Intense M3 + Clyte HT3525 + HD video

[Whiplash]

Any news in the bike? Anxiously awaiting pics!!

[Timma2500]

Hey Whip,

Nothing to show yet
I just received my 18fet 4110 controller and 3spd throttle from Cell-Man last week and have been in the process of figuring out which orientation to mount it so i don't have wires going everywhere inside the frame.

The CA will be here soon and i'll be ordering spokes from JRH hopefully next week.

I've also started work on my girlfriend's Mac / Bighit build so i'm having to divide what little time i have between the two...

I should have some pics by mid next week at the latest


Paul

[Timma2500]

Side profile

001.JPG (213.68 KiB) Viewed 1403 times

Controller mounted.

Wiring cover

004.JPG (200.62 KiB) Viewed 1403 times

Wiring cover sticky taped in position. This will be a bolt on item to keep crud out and wiring hidden.
I'm yet to weld it to the plate that bolts to the frame so the gap at the front of it will be closed up when its welded.

3mm mount

007.JPG (185.87 KiB) Viewed 1403 times

I welded (rather roughly and quickly) a 3mm plate front and rear for the M5 screws to have 6mm total material to screw into.


The controller will be mounted in reverse to how its shown in the pics. Most of the wiring will exit at the front while i'll be re-routing the phase and hall wires out the rear of the controller to go directly to the back wheel. I'll make another cover for the rear which will be a little taller to protect the bottom of the controller and motor wiring from debris and mostly for protection from bottoming out on log crossings ect.

Slow progress at the moment but getting there!


Paul

[lostrack]

that looks SO GOOD:)

well done!

[Whiplash]

LOOKS GREAT! I have to live vicariously through others at this point until I get my new TIG, hopefuly soon!! I think I am going with one I found on eBay for a reasonable price, the Everlast brand. It looks good, comes with a regulator and all the little bits to get going and is cheap for a pedal upgrade. I can get it all shipped to my door for $850. so not bad at all! Now I just need money! I saw a comparison of the Everlast VS the Miller and it actually did better than the Miller believe it or not on the thinner walled stuff, which is what I need it for mostly so it should be a good welder. I had a Miller Synchrowave 250DX in the past, which is a hell of a lot better welder, but hey this should get the job done...

The best part is its really small since its the Inverter style so its only 40LBS and smaller than a box of paper!

[Timma2500]

Cheers guys.

Whip: $850 shipped is cheap as chips, beg borrow or steal to get it! Mine was relatively cheap too and it has surprised me in the past with the quality of welds it can produce. Not so much on this build as most of these welds were done in a hurry with less than ideal settings but in previous workplaces i've used it, its been a trooper

Miller and Kempi make some nice machines but you pay a high price for them... You might be pleasantly surprised by the cheaper machine

On the build front, i got the front wiring cover installed but i'm not sure i like it I'll mull over it for a while and see if it grows on me, otherwise i'll make another later down the track.

I'm still yet to order spokes from JRH but atleast my CA should be getting posted tomorrow and arriving soon.
Another thing i'd like to try with this bike is an external charging / balancing port. Pulling batteries out for charging gets to be a pain after a while and having a side cover thats bolts on rather than QR is a bit neater too.

Can anyone suggest a 20s Lipo charging / balancing solution?

Paul

[sn0wchyld]

not sure if it'll be news to you but using db connectors is great. personally i'm using a db35 for my 24s setup. it lets me have 1 pin for each cell for balancing, and 5 pins for the overall pack's +/- terminals, so I can bulk charge and balance with 1 plug. (I us battery medics atm...).

this guy
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37489&start=60#p546887
has what i'd call the perfect setup. 1 plug to switch from series to parallel for charging. and no chance of stuffing up!

[Timma2500]

SnOwy,

Yeah Tench probably has the best charging setup on the site! I'd love to replicate it but wouldn't even know where to start...

I've never seen the DB connectors before, but they might be the way to go. Do you have any pics of your setup? What do you use to charge your 24s pack?
And how do you balance using the battery medics?

I'm an electrical numpty and feel that this side of the build will be the hardest to figure out for me by far...


Paul

EDIT: Ah yes, i've seen those connectors before on pc's etc. Do you have any links on where to buy some?

[Timma2500]

SnOwy,

I can't find any db35s but have found several db37s on ebay:

$(KGrHqV,!lME1F9)FM4GBNcMdM759w~~_12.jpg (129.69 KiB) Viewed 1267 times

ux_a11052700ux0004_ux_g01.jpg (24.93 KiB) Viewed 1267 times

Are these the type you were refering to?
Is there much difference or preference between using a male or female on the bike itself?


