Powering accessories on a bike...

I've got a grand plan in my head that involves running
a bunch of non standard accessories on a bike for a
few hours at a time. A (largely self powered)
GPS receiver, camera (probably also self powered)
and a (definitely not self powered) laptop computer.

That probably involves running a power inverter to
convert the bike's 12V (?) system to 240V so the laptop's
power supply can turn it back into 17-ish volts
again.

As y'all know, we're talking a little ZZR250 here.
Is a bike like that up to providing power for
accessories, or is it flat out looking after it's
own requirements?

What do bikes do to run the electrickery bits anyway?
Do they have alternators, or just the magnet, roll of
copper wire and a rectum-frier like those wanky key-
start lawnmowers have?

Ta,

G

 

Have you thought about using a handheld such as a Palm or Pocket PC instead
of a full-blown laptop? I've got a GPS receiver here that works with my Palm
handheld - hi-res maps, voice guidance etc - could easily use it on a bike
with a wired headset...


Cheers,

 

Yes, and no. I want to do a bunch of tricky stuff like
having the laptop send 'live' position reports back to a
server somewhere by using an infra-red connection to the
mobile phone to send SMS messages.

http://www.gnokii.org/

I also want the laptop to fire the camera every 'n'
metres (500-1000 maybe) a-la this bloke:

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/corp/features/onTheRoad/interview/index.shtml

but digital, and download the images to the laptop
so that the camera doesn't fill up and stop working.

and I want the laptop to listen to the GPS and know
postion and speed stuff (so that it can do the
aforementioned things) and log it all for posterior.

http://pygps.org/gpsd/gpsd.html

And a display somewhere on the instrument cluster
that gave some info about speed, direction, free
disk space (you know, all the things you really
need to know on a moving bike!) a-la these things:

http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_diy_lcd/

All of those things are pretty easy to do with a
unix install on a laptop.

http://www.gentoo.org/
http://www.freebsd.org/

I wouldn't know where to start with a handheld.


Also, I don't own a handheld. I have heaps of laptops.



G

 

I would think that the alternator could handle the 2-4 amps required for a
laptop, considering the current high-beam needs. Using an inverter is
incredibly inefficient and would probably result in fried electrics due to
the high load. Maybe look at the Targus Auto/Air universal power
converter?

http://www.targus.com/AU/product_details.asp?sku=PAPWR200U

You only need a cigarette lighter wired up and you're off and running
I've got one of these for those occasions when $WORK send me to yankie-land
and I don't want to miss out on 14 hours of good nethack time!! (Has
anyone YOU know escaped with the enchanted Amulet of Yendor?)

The Targus power would be cheaper than a PDA, but a PDA is smaller, lighter
and maybe more appropriate? Only you can answer that though.

A friend of mine in Boston has a Valkyrie with a laptop running in a
saddle-bag that hooks into his mobile phone and alerts his PDA (via
bluetooth) when something goes wrong with his network (www.cotse.com). His
PDA is mounted somewhere at the front of the fuel tank and has a GPS with
moving map etc, etc. A Valkyrie is gonna have more "electrical gadget"
capacity than a ZZR250 :-/ Still, a lappy on it's own shouldn't be a
problem.

James
ZZR250==>ZX9R

 

You can shove that up your arse.

Al

 

Aah, a fellow visionary/lunatic. I've toyed around with all this stuff,
culminating in a videoconferencing feed from a bike-mounted Debian laptop
back to a central server at home using a 2.4Ghz stream. The video feed was
limited to about 3km from home (I was only using a 5dBi omni antenna on
the bike to an 8Bbi omni) if there was line of sight, and was best when
the bike was stationary. I'd have to be one of the first bikes to run a
web server streaming a live audio/video feed from a bike?

My next idea is to try and build a small solid-state system using an
embedded bsd or nix distro that will do at least a few of the things
you're aiming for.

Time for aus.motorcycles.electronics?

- sanbar

 

Assuming that your laptop has an external AC adapter, then all you need is
an auto adapter. It'll take the 12V straight off teh battery into the
laptop. No mucking about with 240V AC.

 

You wanna tread lightly son, or I'll set my
security porpoises on to ya!

G

 

On 22/1/04 11:52 AM, in article

I think the guys at aus.motorcycles.geekhunters might crash yer party.

Hammo

 

Why would you convert 12v dc to 240v ac and then back to 17v dc ? Wouldn't it be
easier and cheaper to get one of those cigarette lighter adapter thingys that
will just convert it dc to dc ?

JL
(not great at electrickery but that doesn't seem efficient to me)

 

Mostly 'cos I dunno how to up-convert DC to DC.

You're right. It's not.

I've hit a bigger stumbling block right now. Can't find me
bloody GPS receiver!

G

 

For your laptop you could look at this as an option (watch the word wrap) :

http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productVi...&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=665