Bill Dube' was on Ewing Stevens' Radiolive show on the morning of 31st August. Bill talks about the fact that with the new battery pack the current New Zealand 1/4 mile record is in their sights!
Thanks to Radiolive for providing the audio:
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
KillaCycle upside down in New Zealand
I have been talking with Bill Dube for a number of months now about getting the KillaCycle to New Zealand to do some clean green drag racing (excuse the smoke).
We have come to a general agreement to target the 2010 4 and Rotary Nationals in January next year. The event organisers are on board, so it's all go!
This will be a great way to demonstrate one of the worlds fastest electrically powered vehicles in front of a young enthusiastic crowd who are very receptive to modern technology, especially if it makes things go faster :)
Sponsorship opportunities are available, so if you or your company would like to be associated with the KillaCycle team while they are in New Zealand, please let me know (contact via email).
-Philip
We have come to a general agreement to target the 2010 4 and Rotary Nationals in January next year. The event organisers are on board, so it's all go!This will be a great way to demonstrate one of the worlds fastest electrically powered vehicles in front of a young enthusiastic crowd who are very receptive to modern technology, especially if it makes things go faster :)
Sponsorship opportunities are available, so if you or your company would like to be associated with the KillaCycle team while they are in New Zealand, please let me know (contact via email).
-Philip
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Tumanako
A long term stated goal of Greenstage has been to promote and develop open source technology. I thought this would play out significantly in the future, once we had the GS750V completed and racing. The immediate issues with our inverter are preventing the completion of the GS750V, interestingly they have also created an opportunity to bring our long term plans forward and hence solve our current problems. All in one go!
On the Wednesday just gone we hosted an international launch party for a number of open source EV projects. The event was a gathering of very capable people showing much enthusiasm for the projects and EV technology in general. These projects are collectively being developed under the Tumanako banner (Tu manako is Māori for hope & togetherness) and so far aspects of Tumanako have received commitment for technical and financial support from 5 different entities (and I expect more to follow):
EV Drive - Bob Simpson
Metric Mind Corporation - Victor Tichonov
Disruptive Enterprises - Alex Smith
Lynx Innovation - Kevin Huljich
Greenstage - Team Greenstage
As well as the open source technical design and development I am very aware of the importance of fostering and developing commercial manufacturing, testing, packaging and sales aspects of the resulting products. Without this the projects will become just another wad of information that only a small subset of people can make use of. The commercial entities supporting and bringing these open source products to market will provide consumers and OEM's with the opportunity to leverage these products with confidence. Combined with the long term technical benefits of open source development, this synergistic commercial manufacturing has the very real opportunity to create a strong and attractively priced set of products.
To learn more about the Tumanako projects, visit our Tumanako Launch wiki page where you can see some of the presentations and photos from the evening. The Tumanako projects are being hosted on SourceForge and changes will be visible as development progresses.
We already have a formidable team and this team will only grow and get stronger as the projects progress. If you have an interest in the outcome of these projects, or you would like to get involved, please let us know.
Let the fun begin!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
2009 - Optimism in the face of adversity
You can probably guess from the lack of celebratory post, that we have not had the car driving yet. We are still working with the inverter manufacturer to get this resolved. The crux of the issue is the DSP board and the software that runs on it. I hope to have more information and positive news about this situation next week.
In the mean time we are still looking at the bigger picture of what this GS750V project is about. Pre Xmas I became aware of the SolarNetwork project being lead by John Gorman. This Open Source project aims to create a network of solar nodes, where each node measures locally generated power (from PV cells or similar) and local power consumed. All this information is collected together and used to predict future generation and consumption scenarios based on weather forecasts and the future build out of solar node infrastructure.
I believe this solar node network and its associated data will become a very powerful tool to plan future business models and business expansion with respect renewable energy generation.
The other exciting opportunity John and I have discussed, is the opportunity to expand the SolarNetwork infrastructure to support V2G (vehicle to grid) functionality. The idea being that if the owner of the EV plugs the car in for a top up, indicates that they want to minimise the cost of the charge (and the impact on the environment) and that they will not need the car for another 4 hours say. This then allows the V2G system to effectively sell power from the EV battery pack during peak demand and charge the pack when demand is less and power is cheaper. The V2G system manges this process to ensure the pack is fully charged upon the owners return. Of course the owner also has the option to tell the V2G system to just charge the pack as quickly as possible and keep it that way until they return if thats what they desire.
This may sound like a magical fairy tale, but from a software engineering point of view this fits into the category of a very doable medium scale project. The bigger challenge is with the physical infrastructure. This is where the beauty of attacking it with an Open Source project comes in. It will allow the basic concept to be developed to a working stage with one specific type of infrastructure (e.g a specific charger and/or inverter combination). The capability can then be expanded by adding additional functionality to the control algorithms and by adding support for other brands and models of infrastructure (i.e. other manufactures charges and inverters).
Greenstage has already ordered a solar node and hopes to be on the SolarNetwork in the next couple of months. If you would like a solar node, or to get involved with the development, please contact John and let him know how great his project is.
