Amberwolf's DayGlo Avenger, MkII

[amberwolf]

I took Cave Creek Road to Bell and Bell to work, just like yesterday. Uneventful, same as then.

To see what the alternate route would be like, I took 44th Street south to Greenway Road, then that east to Greenway Parkway, and that east to 31st Ave, and south on that to home from there.

Surprisingly, the road was in very good condition, with many stretches in excellent shape, and one long stretch brand new. Like Bell Road, Greenway and especially Greenway Parkway are 45MPH for most of the stretch I rode, and three lanes westbound for most of that. Almost everyone went around me in the other two lanes, usually changing lanes many car lengths back, often signalling the lane change (which is really unusual around here). A few only went just far enough around me to not hit me, but all of them were far enough away to not worry about much. Only one honked at me, and they did it exactly as they were at my left rear quarter passing me, then they gunned their engine and went from about 50 to over 70, maybe 80MPH and almost ran right up the rear end of traffic ahead of them before they barely managed to slow down.


It was a nice enough ride, and in all 17 miles, I only had to stop twice before getting onto 31st avenue, probably 9 miles continuous at 20MPH before the first stop, and several more miles before the next one. I managed to make two of the lights on 31st Ave without stopping, but the 1/2 mile stop signs on a couple of the roads plus a 15MPH school zone didnt' help.

Before I got to 31st Ave, Wh/mile was 27.5; it got a lot less efficient after that, down to 29.6.

Motor never got hot on the wya home, but it definitely got hot on the CCR uphills.


Ride data CCR/Bell to work:
54m 58s trip time
14.54miles
21.5mph max
14.6mph avg

31.6Wh/mile
8.113Ah
424.08Wh
51.84Amax

58.0Vstart
52Vrest
47.8Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-13.6A peak Regen



Ride data GW/31st home:
1h 1m 29s trip time
17.14miles
23.0mph max
16.7mph avg

29.6Wh/mile
9.657Ah
504.42Wh
51.67Amax

58.3Vstart
51.9Vrest
47Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-8.47A peak Regen


Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that the "airless" tire on the rear SUCKS with the weight of both packs plus my stuff for work loading down the rear. It's enough to make the already mushy-feeling tire actively wobble around, almost like having a tire slip off the rim when it's flat, if you've ever had that happen. It's scary at speed going downhill or in a narrow strip with traffic next to you. It's much less of a problem with less weight on it, but it is still bad enough that I don't like it at all.

If it weren't for the probability of a rear flat, and the essentially complete inabilty to fix that on the road due to the way my rear rack/pods work on DGA, I'd just put a normal tube in the tire again. It *can* be fixed on the road, but to get to anyting on it you have to take the wheel off, and that means laying the bike on it's back (after unloading the pod completely), and taking the brake pads off because the arms cant' retract enough to clear the tire.

Oh, well.

[amberwolf]

Before leaving for work last night, I moved the charger from being just stowed in the cargo pod when not using it, to mounted in the triangle, to give me a little less weight back there, and more room in the pod. I considered removing the ammocan battery pack from the rack, but decided not to in case I ended up needing it for any reason.


I took the same route above to work last night, and it was far from uneventful. A few miles in, suddenly I felt something wierd with the rear wheel, as if a whole bunch of spokes had broken, then was almost dragged to a stop on the uphill from an underpass on Greenway; made it to the top barely but only by strongly helping in lowest gear pedalling, and still the motor was pulling over 800W, and I was wiped out by the time I got up there. I doubt I was able to do 10MPH. If I coudl've stopped and gotten onto the sidewalk I would have.

When i got up to the top and onto the sidewalk, I found the rear wheel practically tacoed. No spokes were broken, but *ALL* of them were loose, like wobbly floppy loose. It was as if the whole rim were suddenly made smaller, so that all the tension on all the spokes was released. This did not happen slowly over the ride, it was sudden and instantaneous, and while on smooth road. My rear brakes had just been working normally 20 seconds before that, at the red light at the bottom of the underpass.

I can't figure out why it would go from true enough to have no brake rub on closely-set brake pads, to what looked like I'd been run over by a car, in less than a second.

I managed to manually bend the rim back straight enough that I could then retension it with spokes, but it was still wobbly enough at the best I could do in the 15 minutes or so I could spare without being late to work, that I had to not only leave the rear brakes unhooked, but also actually take off the brake pads completely.

