As I was leaving Bonn this morning I passed a trio of mountain bike riders. They where looking closely at one of the bikes and I heard them say ‘I think the gear has broken.’ My army-pattern bike might be heavy but its as solid as a rock!

Journey today was rather short and uneventful. There was little traffic on the paths apart from the  occasional animal and a rather stupid (and probably deaf) old man that cut across me to turn into a side path. You do NOT want to be hit by my bike! Fortunately we passed each other safely and gave each other a friendly wave (sort of!)

I didn’t get more than about 10 minutes computing power from the sun today. It was hopeless even stopping to try! Tomorrow is the last day for collecting solar energy and I am praying praying praying for just a few hours of sun to take me through to the finish line in Duesseldorf at midday on Monday.

I have updated the route map with a few more images. Hope you enjoy them.

Crossing the Rhein on a tiny Ferry (below)

View towards Remagen (two bridge towsers can be seen at base of hill) in terrible weather.

No sun, no energy although somehow I’m managing to squeeze enough out of the clouds to charge the phone which is pretty amazing. Luckily I have enough juice on the UMPC battery and the Li-Ion battery to give me about 4 hours of computing. If I spot any sun at all over the next 3 days I’ll have to stop and sap up as much as I can. Its going to be very tight. Will I have enough left for the final report in Duesseldorf?

Right now I’m in Bonn and at home with my wife. I’m only using battery power and won’t be charging anything so there’s no change to the plan. Apart from a long bath and a good sleep tonight ready for the last two legs on Saturday and Sunday.

Today I stayed at the campsite and put the Solar panel and Li-Ion battery through a 3 hours test. Its was a cloudless day with a very thin haze, 22 degrees centigrade and for reference I’m located at about 50 degrees north and 7 degrees east. The date is the 30th of August which is heading towards Autumn here in Germany. The test was done from 11:00 – 14:00 and I took the empty Li-Ion battery and charged it with the solar panel for 3 hours.

I estimate that about 1.2KW of energy hit my 7000 cm2 panel with about 660W falling on the Solar cells (3500 cm2). After conversion to electricity it created about 50w/hr of energy. Of that, about 40W was taken by the Li-Ion battery because it only uses a fixed current and voltage. It won’t adapt to the power available. Due to input voltage conversions and charging losses, this left me with an estimated 30W of energy and after taking this through yet another set of voltage conversions and charging process, left me with a rather poor 18W of power. Of course this is enough for a few hours of work but isn’t it incredible that so much power is wasted (or rather passed back as heat!)

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to work out how this process could be improved and I’ve come up with a list of ideas that could help. I’ll talk though them in the next post but right now I need to put some more cream on the back of my legs because through all the concentration I forgot about the sun and I’ve burned the bit right behind the knee. That’s going to be really enjoyable tomorrow when I make the 70km dash to Bonn.

Here’s a diagram I created quickly on the Q1b. Hopefuly it makes things a bit clearer. How would you improve the architechture?

This part of the Rhein, from Bingen, all the way up to Bonn, is really wonderful. And the campsites just keep getting better!

Its unbelievable! We  had the hottest, driest  April ever and since then the clouds and rain just won’t go away and summer storms are threatening almost every day. Looking at the sun graph for the last three days I doubt I could have got get even a few hours of computing time out of it.

It gives me more time to set up more tests and products of course, but I’m really keen to get going ASAP, especially as I have a holiday booked with my wife on the 19th July. The last possible leaving date for the tour would be 8th July. After that point I won’t be able to fit it in and will have to wait until 28th July.  This is really frustrating. I’ve been planning this since late 2006.

On the upside, I tested out the bike with full baggage tonight. It was just a 10km round-tour in Bonn but it was a good test. I’m hoping to squeeze in one nights camping this week so that I can test all the equipment out together.

I’ve also heard that there’s a possibility to get a Reware Juice Bag. That makes me happy! 

The planned start date is within the 3-day window 9th to 12th June and the end date will be between the 19th and 21st June.

I’ve been checking maps and comparing them to the ‘netzabdeckung’ (coverage map) from Vodafone Germany. Apart from a few GSM-only areas (which I guess will at least get me GPRS coverage) on the first stages of the tour, most of the route is well covered with 3G services. I really can’t imagine having any connectivity problems on the way. If there’s no signal I’ll just pick up my office and cycle to the next cafe!

