Took a very long break from my web log. So here I am saying hello as in Terminator3 movie - "I am back!!"
I dedicate this post to my beloved friend-guru-philosopher called "KHS alite 500" mountain bike who is just about 1 year old now but wiser than me who taught me a lot of things in life.
My journey into cycling started long time back in Mysore when I was a kid learning-how-to-balance on small hero bicycle with the support wheels on them. But I never had an opportunity to ride much of bicycle during schooling days as I always had to take bus due to longer commute. Since then I had a longing to own a bicycle looking at many of friends coming on bicycles to school. Years passed by but the fascination for bikes was never gone. Well the first thing I bought myself was the Hercules bicycle saved from my internship money after finishing my under-graduation. Yes you read it right! after finishing my engineering. It doesn't take people to be crazy to ride a bike but being crazy helps. Soon after that I got bit by the bug of riding longer and longer distances to satisfy the thirst and improving my endurance. Couple of guys like "Nomad" and "roasted neurons" inspired me (Their funny names and writing style itself are enough. Need i say more!) to take the cycling to next new level. That happened five years back exactly on this same day I had been on solo biking journey to Maakalidurga. A memorable journey indeed with lot of thrilling adventures of mountain climbing, taking dip in lake, hiking with other camping members en-route! Then the phase of office commute started on same bike and I called it operation Manyatha. Indeed it was a mission and a tough one but it is good that I am able to keep it running successful till now but on a much better bike now. The thirst for riding long distances and building stamina ever increased and that is when I had registered for Bengaluru cyclothon in 2009. My views about cycling changed a lot after meeting people at cyclothon and seeing more mature biking groups. This is where I met GGI and BBCh members for first time. I saw road race bikes for the first time in my life during the event who were zipping past ahead of me with their 9+ kilo imported race bikes while I was riding a steel-framed 30+ kilo purely Indian made local bike. :) My riding distance had got better by this time of about 60+ kms a day on my Hercules cycle. Soon after this cyclothon incident in my life, I pulled my cousin (Sumukh) into cycling. He was then new to cycling but i forced him one day for a Nandi hills ride, an overkill for a beginner indeed but it was the most funny ride ever as I did tow him for about 10+ kms with our bikes pulled by a rope after he started limping on our way back! Even more funnier part was that the rear mud guard fell off!! I mean it just fell off while riding and got stuck between the road and rear tire but it was this rope we tied to our bikes which helped us to avoid the disaster of me having a face-first-fall. Hehe.. With no tools with us, all we could find was a hardware store nearby where I only found a hack-saw blade to cut the mud-guard off the bike. :P
Too vintage.. i guess! :P
Country bikes with informal bikers then...
Are you kidding me? Tow away zone!?.. we were towing ourselves all the way back to Yelahanka!
Cutting the mud guard which fell towards the front of wheel!
Then I decided that it was the time for me to go for better and more reliable and lighter frame bike. But never found a proper way to go in search for proper kind of bike which suited my budget and my way of cycling. Road bikes looked really cool lean machines with those aerodynamic drop bars with those thin 700x25c tires and elegant frame geometry. But I am a kind of guy who takes too much adventure within and loved to be one with nature than on asphalted roads speeding at 40-50kmph. Thus I opted for Mountain bike and sooner I got to know about cycling-and-more(CAM) team who were having this regular weekend cycling rides around Bangalore. Me and my cousin both opted for rented bikes and took the ride as opportunity to get ourselves exposed to some modern day imported bikes with good components. We got Merida Matts 20V rented during the whole ride. It was then I realized the beauty of handling and braking of these Mountain bikes. We did the ride starting from Horanadu-Kalasa-Mudigere-Kottigehara-Sakleshpura, the heart of western ghats i must say, in-and-around the Charmadi ghats. The climbs were thrilling, tiring, challenging which were all negated by scenic beauty, greenery and pristine routes we took Not to forget the amazing food at Linger Balur estate! and the lovely bungalow built almost everything out of wood from 1850s. Made new cyclist friends who were riding Cannondale Trail 5, Mongoose Tyax, Rock Rider 5.2s, Schwinn hybrids etc., but just fell in love with the Cannondale bike after I took it for spins.
Lovely greens meadows between Kottigehara-Sakleshpur
I look like a charred version of me :P
Welcoming us to village life
A lovely water body with lotuses on the way (In the pic - Sumukh)
How often does one get a change to be there!?
Soon after this ride we went to BOTS, Wheelsports (specially for KHS, Merida, BMC), Pedals and Wheels, Wheel life adventures (specially for Giant bike) and other branded bike distributors. Finally I chose KHS alite 500 as it has best components for my budget range.
