Electric Race Bike

[Jay64]

And the way that I was planning on building the bike, the batteries will pretty much be built into 2 packs and then series together. So they will have a natural break in them.

[fechter]

2 week lead time won't work. I thought I heard someone say they got it at their doorstep in less than a week.

Fechter, I'm down for a bad boy charger. How would one go about putting it through a bridge rectifier?

Anyone in Nor Cal willing to lend me a charger for the weekend?

I wish I had one I could lend you. Highest I have is 60v, and a Meanwell at that.

Bad boy? long thread here: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=36646
I'm not sure if you could make it work off 120v. Charging half the pack at a time it would work. Just need a motor starting capacitor and a bridge rectifier. There is a voltage doubling configuration that might work too, but these things are quite dangerous if not handled very carefully.

[voicecoils]

2 week lead time won't work. I thought I heard someone say they got it at their doorstep in less than a week.

Fechter, I'm down for a bad boy charger. How would one go about putting it through a bridge rectifier?

Anyone in Nor Cal willing to lend me a charger for the weekend?

Thunderstruck Motors is less then 40 miles from Infineon. They're long time EV moto builders:

Thunderstruck Motors
6791 Sebastopol Avenue
Sebastopol, CA 95472
Email us at connect@thunderstruck-ev.com
Tel: 707.827.7973
Fax: 707.827.7915
Open Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM

http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/chargers.html

Maybe they will sponsor you a charger or rent you one. Worth a call for sure.

[fechter]

Thunderstruck Motors is less then 40 miles from Infineon. They're long time EV moto builders:

Thunderstruck Motors
6791 Sebastopol Avenue
Sebastopol, CA 95472
Email us at connect@thunderstruck-ev.com
Tel: 707.827.7973
Fax: 707.827.7915
Open Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM

http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/chargers.html

Maybe they will sponsor you a charger or rent you one. Worth a call for sure.

They most certainly will be at the race. Brian Hall is a really nice guy. I'm sure if he has something that would work he would let you borrow it. I remember years ago he had a gigantic variac hooked to a bridge rectifier and an ammeter he used for bulk charging. Just dial in the amps you want.

[fechter]

I see the race schedule is posted:
http://www.infineonraceway.com/tickets/west_coast_moto_jam/
At the top of the page, click on the schedule tab.

[Jay64]

It looks like 30 days to do a race bike build was a little too optimistic. The guys that said they were going to do the machining work for me had the rolling chassis for a week and didn't start on any work. Looks like I will fall short of making it to the grid for Sears Point (Infineon), but I'm still working to get it done and make the other races.

[fechter]

Bummer. Yes, that was a pretty optimistic build schedule. There's usually a couple rounds of letting smoke out of stuff and breaking parts before it's really ready.
Hope I can catch you at Infineon next time.

[Jay64]

If I could have got the machining work done, I could have gotten the build done. I wasn't too worried about getting it really ready before the first race. I figure racing is R&D, might as well push things in a race and see where we need to improve for the next one. I'll still be at Infineon, I just won't have a running electric bike with me. I'm still racing the ICE bike that weekend in the Vance & Hines XR1200 series. I think that is what really buggered up my build time was the fact that I had to stop working on it to continue my ICE racing season.

[jonescg]

I think that is what really buggered up my build time was the fact that I had to stop working on it to continue my ICE racing season.

That reason still trumps the following, more common reasons -

No money
Wife opposed to it
No time
Medical reasons

[Jay64]

I guess you're right.

I had to leave the state to go race in Atlanta right in the middle of this time period. I'm gonna be gone for a month on this next race trip, so I'll jump on getting it finished off as soon as I get back. I'm going down to talk to some people today about possibly doing the machining work while I'm gone, so that I can just get to building when I get back.

