Metallover's 9c Blackcomb Build

[johnrobholmes]

Your watt/hour usage will go back up when you get traction again


I want to see you with that helmet, I bet it is awesome

[Metallover]

[Metallover]

I got to thinkin about my to-do list and the no-spark circuit that is on it. I did a little lookin then decided that instead of buying a resistor that I would just throw crap together. I looked at some resistor color charts and found a 330ohm resistor from an old RC transmitter board. It's a little part and I'm not sure if it'll last because it is so small, but it works great now.

I used BrianG's do-it-all rc site - http://www.scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/index.html
Here's the no spark calculator - http://www.scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/_nospark.html

I used 3 or 3.5mm bullet plugs and the old phase wires from the hubmotor.

The pictures don't do it much justice, but I don't think a video would be worth the trouble. I still get a very small spark but it isn't a massive lightning show like it used to be.



I used some hot glue and part of a zip-tie to support the lil leads on the resistor












If you don't know how it works, you plug in the black lead, plug in your no-spark circut (the small connectors), then plug in the main red lead. The spark should be gone if you do your math right.

Once again, it looks a little ghetto and it won't last forever. I'll have to pick up some bigger shrink next time I have a chance. Electrical tape will do for now!

[Metallover]

I went out for a ride today. It was 32 degrees f! Very nice weather. I went on my longest ride (without stopping) yet - 9.75mi... And I want to go more!

I had the Turngy Watt Meter hooked up to one 6s battery.(not the whole 6x6s pack) I got the following information-

3.661ah used
84.1wh used (*3=252.3)
23.01a max
512.5w max (*3=1537.5)
22.0v min

I connected the meter to one 6s pack. Any figures dealing with amps are probably right, and anything dealing with watts I should be able to multiply by 3.

1538w max aint half bad! Does that sound right for a 26" 9c on 66v?

I am thinking the "ah used" figure is pretty accurate; I'll check when my pack comes off my hyperion 0610i RC charger.

I am surprised on how low my max amp draw was. I checked the temp of the motor (with my hand) after some big hills and it was just a little warm. The controller was cold. According to the watt meter, my pack only sagged down to 22v. Wow! That's 3.67v/cell! Nominal is 3.7v!.... I LOVE my setup!!!! I love my E-bike!

It handled hills like a champ. I found a couple of the biggest hills in my town (this is SD so don't expect much..) and I barely slowed down! No cries of mercy from the motor/controller! And if I only pulled 23a the bike must not have even struggled at all! When I went down the hill, my front rotor was HOT!

Gravel roads are bad. They are worse when half of it is covered in ice, there is a good flow of water running down it, and it's muddy as hell!I wouldn't recommend taking gravel roads when they are wet, unless you don't mind going slow and getting muddy.

My camera was supposed to have left china on the 18th. Hopefully it gets here by the end of the month. When I get it I'll make some sweet vids with it.

EDIT - Today was rough on efficiency. I didn't know how much hard riding would effect efficiency. The ah number I got, 3.661, means that I took 3.661ah out of 5ah of that one pack. My charger put in 20.433ah@22.2v which comes out to 3.41ah/battery. That means I used 2/3 my availible charge. I only got 46.5wh/mi which would've given me a range of just over 14 miles.

Watt meter said I used 3.66ah
My charger said I used 3.41ah

I am thinking the watt meter, VT monitor, and lvc I had all hooked up to that one battery drew an extra ~.15ah which means it is drawing about .3a.

Someday I'll re-do the battery case and make some type of bms..

[Metallover]

I got some brakes! These are Avid Single Digit 5's. I got them at a local bike shop for $25 bucks. They were the only v-brakes they carried, and I think they are some pretty decent brakes for the price. I found them for $14 on Jensons but shipping would have upped the cost and by buying locally I got them instantly.







I had to do some grinding on the frame and ghetto these brakes on because I was supposed to use some $14 brake post studs that screw into the mounts on the frame. After looking for an hour or two I found some bolts from another bike that screw into the back. The final result is very solid and I am very happy with it.

After riding around I have to say that these brakes rock! They are probably better then the stock disc brakes on the bike! I did notice the grooves in the rim and that might help these out.. From full speed I was able to stop wayy faster then I used to be able to. Me and the bike weigh a total of 220lbs. I would definately recommend these brakes.

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I was curious about the balance of my batteries,as they haven't been balanced in about 5 runs. Most of the packs had cells off by .1 to .2v. Right now I am balancing each pack induvidually on my hyperion charger. I have been looking for a better charging solution then what I have, and if I do switch to a ps-based system, I am definately going to balance my packs every 5 runs or so. Every week if I ride often enough. I saw KiM's disaster and now I am going to be extra-cautious.