Paul

[sn0wchyld]

SnOwy,

Yeah Tench probably has the best charging setup on the site! I'd love to replicate it but wouldn't even know where to start...

I've never seen the DB connectors before, but they might be the way to go. Do you have any pics of your setup? What do you use to charge your 24s pack?
And how do you balance using the battery medics?

I'm an electrical numpty and feel that this side of the build will be the hardest to figure out for me by far...


Paul

EDIT: Ah yes, i've seen those connectors before on pc's etc. Do you have any links on where to buy some?

i generally use the female on the bike/battery side. just a safety measure... if you use the male ones for the battery side, there's a small risk of them getting bent and shorting out, where's that risk is non-existant with the female side.

Check out Jaycar, they've got the 37's. Ill try and get some pics up for you later today...

For charging I basically have the top and bottom 5 pins going direct to the +/- terminals for my 24s pack, and I bulk charge via those. The other pins go to a bunch of battery medics for balancing. sadly id doesn't work as well as I'd like, because whenever cell 1 or 6 on one BM is being discharged then it causes the next battery medic to misread the voltage of their 1st or 6th cell by about .2V, so balancing takes a while since I have to balance cells 1-6 and 13-18 separate from 7-12 and 19-24. all in all though not a big problem... If you can build something like tench'es single plug that'd be the best of both worlds!

[Timma2500]

Some progress...

005.JPG (203.5 KiB) Viewed 1143 times

CA turned up, thanks Jay!

003.JPG (196.88 KiB) Viewed 1143 times

Battery cover made, screwed on directly with 4 x M5 titanium screws. I'll be charging the batteries in bike this time so no need for a QR.

009.JPG (182.51 KiB) Viewed 1143 times

New seat, WTB V Speed. Same as my last bike had. My current seat cains my ass after a few kms and i end up limping the next day lol.

010.JPG (188.01 KiB) Viewed 1143 times

Placement for the CA in-frame. I'll do some cutouts for the display and buttons. It'll take some getting used to, looking at it at a 90deg angle but i only want to use it as a fuel gauge, mostly when stopping to let the HT cool down so it'll be fine.

Spokes are on the way from Ebikes.ca so it'll be wheel building time again soon, i just rebuilt Mel's BigHit's front wheel lastnight, converting it to 24" to match the rear.

SnOwy - female on the bike side makes sense, good thinking. Are these plugs able to be screwed down to a flat surface?
Yeah i think i'll go for a 37pin as well. Why do the battery medics do that, have you figured out why?
Haha yeah i'd love to copy Tench's setup, if he reveals exactly how he did it i may try to copy it. Maybe...

Paul

[sn0wchyld]

Some progress...

005.JPG

CA turned up, thanks Jay!

003.JPG

Battery cover made, screwed on directly with 4 x M5 titanium screws. I'll be charging the batteries in bike this time so no need for a QR.

009.JPG

New seat, WTB V Speed. Same as my last bike had. My current seat cains my ass after a few kms and i end up limping the next day lol.

010.JPG

Placement for the CA in-frame. I'll do some cutouts for the display and buttons. It'll take some getting used to, looking at it at a 90deg angle but i only want to use it as a fuel gauge, mostly when stopping to let the HT cool down so it'll be fine.

Spokes are on the way from Ebikes.ca so it'll be wheel building time again soon, i just rebuilt Mel's BigHit's front wheel lastnight, converting it to 24" to match the rear.

SnOwy - female on the bike side makes sense, good thinking. Are these plugs able to be screwed down to a flat surface?
Yeah i think i'll go for a 37pin as well. Why do the battery medics do that, have you figured out why?
Haha yeah i'd love to copy Tench's setup, if he reveals exactly how he did it i may try to copy it. Maybe...

Paul

yea mate m3 is the usual sizing i think. they can be a bit of a pita to get a good close fit, as you've only got a mm or less tolerance if you want the screwed down piece to be 100% flush. Mines just mounted in a pvc case so its kinda crude. you can make a basic cap for it by buying another male plug and cutting the pins off the back, and sealing it up with some silicone or similar.

I'm guessing the way trench did it was with 2 blocks of plastic, with the internals gouged out to fit the wires/plugs etc, before the two halves were screwed or glued together to form one piece, with all the connections housed internally. damn it makes me want to buy a mill.

not sure yet on the bm's. I've got an idea that might reduce the problem, though I need to test it before I know if it'll work at all. It would basically mean you'd use unmodified BM's (less drain current) but in balance mode, so although they take a while to balance a pack, you could set them to start from 3.9 or 4v during a bulk charge, which should give 'em enough time to balance the pack (well enough atleast). I'll let you know how it goes.