[Jay64]

Wow, the rumor mill is flying at full speed. I just got an email asking if I was dropping out of the goal for electric racing because someone told them I was selling all of my electric race hardware based on some of my for sale posts.
No, I'm not dropping out. Yes, I did run out of time to get my build done before the first 2 races of the season. No, I'm not posting up a bunch of stuff saying I will definitely be at the next round every race. I don't want to sound like Brammo and their Empulse. It actually started bothering me to read blogs about how I was going to be at a race, and then read about how I failed to show up, even when I didn't actually say I was going to be at the race. As soon as the bike is done, we will definitely be at the following race. I just can't promise when the build will be done. I can say that we are getting close. Basically I am working with Matsushima Performance, a huge name in ICE motorcycle racing, to build a race bike. That is the team I used to race for in the Pro AMA races. Matsushima got out of the race game, but he is interested in this new electric stuff, so we got to talking about collaborating together on the build. We pretty much started over from scratch to redesign everything from the ground up. I really wanted to focus on it being an actual race bike, not a repurposed street bike. Having Matsushima on board for this is huge. I haven't been posting much because so far it is just a bunch of chassis work. But I will be posting build info asap.

[jonescg]

See Jay, that's the trouble with being good - people listen to you

I agree on your new build philosophy - do it properly if you can afford it. My race bike plans have changed a bit lately too, but I will update the thread when things are a bit more concrete. Keep us posted mate.

CHRIS

[Jay64]

I've got a lot of pics and stuff I will be posting very shortly. Hopefully we will be able to get it running soon to be doing a video too. But we all know how it goes, right when you think you are close, something comes up to delay everything.
I forget if I mentioned this or not, but I packed up my race van with all the parts and drove out to California from Florida to work with Matsushima Performance out here. I got out here about 2 weeks before the last race, but we just didn't have enough time to get everything done. So I've been couch surfing for almost a month now. And this is after only being home for about a week from my last month long race trip.
One of the biggest problems is that there is a specific machinist who we normally use, but he is in China, he was supposed to have been back at the beginning of last month, but now he doesn't think he'll be here till the end of this month. So we were having our backup guy doing some work for us. But He went out of town for a vacation for a week, and that backed him up with his regular work. So then we had a third machinist start doing work for us, the motor mount plate cut, and then HE went out of town. I talked to another guy, but before I got the stuff over to him, he also went out of town and said he was going to be too backed up to help. Went to another shop and he wasn't around, so I left my business card and asked them to tell him to call me, he never did. Sheesh, is there some huge machinist convention going on or something???
Today I took the chassis down to one of the guys that used to do a bunch of stuff for us back when I was racing for Matsushima. He welded on some support rails for our frame. So now I have a base for the battery box and our frame is more structurally supported.
So now I got the GSXR 600 front end with the Ohlins internals and the Ohlins triple adjustable rear shock. Turns out I left some critical components for the marchesini rear wheel back in Florida, so I will probably have to run the stock rear wheel if we make it to the next race at the end of the month. Little extra weight, but not that bad. I also left some of the stuff for the Marchesini front, but Matsushima has some spares of that stuff, so I can at least run that to save a little weight.
I bought a used gas tank online, and that just came in last night, it has a lot of crash damage to it, some big dents. So today I cut out the bottom and got to work banging out the dents. I have all the big dents banged out, now I just need to do some detail work to get the original shape back, and smooth out the hammer dimples. As soon as I have that done, we can take the bodywork and tank down to get wrapped. Hoping to have the drive components all installed by early next week, but we'll have to see about that. One of the major parts that we need got ordered Wed night, and turns out they never sent it today, so hopefully that will get sent out tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes. That makes it look like it won't get here till at least Mon.

[Mike Edwards]

I can say that we are getting close. Basically I am working with Matsushima Performance, a huge name in ICE motorcycle racing, to build a race bike. That is the team I used to race for in the Pro AMA races. Matsushima got out of the race game, but he is interested in this new electric stuff, so we got to talking about collaborating together on the build. We pretty much started over from scratch to redesign everything from the ground up. I really wanted to focus on it being an actual race bike, not a repurposed street bike. Having Matsushima on board for this is huge. I haven't been posting much because so far it is just a bunch of chassis work. But I will be posting build info asap.

Grant is a top guy. Really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

[Jay64]

Hi Mike, it is really cool to have you on this forum. I've heard about you through Grant. Yeah, he is one of the top guys in the US for building a bike, so it will be great to see how this thing comes out with his input. The best bikes I have ever rode where when I was racing on his team, and I really look forward to an electric race bike with that kind of handling.