Detailed dates will really depend on the weather which will start to come in range within the next few days. The current 14-day forecast via RTL Wetter (paid service) is looking good with a big change coming in the middle of next week. It might make sense to go as early as possible and that means I need to be ready! I’ve still got lots of items on the todo list although I heard to day that the tent and solar panel have been dispatched.  

A very important lesson was learnt on the first day - the charging system doesn’t even start working until the sun reaches 70% of full power. This is due to the Li-ion charging system on the powerbank. It wont trickle charge so only kicks into life when there’s enough power to drive it. This renders about 8 hours sunlight per day as unuseable with this set-up.

The second thing learnt is that the charging system doesn’t work faster if there’s more power available. It seems that the power bank needs 12W to charge and will not take any more power if, say, 15W is available.  Thinking back to my basic electronics, I guess this makes sense! This means more waste though and requires balancing the charging requirements with the power available if i’m to use this set-up.

One very nice feature of the P3 panel was that it was able to charge the TabletKiosk powerbank directly, without voltage conversion. That helps a lot because the other solar panels i’ve looked at only drive 12V. That would mean converting voltage up to 19V and losing power in the process. Taking a few of the figures learnt, there’s a simple equation gives me the theoretical power possible per day.

Power available (W/hr per day) = Powerhrs x ChR

Powerhrs is the number of hours per day when the sun is over 70% power. (taken from sun power records. June. Bonn, Germany) This is about 7 hours in May, June and July.

ChR is the charge rate of the power-bank (must be about 0.7 of solar panel rating for best efficiency.) = 12W

This assumes a sunny day. No cloud cover. No shadows and the panel facing the sun. The changes of that happening are slim. I have the advantage that I’ll only leave the house if the 6-day forecast is good so I can reduce this risk to a minimal amount but I think I’ll lose another 20% through shadows and positioning while I’m moving. If cycling around becomes a problem with shadows and sun positioning I might have to carefuly plan my stops in order to maximise solar panel positioning. Maybe a stop at 10-11 and again at 3-4 would help get the best out of the early and late light.

So lets plug the figures into the equation and see what we get with the P3 solar panel and the TabletKiosk MP3400 power bank.

7  x 12 = 84W/hr energy per day assuming 15W from panel at max sun power.

Now for the second part of the equation:

1. There’s no such thing as a perfectly sunny day. Especially when you’re cycling. I’ve been advised to use a figure of 4 hours per day for sun. In my tests, on two sunny periods, I managed to load a 56W/hr battery in about 8 hours so the equation seems to be roughly OK. At a 12W load rate, that’s about 4 full hours of sun so I agree with the 4 hours rule.  
2. You can not charge and use the bank at the same time. This means that a second power source is needed for the daytime. In the evening its fine because I run from the powerbank. I could use the battery on the device UMPC in the daytime of course but what happens when its empty? Can I charge it from the solar panel (that’s stupid because I would need a second UMPC just to charge the battery – the solar panel will not be able to run AND charge a UMPC. Also, if there’s not enough voltage or current protection on the UMPC I would risk killing the UMPC) There’s is the possibility of topping up the UMPC overnight from the power-bank but If I do that, I have to consider the following…
3. To charge other devices from the bank, there is something like 20% power loss through the charging circuitry.

There’s one other point too. The powerbank can only store 56W/hr of power. Taking point 1)  into account brings me down to 48W/hrs on a sunny day which I guess solves the problem of limited powerbank capacity!

I think the best solution for point 2) is to use a second power bank. This also has the advantage of giving me a spare powerbank should one fail, and, being able to fill a second device should I find myself with sun and nothing to charge! It also reduces the risk of killing the UMPC and avoids the wastage of 3)

So we’re now at 48W/hrs per day. Its incredibly poor considering the power of the sun. In theory, the suns power is equivalent to 1Kw of energy for every m2 and that makes solar energy capture and storage horribly horribly inefficient. Consider that in 4 hours, about 2KW/hr of energy will be hitting the solar cells on the panel I tested. Yes 2000W/hrs. Enough energy to power a small UMPC for 1 month at 8 hours per day! The efficiency is a crazy 48/2000. Just over 2%.

How can this be improved? One thing I could do is to find a lower-power charging solution. That is, start storing energy before the sun reaches 70%. If you can start storing energy when the sun is at 50%, you have a few more hours per day and if you can start gathering energy at 30% power, you can even get some when its cloudy!

The second variable is the power-loss on charging. This is generally because the Li-ion batteries need a fairly strict charging voltage and current and there’s a fair bit of circuitry there to protect them. Lead-acid batteries could be better but, wow, the weight! To store just 70W/hr of energy you’re looking at 2.5KG. The 56W Li-Ion power-bank I have is just 500grams. 