[Timma2500]

A quicky update:

003.JPG (200.32 KiB) Viewed 1092 times

I ended up getting some 13ga Sapim spokes through Justin @ Ebikes.ca. The HT's oem holes are waaaay too large for 13ga so a quick zip with the drill and a 3mm drill bit sorted that.

014.JPG (196.22 KiB) Viewed 1092 times

One laced wheel. My first hub motor lace-up, bitch of a job but got there in the end Just gotta do some final trueing and tensioning and it'll be good to go.

007.JPG (202.01 KiB) Viewed 1092 times

009.JPG (203.45 KiB) Viewed 1092 times

Next jobs: make a start on the torque arms, cut a hole in the frame / make internal mount for the CA, start on wiring...

yea mate m3 is the usual sizing i think. they can be a bit of a pita to get a good close fit, as you've only got a mm or less tolerance if you want the screwed down piece to be 100% flush. Mines just mounted in a pvc case so its kinda crude. you can make a basic cap for it by buying another male plug and cutting the pins off the back, and sealing it up with some silicone or similar.

M3 is cool, i might have some in my RC spares stash. Tolerance will be ok, i'll muck around with it till i get it right... The cap sounds like a good idea, i'll try that

I'm guessing the way trench did it was with 2 blocks of plastic, with the internals gouged out to fit the wires/plugs etc, before the two halves were screwed or glued together to form one piece, with all the connections housed internally. damn it makes me want to buy a mill.

Yeah that sounds about right, probably easier if you've got a mill... one day!

not sure yet on the bm's. I've got an idea that might reduce the problem, though I need to test it before I know if it'll work at all. It would basically mean you'd use unmodified BM's (less drain current) but in balance mode, so although they take a while to balance a pack, you could set them to start from 3.9 or 4v during a bulk charge, which should give 'em enough time to balance the pack (well enough atleast). I'll let you know how it goes.

What do you mean by unmodified BM's? Are your's modded?


Paul

[sn0wchyld]

A quicky update:

003.JPG

I ended up getting some 13ga Sapim spokes through Justin @ Ebikes.ca. The HT's oem holes are waaaay too large for 13ga so a quick zip with the drill and a 3mm drill bit sorted that.

014.JPG

One laced wheel. My first hub motor lace-up, bitch of a job but got there in the end Just gotta do some final trueing and tensioning and it'll be good to go.

007.JPG

009.JPG

Next jobs: make a start on the torque arms, cut a hole in the frame / make internal mount for the CA, start on wiring...

yea mate m3 is the usual sizing i think. they can be a bit of a pita to get a good close fit, as you've only got a mm or less tolerance if you want the screwed down piece to be 100% flush. Mines just mounted in a pvc case so its kinda crude. you can make a basic cap for it by buying another male plug and cutting the pins off the back, and sealing it up with some silicone or similar.

M3 is cool, i might have some in my RC spares stash. Tolerance will be ok, i'll muck around with it till i get it right... The cap sounds like a good idea, i'll try that

I'm guessing the way trench did it was with 2 blocks of plastic, with the internals gouged out to fit the wires/plugs etc, before the two halves were screwed or glued together to form one piece, with all the connections housed internally. damn it makes me want to buy a mill.

Yeah that sounds about right, probably easier if you've got a mill... one day!

not sure yet on the bm's. I've got an idea that might reduce the problem, though I need to test it before I know if it'll work at all. It would basically mean you'd use unmodified BM's (less drain current) but in balance mode, so although they take a while to balance a pack, you could set them to start from 3.9 or 4v during a bulk charge, which should give 'em enough time to balance the pack (well enough atleast). I'll let you know how it goes.

What do you mean by unmodified BM's? Are your's modded?


Paul

lookin very shmick mate! And I've just noticed that you've got removable dropouts on that thing... that'll give you some great options for custom ones! are you going to extend the wheelbase a bit?

I modded my BM's for higher discharge current, basically adding a 6ish ohm resistor in parallel with the ones that are already there. The main problem is they now really require a fan blowing on 'em to keep em from getting too hot (the resistors can just handle it ok, but the little fets they use get REALLY hot without some air blowing on them). So I want to wire 'em up in such a way that I can use the balance mode, and have each 6s string stay in balance with its neighbours. that way I can leave them unmodded, and have them enter 'balance mode' at around 4v or so.

I found recently too that tolerance can be overcome by large amounts of hot glue. I just riged up a 5ah booster pack for my handlebars, best part is its 1 plug to parallel the new 24s 5ah pack with my standard 10ah pack, both at the discharge leads and at the cell level. easy 50+km maniac riding range now!