[Mike Edwards]

I think lots of people are amazed at the power delivery from an electric bike and how much grip is actually available. Few people have yet to maximise the benefit though as most aren't really in to chassis design, etc.

[etard]

Wow, big moves Jay! Can't wait to see what you and Matsushima Performance come up with. What is his opinions on power systems and batteries? Did you guys agree on weight placement, or did the chassis guy have any new insights for improving anything? I guess I'm just curious how a well financed endeavor would do anything different other than improve individual components already provided by the donor bike. You must be happy with this arrangement as long as you get to ride, right?

I also can't believe your bad luck with the machinist evacuation of 2012, that's a long series of misfortunate events I would say. Speaking of being out of town, I will be in Orlando next weekend, I'm guessing you are on a racing circuit somewhere?

[Jay64]

etard, yeah, I'm still in SoCal right now. Yeah, Grant Matsushima and I have very similar ideas of what is needed for a good race bike, but he is really good at actually implementing all of these designs and building a fantastic chassis. We still need to do testing, but I know we can get a really good performing bike after we work out a few kinks. For the power system he really wants to go with brushless because "that is the way of the future." He has some interesting things that he has done with his batteries, so I'm looking forward to trying them out. He also wants me to move away from the Turnigy batteries. We are trying to get something running for the Laguna Seca race, and will probably be doing modifications/upgrades before the following race.
That sucks that you are going to be in Orlando while I'm in SoCal.

[Jay64]

Doing a bunch of balance charging on the zippy flight max LiPo packs. I started charging at a RC car shop earlier yesterday, got about 6 packs charged. Then I came back to Grant's house to continue charging last night and today. Charging them on the grill just in case one of these packs gets out of hand, we can just close the lid.

[Jay64]

So far some of the packs balanced out perfectly, and some of the others aren't. I had a couple finish a charge session, according to the charger display, but some cells were at 4.20 and some were at 4.17. Is that normal?

[Jay64]

Question: How quickly does a LiPo pack go "thermal"? Will it be getting hot for a while and then just catch fire, or can it be cool to the touch one moment and then just catch fire out of the blue? I guess what I'm asking is, do you normally get a few minutes of warning as it starts getting hotter?

[Jay64]

In the ttxgp rules, there is a section that talks about needing a power indicator light on the tail section. It states: The light must flash between 1-2 times/second on a 50% duty cycle. Do you guys have an idea on how to get the light to flash 1-2 times/second on a 50% duty cycle?

[fechter]

In the ttxgp rules, there is a section that talks about needing a power indicator light on the tail section. It states: The light must flash between 1-2 times/second on a 50% duty cycle. Do you guys have an idea on how to get the light to flash 1-2 times/second on a 50% duty cycle?

They make turn signal flashers designed for LED lamps that are load independent (and cheap). Assuming you have a 12 source somewhere on the bike, you could use one of those to power any kind of 12v light.
Search eBay for "LED flasher". A small dc-dc converter or switching power supply could power it.

As far as the battery heating question; I'm not sure. There is more than one failure mode, so sometimes I think they could just 'blow up' even when cold if a separator shorted. I would highly recommend some kind of cell level monitoring, like CellLogs or Methods' HVC/LVC boards.

4.17v to 4.2v is all within the 'healthy range', so I wouldn't worry much about it.

[jonescg]

Question: How quickly does a LiPo pack go "thermal"? Will it be getting hot for a while and then just catch fire, or can it be cool to the touch one moment and then just catch fire out of the blue? I guess what I'm asking is, do you normally get a few minutes of warning as it starts getting hotter?

Danny (Ripperton) and I have frequent disagreements about LiPo cells and the risk of overheating. He has gone to great lengths to ensure his pack stays cool, and after a race his cells are up to about 40'C. He is also using an old pack with old cells, and some of them are a bit puffy. I think his cells are being overheated because he's skimped on the terminations. Sure, being careful of overheating is important, and a set of thermocouples is important, but hot cells would indicate something else is wrong.

My next bike will be a sealed box with vents for the unlikely risk of a runaway. If it's warm when you get in, wait a bit before charging. The risk of fire is highest at charging, so if you can pull the pack out to charge it you have reduced the risk of failure by half.

[Jay64]

Getting some work done on the bike.