I did nto flip the bike over to do the work, but instead went into a parking lot and put the pod on a curb, and put up the double-leg kickstand from Auraslip, so I could have the rear wheel off the ground for freely spinning it, without emptying the bike.

I found I suddenly had other problems when I attempted to start out again. My headlight would not stay pointed down at the road surface a few dozen feet ahead of me like it used to, and the throttle was hard to move and would stick. Both were caused by the yellow "fairing" on the handlebars. It had moved upward and to the right for no apparent reason. I don't handle the bike by it, or lean on it, etc. But there it was.

TO fix the headlight I drilled some slots in the bottom bakc corners of the plastic with my work utility knife, and threaded a velcro cargo strap thru there and back around the handlebar stem, to pull the bottom down and back, which pulls the light down and forward. Now it is almost where it should be.

The other problem required loosening the set screws for throttle and gripshifter on the right, and moving them rightward about 1cm. Any less and the fairing would just creep over to touch and rub again. This barely left room for my hand on the right bar. Oddly enough, it ended up improving the numbness factor, though. I have always had problems on upright bikes with my hands going numb after a few miles, reagardless of hand position or bar shape or position. Only CB2 has not had much of that problem; my hands are nearly vertical, and gripping in a totally different way, as well as having my arms and hands up a lot higher (level with my chest/shoulders). Still can happen, but nowhere near as fast or as bad.


I continued the ride on Greenway, but the pavement is much worse on the eastbound side, unlike the nice westbound side from yesterday morning. So I ended up taking the sidewalk bike path at a slower speed for most of the way, because the messed-up rear wheel plus the squirreliness of the "airless" tire made it difficult to predict what would happen when I hit bumps or holes or big cracks in the pavement, and with periodic groups of cars moving past me at over three times my speed, I didn't want to slide out becuase of it and end up under a car.


All of the traffic *except* three people were normal and nice. The worst was a woman in the far left lane, not even affected by my presence on the road, yelling out her window "GET OFF THE ROAD!!!!" as she sped by at something around 20-25MPH over the 45MPH speed limit. She never changed lanes or had any other traffic move into her way as they went around me, so she had no reason at all to be an ass like that except just to be an ass.

Two others roared their engines as they passed me without fully going into the other lane, having nearly run up my rear rack before bothering to change lanes at all, but they didn't swerve right back into the lane in front of me so at least they're not stupid as well as asses.

Eveyone else was courteous and safe, though most did not signal their lane changes. One car that could have changed lanes actually stayed behind me with their hazard blinkers on on one of the worst-traffic areas, and only turned them off and went around me (signalling and everything) after the other large traffic burst was gone past. I wish I could thank them for that.


The sidewalk wasn't bad, but because I couldn't see all that far ahead, I couldn't ride it very fast, no more than about 15MPH or so, less in some places. When I got to where there are a lot of driveway and street crossings, I moved back into the road again, as wheel problems or not it was a lot safer than those crossings.


I rode home westbound on the eastbound sidewalk (which is a wide bike path, unlike the narrow westbound side) because I didn't need to hurry, and I didn't want to risk anything with that stupid wheel. Took a LOT longer becuase I basically had to almost stop at every driveway and street crossing because of morning traffic; I did not use the road at all except for 44th st south to Greenway from Bell (bike lane, no traffic). Also because of "scenic detours" the "bike path" with the really wide sidewalk for several miles of Greenway eastbound side, the distance was longer.

But it was nearly completley empty of driveways/crossings and no other traffic on it at all, except in two places, so I was able to ride at nearly 20MPH on it, due to it's very good condition most places. Even so, it still took almost an hour and a half of actual riding, not counting waiting at crossings or driveways or intersections--closer to two hours including those. At some intersections, I and other pedestrians and cyclists had to wait several minutes for cars to stop turning or going thru on red lights, etc., while we had a walk light, to get across.

Most of them did not even slow down for the red lights when turning, even though there was cross traffic too--they just pulled into it and forced the cross traffic to go around them to prevent crashes. I'm amazed there were no accidents.

Once I got to 31st Ave for southbound, I went back to the bike lane in the road, as there is little traffic and msot of it is only 25MPH or less.


