours of back-up.

I took it back to HP's JABIL service centre and this time I was told with a smug smile that the warranty does not cover battery performance. When I told them the battery seemed perfectly fine on alternate weeks, and insisted on an expert opinion, the laptop was taken in.

The service centre had promised to give me a feedback before 12:00 the next day. Nobody called; neither did I receive any email updates as in the previous case. So I drove across, once again, to JABIL. I was told a "UEFI Test" had been done, and that it had confirmed that the battery circuits were faulty. Since it was an integrated battery not covered under warranty, a replacement would cost me about INR 10,000.

The laptop cost me INR 22,000, and I was being told to buy battery that cost me almost half that amount!

Will I buy anything from HP again?

Never!!

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MORE LINKS:

Revew in PC Mag - http://in.pcmag.com/hp-stream-13-13-c020nr/46801/review/hp-stream-13-13-c020nr

Wiki on Windows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows