I just got the e-zip mountain bike to get to and from work for free. Public transportation would cost $100 per month so I calculated that for only $300 I have free transportation for years. The bike is available at Walmart online for $298 right now. It sells for up to $600 in some stores. And it is well worth it.

The bike allows you to pedal like normal, use motor power only, or pedal with the motor. It reaches about 20mph with the motor alone and about 25 when you pedal. The stated range is about 15 miles to a charge with some pedaling, but I found that it will only run about 3-5 miles without pedaling. It is very hilly where I live, so I do not get the stated range even with pedaling. But I already made a new battery pack for the bike, which I will post later in detail, so I have doubled the range.

With a 450 watt motor, the bike really takes off, even from a dead standstill. It helps to get into traffic where I live.

Some have said that you can hear the motor running and complain about that. Well, it is an electric motor and I do expect to hear something while it is running. It is not loud though. Just like a swarm of angry bees buzzing. At 80 pounds it is quite a workout in the mountains while pedal assisting the motor uphill. Double the battery pack like I did, and you really have a bit of weight. What do you expect though from lead acid batteries? You can replace them with li-ion packs if you can afford the expense. For me, it doesnt matter as long as I can get around well. This bike really opened up new possibilities for me. Where I live you must have a vehicle of some kind to get around. On foot, you are quite limited to what you can do, or where you can go.

If you remove the battery pack, the bike rides just like a normal mountain bike.

My only complaint is that the manufacturer tells you not to use it in wet weather. I will find a way to waterproof it later and describe how I do it. Another problem is that they claim that the battery will only last one year before requiring replacement. At $129 a pack, that is a large sum of money to give out each year. Although in comparison to the $1200 for riding a bus each year, it is much cheaper. I have found a way to improve battery life too. That I will also post later.

Here is a youtube video review of the bike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrjJ9cysPW0&feature=related&pos=4

I will write more later.

My new inverter arrived. I am looking for lower priced options for this project to try and keep the grand total within the price range of under $150.

I ordered a Belkin 50 watt inverter for only 9.95 plus shipping. Most places sell this item for much higher. Here is the link:

50 Watt Inverter

Cant wait to get testing.

I am still looking for a good priced solar panel for this experiment. The idea is to keep the price down, while supplying enough power to light up an average room comfortably.

Meanwhile, I am using my little old solar panel every night to run LED puck lights in my living room. They are sufficient for back lighting while watching tv or working on my computer. If you dont need the room to be bright as day while watching tv, these puck lights are perfect. And they dont drain the battery at all. You could literally run them for days without charging your battery. Good for Alaska maybe ;)

I discovered that my solar panel is too weak. I am waiting for a new one to come in. The plan is to use an 18Watt panel. I had no idea how large my old one was. I have had it laying around collecting dust.

I have been using some LED lights in the evening to light my living room for now. They come as an expandable series of puck lights that normally hook up to a wall power supply. There are three pucks with 5 LEDs each. I cut the wires and hooked them up directly to my battery since they were 12 volts anyway. The puck lights work great to light up the room while watching tv.

When all the parts get here, I will post the sources of everything so that anyone who wants to copy this setup can do so.

If you use solar energy and energy efficient lighting, cooking or heating, you may be qualified for tax and rebate incentives.

I will list anything here that may be helpful. Please feel free to contribute to this page.

Here is a link to the database of state incentives for renewables & efficiency:

http://www.dsireusa.org/

You may be able to purchase you solar items tax free and also get up to 30% of your investment offset by the government.

I did not make it into the living room in the last two nights - so no testing.

Will do some more tonight.

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Last night I got home to find my solar panel in place :)

The battery was not charged well though. It was dark and rainy all day, no sun. So the battery was only at 12.45 Volts. I used my floor lamp with the 50 Watt light for almost 3 hours last night on my little battery with no problem. Just before I shut if off for the night I measured the battery - under load - at 11.24 Volts. Not too bad considering that it was not fully charged to start with.

Later, when I get things all set up, I will start using two lamps at a time on the one battery. If that works, then success is just around the corner.

Well, last night I got home and found my solar panel on the floor. It had fallen out of the window sometime during the day, so the battery obviously did not get fully charged.

But, I decided to hook up my floor lamp to an inverter, which was hooked up to the battery. I was only in the living room for an hour, but the light worked quite well. I am only using a simple 12 Volt 6 Ah alarm battery. It was sitting at 12.5 Volts when I started and dropped to 12.20 and held there while I was using the light. The light was the 50 Watt CFL lamp I just bought.

Later, when I get a proper solar panel, I will put it up on the roof for better charging. Right now, it is only getting about 50% of the available light. It is a good test to see what I can do with that little bit of energy though.

Anyway, I propped the solar panel up last night and am anxious to see what tonight will bring. I will be entertaining guests, so that will really be a test.

Yesterday I started testing some CFL bulbs I picked up.

I also set up an old solar panel for now. I am still looking around for the right stuff for the actual project, but I wanted to get things set up a bit. I got some energy efficient light bulbs at Home Lighting Today on the internet 

They have good prices for higher quality lights. One of the bulbs I am using for this test are rated at 9 Watts for 50 Watts of light Found Here .

The other one is 7 Watts for 30 Watts of light  Found Here .

The larger one is in my floor lamp and the smaller one is in my desk lamp. I had to get a small adapter because my desk lamp had some strange socket in it. 

I have used the cheap dollar store lights before and was not impressed. They start to get black on the ends soon after you start using them. The black area grows larger with use. They only lasted about a year or less. For just two times the price, you get about ten times the life if you get a better quality bulb.

I also had an old 12 volt 6AH battery laying around so I used that for now. Later I will get a new one for the actual testing.

I have started gathering materials for the project. I am contacting various manufacturers to get different lights ranging from fluorescent 12 volt lamps to LED replacement bulbs for normal lamps to CFL energy efficient replacement bulbs.

I have a few 12 volt 6Ah batteries that will be used in this project. That should be 72 Watt hours. So, theoretically, based on the battery rating, I should be able to run a 12 Watt lamp for 6 hours or two lamps for three hours on a full charge. Now, again a theory here, if I use an 18 Watt solar panel, running all day in the winter, I should get about ten hours of sunlight. This should be sufficient to keep the battery charged. Cloudy days will change the amount of energy available.

Let's assume 50% sunlight for those ten hours then we have about 90 Watt hours to use up at night.

An average energy efficient CFL replacement bulb is rated for about 13 Watts usage and gives out light equivalent to a 60 Watt incandescent lamp. Add loss for an inverter and that brings us up to about 15 Watts per hour. This should still give us about 6 hours of light on a single battery, solar panel, inverter and lamp. Again, all in theory. The tests results will show how close I am.