If anyone goes to a ps charger, I would recommend getting a rc charger or balancer. This is a good balancer (that might require a charger too) - http://www.allerc.com/product_info.php?products_id=2916

As I was balancing the packs, I found that in pack six I may have a weak cell. Cell #4 is reading 4.10v when the rest are reading 4.18v. I will keep a close eye on it. This just backs up my point of why it is important to have proper balancing equipment. One damaged cell could take many with it, and that could domino and ruin all of your packs.

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20 days after I ordered my camera and wire mesh it still hasn't done much. Latest news I have on it is that it shipped out on the 18th.. What can I say the shipping is supposed to take 6-39 days; that's half up. I also learned that it is the chinese new year, and most if not everyone in china has a week off.

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I downloaded some software for my garmin 201. Here's a couple pics of my ride. I can also upload the file to a website and get some different maps and charts. You can make almost anything you want. Once I get my map overlayed with color-coded speed I'll post it up. Here is what the garmin software tells me



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My run today was 20 miles long. I went fast for awhile then decided to go out of town. I turned around when I felt I needed and made it back just in time. I had used about 9.5/10ah from my pack. My efficiency today was 32.1wh/mi. I think a 25mi range and sub-30wh/mi efficiency is doable if I take it easier on the throttle.

As of now I have 61 miles on my bike and I have "saved" $10.36 in gas.

Also for the first time I recorded some temps. This was the first time anything was warm. It was 35f out and I had my batteries in the case and wraoped in a towl. The batteries and motor were 80f; the controller was cold. The batteries would probably be cold without the towl, but the motor will probably heat up more in warmer temps.

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And finally I am getting tired of charging FOREVER. It's been 4.5 hours and my pack is only 2/3 the way charged. After looking into a ps-based charging system I think I am going to get a 400w ps (400w will charge at 250w easily after losses) so I can charge at 10a (insted of 5a).

I hope to make a hard battery case with a switch built in so that I can go from 18s to 6s quickly. Any suggestions for switches let me know. I need to know what kind of switches I'll need for the lowest resistance. If I parallel my batteries I'll have 3 sets of +/- leads so I would need a 3pdt switch? 6pdt? three dpdt?

[Metallover]

Small update for monday
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I got a pink slip in my mailbox saying that something from china was in town. I will go and pick it up tomorrow. I have a thread on another forum, I'll post a link to it where me and a few other people will be testing/reviewing it.

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I did some cleaning today! I took off the rear deraileur and scrubbed er good. The shifting has been out since I got the bike electrified, so I finally got around to adjusting the endpoints and cable tension so I get all 7 gears and the chain doesn't come off. The chain isn't in good shape, but I cleaned it with water as best as I could then I oiled er up. I read chain lube is the way to go and you should never oil the chain, but this chain has been oiled before (not by me) and it was past the point of no return.





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I fear I have some loose spokes. I found out when I hopped on the test the minor adjustments I made on my brakes; riding at very slow speeds with weight on the bike. It sounded like a zip tie or similar was hitting the spokes. Turns out they were loose. I tightened the loose ones I found with a pliers then I tightened em all 1/4 turn. They all aren't perfect but it is better then it was before. I would appreciate some info on tightening of the spokes if anyone could..

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Final charge time was 5hrs 48min. I put in 26.968ah out of 30ah. The Watt meter said Iused 5.5%/.55ah more then the charger put back in. I don't know which one is right or wrong.

The cell that was low the other night is doing fine now. I balanced the pack for a couple hours and after the last run all the cells were balanced again. Here's a shot of the voltages before balancing and topping off before my last run.


I just realized I can get a 24v PS when I buy my new one from this pic!

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I have done some more thinking on the switching between 66v and 22v. I figure the best way to do it is to get a bunch of andersons. I'll have 3 sets connected out of the battery, and I'll be able to plug in one to make it 3s for discharge and another plug hooked up to the charger for 3p. You probably have no idea of what I'm talking about but some time in the future you'll see it all come together.

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The weather is looking great so I hope to do more riding in the future. It's supposed to be 30-35f all week! I shouldn't fell too good though; we are supposed to get another 30" of snow.. wtf?

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Check out the links in my sig, especially my ride log. It's come a long way and it's got more information then you will ever need.

[johnrobholmes]

Personally, I wouldn't fool with a voltage switch. You can do a similar speed limit with your controller, and it will be much less risky for your batteries and wiring! Having such a switch isn't good for the resistance of system either.


A somewhat hack way of tightening a wheel when you don't know your baseline- first you need a spoke wrench. Just make one from some scrap 1/4" steel, if you have the stock spokes it isn't a standard wrench size. Tighten them all until they are very close in pitch when you pluck them. Get them good and tight, and put oil on the nipple /rim junction so they don't gall as you wrench them. From there you can adjust the tension to straighten the rim. I normally tighten the wheel to bring it into true, but sometimes you may need to loosen a spoke here and there. Just play around with it for a while, you will likely get the hang of it. If you want to keep the nipples tight, a small spot of blue locktight down the spoke / nipple junction will help. Just don't overdo it or it will be a bitch to true up later.

