SoCal Motor Bicycle Racing Sat April 7th 2012 Grange Racetra

[SoSauty]

The e-s now can run faster than the mopes, if they burn down a few laps later

I stand corrected, I rooted for you 50 to 100 yds back of 'em before you flamed. Gonna be thrilling to see you pass 'em June 2

[chroot]

Gratz Luke, Good job crushed all gas motored bicycle + moped!


Otherwise excellent ES racers good job too!

[etard]

Luke, when do we get to see the finals video? I keep checking back every hour expecting your post.

Did anybody check the tires on that moped? I'm wondering if there is a stickier tire than the Pirreli's that he might be using.

Motor heating seems to be the big issue for everyone. We all were thinking about our own way to cool the motors. I'm actually glad I fried a Hall, kinda like an early warning system before the whole thing goes up in smoke!

I can't believe Luke was only hitting 70 mph down the straight, I was getting 60 mph on Farfle's bike and Luke's bike seemed much faster (not that Farfle's is slow in the first place).

[zombiess]

Farfle's bike pulled like a freight train. I was going to ask Luke to let me ride his bike but it wasn't operational at that point

[Thud]

Motor heating seems to be the big issue for everyone.

Just run less power!

Farfle rode it this time...no? (iwas suprised by his old clyt this 2pi has to be twice the fun) I want to hear the story about the sevcon & the blown infineon.

[zombiess]

Motor heating seems to be the big issue for everyone.

Just run less power!

Farfle rode it this time...no? (iwas suprised by his old clyt this 2pi has to be twice the fun) I want to hear the story about the sevcon & the blown infineon.

I think only acuteaero popped a controller. He then hooked up farfles 24 fet which I programmed for him but I might have set it a little to high and he lost his motor. I think the controller was OK. I gave him a castle creations controller I won that will hopefully work after his motor is rewound.

[sk8norcal]

Fast class moped/motorized bicycle race.

I'm racing my peugeot 103 rcx 50cc against motorized bicycles 200cc 4T dual variated and electric bikes. Short video because my camera's battery died after few laps.
I lead and won the race followed by the orange electric bike way faster in the straight away but slower in the twisty 4 turns behind, his motor burnt and he couldn't finish the race.

[hydro-one]

I have to say how proud I am at the whole Community here with the turnout and coverage of this amazing event,

LMFAO, at Lukes video!!!! 2:11 got me rolling!! Great video , how you could keep from laughing and shaking your head during race, must have been hard!!! I was going to ask Luke how come your so slow of the line?? and I guess you will get out the liquid cooled Golden motor now? Thats Golden with a capitol G . And just to confirm were you running the Kelly or SeVcon? drool1 military tech helps!

This Event will be heard around the World !!

[Alan B]

Two Sevcon's there - Luke's and Farfle's.

[bzhwindtalker]

Now I know why the moped won. 103 rcx is the answer to that question

[dodjob]

Now I know why the moped won. 103 rcx is the answer to that question

lol 51 Magnum also ^^

[nicobie]

Do I need a decoder ring to decipher this?

[Stevil_Knevil]

Nic, it's a French thing

Here's my buddy, Rich..



..riding the Punk Express

I donated a 17" rear wheel to the prize table. The promoter, Neil, told me that I needed to award it to whomever I deemed worthy. So...

..'The ebike most likely to be mistaken for a gasser' won it ..Juicer!

[Stevil_Knevil]

Hmmm... now that I think about it.. the promoter and the "1st (2nd) Place Winner" had European accents

Coincidence? Conspiracy?



Feel free to chime in with the time sheets, Neil..












..waiting patiently..

[Spicerack]

Mmmm, that's kinda purdy!

[acuteaero]

I wouldnt even show up for an electric vs electric race. They are all my friends, I cant get in kill-mode or even motivated to race them. When its electrics racing gas bikes head to head, I go nuts for it and cant get enough, and no price is too much to pay for the experience.

There's nothing like a particularly smelly two stroke to bring the competitive "red mist" on- or that guy in front of you with on the little scooter and the super obnoxious plumber's crack hanging out! (If you were racing you know exactly what I'm talking about!)

I have to say I had a most excellent time at the race on Saturday, thank everyone for ignoring the economic arguments against it and COMING OUT TO THE RACE!

Here's the only media I have worth sharing- some onboard video of the partial race lap during which the motor died on PaulD's old bike. The video is a little long and uncut, check the description on Youtube for a "random access directory" to the important bits.



For the record, here's the short version of "outcome of Acuteaero's race weekend": Installed a 12fet Lyen controller on Thursday, set up with four shunts to solve "cutting out problem" viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16910. It was good for about six practice laps on Friday before shedding some solder off the board and blowing some fets (3077 fets- didn't have any replacements) It may well have lasted longer with a lower current limit. Borrowed Farfle's beefed up 24fet on Saturday morning and wired it in- set the battery limit reasonably low but the "phase current limit" far too high in the software- the motor heated up fast with low-speed acceleration and shorted a phase before the end of one race lap.

My other bike, named "the shortbus" is a BMX cruiser with a HS motor, add on wheelbase lengthening dropouts, 17" moped wheels and a suspension fork- it was fun to ride and reliable for dozens of laps- I low-sided it in one heat (why did I forget to wear gloves!), then my friend low-sided it in the same turn in another race... the bike was fine. It suffered mainly from a lack of refinement that matched the hurried nature of its construction- the brakes were bad to start and only got worse, and the fork (bought used on ebay...) obviously needs to be rebuilt- as well the original BMX bars are too short to actually fit a brake lever, throttle and hand grip on. I hope to get all these issues sorted out soon.