I need to rebuild the wheel again, but that will have to wait till tomorrow or Saturday, as I was too tired today to do it before sleeping and getting ready for work again tonight. I just have time to type this up while I eat before getting ready and leaving.

I did end up taking the ammocan pack off, as that is less weight on back and may help the squirrelliness. I don't have time to work out the mount on the front so I'll just have to hope things work like they should on the other pack.

Also have to figure out the fairing problem, and fix that. It was weird how it all started at once, as if I had hit some gigantic pothole or even crashed, but neither of thsoe things happened. Maybe the consequences of an alternate-universe version of my ride leaked thru into my universe here, and affected the bike.


Anyway, ride data:
55m 15s trip time
15.9miles
22.1mph max
17.2mph avg

35.3Wh/mile
10.8Ah
556Wh
49.56Amax

58.0Vstart
51.6Vrest
46.8Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-4.2A peak Regen


Trip home:
1h 22m 24s trip time
18.58miles
21.9mph max
13.5mph avg

27.8Wh/mile
9.733Ah
512.65Wh
60Amax

58.3Vstart
51.9Vrest
47Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-13A peak Regen


And now I'm off to get ready for the last trip this week (until Sunday night when I go back in again for 5 more days of fun).

[amberwolf]

pics from yesterday:

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[amberwolf]

Mostly uneventful on teh way to work, takign the sidewalk route from yesterday morning but in reverse.

But on the way home this morning, the instant I started cranking and hit the throttle as I left work, there was a loud SNAP and I reacted by stopping everything I was doing and putting my feet down. It sounded like a chain snapping, which would be wierd since I was barely putting any power thru the pedals, but when I retried my startup, I got zero motor power, though I could hear it running (including the gears, which sounded normal so they weren't likely the noise source or damaged).

I thought about it for a minute, and decided there was almost certainly nothing I could do about whatever was wrong in the motor, without tools or parts I only had at home 15+ miles away. Not having any coworkers with trucks at the moment, I couldn't just ask for a ride home.

I shifted down to the granny ring and pedalled away at about 7-8MPH, and I managed about a mile before I realized there was no way I was gonna pedal another 14+ miles home, especially after the long hard night at work I had just had--I wanted to go to sleep right then as it was.

So I stopped at 44th Street and Paradise Lane, on a wide part of the sidewalk out of the way of anyone else that might come along. I put my helmet under the cargo pod to keep it from tipping leftward from the weight in it, and the kickstand up, which put the front wheel off the ground about 2-3 inches. Disconnected phase and hall wires, undid the torque arms, unbolted the wheel, and took it off.

Took off side cover on right (covering clutch/gear) and noted that the tack-welded cover plate on the clutch was popped off on two of three welds, and the last broke as soon as I touched it to push it down, so I pulled the plate off adn immediately saw the problem: The clutch itself is cracked from one of the roller recesses to the outside, preventing the clutch from pressing the rollers into the drive shaft, thus preventing any power from transferring to the wheel.

This also means taht I was not actually hearing the gears, just the unloaded motor revving really fast, when I tried again at the start of the problem.

I stared at it for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out a way to force the rollers onto the shaft or at least get something jammed in there to give me even partial power transfer, but I couldn't think of any. Then as I reached for my toolbag to put it back together and just pedal as far as I could toward home, I saw the hose clamps I keep in there for various emergency uses.

One was just enough bigger than the clutch's outer diameter that I knew it could hold the clutch together well enough to work, if I could fit it in the narrow space available. It turned out to fit ok, but it rubbed on the side cover a little. I decided I would have to live with that and see how far it would get me, if ti worked at all once back together and on the bike.

While I was working on getting the motor together after the clamp repair, an older gentleman came up and offered help, tools, or a ride to get parts. I had just done the clamp fix, so I politely declined for the moment; he said to just knock on the door of the nearby house if I did need anything and he'd be glad to help. I got it back together and tested it ok for a few hundred feet, and came back to let him know that it seemed to be working. He offered again that if I had further problems I could come back and he'd help if he could.

I don't meet all that many people that really want to help out; I was grateful for his offers even though I didn't end up needing the help. Though I tell ya, if he had come up before I got the wheel off, I might've taken him up on the help, and asked for him taking me and the bike back to my house.


