Author Topic: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty  (Read 40430 times)

Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2007, 06:38:52 PM »
As I suspected, the Rigid lifetime warranty does not cover use for "...unintended purposes..." of which using the batteries to power an electric bike is one.  :(

In other words if and when the battery fails you may have to make a choice between sacrificing your integrity and eating the cost.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2007, 03:19:33 PM by myelectricbike »

Offline mustangman

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #16 on: July 23, 2007, 08:11:20 PM »
Hey, Myelectricbike I agree with you 1000%!!!  Honesty and intergrity are worth far more than money,(Once you establish a bad reputation, it usually stays with you)

Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #17 on: July 24, 2007, 07:01:00 AM »
That's all Golden owners need is a rep that we are not above board, on the level, straight as the old pin, etc., sort of like the bad rep that guys who ride Harley's have because it was the Hell's Angles preferred ride. Hey, its bad enough being thought of as that Bat Man character with the question mark and the electric bike or that other guy that got caught in an adult theater having a good time by himself.

Makes me cringe every time I think about it.


Offline OffGrid

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #18 on: September 03, 2007, 04:07:54 PM »
Ok guys (& gals),

You are embarrassing this newbie with all of the talk about how to beat the system through warranty replacement.  Except for those who just want to "beat the man", the satisfaction in this game should be pretty thin.

I am with you all the way on trying to maximize performance, including price/performance, but not at the expense of "gaming" the manufacturers completely outside of their own "game".   

I did like the suggestion of putting the bug in Rigid or DeWalt's ear about another market for their cordless systems... namely electric transportation.   I'm a Ryobi man myself, but that is more for the low-priced variety of tools they offer up.   I love my chop saw and circle saw above all the others... not a huge capacity or duty-cycle but handy as hell.

For commuter folks, I can imagine a pair of DeWalt batteries charging at their desk and a pair at home and a pair on their bike (assuming they can get buy on a simple pair).    A similar  setup might allow for 4 in parallel-series... when you get to work (or home) you pop 4 batteries out, put 2 into the charger, come morning you have 2 from  yesterday and two freshly charged.   You put the two extras in the charger for tomorrow and ride to work where you have two fully charged from the day before, pop two of the semi-depleted ones in... and you have 4 hot ones at the end of the day (and two to put into the empty charger for overnighting. 

I'm a big fan of cordless tools because they are very convenient both in their own right, and in their utility in a low-voltage, off-grid homestead.  Modern power-electronics make them even more valuable (low-loss voltage conversion and smart chargers, etc.)

I got on this forum because I was interested in the possible use of electric hub motors as generators for my bicycle-wheel based windmill(s).  I'll go into this more in a separate top-level post.

- OffGrid

Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2007, 05:09:49 PM »
You might want to check out the homemade generator on the instructables (if I find time I'll replace this with the link).  :D As I recall it will do 1,000 watts and may cost a lot less than an ebike hub motor plus it is designed to be waterproof, although you could probably waterproof a hub motor if hub motor cost is not an issue. I'm curious though... where can you find a place now-a-days where there is not a hookup near enough to get on the grid?  ???

Offline OffGrid

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #20 on: September 03, 2007, 05:42:29 PM »
 I will look up the "homemade generator" instructions (on the GoldenMotor site?).

 Where can you get off-grid? 99% of the earth surface!

 Take a look at the night-sky maps (such as http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/ ) to see where there are no lights at night.   Most of those places also have no grid-power.  Even in the US... even in relatively urbanized areas, grid power is not always already at one's fingertips, *somebody* has to string come copper wire (with attendant transformers, breakers, etc.) to electrify a new room, building, subdivision.

This is a social/political as much as technological question.

Many electric bike enthusiasts want to decrease their footprint on the earth.  By not sucking electrons out of the wall-socket , at the expense of line and transformer losses all the way back to (the hydro-electric dam that many resent for it's mere existence; the coal-fired generator for its egregious pollution, the nuclear power plant for its potentially devastating effects, etc.)   