[Metallover]

I got my Hobbycity order today! In it was the wire mesh and my camera.

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The Wire Mesh

I like this stuff a lot! It looks really clean and professional. It does a great job of hiding all the wires.

I ordered 2mm, 6mm, and 10mm. The 3mm is too small for about anything at least e-bike related to I set that aside. The measurement appears to be the width of the mesh set flat, which is how it comes.

-The 10mm is great for larger wires. I have 3 10ga wires and a 10ga-equivalent hall wire set in my 10mm.

-The 6mm stuff is perfect. It is the stuff to stock up on. You can use it for a few 12ga wires, all your throttle wires, little misc. wires running up to your handlebars... This stuff is awesome.

This stuff works like a finger trap you may have had as a kid. It gets tighter if you pull on it and looser if you push it together. The more you streach it out, the more transparent it gets. Transparency might become a problem if you try to stuff too many wires into it. You can also double it up if you want, but I don't think it is neccessary.

The 6 and 10mm costs $.50/meter. I will be buying much more in the future.

BEFORE


AFTER (I used a stun gun case I had lying around to try and cover up the wires coming right out of the controller)


Close-Ups

6mm


10mm


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The Camera

At first I was amazed at how small it is. I expected it to be bigger. It is 2 1/4" tall and 3/4" length and width at it's widest points.

It didn't come with any instructions, and it needs to be hooked up with the included usb cord and charged a little before it will turn on. It doesn't really need any instructions to tell the truth.

I did a couple short video tests, but I wont post anything until this weekend, if the weather is good. As of now, inside, the video quality is pretty bad, if you're moving. It really smears movement. The resolution is great standing still; hopefully it will be better outside withe more light.

This might be due to the SD card tho, and I will probably get another one if the video ends up bad. We'll have to see.





Updates this weekend!

[Metallover]

I couldn't stop myself from updating. I made a very shot test video of the camera; there will be a much better one this weekend.

my photobucket vid - http://s345.photobucket.com/albums/p382 ... ytest2.flv

I moved the controller to a better spot. I had to put it upside down to fit, but even upside down the controller looks a lot better then it used to.



The clanliness of the rest of the bike will hopefully motivate me enough to redo the battey holder!

[Hyena]

Your controller looks better there,much neater.

As of now, inside, the video quality is pretty bad, if you're moving. It really smears movement. The resolution is great standing still; hopefully it will be better outside withe more light.

This might be due to the SD card tho, and I will probably get another one if the video ends up bad. We'll have to see.

I have one too and that's pretty much how they are. They basically decrease the shutter speed to let in enough light and then it ends up smeary. Alot of camera aren't brilliant in low light and for $20 you can't expect too much!

[Metallover]

Pre-ride update

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I got that spoke wrench made! I have to say that messing with the spokes is a PITA! Took me over 2 hours and the wheel still isn't perfectly true, but the spokes are tight. I got my standard spoke wrench and dremeled one end so it just fit around the chinese spokes. Now I have a standard/metric hybrd wrench!

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I rode 18 miles yesterday. I tried taking a video but my mount was bad AND there was a drop of water on the lens... It was pretty wet yesterday as it rained all morning. I had the silicone case on the camera and it's working fine today. It was mounted on the front of the frame.

I got a speed map of my ride! (click on it to make it bigger)



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Messing with GPS maps I ended up making an account at Everytrail.com and if you are interested in seeing it, here ya go

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=521906

It shows a map with a speed/elevation graph next to it and you can click play and it moves a dot along the map and a line across the graph and you can see that and it's pretty cool and all.

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Today I will wear attach my camera to my helmet and test it before I take off. It should be done raining by no so no water either!

[Metallover]

Today's ride was great. I went 18 miles to a town called Valley Springs and back. I got a video with a helmet cam. A mile away from my house, I started to run out of battery. My battery monitor (the device that tells me if my battery drops below 3.2v/cell) worked great. The light turned red and I could easily hear the beep. I slowed down then finally about the third time it went off I started pedaling and made it the last half mile home without assist.



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Here's the video!

The camera stopped recording after 30 minutes and 36 seconds. I think it ran out of memory on the 2gb card. The .AVI file it made was 1.86gb. There was nothing else on the card when I recorded this.

I think the camera did a pretty good job and overall I am happy with it. Of course, youtube took some quality off of it and if you want I can upload it for direct download if you are really interested in the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvlOTQ-wsYw


Comments/concerns welcome as always

[mwkeefer]

Metallover,

Not sure if anyone answered, I skimmed the thread but couldn't find it so...

