MAC motor + Trek 4300 build

[neptronix]

My motor is better than yours!

It may be, if you have steel cover plates. I can't run disc brakes until i get new cover plates.

Well, guess who got a toy in the mail yesterday ....
A meanwell 48v S-350 from sureelectronics!
Looks to be genuine, or at least a DAMN good copy. Good enough for me.
Voltage adjustment is rather high, from 39.8v to 59.3v !!

I promptly cut the shunt, after reading that it would put out 7 amps after cutting it.



And promptly threw away this AC power cord with it that is both dangerous and terribly undersized.... look at this thing, it's smaller than the balance wires on my lipo batteries!!!



Wired it up.



6.67 amps.... .... damnit.. i should have done the resistor mod.. i was just worried about the buzzing..
But... it's not buzzing so, hey. That's good. However at 10S & 41.0v, i am running way under it's capacity.



Maybe this will spur me to switch over to 12S or 13S land.
At 12S ( 49.2v ), that's only 328 watts.
At 13S ( 53.3v ), that's 355.511 watts.

Both are well within the range of the power this unit can produce, so.. hm....

[o00scorpion00o]

Interesting stuff David,


So will you take that charger with you while out and about or use it as your main charger?


Does it cut off when the battery is chargerd? I'm sure it senses when the current drops? I think There was a vid posted here a while ago of someone using a meanwell but with much higher current and I think he used a battery medic to balance which I think would be rather slow? But you are lucky that you don't need to balance much!

I would be afraid of using too much voltage or not enough to charge my 12S.

By the way David that's a very impressive job you did with your torque arms, it looks super tidy, you would think it was an origional part of the bike. I'm waiting for the adjustable torque arm from Ampedbikes, The dropouts on my bike are really awkward!

I can't wait to get test out the mac, but it's soooo cold for May and the wind bla I think I'll move to Oregan! Ha or California, hell I bet even New York has better weather than we do! . People who live in good climates don't know how lucky they are lol I just hope it gets better when I get the bike sorted!

Mark
Mark

[neptronix]

Interesting stuff David,

So will you take that charger with you while out and about or use it as your main charger?

Yeah, if need be. But it will stay home for the most part. Need to make the wiring a bit more um.. kosher before it hits the road. And there is a wobbly transformer that needs securing inside. Other than that, it would make a great portable charger.. meanwell even sells a 200w unit that looks like it can be modded as such, and is smaller too.

Does it cut off when the battery is chargerd? I'm sure it senses when the current drops? I think There was a vid posted here a while ago of someone using a meanwell but with much higher current and I think he used a battery medic to balance which I think would be rather slow? But you are lucky that you don't need to balance much!

I would be afraid of using too much voltage or not enough to charge my 12S.

Nope, it is not designed to cut off at a certain amperage, it should just float at a very low amp level until the battery is disconnected. As the battery nears the end of the charge though, current will slowly taper off until the battery holds it's voltage.

As for charging too high, see the wattmeter.. i can adjust the voltage via the potentiometer in the front.. not too hard, just multiply your target average cell voltage by the number of cells and set the meanwell to that voltage.

If you're nervous about it though, you can look into one of those bmsbattery shell chargers. They do make really high watt ones.

BTW what's on my bike is torque plates not torque arms. sorry to correct you but they are two distinct things. Li-ghtcycle made those for me. Thank god for local ebikers with a garage PLUS a surplus of time on their hands cuz that took forever..

The weather here sucks too, i only get out maybe once a week. next week's forecast is more intermittent rain and constant cloud cover with the threat of a sudden vicious downpour.

New york is mid 70F and sunny 80% of the week right now.
London is getting 4 more sunny days over the next 10 days.

Almost halfway through the year and we haven't had more than 3 days of consecutive sun yet.

http://beta.weather.com/weather/tenday/USOR0275

If your weather is worse than this, then yeah i feel bad for ya.

[o00scorpion00o]

I would be afraid of using too much voltage or not enough to charge my 12S.

Nope, it is not designed to cut off at a certain amperage, it should just float at a very low amp level until the battery is disconnected. As the battery nears the end of the charge though, current will slowly taper off until the battery holds it's voltage.

So does that mean you will overcharge it if you don't disconnect it?