Then I did a lot of upgrades to my bike since it was mainly a commuter purpose bike for me but often a trail bike too. Got a Cree 950 Lumens torch which runs on 4000mAh Ultrafire 18650 battery with a custom mount made out of a reflector clamp. A simple DC-4W cyclocomp to monitor distance and speed. A custom built DIY project for phone/battery pack charger. The recent of all was to get the puncture resistant tire liners kit installed as I face lot of thorns in trail rides towards Nandi hills and Hesaraghatta. Here are some videos that I took during my rides sometime back.
Offroad cycling is just so much fun! Have been to Nandi hills thrice (Dared the 8K climb only once though, last 2 kms are killing!) and Hesaraghatta trails about 4 times now, each of these rides would be around 80+ kms from my home at Sahakarnagar.
At Hesaraghatta lake (water remains to be precise!) - with my schoolmate Nikhil
Sumukh and Jon during the Nandi climb
It was a 100+ km ride back tiring ride that day!
Then came another bike trip with the office colleagues who are more of marathon runners and share same level of enthusiasm and passion as mine in biking. It was 3 day ride to heart of Madhumalai, Ooty. The ride was memorable as it was through the famous wildlife - Bandipur, Madhumalai, Gudaloor forests. We started from Mysore all the way to Bandipur (1st day), Bandipur to Masinagudi (2nd day), Masinagudi to Ooty (3rd Day). The ride was splendid and so was our final day accommodation at Taj savoy at Ooty! Yipeee.. A refreshing star hotel pleasure after treacherous rides (but not to mention that it burnt a hole in my pocket though :P )
My colleague Manav with his Kona dew taking a break
Thats the way - Mahi way! :)
Took rest here for few mins before the start of climb when I saw deers cross the road next to me!!
I was probably in 1x1 gear ratio here - crawling the way up!
Bend it like hair pin :P
Hocus - pocus - focus!
The latest ride of mine was my second ride with the CAM team last month starting from Bandipur - Gudalur - towards Kerala, Wayanad - Sulthan batthery - Soochipara falls. The tea estates were mesmerizing at the Soochipara falls. The best moments of the ride was to sip the freshly brewed tea, taking a stroll inside the estate in which it was grown, kids cheering us and asking us for name in their pretty English, taking a full body water massage below the water falls soon after a long ride!
Horse shoe for sale in one of villages
Lovely morning sunshine
A piece of art from a tree right next to them!
Yes. It was Christmas time last month! We stayed at Hotel Issac regency.
Fellow bikers
Edakkal hills in Kerala.
Speeeeeedo...
Most lovely pic! No words for its beauty!
Tea estates
Vivek Kini - on the way to Soochipara falls
Scenic route throughout
Tea estates very close to Soochipara falls
I hope you enjoyed my photo log of my journey as a primitive biker -> to an informal biker -> to an amateur biker. :D
Having done past 3000Kms now (of which 2000+ would be in commute), even to this day I enjoy my office commutes as it keeps me energetic for the entire day in getting me exposed to the some sunlight and breeze and relives a lot of pressure at work. Special thanks to Endorphins here! Even though traveling is slow paced I reach faster than on Car and coolest part is that I know a lot about short cuts and also round about ways to reach home in-case of traffic jams ;)
I didn't say why I called my Bike as friend-guru-philosopher yet! I promise to come back with another post as sequel to this soon. Thus I would like to end this post as I started with Terminator movie quote - "I'll be back!!"
Much awaited dream of getting my own mountain bike becomes true last month. :) Last month I bought KHS Alite 500, 2012 model from Pedals and Wheels Malleshwaram. Odo reads around 300 Kms and am loving the rides! First I fell in love with Bullet, then I fell in love with Biking as its even more adventurous and fun. A lot of people get this silly idea in their minds that he is doing a vain attempt to save environment, some say he is over-doing a workout and getting thinner, some even kindle the way I look wearing my cycling attire. But I don't care for what people think because more than all that stuff, I bike just for my own enjoyment :)
Coming back to my original title - USB charger using cycle dynamo. This was my last weekend's plan which I got executed this whole week. My room had become a electronics workshop for a while with smell of burnt solder and also a generator room with the sounds of dragging dynamo over the tire treads. I burned a little of midnight oil during weekdays in completing this project.
The basic drive for coming up with this charger is to charge my Phone/Camera/GPS device on long touring.
All feature-rich-smartphones have got a weak battery life. Mine is Motorola Defy BF5X 3.7V, 1500mAh which lasts for about max 2 days with CPU underclocking governors of 300MHz and 600MHz in action!