I kept the bike in 3rd lowest rear gear and shifted with the front derailer only, starting in granny and upshifting to the other two as needed, and staying at 10-13MPH, trying to keep wattage below 250-300W, which i mostly was able to do. The repair got me *almost* home, lasting 17 miles, about an hour and ten minutes or so of actual ride time.

The repair itself didnt' fail, but the motor doesn't like running so slow, apparently, becuase just like last time I rode at those speeds, it severely overheated and cut out, less than half a mile from home, even though this time I was not towing a trailer full of dog nor was I letting the motor do all teh work, but rather doing as much as I could myself. At a guess that might be 50-75W. The motor was so hot on it's outer casing that I could not keep my hand on it. I poured all the water I had with me on it, dribbling it on there to do what I coudl to cool it faster than just the cool morning air was doing, although I knew it would not likely fix the problem any time soon, and I'd be pedalling the rest of the way.

Half a mile I could do...barely, but I did. After getting home and letting the dogs out, I got the wheel off and motor apart, to take pics and check wear and let it cool off with a fan blowing on the actual motor core (which smells quite bad but not burned, and the mtoor windings are a little on the dark side. ).


Carnage pics now. Note all the aluminum filings built up in the grease and whatnot--they're scraped off teh inside of the right cover by the hose clamp. I knew that would happen, but decided that was better than not being able to use th emotor at all to get home.

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The crack is over 2mm wide when not compressed with the hose clamp, but only shows as a hairline with it compressed.

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Anyway, the total ride was almost two and a half hours; I didn't get home till almsot 10am, and left shortly after 7am. I'm guessing I took about 30-40 minutes fixing the motor, but don't really know for sure. I know when I got home I was so exhausted even the dogs coudl tell, and didnt' go jumping around at me like usual, but kinda hung back more and went to play by themselves quickly after greeting rituals were over. I got them fed, and sat down to get th emotor apart, got it cooling, and then I dozed off sitting there till the dogs barked at someone knocking on the door. By the time I realized why I'd woken up and whatnot, they were gone so I dunno who it was, but I'd had nearly an hour's nap. Not enough, but let me get some food fixed up and now I'm typing this as I eat. Then I'm gonna sleep some more.


Then I'm gonna fix a bike. Not sure which one, cuz at this point both DGA and CB2 need just about the same amount of work to get them running.


Ride data to come later as I don't remember where i set the paper.

[JohnC]

That gotta suck repairing an ebike on the sidewalk with no sleep 17 miles from home.

You need a plan “B”. A bus ride on Valley Metro is $1.75. Even if you have to transfer buses to get home, it’s better than trashing yourself and your motor.

[amberwolf]

I considered it, but the bike is like 80lbs, and the box sticking out the side with all the weight on it there means it can only go on the rack side closer to the bus front, and no other bike can go on there with it. That rack isn't built for that weight, and I couldn't have lifted it up there anyway--probably not in normal conditions, and definitely not right then.

All I could have done would be to go back to the store, and leave the bike there, go home, get parts and tools and come back, probably the next day. But there is nowhere at that store I could keep the bike at--unlike my home store at Metrocenter, the one I was helping remodel has no back room space that's not in use or that wouldnt' be in the way of someone stocking stuff or moving things around, etc. When I am there at night it doesn't matter, and it can be left inside the front of the store, since no customers are there. Not an option during the day when the store is open.


After the older gentleman offered, I probably could have asked him for the ride home instead, but I thought that fixing it and riding home was better, plus I kinda wanted the experimental data on whether the fix would work or not. If he had come up before I got the wheel off, I think I would have asked him, though.



As for the repair so far from home with no sleep...I have had worse in my regular biking days, pre-motor, such as having a wheel collapse from too much weight of cargo, and being unable to do anything to fix it, and essentially having to drag the bike and cargo many miles home. And other various failures precluding riding or even rolling the bike home; I've never had a bike light enough to carry more than a couple hundred feet, because they've either been really crappy heavy frames, or had cargo racks or baskets or whatever on them making them too heavy. The Nishiki I am still working out a TongXin middrive for will be the first "light" bike I have ever had that's still a working bike. (the Schwinn Sierra is not yet back together but it is a pedal-only bike, and it's light enough, too).

But I used to be in better shape, with knees that didn't scream at me while pedalling without assistance, and I myself was 30lbs lighter then.


Anyway, I just woke up so my mind is rambling worse than usual, and I need to go eat something. Then I will ponder which bike to fix first.

