Long(ish) distance debut for 2022!
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Sunny day in Stockholm, and not too much snow/slush to keep me off my onewheel. Yay! I started out with a demonstration against the war in Ukraine. Lots of feelings there, for sure.
After that, a quick lunch with the wife, then I grabbed my gear out of the car and took off north. I planned to ride to a spot where the mass transit boats go, and then to take the boat across to my island, thus avoiding the bridge.
I got there and only then realized it was 2 hours between boats during the winter. Blast! I decided to charge my board while considering my options. Today was actually the maiden voyage for my newly-built charging solution. For lack of a more glamorous case, it lives in a salted caramel ice cream tub, and it has its wires zipped tied to the sides of the container to make sure I don’t accidentally tug them and break the very fragile connectors on the voltage booster. I put XT60 connectors on there in case I want to use a different battery in future, or use it to charge something that doesn’t use an XLR. I’m pitiful at soldering, I’m afraid, so I’m proud of this. Not gonna lie.
While it charged, I re-read the timetable and discovered the boat I ACTUALLY wanted was coming in about 20 minutes. Woohoo! I grabbed about 25 percent before I had to stow all the stuff back in my backpack. Seems to work great, though.
Once on the boat, they asked where I wanted to get off, but when I told them, they said they don’t stop there during the winter. WHAAAA?!? Luckily, they did stop at another place on the island…just further away from home…and at a place with a really steep icy road out from the bay. 😬 it was fine.
I ended up riding past the bridge I was avoiding. I took the opportunity to take a picture of the new bridge that’s under construction (right next to the old bridge). I’m sure it will be very functional when it’s done, but it is rather a homely structure.
So it didn’t turn out to be THAT long of a ride. But I did ride (unsupported) for 106% battery, so that qualifies (barely) as long-distance, self-reliant for me. According to my tests, I should be able to charge my board from almost empty to almost full three times with the 48v 13Ah battery in my setup.
It was FREEZING by the time I made it home, so I hopped in the sauna before dinner to thaw out. Hoping for a lot more km this year! 🤙😀
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@angusofstockholm Good to see a turnout of support for Ukraine in your area 💙💛
Lovely pics of your ride too~ :)
How are you finding the MPT range extension method? Looks like you got it to output a decent current to charge quickly which mine refused to do.
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Weather was finally nice enough for a long ride hear so sounds like we had the same idea ;)
Didn't get many nice pics but on the way back I had to get some of the sun going down an hour away from making it home.
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Nice long ride you had there!
I wanted to ease into range extending on my XR until I had a good understanding of the options and the up/downsides of each. So the MPT is perfect for that. No board modding required. Unfortunately, I had to buy another battery, as my 60v collection doesn’t work with this setup, but I figured if I VnR my XR in the end, I can lend the MPT to a buddy for some long-distance company sometime.
Who knows, though. Maybe MPT will be the way for me. Right now, I do miss knowing that I can ride and not need to stop and charge for 50-60km as with my VnR’d Pint. But that might be the product of those fun and intense planning sessions where you think, “if I can make it to here, then charge, then I can make it all the way to there.” That’s a different place, mentally, from the “ride…charge…ride…charge…” MPT experience.
Maybe I’ll find it’s liberating - “ride anywhere…charge anywhere…ride anywhere…charge anywhere” up to what looks to be about 100km. Which maybe opens up forest roads and other truly wild places. 🌳🌲🏕🌲🌳
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@angusofstockholm said in Long(ish) distance debut for 2022!:
But that might be the product of those fun and intense planning sessions where you think, “if I can make it to here, then charge
Agreed, I did kind of enjoy that aspect. The extra bonus being the forced break it’d make you take, recharge the legs :)
Look forward to seeing those forrest trips. Getting the range to explore and take on more rough terrain is really freeing.
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@angusofstockholm said in Long(ish) distance debut for 2022!:
For lack of a more glamorous case, it lives in a salted caramel ice cream tub, and it has its wires zipped tied to the sides of the container to make sure I don’t accidentally tug them and break the very fragile connectors on the voltage booster. I put XT60 connectors on there in case I want to use a different battery in future, or use it to charge something that doesn’t use an XLR. I’m pitiful at soldering, I’m afraid, so I’m proud of this. Not gonna lie.
me get tired of power disruptions...
so me think small UPS have small power. car battery have big power. me add big to small. make small big.
but small battery no same as big. need new charge controller. so me add inverter to car battery. still make big power for small ups. but big power run out. food go bad.
me need charge big battery but still need big power for small ups. me have idea. me get 110v automatic transfer switch. only use battery when needed.
but me have new problem. switched power is out of phase. but big power only out of phase for small time. not big problem for small ups.
me make 1.2kwh LiFePO4 standby ups for my office for <$500 in stock parts. even works in war zones.
XR's got what plants crave!
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Oh, no! You definitely need good power to keep your salted caramel ice cream nice and frosty. Will be totes worth it.
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So, a super-disappointing try for a long ride this afternoon. Was shooting for about a 60km ride, and was counting on stopping to charge a couple of times. Cold day about 3C.
But what the heck. I'd gone about 15km and had only about 15% left in the tank by the time I made it to Stockholm City Hall (where they have the Nobel Prize banquet every December).
At about 18k I had 5% left and stopped to charge. That's about 5k less than I had hoped to go, even considering cold weather and a treaded tire. Very disappointing. I stopped in this park by the bridge and had a long charging break to consider my feelings on all this!
Aborted the ride. Headed home and promptly ordered the same kind of t-connectors that the GT40 uses. (I liked how those looked - better than posi-taps.) I don't see how I'm going to be satisfied with the short hops between changes. And that's on periodt.