The pre-charge spark preventor is actually quite simple, it's a pre-charge resistor which limits the current flow on initial connection and literally stops/prevents the spark (not enough current flowing through at once to generate sparking).

The reason you get a spark when connecting normally, even if the controller power is off (if your controller has a turn on lead) is because of the Capacitors on the input side of the controller. These attempt to draw energy as fast as they can (current) from your battery pack when connected with no resistance.

The resistor allows the capacitor to charge slowly by again, preventing current spikes from passing through... once the caps are charged... the main connector is plugged in... a quick example of this without the resistor - if your controller has a standby/off switch... connect to your pack, the resistor method then disconnect the power and simply connect the discharge + and - and you will get no spark upon completion of the circuit. This is because the capacitors are already charged up and since the controller stayed off between disconnects there was no drain on them so they are fully charged still.

Just thought I might elaborate on how that works for everyone's benefit.

-Mike

[Metallover]

Yes,yes.. I figured all that out and posted some pics a page or two back. Thanks for elaborating though! The resistor came unsoldered today acutally (my first bad solder joint!) and I am going to re-solder it tonight.

And the video is still processing so the quality isn't up to par yet. Hopefully it gets way better. Watching it on my computer after converting i can see the speed on the GPS when the video pauses.

[biohazardman]

Nice werq on the relocation of the controller and wiring upgrades looks much cleaner.

[mwkeefer]

Metallover,

I don't know what type of power your pulling but I have seen many people do this with a relay and a dpdt switch, there are even some nifty automatic timed circuits out there.

I'm only suggesting this because then the resistor stays mounted, you connect your power plug to the pack with the switch in the pre-charge mode... then when your ready to go, flip the switch and engage the relays (however many you need to isolate VCC at your voltage / current).

Personally I have a small circuit based on a 555 timer IC which handles my pre-charge delay and then engages a pair of automotive SPDT relays (wired in parallel) on VCC... normally closed runs through the precharge resistor (so it's in precharge mode on plug in), flip the power up switch and .... the relays engage the normally open side which then allows the pack VCC to directly pass to the controller.

I've run as much as 62.7v @ 69A through this arrangement with no issues.

Hope it helps!

-Mike

[Metallover]

Thank you for the information on the switch! Lots of those things have ran through my mind, and this summer as I start "parking" the bike more as I use it for real transportation, I'll need refinements like that. A good keyed switch will be needed.

I got tired of the batteries in the back so I moved them up front. Balance is way better now and it'll be good for jumping this summer. I need to find a good material to put over the packs (in place of the towl) and I need to finish making a good battery hold-down. The material I put over the batteries would ideally be waterproff, durable, and good looking,, but I'll probably have to comprimise.

















I like the new seat position. I grew up riding bmx bikes so the low seat really fits. The batteries are just narrow enough so it doesn't really interfere with my peadaling. I'll report more on that after I get another ride in.

[etard]

It looks great man, Have you thought about using heat wrap film or spandex stretched over it? Are you gonna make a video racing somebody?

[nicobie]

You might try this stuff. .99/roll and comes in a bunch of colors. Easy to wrap and can be re-used if careful.

I use it all the time. It's great for hiding wires and whatnot.

http://www.jefferspet.com/ssc/product.a ... id=0029430

[Metallover]

Thanks for the replies! All things mentioned looks like good options. Something streachy would definately be good. I think the spandex/bandages would be extra good also, because of the breathability of the material; My batteries may get hot this summer, who knows.

And by racing somone, do you mean a car? That sounds like fun, and I'll look into that.

[etard]

Well earlier you showed a kid on a scooter that didn't want a piece, find a scooter or a car would be good to compare acceleration.

[doc007]

My batteries may get hot this summer, who knows.

Nice build!

Maybe you can rig a box out of those L shaped metal brackets you used. It looks like two might fit well together to form a nice box. This might help protect the expensive batts if you take a fall. Also, the metal may help dissipate any heat build-up during the summer. If heat really becomes an issue you might be able to drill some holes into the metal.

I think it would look pretty cool considering the rest of your bike has that metallic look to it. Also, it will camouflage into the bike to help deter any unwanted attention. That is, of course, if you're going for the stealth look.

[Metallover]

I made a new video, and I tried to make this one more interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7XDgA6B9g

[Metallover]

Two questions today. I switched the brakes around so the rear brakes are on my left and I can do wheelies now! Beofre I go out and break something, does anyone have any tips on how to wheelie on an ebike?

I noticed that there seems to be a limit on my ecrazyman controller. It seems like it's limited to either 1500w or 20a. Is there a factory power limit? If so, how do I remove it?

[johnrobholmes]

Some people like to wheelie standing, some like to sit down. Try both and see what works best for you. Don't go overboard on it and smoke your motor or ESC though Lots of starting and stopping puts the hurt on stuff.