[amberwolf]

I couldnt' get the clutch off this motor or off either of the dead ones, so fixing the FUsin is out for now. Before I tried moving the 9C from CrazyBike2 over to DGA, I decided to fix up CB2 first:
viewtopic.php?p=551029#p551029

Seems to have worked though there are issues to resolve, still.

May be a while before I get back to DGA.

[amberwolf]

Alrighty...I decided with the problems CrazyBike2 has had with bad valve stems and leaky tubes, I better try getting this back on the road. So I dug out all the Fusin stuff, and fixed both the 48V motors from Dogman.

They have both been overheated enough to severely darken the windings, but there are no phase shorts. Halls on one didnt' work at all, green (center) hall on the other had no output.

Found that there was a solder blob on the back of the PCB for the one with no halls working, that shorted 5V to ground!

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It seems to have come out of the wire harness solder points, most likley when teh motor was overheated in Dogman's hill-climbing tests. Once removed, the motor works fine. It does have several cracks in teh wire insulation, though, in at least two of the phase wires, so I should replace them at some point.

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While running it to test it, the impossible-to-remove clutch/gears just fell right off. Sorry, no pic, but there is a vid of a later test run:



Then the other motor with the green hall not working turned out to be missing a resistor, it seems to have fallen off (and no trace of it was found) along with at least one chip capacitor (whcih I found stuck to a magnet's end).

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the resistor is supposed to be a 42ohm that connects the hall signal output pin to the green hall wire--the ones for blue and yellow are present and working, as is a fourth that connects the hall power wire to the hall power bus on the PCB. As my hands are too shaky to desolder a resistor from any of my pile of scrap electronics, I just bridged across the pads with solder, which only took a few tries to get right.

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Now this motor works, too. I still can't get it's gear assembly off; this is the one with no clutch/freewheel, just the planetary gears fixed to the axle via a Y-mount, one gear on each end of the Y. It can be used with regen braking, if I want to try that.


So both motors now work, using the 48V Fusin controller system including it's 3-speed switch.


That's as far as I got before I had to clean up everything, feed the dogs and myself, and get ready for bed so I can work tomorrow (though I still can't sleep I have to lay down and try to relax, at least).

Plus, the dogs were really getting upset at me not paying attention to them:

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[texaspyro]

Plus, the dogs were really getting upset at me not paying attention to them

Check your bed for hidden doggie presents... they can be vengeful beasts

[amberwolf]

Yes, they can...fortunately they only leave me drool and muddy chunks, besides the ever-present fuzzy bits.


Mostly when they're grumpy they just don't come up onto the bed, or leave as soon as I am not actually direclty paying them attention--especially Nana. She goes to sleep in her kennel instead, with a gigantic sigh. If I get up to go see her, and she's still grumpy about not getting enough attention, she actually sometimes catches the kennel's wire door with her claws and pulls on it, mostly closing it, and then puts her head down between her spread out paws. Kinda like "and stay out!"


No real news on the bike itself yet. I tried again to get the clutch off of here so I can soak the thing in hot soapy water to get all the aluminumy-bits-in-grease off of it and the rest of the motor, so it can be revived with one offered by Brother Paul, once it arrives via Mdd0127.

I also found my bottle of ATF, and some automotive silicone for the motor covers, cuz I think I am going to try oil-cooling one of the two 48V cores I repaired above inside this one's casing/wheel.

Although, actually, I should put the planetary/clutch off the 48V unit onto the 36V one, and run THAT in the ATF, first, so I can compare it to running it sealed, air-only, under similar conditions to the above slow speeds, which have nearly killed it twice. I need to find a BBQ thermometer first, so I can monitor temperatures inside before and after ATF is added.

[JohnC]

Other uses for the ATF (automatic transmission fluid); Home brew penetrating oil.
Mix ATF with acetone 50%/50%.

