Tidal Force : "The Long Ranger"

[icecube57]

[chroot]

Darn, it look beautiful scenic landscape and How many miles did you went Georgia to Alabama?

[icecube57]

It was 26 miles round trip. I went 13 miles out ... it took about 9-10 miles to get to the line... I kept going a few more miles hoping I would see something like a trail head or a Welcome Center. But there was nothing but a trail littered with dog and horse crap. That stuff doesnt go on at the Atlanta end of the trail. They pick up their crap.

It was all up hill on the way there and I was wasting watt hours looking for something. With 440wh on tap every little bit is precious. It took 9.6AH total. I did 5AH going out with moderate pedaling maintaining about 17mph. I did 4.6AH coming back. I basically sat cruise to 12-14mph and sat back and "balanced" no hands on the handle bars all the way back with my arms folded taking it in the sites. It was pretty much all downhill barely 50-100w consumption in some areas. Other areas were as high as 350w. No pedaling. I was basically going out because I never saw this part of the trail and also because I needed the data for my upcoming century ride. I was trying out different conditions to see how big of a pack I need.

[icecube57]

I just placed an order for 5 6s 20C Flightma packs from Hobby City. When they come in it will give me a total of 9 packs. Im going to rearrage my packs to (3) 22.2v 15AH blocks to make it easier for me to charge and series them to 66v 15AH. This will give me slightly over 1kwh of power. More speed. Much needed torque. More range. Very light pack. It will be about 16-17lbs and it will fit in my existing trunk bag. I dont think there has been a momment where ive been truely happy with a bike... until now....(sniffles)

I also got hitched this Saturday. Congrats to me.

The bike has been solid no issues. Time to true the wheel again. Its been broken in quite well since its original true by a LBS. Im also trying to figure out my new profile for my controller to run at 66v. I know Im going to back down the phase current from 120 to possiblely 90-100. I may leave the battery current the same at 45A although Ive been thinking I need to back that down also. But higher current helps you reach higher speed and helps out alot with hills. Im going to play it by ear and tweak it on the fly. By going to 66v nomnial It will give me atleast a 20nm boost in torque at around 30mph which is a bonus. I still have alot of torque on my top in compared to most motors but the mid range where im at most of the time really wakes up with this voltage boost.

[BLUESTREAK]

HI ICE: Congrats on the marrriage as well as the LIPOS.

[Hyena]

Congrats on the wedding! But why are you posting about lipo when you should be on your honeymoon

Hopefully your wife doesn't start eating into your ebike and project time, mine seems to think this is perfectly acceptable...

What will your top speed on 18S be ? I get around 70km/hr on a GM1000w motor so on a 5303 it should be stupidly fast!

[icecube57]

HI ICE: Congrats on the marrriage as well as the LIPOS.

Thanks. Hows that pack running? I though about buying it back but I dont have anywhere to put that beast on my bike so ... Lipo it is!

Congrats on the wedding! But why are you posting about lipo when you should be on your honeymoon

Hopefully your wife doesn't start eating into your ebike and project time, mine seems to think this is perfectly acceptable...

What will your top speed on 18S be ? I get around 70km/hr on a GM1000w motor so on a 5303 it should be stupidly fast!

We went in the hole to pay for the wedding. We got enough gifts to get out the hole. We split what was left over and got gifts for ourselves. Our idea of a honeymoon vacation is 1-2k bucks so we will save for it and take it later.

We still keep finances pretty split. She handles her stuff. I handle mine. If things get tight. We share. =P

Ive tried 18s before but remember I had an epic failure. It seems to me that the x5303 is very powerful. It just depends on how many amps you throw at it. and if the controller can take the heat. Im running Lyens 12fet and its borderline for this motor because of the low winding resistance of the motor. It needs an 18fet or better. In the simulator @ 45A the values I put in are giving me 43mph/70kph in the flats which is about right. You factor in the timing advance its around 45-46 maybe But thats at nominal 66v at the end of the pack so I can safely say it should hold the 45mph/70kph ish in the flats maybe a little more for the first few miles with a fully charged pack. My previous epic failure at 66v ride gave me 53mph/85kph mph down hill which was equal to me running the GM at 96v.