As for charging too high, see the wattmeter.. i can adjust the voltage via the potentiometer in the front.. not too hard, just multiply your target average cell voltage by the number of cells and set the meanwell to that voltage.

Okay so 4.15 volts x 12 = 49.8. so setting it to 50 volts should do?

I'm assuming the charger will have to cc or cv or both?

If you're nervous about it though, you can look into one of those bmsbattery shell chargers. They do make really high watt ones.

Ah I think for now the 20 amp I charger will more than meet my needs and It's tiny, and the power supply isn't any bigger than my 5 amp ping charger. So on the rare occasion I need to top up from home it will do!

BTW what's on my bike is torque plates not torque arms. sorry to correct you but they are two distinct things. Li-ghtcycle made those for me. Thank god for local ebikers with a garage PLUS a surplus of time on their hands cuz that took forever..[/quote]

Indeed you are correct, just a bad habit, like saying amps instead of ah for battery capacity!

The weather here sucks too, i only get out maybe once a week. next week's forecast is more intermittent rain and constant cloud cover with the threat of a sudden vicious downpour.

New york is mid 70F and sunny 80% of the week right now.
London is getting 4 more sunny days over the next 10 days.

Almost halfway through the year and we haven't had more than 3 days of consecutive sun yet.

http://beta.weather.com/weather/tenday/USOR0275

If your weather is worse than this, then yeah i feel bad for ya.

Well 30 mph gusts are not nice and 20 mph winds all the time the last few weeks, sometimes stronger sometimes less, but always windy!

So that's why I need an E-Bike lol

Look at the pic and I'm 5 miles north of the Carlow station!

pic 1.jpg

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London is a fair bit away and they usually get better weather than we do, though Wales and Scotland would get pretty much the same, though I think Ireland is far wetter especially the west and north, and windy as we get the full blast of the Atlantic!

I think the temps there and here are around the same and the weather, though the wind chill makes it a lot cooler here and it makes out door activities less appealing. It's funny when you look at satellite pics of the mainland mostly clear all the time apart from a few crazy thunderstorms now and then, but it can get very hot there and we don't get extremes like some places!

I love talking about weather!

Right I'm off to check my freewheel,

Mark

[neptronix]

I would be afraid of using too much voltage or not enough to charge my 12S.

Nope, it is not designed to cut off at a certain amperage, it should just float at a very low amp level until the battery is disconnected. As the battery nears the end of the charge though, current will slowly taper off until the battery holds it's voltage.

So does that mean you will overcharge it if you don't disconnect it?

That means that it won't overcharge if you leave it connected.
Can't put amps in something that isn't asking for amps

It is the voltage difference of the battery pack VS the charger's voltage that makes the battery require amps to fill it up. If you have ever used a lipo charger, you will know that when the target voltage is achieved, the amp draw starts to gradually decrease. This is not a function of the charger really, more like a function of electricity. If you have a watt meter connected to a battery on any charger actually, you will see this.

So with no load on the meanwell since the battery voltage and meanwell voltage are the same, the meanwell will only pump out power when the battery voltage drops... which will naturally occur just a tiny bit with any lithium battery. So overall, the charger may be putting 0.00001 amps into the battery constantly since the battery can't keep it's voltage elevated ( it will naturally settle a bit lower )

There is a more technically correct way to explain this, but i have explained it the best way i can in layman's terms.

And the best way to understand it is with a watt meter and your eyes

Okay so 4.15 volts x 12 = 49.8. so setting it to 50 volts should do?
I'm assuming the charger will have to cc or cv or both?

You are correct.
The meanwell does CC/CV naturally, so yes. ( the CV part is when the voltage is held constant, and the amps are gradually declining as the battery is more able to hold the target voltage on it's own. )

That sucks about the wind and chillyness. Ok, i'll stop whining about the weather, you win

[o00scorpion00o]

Thanks for explaining that David!

I may use a meanwell in the future but for now I'll be happy with the Icharger, I have to get used to LiPo first, and hopefully I won't burn the house down when I first connect it all together!

Check out the 1500 watt meanwell, adjustable voltage from 43.2-56 volts. 31 amps that would charge my 8ah 12S pretty quick

Even the 16 ah pack would charge pretty fast!