A study done by Machinist's Workshop Magazine (April 2007) looked at different penetrating oils to see which one did the best job of removing a rusted bolt by measuring the pounds of torque required to loosen the bolt once treated. Here's the summary of the test results:

Penetrating oil ..... Average load

None ...................... 516 pounds
WD-40 ................... 238 pounds
PB Blaster .............. 214 pounds
Liquid Wrench ...... 127 pounds
Kano Kroil ............. 106 pounds
ATF-Acetone mix....53 pounds

[dnmun]

AW, you shoulda taken the old guy's offer of a ride. you are an amiable person and he woulda enjoyed the company. old people like us are not so cold shouldered as the younger crowd. most of us have been there already, so we can relate.

great save, better than any of mine that i can think of.

i recently had to step in and save a kid who had just driven out here from oklahoma. all his possessions tied onto the back of the pickup and in the uhaul trailer behind it. he got his truck as far as in front of my house after the belts all broke and the truck wouldn't move any more but he had been able to get it to the curb. it was dead, really bad because the air pump had siezed and so it ate up his belt, but he had no tools and not a clue. the air pump could not even be removed from the block because of the way it was attached to the block.

i jacked up his truck in the street so i could get under it, removed the pulley so the belt would not be hung up on the siezed pulley and then we went to the auto parts store, 3 trips, to get the right length for the shortened distance of the belt, and finally got him running again. he had no money, so it would been fatal if he had broke down on the freeway and his truck towed by the cops. he had no idea how lucky he was to break down in front of my house. he drove off without the belts screaming for the first time in over 100 miles from what he told me.

ATF is added to the engine oil too when the lifters are sticking and it helps free up the lifters and cleans out some of the gunk in th elifters so they pump up better.

[ohzee]

Amberwolf would you be interested in a slightly beat up rear mxus ?

It's from the ampedbikes kit I got . I burnt up the halls over volting the motor , but the windings all looked good.
Replaced those and painted the windings with red insulating vanish. Put the motor back together and it wasn't as good a
fit as when I took it apart. So that's what it needs just figuring out what I did wrong. I even made indentations on the sides
to help line it up , but that did not help me.

Up to you , but if you can use it ill give it to you free will just send it the slowest method. oh it's also in a 26" rim - I actually
replaced the stock rim after I busted it and then had a LBS true it for me. May also need some adjusting , but its sound.

I soon after got a 3525 and this thing is just sitting around taking up space.

Just let me know enjoy reading your posts.

[amberwolf]

Amberwolf would you be interested in a slightly beat up rear mxus ?

It's from the ampedbikes kit I got . I burnt up the halls over volting the motor , but the windings all looked good.
Replaced those and painted the windings with red insulating vanish. Put the motor back together and it wasn't as good a
fit as when I took it apart. So that's what it needs just figuring out what I did wrong. I even made indentations on the sides
to help line it up , but that did not help me.

I could definitely use it, especially since it is in a wheel. Most likely it uses the same magnet-ring size as the 9C, and thus is very likely to be stator-swappable with the one I have, or the GM stator I also have. Thus, can be used to run a bike and/or be a spare wheel for if I break the one on CrazyBike2 (which is not unlikely given the weight/loads I place on it).

The fit is usually the cover positions, but if you marked them that shouldn't be it. I can figure it out, eventually, though. I also have spare halls to replace the burnt ones with. If I fix the fit well enough to make it completely sealable, maybe I can run an ATF-filled test on it, too. (though I have not had heat problems with the 9C DD type, just the poor little overvolted Fusin).

AW, you shoulda taken the old guy's offer of a ride. you are an amiable person and he woulda enjoyed the company. old people like us are not so cold shouldered as the younger crowd. most of us have been there already, so we can relate.

Yeah, I keep going back to that in my head every so often, and think I should have done that. But I'm stubborn and wanted to try it on my own.... That kid with the truck was indeed lucky--sometimes I think that we get steered towards situations that will let us get help if we ask for it, when we really really need it. Whether we take that help when offered, is another story, and up to us.

Other uses for the ATF (automatic transmission fluid); Home brew penetrating oil.
Mix ATF with acetone 50%/50%.

That's quite a difference in those results. I happen to have a rusted-on nut on a weedwhacker that could use that treatment, so I will test the theory soonish.

[amberwolf]

While digging out more packing material to ship something (still not quite enough, gotta salvage more from work's incoming shipments), and then for parts for a slap-together loaner pedal-bike for a coworker that hasn't any other transportation right now, I got motivated to clean up the Fusin with the metal bits in it, and get it's clutch off, then use the one off the 48V version in it, and see if I could get DGA up and running again.