The Kokam LiPo packs I built for the race performed great- kind of a trial by fire as I didn't have time to thoroughly test them. I'll post photos of them in a different thread soon. Charging via Prius worked awesome. Only downside was that the big gas genset was running most of the time anyways! On friday before everyone else arrived I was charging in pure silence- with the prius engine running at idle only about 1/4 of the time! It was like magic! Even with all the charging and driving around at 75 mph I still got 40+mpg on the tank. (/end obnoxious prius fanboy session)

I'm a bit disappointed that I was not able to realize a better result with PaulD's bike- It's a beautiful machine and a temperamental beast. My failures also underline the meaning of Paul's success with the bike. He is truly a very capable dude. Of the many who have experimented with the RC motors on the forum few have stuck with them- I can understand why. The failures at this event are instructive to me though, I will continue reading on the forum about the success and failure of others with these motors and get set up better for next time. It's worth it

About awards, and everything- this goes straight back to the topic of how to classify e-bikes for a race, and how to fairly compare them to gas bikes. This is a topic that has been thoroughly and passionately discussed in the past- viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19042 and more recently viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33220 and viewtopic.php?f=25&t=31157&start=75 with no strong consensus. Basically as long as there are no prizes and everyone's just there to have fun it doesn't matter, but as soon as there are prizes, even just chunky trophies it starts to concern people. I thought about making prizes for the race (if only I had had time! not a chance!), but I really would have wanted to make a prize for everyone. The e-bike presence at the race was such a great community, constructive thing- I really appreciated the presence and contribution of each e-biker and ES poster who showed up. In the context of the "Electric Revolution" this is what really matters. Everyone who was there was pitching in, sharing parts and knowledge, and doing the absolute best they could- this is not nascar or something where every contestant has a huge budget to make a rig that follows the letter of the rulebook- everyone here is inventing, home-brewing and hacking guided by their own ideas of what they want to build and the resources available to them. Making classes and rules simply disincentivizes the creation of this kind of creative atmosphere. I would rather have people build whatever they want and let the results fall where they do rather than have people's creativity shaped around classes, or even denied entirely as a result of rules and regulations.

Again. I had a great time at the event, thanks to all of you who came and participated. It was great to meet some people I hadn't met before, and to hang out and be a part of the camaraderie. Looking forward to seeing you all again at the remaining events this year!

[Alan B]

Well said!

[zombiess]

Acuteaero, I'm sorry about setting the phase currents high in our quick tuning session. Neither of us or anyone there knew where a RC motor should be set and we were just guessing and going by feel. Watching Miles start and the bike just take off vertically on him shows we probably had it too high which could have contributed to the failure.

[acuteaero]

No worries ZombieSS- I appreciate your help with the controller at the track. If we weren't in a hurry I'm sure we could have set it up better. Now I have no choice but to really fix it for next time...

To that effect I just sent a week's pay to china in the hopes that when the rare and endangered golden outrunner panda craps out some more of these motors they might send me a couple of them... so that I might polish those turds I'll finish setting up my dyno project and then do some testing and really scope out what's going on.

[mauimart]

I'm a bit disappointed that I was not able to realize a better result with PaulD's bike- It's a beautiful machine and a temperamental beast. My failures also underline the meaning of Paul's success with the bike. He is truly a very capable dude. Of the many who have experimented with the RC motors on the forum few have stuck with them- I can understand why. The failures at this event are instructive to me though, I will continue reading on the forum about the success and failure of others with these motors and get set up better for next time. It's worth it

Are you using the stock wound 80-100 on this bike? I am having decent success with this motor in a rewound 9T wye configuration. Perhaps it's the low resistance delta wind that's eating the controllers. In any event these little motors pack a good punch and would be unstoppable if you could reliably get the heat out. But then again, isn't that true with any motor... What is your flat-out max speed? I am hoping to do 50mph with my setup.

[Alan B]

I think it is important to figure out the phase current where the first knee in the efficiency/saturation curve is, and to limit the phase current to a value in that neighborhood. It makes a huge difference in how quickly the motor heats.

Perhaps Thud would be interested in helping get PaulD's famous bike running again.

Two months to the next race.

[Thud]

I have wire in hand & am allways ready to wind a motor

regarding phase currents I have been finding very conservative settings are required...with the C20 mod, It comes to roughly 2x(maybe 2.25x) the battery current settings. So if 50 batt =100-125 on phase.

On my 12fet controlers I typicly run 55 batt 130 or 145 phase.
Even with those settings, the controllers "over run" the current limiting as read on a calibrated CA. (A residual function of the "block time" I think) Ive seen peaks of 110 amps on the calibrated CA. Thats 8kw input on 18cells.

The other big issue is Hall placment. there is a very fine line of correct placment under riding conditions....Internals are what they are.....but an external set up is a finiky troll to figure out without a scope.

Let me know if my services are required.

[Farfle]

Heres some highlights from the race, more to come:

[etard]

Farfle, did you get any race footage? I need more footage, actually what I really NEED is a GoPro already!

[Ypedal]

cargo bike racer !!! FTW !!....

that's so awsome.. i've never raced on a track.. something on my to do list one day !