[o00scorpion00o]

Would I be able to charge my 16ah pack with the meanwell or would I have to break it down into 8ah and charge them separately?

[neptronix]

PMing you the answer, in the interest of keeping my build thread less cluttered.

[neptronix]

I was pedaling along with my girlfriend today, getting groceries etc. aaaannd.. bam, pedal power slips. Motor goes all wobbly on the freewheel side, and it starts rubbing up against my brake etc. and i hobble home...

I have the old plate cover but i thought that if i didn't stand on the pedals or do anything stupid, i wouldn't break this..
Well, this motor is a bookend until i get a new freewheel side motor cover...

[spinningmagnets]

Okay so 4.15 volts x 12 = 49.8. so setting it to 50 volts should do?

o00scorpion00o, I highly recommend you adjust for 49V instead of 50V, as 49.2V equals 4.1V per cell in a 12S pack. I am told packs don't live as long and have more individual cell balancing headaches at any voltage above that. Many LiPo chargers will charge to 4.15 or 4.2V per cell to squeeze a little more distance from the pack (doesn't really add up to much more, though), and the Lithium-Ion (LiIo) setting charges to 4.1V per-cell. Also, due to the normal variances in any product, your charger and even your volt-meter can easily be off by 0.2V

Neptronix, I'm sorry to see the breakage. I am glad you are being honest about it instead of hiding it. I still like cell_man, but if there is a QA or design problem, then it needs to be fixed as soon as possible. I am also planning to buy the 500W rear MAC, but I plan to use it as a non-hub on a cargo bike similar to John-in-CRs super-V mount, so hopefully there will be less stress on the axles and sidecovers for my application.

[neptronix]

spinningmagnets: I know cell_man will take care of me since he has in the past, but this is definitely aggravating.
Apparently they MAC has fixed this issue since, so i basically just have an older cover plate.

I think i will order a DD motor in the meantime.

[neptronix]

yay, i have a DD kit coming my way and updated versions of both cover plates.

I will survive i suppose. Will go pedal off some of the winter layer in the next week.

[o00scorpion00o]

yay, i have a DD kit coming my way and updated versions of both cover plates.

I will survive i suppose. Will go pedal off some of the winter layer in the next week.

That's the stuff!

Could have been the good lords way of telling you to shed the lbs?

Spinningmagnets, thanks for that, I'm still trying to keep the numbers in my head. My Icharger can be set to 4.1.

Hey David, wasn't it lucky you weren't standing up that time while putting pressure on those peddles???


Mark

[o00scorpion00o]

What direct drive motor are you getting David? and what voltage are you going to use?

[Racer_X]

What direct drive motor are you getting David? and what voltage are you going to use?

+1

[neptronix]

Just the basic DD that comes in the cell_man kit.

Voltage? as high as it will go. Will start at 56v nominal, and probably go up to 76v nominal if it can handle it.
I think i will also start doing all the 9C mods to it too.

Or hell, maybe the girlfriend bike will get the DD and i'll keep the MAC. as long as i have two working and fast ebikes, to fend off the withdrawals

[o00scorpion00o]

76 volts David, Oh yeahhh

I think you have to dump lots of current into direct drives to get decent torque out of them, not a problem though really unless you got lots of steep hills, though I think higher voltage gives you extra torque also!

I can't wait to test my Mac to see how it compares to my old magic pie!

Oh yeah definitely give your girlfriend the slower motor!

Now if I could get my girlfriend on any kind of a bike I'd be happy!


Mark

[neptronix]

Well, the bike is still down & am waiting for parts. Should be here saturday or early next week.

In the meantime, been converting my lipos that have a funky / dead cell into what i call neptigy lipos.. hehe:



You know, doing cell surgery on lipos is not all that bad really.
This is a little 2S pack that i'll use on my lights in lieu of a DC-DC converter since i will be experimenting with lots of varied voltages.



The more i read this forum, the more i realize how little i know about electronics.. i don't even know how to read an electrical schematic.. so i got this off craigslist to poke around and learn. Pretty humbling but you have to start somewhere.

Other than that, been pedaling on my hybrid bike a lot. Seeing how fast i can go through speed traps, doing hill climbs and building up my strength for the day that the weather stops sucking.