[icecube57]

Ive been throwing this idea around alot. I happen to have some extra funds. Im thinking of changing my 26 inch rear to a 24 or 20 inch. That means I loose rear brakes. But I figure the regenerative brake will be super strong once I reduce wheel size. I will just take the rear brake off completely. I will replace the front brake lever with a e-brake lever. The way I want it to operate is that a slight pull will activate regen but cause the front brakes not to fully engage but for hard braking I just fully squeeze and have regen and the front brake bring me to a stop.

This question is for the the torque junkies and controller gurus. Going down to a 20 inch wheel... how well does it multiply the torque. Does it multiply regen torque also. Is it a very very noticeable amount of improvement. Is acceleration better. Right now my regen is strong. Will it be even stronger. Will I have to scale down the EBS level when I program my controller. I ran numbers is the simulator and it its not that much reduction in my actual top loaded speed but it is a reduction in the no load speed. Also the load/heat on my controller is reduced by over 50%.

Or would you just go for more batteries.

[Hyena]

We still keep finances pretty split. She handles her stuff. I handle mine. If things get tight. We share. =P

Sounds better than the usual "what's yours is ours, what's mine is mine"

But thats at nominal 66v at the end of the pack so I can safely say it should hold the 45mph/70kph ish in the flats maybe a little more for the first few miles with a fully charged pack

Yeah with a 15ah lipo pack you won't be dipping below 70v for the first part of the ride. With the controller only pulling 45a you'll probably sit around 72 actual volts.

Im thinking of changing my 26 inch rear to a 24 or 20 inch. That means I loose rear brakes. But I figure the regenerative brake will be super strong once I reduce wheel size.

Not really. I recently dropped down to a 24" and there's not a hugely noticable difference in torque. Mind you this was a 9C vs a GM so there'll be differences anyway. This is also with a 45a controller, on my commuter. There is a little drop in top speed and to be honest on a commuter I'd rather the top speed than the supposed slight increase in torque. Going to 20" will give you more (and really eat into your top speed) but the bike will look dicky, you'll have trouble with the pedals hitting the ground and with a bloke your size on it at the speeds you do I'd be worries about how the handling with the changed geometry.

As for regen, in my experience it's not noticably any stronger in the smaller wheel. If you want more torque up the current (or voltage, or both )
But as you say with a 12 fet and that winding you're pushing things to the limit

[icecube57]

Took my rear wheel to the LBS to get it retrued after over 500+ miles since they first trued it. So its well broken in. The main reason is that there is enough wobble in the rim to where i cant get my brakes in close enough to the rim for firm stopping power. So my rear brake feels mushy and ineffective. Im looking into swapping my front rim brakes to disc. I have to wait for a friend to get in from out of town to pick up a rim and i have to go to a local LBS for front disc brake adapters for my front shock.

Waiting on my packs to come in. Im also working on a harness that parallels 9 packs to 2 battery medics for use while charging. It will be used for the first few cycles of the new pack and I will start balancing every 15-20 cycles after that.

I also changed my front chain ring from the stock 48 tooth to a 53 tooth. Im lookin to change out my rear to an 11. This will get me back to pedaling in the 20s again.

[icecube57]

I need another repair. I was approaching/ going up a hill outside my home. The cruise had set itself. I twist the throttle to disengage cruise. It felt rough for a second. I tried again. It still felt rough. I coast back home and check everything. The throttle is has no response. I think a mosfet shorted. There is no cogging when the controller is plugged into the motor. I dont think i was pushing it hard at all. This happened pretty much on a cold stat. Controller was still cool. I wasnt on the bike for 30 seconds and felt strong and fine. Im was at 44v.

I picked up my wheel from a LBS roday. They retrued the wheel after I broke it in a few hundred miles. Its still kinda off due to the poor rim quality. A bend/ hop in the rim but they got it close enogh where my pads can hug the rim without scraping. I have awesome braking again. I put a slightly larger chainring on. I went from a 48 to a 53 tooth up front. Im still tweaking it. I took 2 hours to adjust yesterday. The chain isnt rubbing the derailer but its rubbing something.I think i may have to put another apcer washer in the rear maybe. It shifts fine tho.

Still waiting on my Lipo. Still in Singapore supposedly.