I happen to live in the mountains of the southwest of the US where there are still plenty of places where grid-power is at least miles if not tens of miles away from otherwise desireable places to live.   Rather than cut a swath of trees 100 feet wide, it seems like a good alternative to simply ignore the electric company/coop and build a somewhat more self-sufficient home-power complex.

I am a tinkerer (like many others here, including you?) and I do these things for their own entertainment as well.  I actually *do* have grid power.   I and 3 other homes have a 3 mile power-line attaching us to the regional electric co-operative.  It is convenient but not efficient.  I have a good professional job so the electric bills hardly mean anything to me.  I can go out and buy a fancy electricity generating windmill for thousands of dollars, or enough solar panels & batteries to run my household w/o much conservation for tens of thousands... but I'm interested in "doing more with less".  I'm interested in how a DYI aesthetic/ethic can transform our culture in many aspects.

My professional work includes distributed energy systems.   In particular distributed energy grids.   I like the idea of a distributed system for electric power where my windmill(s) fill my batteries, then lift water into my pond and domestic storage until, and some combination of these sources can be used to irrigate my garden, power my tools, power my home appliances, light my house, etc.   I also like the idea that if my system(s) generate more (peak) power than I need, my neighbors will get the advantage of it... and if collectively our capacity exceeds our needs, our regional neighbors will get the advantage, etc. 

Urban (and suburban) settings don't make as much sense or aren't as obvious... but I think that combinations of spot-generation/distribution combined with efficient utilization (e-bike vs motorbike vs automobile) could make our energy systems much more robust and less dependent on centralized/foriegn/industrial sources.

OffGrid is a (convenient) misnomer, while I like/support those who are (or aspire to be) off the grid, I'm even more interested in those who augment or even reverse their grid usage... 

- OffGrid


Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #21 on: September 03, 2007, 05:45:25 PM »
instructables site ...also look for other instructables along these lines, although some are looked up for you.

Oh, in the land of the Earthship homes. Gotcha. Would move there myself but not this late in life. Have seen some of the homes built from tires, now rented out to Eco-tourists. Some exceptionally nice.

Heard of a microbiologist with similar ideas as your own who moved to South America to find one of those tributaries where electric eels are plentiful.   8) Some kind of biological based power extraction experiment they would not fund for him in the States where he worked. He had this idea that if he could zap bugs with high voltage to feed fish then feed the fish to the eels he would have a self sustaining system.  ::) Still waiting to see one in action or at lease a can of electric cells I can mount on my ebike and use a bug catcher to charge.  ???
« Last Edit: September 03, 2007, 06:01:00 PM by myelectricbike »

Offline OffGrid

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #22 on: September 03, 2007, 07:05:13 PM »
MyEbike -

Earthships for sure, though maybe 90 miles from here... and not exactly my cup of tea.   I *am* a bet of the neo-retro-survivalist at heart, but as *I* age, I prefer my comforts and conveniences over my ideas and ideals...

I don't know about the Electric Eel or bug-processing strategy... but maybe we can rig you up with a mason jar filled with fireflies as a way to ride at night without using your battery power.

Seriously, I have reason to believe we are only a decade or so away from fuel-cells capable of processing a wide variety of hydrocarbons.   A series of conversion steps would be required to take the bugs (you pick out of your teeth from grinning while riding at high speed) and make them into suitable feedstock for a fuel cell... but your bicycle might just end up with a multi-chambered digestion system...

Of course, electric motors will be passe by then and your spokes will be made out of electro-contractable carbon fiber, causing the wheel to deform itself continuously, rolling "downhill" the whole way (at the expense of energy input to contract/expand the spokes).

Thanks for the instructables link...  this is a new site/resource to me.

Without the bile some of the commentors threw in, I was disappointed at his lack of detail/completeness (2 amps but how many volts/watts?  Which permanent magnet motor? )

Aren't GoldenMotor hubs waterproof?  Doesn't anyone ever leave their bike out in the rain or ride through puddles?

I prefer wood/cloth vanes, but appreciated the relative simplicity.  He is taking advantage of the natural "twist" in bicycle spokes that drew me to them in the first place.

I am also looking at adding weights (filling the tire with water, etc.) to increase the flywheel effect, providing better modulation in gusty conditions, but higher startup-speed required.