Getting the clutch off was tough; I basically took three flatblade screwdrivers and wiggled one at a time under the pinion for each gear, trying not to pry on the gears but rather on the mounting points for them. This eventually let me get the whole thing off, and then I was able to soap it up and wash the metal-contaminated grease off of it. While I was doing that I found one of the teeth on one gear is gone missing. It is not in teh grease, on the floor, in the water, or in the motor. So I dunno where it went or when. Pics later, I forgot to take them before I sat down to rest and eat and type this.


Once the clutch was off, cleaning the motor itself was easier, as it did not have much grease on it to hold the aluminum dust and filings on, so I could easily blow it out with the compressor after wiping the little grease off the sun gear.

Cleaning out the hub case and ring gear was easy--a little soap and an old toothbrush for the gear teeth, the rest had nothing to clean off.


Once that was all dry, I used a dab of rubber cement (can't find any other potential sealant; the automotive silicone was hardened in the tube) on the lip of the covers and the matching face of the hub case, and bolted that down on there tightly. I also added some to the wire bundle where it goes thru the axle, inside and out, and also on the wires themselves where they exit the bundle housing, and then on the exposed ends of the wires where the insulation ends. It won't stop everything, but it should help, right? I let that dry for an hour or so, did a second coat, and another hour dry time, while i finished up the coworker's loaner bike. Another dab on the axle of the motro and on the ID of the bearing, and slid them together. Hopefully it will at least help keep the ATF from leaking thru there.

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After that, I laid out a towel, put the motor wheel wire-axle down, (this is the already-closed side), and started pouring in ATF, from a bottle I got in a box of Freecycled stuff.

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I meant to take a picture of it once filled as far as I could judge would be just less than half, but right about then it started practically dribbling out of the axle, despite my "sealant" efforts (probably just dissolved in the ATF).

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I quickly dabbed RC on the other cover edges , axle, and bearing ID, and bolted it down, while holding the wheel as far tilted as I could without spilling ATF out the being-bolted-down side. I figure at least 3-4 capfuls (a lot!) of ATF came out the axle while I was doing all this.

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I tilted the wheel onto this side now, and waited, but no leaks came out of this side. So it isn't apparently leaking out the bearing itself, but rather just the axle hole and wire bundle. That's ok--can deal with this later. Installed into wheel, and did a little video test of it running.



Encountered one issue: Sometimes, it cuts out after a period of running fine. Usually this is at full throttle, but not always--can be at any throttle level. I *think* it is the hall connector to the controller, as it stopped doing it while I held that connector. Can see no connection problem, but there probably is one. Is random for amount of time it takes to cut out. Current monitored via Turnigy Watt Meter does not spike or anything, just cuts off once motor isn't being driven anymore. Pack is the ammo-can 14s2p RC LiPo, and it doesn't have any problems on CrazyBike2 under real loads, so it's something in the motor, controller or connections.


During the test, when hammering the throttle just to see what happens, I found that even with the nuts tight, and the wheel off-ground (no tire yet), it is still enough power and force to twist the axle in the dropouts, because they are already rounded out by prior loaded failures.

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I couldn't find the "clamping" torque arm I had made out of an old rear dropout for this, so I took the old ebikekit torque arm retired from the 9C (becuase it has damaged the 9c axle hole and it isn't gonna work for that axle size anymore),

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and filed out the hose clamp slit until it would fit the smaller Fusin axle. I had to use a round file for it as all my flat files are too wide to fit. Well, except for the teensy weensy jewelers' files, but those would take me years to remove enough material!).

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The other side will get the 10mm wrench again, so there will still be two arms on there. Just in case.

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I forgot that I had moved the tire/tube/liner over to CrazyBIke2's front wheel, so I had to dig out a tire tube and liner. Found all three, but all my remaining usable 26" innertubes suck, and have patches on their patches. The first three I tried all have new leaks in them since I last patched them, one of htem from under a previous patch, I think. One of them had a bad valve, which when replaced then also had a different leak somewhere else. Eventually I decided to follow Harold in CR's advice, and use some heatshrink on the valve stem, on a tube I had test-patched the valve-stem rupture.

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This made it a little thick to put into the valve hole, so I had to file out and sand the valve hole in the rim about 1/16" or more larger diameter.

Seems to be holding at 55PSI so far.