I suppose I need to remove my controller from my bike and send it to lyen again. I swear this time I was abusing it. This is a brand freakin new controller that Ive kept at 44v the entire time. It has been through alot more heavier stuff than this damn hill. The 5303 Grim Reaper Strikes again. Atleast I dont think it was a really big catastrophic failure like last time because It didnt blow my fuses. So I think it just two fets which should be easy for Lyen to fix.

The delays my voyage to 66v. 6 days no controller. I really want to upgrade to an 18 or 24 fet but i spent my money on Lipo recently. Bummmmmmmmeeeeer.

[icecube57]

I need another repair. I was approaching/ going up a hill outside my home. The cruise had set itself. I twist the throttle to disengage cruise. It felt rough for a second. I tried again. It still felt rough. I coast back home and check everything. The throttle is has no response. I think a mosfet shorted. There is no cogging when the controller is plugged into the motor. I dont think i was pushing it hard at all. This happened pretty much on a cold stat. Controller was still cool. I wasnt on the bike for 30 seconds and felt strong and fine. Im was at 44v.

All I can say is GD ANDERSONS!!!!!!

Everything is working.

[John in CR]

I don't know why so many people swear by Andersons, because there are certainly a lot of people that swear at them. Good to here it was only a connector issue.

[nicobie]

I don't know why so many people swear by Andersons, because there are certainly a lot of people that swear at them.

Ain't that the truth...

[icecube57]

I gotta admit my heart sunk. Time slowed down. My heart started beating fast. I was hoping it was something simple.I instantly felt my wallet get lighter. All of the connectors looked fine at a glance but if you look closer the connectors were sunkern/melted into their housing. Im certainly thinking of soldering with no disconnects. its just a pain in the ass to redo connections over and over again. if you need to take the controller off the bike for some reason. I need to do phase wire upgrade anyways. I just dont wanna buy the teflon or silicone wire. I accept scrap donations. =P

Im also having this problem with the wires coming out of my controller. When I recrimped my connectors these wires were fused together. I had to peel them apart like twizzlers. I just cut all of mine off shorter past the damaged section and recrimped new ends. None of my other phase wires have this melting insulation issue. The yellow connector shows how my connector failed. The Anderson contact sunk into the connector which pulls it away from the contact thats plugged into it.

As a temporary solution im going to get some heat shrink and cover the wires coming out of the controller so they dont fuse together. I also left the wires out in the open instead of bundled in the Crystalyte velco sleeve I have.

[chroot]

That's why lila and Lyen, They told me that I will need teflon installation on motor hub's phase wires to handle the high ampere
and high temperature heat.

I am thinking upgrade my 9c 9x7 motor by adding the teflon on the phase wires to allow me push higher ampere. Maybe, I
am thinking build another ebike with the X5304 at 100v LiPo.

[John in CR]

Better turn that phase current down until you get better phase wires installed. You're very lucky they didn't short and blow the controller with that much melting. Oh, and shorten that block time too.

[litespeed]

I gotta admit my heart sunk. Time slowed down. My heart started beating fast. I was hoping it was something simple.I instantly felt my wallet get lighter. All of the connectors looked fine at a glance but if you look closer the connectors were sunkern/melted into their housing. Im certainly thinking of soldering with no disconnects. its just a pain in the ass to redo connections over and over again. if you need to take the controller off the bike for some reason. I need to do phase wire upgrade anyways. I just dont wanna buy the teflon or silicone wire. I accept scrap donations. =P

Im also having this problem with the wires coming out of my controller. When I recrimped my connectors these wires were fused together. I had to peel them apart like twizzlers. I just cut all of mine off shorter past the damaged section and recrimped new ends. None of my other phase wires have this melting insulation issue. The yellow connector shows how my connector failed. The Anderson contact sunk into the connector which pulls it away from the contact thats plugged into it.

As a temporary solution im going to get some heat shrink and cover the wires coming out of the controller so they dont fuse together. I also left the wires out in the open instead of bundled in the Crystalyte velco sleeve I have.

Since I'm too lazy to go back through the whole thread, What was the amperage you were pushing? I'm pretty sure that Anderson's need to be crimped but I would recommend soldering them also. A loose connection of any sort will cause heat and as you found out we don't want that. I would double check that your connectors are tight while connected and not tarnished from getting wet at some point. I would recommend some 5mm bullet connectors if your pulling more than 30 amps through these Anderson connectors. You will not get any heat from them.....I guarantee that!