Recently bought a MINI DVR 80, sports camera to shoot my biking adventures which will now be usable if have a all-time-charger on the go!
Having worked on basics of 12V electricals in Bullet it was a pretty easy job to design battery charger for my cycle dynamo. Principles involved are the same and anyone can design it in minutes if you had attended your high school class about non-linear circuits.
AC supply from dynamo -> Full wave rectified (double the AC frequency, using 4 diode bridge-rectifier) pulsating DC -> Apply a capacitor as filter to smoothen out the DC output -> Limit the current by a shunt resistor (simplest electric ballast) -> Regulate the fluctuating DC by putting a IC regulator to appropriate voltage (IC78XX series).
This simple circuit below will explain a lot more:
> The output current varies from 0-1A based on the speeds of the cycling. IC7805 starts to give the output at speeds of 6-7Kmph as the input unregulated DC supply should be more than 8V for IC7805 to kick off.
> The power of dynamo itself restricts the capacity of current it can drive to the IC and thus a decent shunt resistor of rated around 2-3W should be sufficient.
> Capacitor could be more better if its rating is something like 25V, 0.1F. More-the-better. Will hold more charge and thus keeps charging for a while even though you stop for a while during the ride.
> This is not a very efficient circuit but just works for me. I saw better designs on web doing similar stuff. Output current should be ideally 1/10th the Ah rating of the battery being charged from the USB, as there will be chances of over charging and also lessens the life of rechargeable Li-ion batteries. You will need to add voltage comparator and make current trickle when fully charged. Then circuit becomes more complex. But to avoid this I usually connect the USB output to a portable battery power which has got protection inbuilt to cut-off the supply when its fully charged. (Note that, this portable battery power can be charged by other power outlets as well)
Further upgrades would be to put a high rated capacitor like 1F and put some 3W LED lighting for the front and the rear which could lessen the value of current limiting resistor.
Things you need:
1. I found the circuit of full wave bridge rectifier in a damaged wall charger adaptor unit of my WIFI modem at home. It had real good diodes IN5400 which can rectify upto 50V, 3A. A cycle dynamo can never reach that power rating to burn them!
2. Regulator IC costs some 8 Bucks (Courtesy: Famous SP road of Bangalore)/ Or you can find it in some old radios/ Or go to local TV repair shop.
3. Most important of all! Bottle dynamo, Just the generator coil with strong neodymium magnet will cost INR 80. (Hub dynamos will be better as there wont be drag/tire wear)
4. A USB Type A socket (Female pin). (A cheap USB adapter cable which was unused at home)
5. Soldering gun + solder paste + solder wire. (You can get soldering done in nearby electric shop if you are not good at working with PCB)
6. Insulated wires (About 2 meters)
7. A Heatsink(+ metal paste) for regulator. I made my own heatsink with several folds of Aluminium foil as the power dissipation will be less if cycling speeds are around than 20kmph ;) And I don't expect to reach constant speeds of 40kmph during touring.
8. Alligator clips for clamping at the dynamo output terminals. (I use them as its flexible for removal. Saddle bag can hold all of the charger circuit when I want to remove)
9. A digital multimeter to verify that circuit is behaving as expected. (An oscilloscope would be better to view it graphically :P)
With an overall cost of around INR 250 anyone can build this circuit.
Final housing of all wiring with charger inside saddle bag.
Had kept my cycle upside down for Pedalling, thus the dynamo reversed!
In my first attempt heat sink was bigger than PCB :P
Rectifier circuit
Constant voltage output of regulator with any output load
Avg output current, 440 mA
USB adaptor PIN
My funny packaging in a organic tea box :P
I shall call this device as Organic USB Charger to Go Green :)
Charging in action, Device getting charged while pedaling
Housing of all cables below the seat.
With just about 20 Mins of cycling at 15kmph you could easily recharge the phone for about 30 mins of talk time / 20 hours of standby time! You can disengage the dynamo from wheel by pulling and pushing a lever when you want to stop charging.
Disadvantages:
1. Drag when the dynamo is in action. (Quite a humming sound at rear which makes the nearby street dogs chase you at times! :P)
2. Tyre wear (I don't think much as MTB tyres are built for more worse terrain)
3. Weight of dynamo (around 200 gms). Wont be much of effort to pull that weight along on an Aluminum frame bike.
The idea of writing this came to me while coming back from the beaches of Surathkal. I spent my time alone for a while during one evening taking pictures with DSLR during my solo trip to Udupi, Kundapura, Karkala and places around, a few months back.
I found this today scribbled in one of my notebooks. This verse was written back then but I always felt it rather incomplete to post it.