Why wait for the world to change? Lets just do what needs to be done!
In the mean time we are still looking at the bigger picture of what this GS750V project is about. Pre Xmas I became aware of the SolarNetwork project being lead by John Gorman. This Open Source project aims to create a network of solar nodes, where each node measures locally generated power (from PV cells or similar) and local power consumed. All this information is collected together and used to predict future generation and consumption scenarios based on weather forecasts and the future build out of solar node infrastructure.
I believe this solar node network and its associated data will become a very powerful tool to plan future business models and business expansion with respect renewable energy generation.
The other exciting opportunity John and I have discussed, is the opportunity to expand the SolarNetwork infrastructure to support V2G (vehicle to grid) functionality. The idea being that if the owner of the EV plugs the car in for a top up, indicates that they want to minimise the cost of the charge (and the impact on the environment) and that they will not need the car for another 4 hours say. This then allows the V2G system to effectively sell power from the EV battery pack during peak demand and charge the pack when demand is less and power is cheaper. The V2G system manges this process to ensure the pack is fully charged upon the owners return. Of course the owner also has the option to tell the V2G system to just charge the pack as quickly as possible and keep it that way until they return if thats what they desire.
This may sound like a magical fairy tale, but from a software engineering point of view this fits into the category of a very doable medium scale project. The bigger challenge is with the physical infrastructure. This is where the beauty of attacking it with an Open Source project comes in. It will allow the basic concept to be developed to a working stage with one specific type of infrastructure (e.g a specific charger and/or inverter combination). The capability can then be expanded by adding additional functionality to the control algorithms and by adding support for other brands and models of infrastructure (i.e. other manufactures charges and inverters).
Greenstage has already ordered a solar node and hopes to be on the SolarNetwork in the next couple of months. If you would like a solar node, or to get involved with the development, please contact John and let him know how great his project is.
Why wait for the world to change? Lets just do what needs to be done!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Half shafts and software installed
Today our goal was to install the half shafts and have a go at loading the inverter software.
On the mechanical side of things, Frank and Ed installed the half shafts without too many issues. We had to muck around splitting the gearbox end of the shafts open to get them past the chassis but nothing that needed any grinding. The pins are in, filled with grease, but not siliconed and taped yet. Also, we need to torque the bolts (must not forget this!).
After a bit of mucking around Tom and Ed managed to load the inverter software, we did manage to engage the contactors, but no motor rotation as yet. It may be that the configuration needs to be updated for the WS28 version of the Siemens motor? We need to get some direction from the supplier because as far as we can see everything is correctly configured and wired up. Hopefully its something simple.
To finish the day off, we took the GS750V to the Pukekohe race track to get a few 2008 pictures of the car and the Greenstage Racing Team. This had been on the todo list for a while and we needed to get it sorted before everyone departed for Xmas. We got some nice shots while chatting with a few of the remaining motorcycle crowd (they had been at the track all day and were packing up as we arrived). It's great fun when people show an interest, especially when they find out it's electric and give us the big thumbs up!
So, another step forward and a few more still to go. Heaps of thanks to Frank, Ed, Tom, Thomas, Emma and Hugh. You guys rock!
On the mechanical side of things, Frank and Ed installed the half shafts without too many issues. We had to muck around splitting the gearbox end of the shafts open to get them past the chassis but nothing that needed any grinding. The pins are in, filled with grease, but not siliconed and taped yet. Also, we need to torque the bolts (must not forget this!).
After a bit of mucking around Tom and Ed managed to load the inverter software, we did manage to engage the contactors, but no motor rotation as yet. It may be that the configuration needs to be updated for the WS28 version of the Siemens motor? We need to get some direction from the supplier because as far as we can see everything is correctly configured and wired up. Hopefully its something simple.
To finish the day off, we took the GS750V to the Pukekohe race track to get a few 2008 pictures of the car and the Greenstage Racing Team. This had been on the todo list for a while and we needed to get it sorted before everyone departed for Xmas. We got some nice shots while chatting with a few of the remaining motorcycle crowd (they had been at the track all day and were packing up as we arrived). It's great fun when people show an interest, especially when they find out it's electric and give us the big thumbs up!
So, another step forward and a few more still to go. Heaps of thanks to Frank, Ed, Tom, Thomas, Emma and Hugh. You guys rock!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Busy weekend
It's been a busy weekend. Frank took out the Electric go carting on Saturday, the first cut of the inverter software arrived later the same day and on Sunday, Ed and I were at the Clevedon Farmers Market showing off the GS750 with assistance from Dylan and Robert.
As usual the car generated a lot of interest and we have extended our network of contacts a little further. Thanks to everyone for the great weekend.
So now that we have the software, it's time to get this car rolling!
As usual the car generated a lot of interest and we have extended our network of contacts a little further. Thanks to everyone for the great weekend.
So now that we have the software, it's time to get this car rolling!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Clevedon Farmers Market
The GS750V will be on show at the Clevedon Farmers Market this Sunday 7th December between 8:30 and 12 noon. It's a good chance to come and see the car in a relaxed atmosphere and buy some fresh locally grown produce as well.
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