I have a BMC from Ilia about a week old.....I'm going to check my connectors right now. I'm on 75 volts and 20 amps and under.

Tom

[chroot]

Your will be fine without burn the phase wires at 20A. Unless you are going way over 65A - Sure you need upgrade teflon
on the phase wires.

Make sense the BMC from Ilia. He always put limit ampere on geared hub motor. The X5 motor is an direct drive and they
can take brutal high ampere through the phase wire with the teflon installed.

I'm on 75 volts and 20 amps and under.

[icecube57]

OMG... I just fallen in love!!!!!

Ok when I first got the 5303 I tested it on my old controller at 88v and 45A. I went poof in 3.5 seconds but it was heavily abused. Ive since then avoided it for the safety of my bike and its components. Today I woke up and decided to tune my controller for 66v operation... I then thought what the heck let me go to 100v just for one cycle. I had already taken the surface charge off the pack from test riding it at 44v after I put everything back together from a recent motor upgrade. I hopped on and it has a jolt that will throw you off the bike if you arent used to it. I know my bike could make it up the hill on my street without assistance at 66v... but just barely. I went around the culdesac at the end of the street and gave it all i got. I was pulling 4800w and she was like RAWR!!!!.... and it was like wooohhhhoooo! It zipped up the hill and she said..... (Russion Accent) What is this hill you speak of?.... I assume that was supposed to be a challenge... I spit on it!. Ofcourse my 4 6s lipos were giving me the finger probably. Didnt sag below 92v. Didnt blow any fuses. I was actually surprised that it didnt feel anemic. I turned my phase current down from 120A down to 95. I left my battery current at 36A..Which gives me 45-50A on the CA.

The past few days I tore my bike down for some upgrades. I went to frys thinking they had teflon wire... the only had this POS PVC. So I bought some 12G PVC I though I could buy it and wrap it in shrink wrap but the insulation and the shrink wrap made the wires to thick. So I ended up going bareback with the stock insulation on the PVC. The 12G wire was indeed 12g wires. The original Crystalyte wires are 13G but closer to 14G so it was only a very minute improvement... dozen or two strands at best.

I have a 100w iron that wasnt doing sheit to help me solder the new phase wires to the windings. I put on my afro ingenuity hat and went to the local home supply. I found these copper lugs that take up to 10G wire. They are normally used in breaker boxes. I tinned the phase wires and i tinned the wires on the stator. They have a screw that you tighten that clamps the wires into the lugs.I the put a bolt through the eyelet on the lugs and put a lock washer in and put the other lug thats on the new phase wires on and another lock washer and a nylon nut. This was a bit bulky but it was a fool proof solid connection. I shrink wrapped it twice. I also used some card stock and made paper tubes that slided over the shrink wrap so there is no way its going to short or chaff on anything. I zip tied everything into the recess portion of the stator.

The wires still ran warm at 44v with the phase current set at 120A. When I turned it down to 95 and ran 100v with 4800w of power. They were barely luke warm alot cooler than they have ever been. One thing Ive noticed even though i rode the motor hard during the test at 100v this morning... the motor really didnt warm up. Which to me suggest that the X5 motor has a low current saturation point like the 9C and that pumping excess phase current just creates heat with marginal increase in power.... or that its very inefficient at lower voltages. Or the phase wires was wicking/conduction the heat from the windings down the phase wires make the wires hot. Shrugs...

I ran the numbers through the simulator just now and it appears at higher voltages the motor does run more efficient. In this case between on a 15% grade which is close to what the hill on my street is... from 44v to 66v there is a 25% improvement from 54% to 65% EFF in efficiency and from 44v to 88v there is a 44% improvement from 54% to 70% EFF So higher voltages even on high turn motors does help with efficiency because of the higher avaliable torque. It was my misconception that if you throw current into high turn motors they suck up current and it goes into the void as heat. But if you up the voltage the same still applies but much less of you watts goes towards heat and more go towards making kinetic energy.

[FMB42]

Thanks for the info icecube.

Here's a link to "Electric Motors for Model Aircraft" that you might find interesting:

http://adamone.rchomepage.com/guide5.htm

Excerpt from the above web page:

Efficiency is a measure of how much of the Input Power (the power that the battery
delivers to the motor) is actually used to turn the propeller (Output Power) and how
much is wasted as heat.
A motor with higher efficiency delivers more power to the prop, and wastes less.