Theme of the verse: Nature is the next closest thing to one's own soul.
I keep doing a lot of mistakes in my life. Some are ought to be forgiven, not by others, but myself. The hardest part is to forgive oneself and to move on. That is when I get close to something beyond and seek for god/nature in helping us forgive ourselves, trying to kill the "inner-cruel-me" and find peace with self and make sure at every step that consciousness overtakes the unruly me. But, at the end I don't promise that its going to be my last mistake as I come to you again and again.
This weekend, I designed my own solar grill at home using some of the unused articles and also some things were bought at nearby home appliance shop or novelty store.
Background for coming up with this crazy idea was that my android smart phone Motorola Defy was draining out of battery in less than one day with all radios enabled in it esp like mobile data, wifi, GPS. I needed a USB travel charger badly and bought a solar powered + usb powered (4400 mWh) which could charge universal devices like Camera/Ipod/Phone etc., on the go. Its output rating is 5.5V,500mA. It works just good in critical power needs during my trekking/camping. I had underestimated the solar power till then until it helped me really when I needed the most.
A few months back I had been to Lakshadweep islands where the sole energy for the whole island was Solar power. I was really amazed at the self sustained way to renew energy resource even for desalination of water using the temperature difference between the cold water of deep sea and the hotter surface water. Even the entire lighting was done by an array of solar cells.
I was looking at the ways to harness the this power in very small scale and came up with website called GREENPOWERSCIENCE which does build the acrylic parabolic mirrors and extreme powerful fresnel lens which was well suited for my purpose but was not within the reach of my budget anyway. Then I went in search of ways to build my own parabolic mirror. Dan of the GreenPowerScience explains a lot of ways to make a user defined one with casting mortar and using it to prepare a cement mold. Grease the mold, then use 3 layers of fiber glass wool and polyester resin to bind them into a parabolic polyester dish. Well, this preparation was too tedious (but really economical on some scale if we plan to roll out many) but I wanted a better and faster way. The best suited idea for me was given by another youtube video which used the TV antennae that comes with the dish which is of parabolic shape to converge the KU band of TV signals into a focal point for better reception. So I bought a scrap dish from reliance big TV workshop near my place for 350 INR (Found a good quality dish in a stock pile of Defective LNB dishes) Its a 60 cm diameter dish which I bought with the clamps and bolts for fitting.
Next step was to prepare a reflecting surface for the entire surface of the parabola. This was done by low cost Aluminum foil of food grade quality. This costs about 40 INR for about 7 mtrs X 30 cms. Not even 1/4th of it was used to cover the dish surface. I cut it into strips of regular sized rectangles (better to make trapezoids for easier coverity with very less wastage) to paste it with a child safe glue. The glue must be water based and it should be non-toxic as it might get heated and may fume in direct sunlight. Even with the application of tin foil all over the surface, the reflectivity is pretty bad about just 35-40% with the wrinkles and overlapping edges. The full sheet as such if stuck on flat surface would give about 55% of reflection. Also I read about Mylar, Foylon and other reflective vinyl sheets which could be used for this but again cost issues exceeded my low budget project. I plan to upgrade to better reflective surface tearing down the current tin foil surface as it is not durable for long and the temperature tin foil reflection generates is very less and is insufficient to boil water. Using a mirror (glass based) would be optimal for me as it will be lesser initial cost but would require a lot of work to cut mirror into several hundreds of pieces to cover entire area of the dish.
I read somewhere that a square meter of earth's surface lit by bright sunlight generates can be equivalent to 1000 watts of power. So a 60 cm dish with good reflective surface will give above 560 watts of energy.
If you have concentrated a beam of light by magnifier lens to burn paper during your school days/for your curiosity then you can imagine the power of the parabolic concentrator.
After the reflective parabolic surface then the problem comes with the proper mount. Mount can be made anything and problem here is to get a grill at the focal point of the sunlight after the dish is mounted on any surface. It can be anything from an unused table fan bottom, a tripod etc. My initial attempt to use a 4 foot long flower vase stand went in vain as it could not withstand the entire weight as its center of gravity went outside the dish when mounted :P
After hunting more and more for unused items at home, I found a cradle (!) in which I used to sleep when I was a baby ;) An antique piece in rust but still standing :P Good thing is that its easily dis-mountable with 4 rivets at the bottom. I shall work on a good paint job sometime next week on it to make it a more durable.
It has got two hooks on the sides which helped me to put up the stainless steel round grill with a wooden handle on top of it with the help of small sized bungee ropes which holds it in place. Good thing about these ropes is that they got good tension retaining ability, they are insulators, and most important of all that I could vary the position and angle of dish for sunlight based on placement of hooks on the side rods of cradle.