I have not had a test ride yet, becuase I haven't dealt with the cutout problem. I will likely have to replace the connectors there with something other than the JST-SM 6-pin. I do not like them much; they dont' take any kind of abuse or handling very well. I'd like to use Kingfish's solution of the micro-usb connector, but I haven't found any super-cheap extension cables of that type (so I could cut it in half and use them as mating connectors for motor and controller). It would also have the advantage of probably fitting thru the axle nuts.


One other issue that has to be dealt with before riding is the ATF leaking out the axle wire hole:

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after it has been spinning a moment, ATF is splashing up the motor wiring and then runs down into the axle hole,

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and then out the end and drips or is slung onto the rim, rigth on the rim brake surface. THAT is NOT COOL. I don't have a rear brake, so with ATF on the front ones, I pretty much wouldn't be able to stop.

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Guess I'll have to find some sealant that *will* work against ATF, then take the motor back apart, clean the ATF off the necessary areas, and seal up that axle hole and wiring.

FWIW, I tried the motor with the hall and wiring up above the axle, and down below it, hoping it was mostly being caused by ATF splashed up on the wires and then running down the axle hole, but it makes no difference--happens either way.

Crossposted to oil-cooled hubbie thread:
viewtopic.php?p=576374#p576374

I dunno when I'll be able to get back to it next.

[Drunkskunk]

Just curious, why do you fill the ATF up so far? I would figure you would have better results with it filled only 1/4 to 1/3 full.

[amberwolf]

Experiments. Start with it as full as I can get it, then as it leaks out (or as I take some out if it weren't leaking) see if I get better or worse results.

If I could, I'd fill it completely up, so that even at a stop all of the entire motor inside would have a better thermal path than air out to the covers/shell, but even if I sealed everythign else, I think it would come out of the bearings themselves.

So the fullest I can theoretically get is just below the axle bearings. In reality, it probably will end up being closer to what you say--1/4 to maybe 1/3 at most, but we'll see, once I have time to get back to this one again.

[texaspyro]

I'd clean the stem real well, wire brush it (dremel?), clean it some more, slather it with RTV, then apply the heat shrink.

[amberwolf]

For the tube stem? I probably would've used some RTV on it if I had any, but the stuff I thought I had was all solidified; had planned on using it to seal the hub up for the ATF experiment.

So far, at least just sitting there, the heatshrink-over-patched-valve-stem repair is still holding 55PSI, after a bit more than 24 hours. Maybe 28 by now. Has to survive riding on it with all the pressure changes caused by bumps and potholes and whatnot, before I would consider it a success, though, and I have to resolve the ATF leaking on to the rim brakes before I can do a ride with it.

If it does work, I am likely to do something like you're describing on *all* the valve stems, to hopefully prevent a stem blowout in the first place, as I strongly suspect that what is happening is the extreme pressure changes from hitting bumps/holes with all the weight of these bikes on them is causing the stems to balloon out at any tiny defects in the bond between brass and rubber, and at some point it is mroe than the rubber can stretch...so, BANG. If that is indeed the failure mechanism, then the heatshrink will prevent the ballooning, and thus the rupture. It may not be as successful at holding a patch on airtight after a rupture has already occured, but we'll see on that, too, with this test wheel.

Note that most of my more recent (last 2-3 years) stem failures have been on CrazyBike2's rear wheel, which is unsuspended *and* carries at least 3/4 of the bike's dry weight currently, and previously had anywhere from 1/2 o 2/3 of it, depending on battery and motor placment in various experiments. Also, back when DGA was unpowered (2005-2007/8) and then SLA-frictiondrive powered, it was about equal failures on both front and rear, regardless of weight distribution (which varied a lot as I experimented with drive systems and battery placement, as well as carrying cargo). On pedal-only bikes prior to either of these bikes, I saw about equal failures of front/rear there, too, AFAICR, but cargo would have been in baskets both front and rear, over the wheels adn to the sides of them (like the Columbia bike pic shows at the very start of this thread, before it became DayGlo Avenger).


Oh--I also did a little test overnight: I took some of the dried-up rubber cement off the outside of the lid and bottle, and left it soaking in a capful of ATF. Today before I left for work, about 13 hours after doing that, there was only liquid in the cap. ATF most definitely completely dissolves rubber cement, even if it's been dry for months!

So don't use it to seal an ATF-filled motor.

[amberwolf]

It may be a while before I do much with this or anything else.

There was a fire at my house today while I was not home.