The third option is to get a panel with more efficient solar cells.

Having said all that though, this is an off-the-shelf system that appears to work. I didn’t need to make any modifications at all and I like the idea that this project could go ahead with off-the-shelf equipment. It makes it easier for others to replicate it.

The big question now is, will 48W per sunny day be enough? If so, I don’t have to worry about the terrible efficiency and high cost. It will be enough to provide me with power where I can’t get it. I’ll be analyzing the power requirements in the next post to see if 48W per sunny day is enough. If it isn’t, i’ll have to go back and look at other options.

UMPC. I already have a very shortlist of UMPCs. I’ve chosen VIA as the platform (who are now my sponsors) and at the top of the list of devices is the Samsung Q1b HSDPA. Luckily this is available in Germany now. I am also considering the OQO Model 02 but I will definitely need a full keyboard in addition which negates the advantage of the thumbboard on the OQO. Amtek T770 is also in the running.  There’s a question of extended batteries and I also have to take availability and price into the equation. What about ruggedness too. Hard drives can fail and I’ve already experienced that. I’m also thinking about a backup solution if the UMPC fails. N800 could be well suited as its got no moving parts.  I need to sort this out as a priority and while I’ve been writing this I’ve been talking to TheTabletStore in Munich who might be able to get hold of the Q1b HSDPA for me. Fingers crossed.

Solar equipment. At the moment I’m looking at a number of rollable solar panels ranging from 6W to 24W. I have been recommended a P3 Solar panel because of its ability to drive 19v – the native voltage for my battery pack and the Q1. Voltage conversions cost energy an require extra components which can go wrong so simplicity is the key. I will be looking at various connectivity methods, charging methods and need to add up the average daily power budget to decide on how much solar power I will need. I will probably be getting a P3 rollable solar panel from SelectSolar to test in the next few days.

Power storage. I already have the TabletKiosk MP3400 battery pack which has worked well in the past and so I would like to continue to use it. If it fails, I’ll have to fall back to the other power storage method – storing in the UMPC and driving other devices through the USB port. Very inefficient but a possible last-resort solution.

Mobile phone/Cellular Internet connectivity. If I get the Samsung Q1b HSDPA then Internet connectivity is going to be a breeze. The only thing I’ll have to do is get a second SIM card so that I can take/make voice calls on my mobile phone. If I don’t get a UMPC with built-in HSDPA, I’ll use my Nokia 6280 as a modem via Bluetooth or USB,. Its only 3G but having used it for 5 days at CeBIT, I know its going to be enough for my needs.

Keyboard solution. I don’t want to use a Bluetooth solution as, again, its got too many things in it to go wrong. USB keyboard will be fine. If I go for the Q1b, the organiser pack makes a perfect solution to this problem.

Bike. I don’t have a bike yet. Well, actually, I do have a bike. In fact I have three here to choose from but I don’t fancy doing 8 days on either a mountain bike, a Dutch shopper or a Finnish army bike. I need something stable for sure and will need to think carefully about panniers and loading. All my camping equipment needs to go on it. I hate suspension on bikes and as I’ll be on flat asphalt all the way, there’s no need to waste money and energy (those things sap energy from the bike) on it.

Tent + Camping equipment. This one is a list in itself! I have most stuff but I found out last year that my little 2-man tent has finally given up and started letting the elements in. That means I need a new tent. Damn. I’m wondering whether it needs to be a one man or two man tent. A one man tent will be smaller and lighter but if it rains, I need to store my equipment so a two-man tent is a better option. Will test some solutions out soon. As for the other camping stuff. I’ll make another list for that!

Logistics. I have a rough idea of the route now. Its probably going to start from Strasbourg on the French border. I’ll take the Rhein Radweg north and hopefully make it back to Bonn. The main problem though is weather. I will need to make a final decision as near as 48 hours before the start of the journey in order to get an idea of the weather for the next week. This means I cant book a train down there and can’t tell friends to meet me on the way. Annoying but necessary.

There are are a lot of different little things to sort out too. Bike clothes, shoes, rechargeable batteries, blogging plan, PR work, website preparation, and, oh, one more big thing.

Fitness. Fortunately, I’ve got an in house personal trainer. My wife’s company, Power-Balance, will get a training plan together and I’ll start it this weekend. Running, biking and arm exercises are the order of the day. This is the bit I’m not looking forward too!