Sad that there wasn't much sunlight today as it was rainy and gloomy all day long. So I couldn't test for temperatures it could go with direct sunlight. I shall update it soon after my next series of tests. :)
Things I bought for grill:
Parabolic dish - 350 INR
Aluminum foil + Glue - max 40 INR
Bungee ropes - max 30 INR each (I had some of them already for traveling on bike)
Steel grill - 140 INR
(You may also require a plastic ruler, blade to cut the foil)
Well within 600 INR of cost it is doable and it took me just 2 days with each day spending about 5-6 hours of work all alone on building this. I started building it on Saturday morning and completed on Sunday evening :)
Below are some pics that i took in building my solar grill. Will update more on the mirror upgrade that I plan to do and probably post a video soon of me cooking some good stuff ;)
Check out some FAQs listed here if you have something in mind to start a project something like this.
Last Sunday, I happened to browse through the newspaper and found that there was a Kannada play called "Sattavara neraLu" (Shadow of the dead) Playwright : G B Joshi. Director: B.V Karanth. Having heard that it is a good drama, I went to watch it at Ranga Shankara theater. Indeed it was a different experience as it was my first time. I had never been to a live theater show before. I thoroughly enjoyed the brilliant theater experiments, effects with lighting and shadows, stage design. The timely lyrics of Purandara dasa literature like "illiralaare allige hoogalaare","kurudu naayi santhege banthanthe","aachaaravilladha naalige","aadhadhella oLithe aayithu","Donku baaladha naayakare","Lolalotte" to suit the mood of play enlivens Sattavara neraLu's theme. Long live Shankar Nag's dream and a bow to the all the artists/directors/playwrights.
Subtly pulling a philosophical string and delineating a dreadful tune, Sattavara Neralu shakes the stable philosophical base and intellectually inquires into the eternally rooted and firm beliefs in our society. Narayana is forcibly pulled into Sanyasa and made seer of a Mutt. A ventri vogue of king maker Krishnacharya, Diwan of the Mutt, seer is ashamed of his pretentious celibacy unable to suppress his un-satiated worldly desires and suffering the onslaught of intellectuals thronging at Mutt seeking philosophical and spiritual clarity subjected to scrutiny and judgement. Diwan manages to send seer on a pilgrimage and receives news that seer moved heavenward. Diwan immediately builds a Vrindavan in the name of the deceased seer and carries on Mutt activities many years. But seer turned Narayana, actually alive, returns to confront Diwan, Diwan manages to maintain that dead seer is in Vrindavan. Frustrated seer reversed to mortal Narayana threatens to reveal the truth, but incorrigible Diwan challenges that devotees would blindly believe what they practice for ages in deference to and total disbelief of what is blabbered by Narayana because mortal Narayana is now bereft of the seer in him.
A lot of people around me get freaked out by my silence. I guess, They often think what is wrong with this "lone lonely loner"! Some around me ask me to be more expressive. I get tired of people asking me - "Why are you so much quiet?" whenever I try to mix with people in a group. But very close friends of mine tell me not to change and be just the way you are!
I am happy not being a very social animal. Even being put in a big social group at family wedding/some party I feel a lot deserted! I will have very short replies for people's (irritating) questions and do enjoy killing time in analyzing everyone's reaction and body language. Social contact seems like burden to me most of the times. Majority of the society is too loud and outgoing.
I am totally bad in front of a crowd. I have my own fears to talk to a bunch of people. It would be much easier to give a technical talk than general talk as analytical part of your brain filters out any impractical words come out of your mouth! Sometimes I go blank in talking what is expected out of me, sometimes I even stammer with all the nervousness. It all depends on the exposure of the world around that I got when I was young. Well, I face my fears till today every time I am being laughed at and made fun. I fight my own fears only by facing them regularly.
Being an introvert loner is not so bad at all. It's cool when I don't attract much attention. I feel that I'm on my own and I'm free. I don't have to care about what people will think about me. I don't have to be the "life" of the party to enjoy all the action going around. I have a lot of time to spend for myself and most importantly it helps me to work independently as a individual contributor even though I work in a team. I don't make enemies with anyone. I am good at burying a lot of secrets within myself. I get to go for solo bullet rides exploring around which helps me to get along with nature more closely. When people get my trust they have a real friend in making.
The bad thing about being a loner is that when you are tested with a lot of emotional turbulence you tend to easily lose yourself! One has to be strong not to let it overcome and become a phobia or a disorder of any kind.
I dedicate this random thought to millions of people around who live(or agree to) in their fortress of solitude. :)