Assuming the same current, increasing the voltage increases the motor efficiency
until the RPM limit is reached above which the efficiency falls.

[icecube57]

I was off today and I thought the mail man was going to bring me my sheit. He didnt. I already made a 6s 4to1 balance cable for one of my medics when I only had for packs. I used to charge 4 packs in parallel and balanced them in parallel. Since I would have 9 packs I needed to make a 6s 5 to 1 balance cable to use with my second battey medic.

I also made cables to parallel the discharge leads for the 3 sub packs. My packs are going to be split up into (3) 22.2v 15AH packs. Thats why I have three connectors pictured. I will series when discharging and parallel them to the 3 outputs on my Meanwell. Since they will all be parallel while charging I can hook up my medics every few charges and balance. An empty pack should take about 3 hours to charge. Im thinking about buy another meanwell to help with the bulk charging at full pack voltage for every day uses and use one meanwell when Im balance charging all packs in parallel at 22v every 20 cycles or so.

[icecube57]

I got my lipos in. I grouped them in 3 packs with 3 in parallel. For a 66v 15Ah pack. My parallel harness for the discharge leads and balance connector works beautifully. Ill be ready for a maiden voyage in under an hour after I balance this last pack

[icecube57]

A few notes or opinions on my new packs. The zippy packs have 12G wire. This worked out in my favor cause I was out of 45A Andersons. I figured each pack would prob see 20-25A max so I used the 30A Andersons. The size of the packs seems smaller than the turnigy packs and also seem slightly heavier. All my packs arrived in a beat up box. Thank you customs. They were sorrily wrapped in a thin foam wrapping and then wrapped in bubble wrap. They were loose in the box with a few of those air cushion bags. my cell voltages on all of my packs were around 3.87-3.89v according to my battery medic. I paralleled them together and put them on the charger with a battery medic. I had some stubborn cell groups that were .02v lower than the rest. I let it sit on the charger for a few hours and it got better. They are pretty balanced. Im going to do an overnight charge/balance to be positive everything is on the same level. Im charging to 4.2v. Yeah Yeah I know shoot me.

I took the pack out for a spin on my bike. Me likey!. The pack is performing very well. Gobbling up AH faster than expected. I have an wh consumption of about 80wh a mile WOT. As to be expected. I started out at 75.6v And I drained 2AH out of my 15AH pack. I was running the pack pretty hard zipping up and down my street tackling the infamous hill. My CA say Im peaking at 81A.... through a 40A fuse =P with 45-50A sustained amps. The voltage did sag to about 69v. The zippys dont seem to be as stiff as the turnigy packs were. But I assume the sag was surface charge so to speak. I made the parallel discharge harness but i didnt like how loose/stressed a single anderson was when putting the packs into series. I made another harness to series the packs. Its oriented that I can put any pack in any spot. But I have a special green plug thats designated to go to the controller. Its pretty much idiot proof. I dont like the mess of wires that I have for charging and balancing. I hope that once the packs are balanced thoroughly I only have to check it every blue moon to make sure the pack is still balance. I can spot check each individual pack with my medic to make sure everything is alright. I havent done any speed tests. But im sure im solidly in the low to mid 40s The acceleration is pretty good off the line. The regen braking did work with it being set at 75v. It feels weaker that at 44v. Still getting the same amount of regen wattage but not amperage. Hill climbing is pretty good. It crests my 15-20% grade hill doing about 12-14mph with no input. My controller is pulling about 3800w from the battery under peak load. Controller is obviously getting warm. The phase wires are cooler than at 44v but warmer than at 88v. The phase wire insulation feels fine. Connectors feel barely luke warm since I upped the voltage and turned the phase current down. Despite me putting 1000 more watts through them. Seems like Im getting the opposite affect that Im expecting. I think they will hold the punishiment Im going to give it. Teflon upgrade is still in the future when i deem in necessary.

I will def have fun tommorrow when I get off work!

[chroot]

Are you crazy for being placed charging inside the house even worse on the carpet floor. YIKKKKES

Please put in the cement floor or clay potted where you can place the batteries inside in case. I mean less
chance damage to your house property.