Overcast and very humid here lately though. Sucks.

[amberwolf]

I started with something a little like that, only much simpler and less cool-looking, for an "electronics" kit. I think mine had a transistor, but no ICs, not even LEDs. Relays, diodes, lamps. Mmm, a tiny motor, AM antenna coil like yours, speaker. I think that's it. 9V battery clip.

Mostly I ended up learning the very basics from a ham-radio friend I met due to a bike crash on a gravel road, then the RadioShack Forrest Mims III books and booklets (you should get those, if you can; they're nifty and have some useful stuff in them that can be adapted to bike-useful circuits). DeVry came after that, but really if I didn't already know something I would've dropped out, as they didn't really teach anything, they expected you to learn it on your own after some in-class "explanations". A couple of teachers were exceptional, but not most. (at LEAST 3/4 of my starting class quit before the end of the first trimester!)

It's not hard...just...takes time to learn. Some concepts are difficult at first, but suddenly BLAM you get them and lots of other things are easy after that. Like transistors, which I couldn't grasp, for years, until one teacher's explanation (which I wish I could remember) just suddenly lit my brain up.

[neptronix]

Thanks for the peptalk, amberwolf
I had one of these when i was 12 but only succeeded in making some kind of AC power supply out of a nicad gameboy battery which eventually caused the battery to suffer a meltdown. I think the kit got taken away from me after that, LOL.

That sucks about Devry, i was always wary of schools like that. I think people do learn differently.. i for example am very visual.. show me how it works and i will grasp it instantly.. explain theory and metaphysical stuff for a few minutes and i'm lost.

I have learned a ton about electronics on this forum, but felt like a total idiot when i first come here and occasionally still do. I am a true believer that electric drive is the way of the future, so i'd like to know more..

[amberwolf]

The nice thing about electric drive is that if you look around you, and you know what you're looking for, you might be able to pull parts off stuff junked on the sidewalk or in a nearby alley to fix the thing well enough to get home if it breaks while on the road. Heck, you could even rewind a motor with wire off transformers and such, if you *had* to.

That's not quite as likely with a typical ICE, although there are things you can fix on those with some duct tape that wouldnt' be possible on an electric drive.

[neptronix]

Hah, maybe on your bike.
I didn't know you could use transformer wire for the task.. it has the enamel on it and all that?

But if eBikes get more popular, it would be cool to find brushless hub motors on the side of the road, lol..

Anyway lookie at what i got in the mail today.



DD kit as a backup, or maybe as the girlfriend bike motor



63v caps and a shunt that's just asking for some solder on it. I think i'll keep it stock though since it is a backup and all.



Found a 'new old stock' shimano megarange freewheel on eBay, that arrived today too. Paid $50 for it.. not a bad deal IMHO considering how rare it is. DNP 11t freewheel on the right, which surprisingly, is holding up well.



But i won't be riding today. Looks like i could get stuck in a downpour... in the middle of summer..

[o00scorpion00o]

Hey david,

Wow that got there quick!

haha That direct drive looks big compared to the mac doesn't it?

That's a strange looking heatsink on those fet's what controller is it?

how many volts are oyu going to run through there?

Downpour in summer? you think that's bad, I had to clear frost of the car this morning on the 10th June? wtf?

That DD is going to be slow compared to the mac, give it to your girlfriend!

[neptronix]

Sea shipping from coastal China is amazingly fast.. seriously.. one week! And it had to travel 1000 miles north by land to get to me. O_O

Yeah, it's damned big.. and heavy too.
That controller is the stock MXUS kit one. It's a 6FET i believe. Not programmable, and set to 22 amps.

The DD is slow, it's an 8 turn motor so it will need 60-72 volts to produce the same speed that the MAC does, but i have a feeling that it is going to have beastly torque so i'm excited to test it out. I think i'll start at 15S and see what happens.

You've got frost where you live? oh dude. that's bad.

[o00scorpion00o]

Yep went to the car at 6am to be greeted by ice on the car, this is F*****g nuts, was gone soon enough but still!

I don't think that DD will have great torque at 22 amps? and you might need to install 12G to go higher

However at 72 volts it should fly!

Why did you get with the DD if you don't mind me asking? considering the mac is so powerful with less voltage!