Windmill details are obviously out of the scope of this group, but it is the intersection/overlap I'm entertained by...  similar components and at some level a similar goal.

- OffGrid

Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #23 on: September 03, 2007, 07:28:24 PM »
Well you are on the right track. Recently (haven't looked for the article yet) research was done on fuel cells fueled with sugar. The researchers used brewery waste (left over sugar from the fermentation process) as their source of fuel and enzymes to convert the energy in sugar to electricity. Their work was so successful that a brewery in Australia scaled up to process all the waste from the plant.

Keep looking through the instructables, there are a lot of projects there under a variety of off-the-wall names.

No ebike hub motors I know of are water proof although some of the controller circuit boards appear dipped in polyimide. You can do some waterproofing yourself with silicon (just bought a caulk container and a tube the other day) but water seems to find a way to seep into anything electric, the Hall effect sensor leads being the first victim.

Although a linear spoke motor with flexible rim might be a Ripple's favorite I think you would find the efficiency not quite as good due to the discontinuous motion of the spoke stroke. Continuous rotational motion appears to have the efficiency edge.

Again check deeper into the instructables. I've found some that are about motors that do not even use the word "motor" in the text and do not show up if you use "motor" as the keyword.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2007, 07:43:07 PM by myelectricbike »

Offline OffGrid

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #24 on: September 03, 2007, 08:07:16 PM »
> Well you are on the right track. Recently (haven't looked for the article yet) research was done on fuel cells fueled > with sugar. The researchers used brewery waste (left over sugar from the fermentation process) as their source of > fuel and enzymes to convert the energy in sugar to electricity. Their work was so successful that a brewery in
> Australia scaled up to process all the waste from the plant.

I work elbow-elbow with fuel-cell researchers... scientists, not engineers... so the concepts are extremely cool but the actual implementation at an industrial scale are many product life-cycles away I suspect.

>Keep looking through the instructables, there are a lot of projects there under a variety of off-the-wall names.

Thanks, it is an entertaining site.

> No ebike hub motors I know of are water proof although some of the controller circuit boards appear dipped in
> polyimide. You can do some waterproofing yourself with silicon (just bought a caulk container and a tube the other
> day) but water seems to find a way to seep into anything electric, the Hall effect sensor leads being the
> first victim.

I'm surprised they are not more waterproof naturally... there is plenty of electrical equipment that withstands weather exposure... and yes, silicon is quite effective for sealing up many things in a flexible, temperature-resistant manner.

> Although a linear spoke motor with flexible rim might be a Ripple's favorite I think you would find the efficiency not > quite as good due to the discontinuous motion of the spoke stroke. Continuous rotational motion appears to have
> the efficiency edge.

Nature has spent a long time searching design space for efficiency and while engineered systems do tend find circular motion a good solution, very few critters use it.   Even the flagella of sperm cells are doing a fancy little contraction-wave thingy...

Again check deeper into the instructables. I've found some that are about motors that do not even use the word "motor" in the text and do not show up if you use "motor" as the keyword.

And as you surely guessed, I was mostly just speculating out loud because I find such ideas entertaining...

I've probably ranged way too far off-topic for most of the folks here...

- OffTopic :)


Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #25 on: September 03, 2007, 08:19:25 PM »
I haven't done the research yet but that's an interesting idea to see whether it was God or man who first came up with the wheel... that said, however, my belief is that God created man, even if not the wheel, which he gave man as something man might do to find purpose after he was created. Hey, I can get off topic, as good as anyone else.  ;D

Offline myelectricbike

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #26 on: September 04, 2007, 01:26:42 AM »
Okay, it appears that God beat us to it... again. Molecule of the Month


Offline OffGrid

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Re: Rigid power tools 18 volt batteries offer lifetime warranty
« Reply #27 on: September 04, 2007, 03:18:25 AM »
Alright! 

I guess I'll dust off my membership in the Foresight Institute and see if I can persuade Ralph Merkle's lab to construct some ATP Synthase to my spec... then I won't need any hub-motor or generator!

I hope you are referring to "God" in a figurative sense, not in an Intelligent Design sense, though I suppose it is your business if you are into ID...