Marin Headlands ES RideSurvived the ES ride today. Made it up the "steep hill" to the peak. Motor got fairly hot due to the rough deeply rutted gravel and dirt road and grade. Need to have a motor temperature sensor!
Met lots of fun ES folks, some of whom have seen this thread. Thanks!
Thanks again to all who have contributed to this thread, both by making suggestions and asking questions!
This morning I mounted a CellLog onto one of my DB9 charging boards. So it just plugs into a battery bank and reads out the cell voltages. Really handy for reading cells in the field!
One Plug Charging SolutionI also received some of Geoff57's SMD LVC boards on friday. They are small! I think the bike should have LVC onboard. Balancing and full BMS is a bit much for an ebike with so little space. One way to go is to use the SMD LVC onboard, and then use the TPPacks BMS with a bulk charger (or power supplies) to make a single plug (or 2 plug) charging solution. The (somewhat large) TPPacks boards can stay with the charger and not be on the bike!
Typical "ES eBike Look"Extremegreenmachine told me that my build looks too "ES" like. Instead I should empty the triangle and put the batteries and controller in the trunk pack and hide the wiring so it didn't look like an "ES Bike". I'm trying to keep the trunk free for gear, and keep the "stuffings" near the CG. Hopefully when I cover the triangle it won't attract as much attention as the waterfall of wiring in the triangle does now.
I did get a lot of complements on the build and we discussed various ways of handling the wiring and connectors. Some folks had problems with connectors and BMS's. One suggestion I have is to make sure you can bypass your BMS easily if necessary. Today it was necessary and it was not easy so it took time and made it difficult for one rider to get his ebike up the steep hill.
A couple of other comments on connectors. Make sure that your connectors have a good solid physical connection as well as a good solid electrical connection. (Note that Solder is a poor conductor and a marginal physical connection). Make sure connectors are being used well within their ratings. Make sure the plugs cannot easily be plugged together wrong (proper polarization). Make sure they have covers that prevent accidental shorts. That's my advice. Deviate at your own risk.
The other day a tree fell and took out our power drop. PG&E came out and re-connected it. They did not solder the wires. At work we have hundreds of high powered magnets to control the electron beam we use to make intense light for science experiments. These power supplies and magnets have hundreds of amps flowing continuously, in some cases nearly a thousand amps. They do not use soldered connections. Some of the cables and many of the magnets have hollow conductors with cooling water flowing inside them. They do not use soldered connections. Just a thought.
I used about 5.5 amp hours (of 10) on this ride. Most on the way up. We climbed over 1,000 feet as I recall in about 5 miles. Total trip was about 10 miles for me. At one point I looked and it was running 44 watt hours per mile. That was on pavement. It was worse on the dirt.
The rain held off nicely for today's outing. But it is making up for it now.
Under these conditions the resistive precharge is not required. I modified the PC board design to reflect this. During the precharge (switch position two) the FETs are turned on, but the controller and secondary loads are not; in the operate position both the FETs and the controller as well as the secondary loads are energized.