What happened to that ple80 that you bought a while back? is that on a bike yet? I'm already thinking of other options for my mid drive build that'd make mine kinda useless, but at $300 im determined to at least use it once before I get rid of it...

[Timma2500]

001.JPG (164.5 KiB) Viewed 1049 times

003.JPG (189.26 KiB) Viewed 1049 times

009.JPG (186.12 KiB) Viewed 1049 times

012.JPG (222.64 KiB) Viewed 1049 times

CA installed. I was hoping to mount it without screws showing but in the end i got lazy and took the easy way out... I might tidy up the install and button holes later before getting the frame powdercoated.

Next job will be to externally mount the DB37 plug and start on the pinch bolt torque arms.

lookin very shmick mate! And I've just noticed that you've got removable dropouts on that thing... that'll give you some great options for custom ones! are you going to extend the wheelbase a bit?

Ta mate! Yeah its got bolt on dropouts but i'll be keeping them on there, can't be bothered to make complete new ones at the moment! I've got an idea for torque arms that will slip in to the dropouts so i'll work with that for now. Nah i won't be extending the wheelbase any more than i have with the front frame extension, that lengthened it by around 80mm which will be heaps.

I modded my BM's for higher discharge current, basically adding a 6ish ohm resistor in parallel with the ones that are already there. The main problem is they now really require a fan blowing on 'em to keep em from getting too hot (the resistors can just handle it ok, but the little fets they use get REALLY hot without some air blowing on them). So I want to wire 'em up in such a way that I can use the balance mode, and have each 6s string stay in balance with its neighbours. that way I can leave them unmodded, and have them enter 'balance mode' at around 4v or so.

Were they getting that hot before you modified them? What mode are they in before 4v? Do you know how many cells each can handle?

I found recently too that tolerance can be overcome by large amounts of hot glue. I just riged up a 5ah booster pack for my handlebars, best part is its 1 plug to parallel the new 24s 5ah pack with my standard 10ah pack, both at the discharge leads and at the cell level. easy 50+km maniac riding range now!

Haha, hot glue to the rescue! Awsome, do you just plug the booster pack in through your DB plug? Holy crap, do you get 50km+ out of your 15ah pack?!!!!

What happened to that ple80 that you bought a while back? is that on a bike yet? I'm already thinking of other options for my mid drive build that'd make mine kinda useless, but at $300 im determined to at least use it once before I get rid of it...

Still got the PLE, guna use it with an RC CA, an old unused HV140 and 80-100 i've got lying around. Their going into the Norco i built a few yrs ago. It'll cop a new frame to house it all.

Yeah you may as well use the gearbox, you paid good coin for it and their strong 'boxes so why not use it?!!!
Get a cheap 80-100, run 7kw through it, gear it appropriately and have a wheelie popping, hill climbing monster!


Paul

[Kepler]

Interesting approach with mounting the CA. Looks like it wont be too bad to read. Considering how narrow the frame is, I think the CA mount is a reasonable compromise. Some thick double sided tape over the buttons and some disc buttons on top should do the trick for changing screens. As usual, very nice

[Timma2500]

Cheers Kepler

Yeah it was a compromise, the new wide screen CA's are quite long - 128mmish but i wanted the frame to be fairly narrow - 100mm externally so it was always going to have to be mounted like this. Not preferable but still readable...

What do you mean by disc buttons? I've been trying to figure out what to do to tidy up the buttons....


Paul

[Kepler]

Actually better to use a thin strip of double sided tape across the buttons on the CA and then re fit it. Next cut out some 2 or 3mm thick discs to fit in the holes and stick to the double sided tape. You now have some extended buttons for your CA

[Kepler]

Actually better to use a thin strip of double sided tape across the buttons on the CA and then re fit it. Next cut out some 2 or 3mm thick discs to fit in the holes and stick to the double sided tape. You now have some extended buttons for your CA

[Ossielocal]

Now thats a very nice Build .

[dingoEsride]

Now thats a very nice Build .

Yeah Paul never fails to impress

[Timma2500]

Actually better to use a thin strip of double sided tape across the buttons on the CA and then re fit it. Next cut out some 2 or 3mm thick discs to fit in the holes and stick to the double sided tape. You now have some extended buttons for your CA

I like that idea, i might make the buttons from some 3mm carbon fibre to sit flush with the 3mm aluminium frame sheet. Thanks Kepler!

Thanks Ossielocal, i like your Trance build, very tidy with the triangle box.

Cheers Mark, i'm looking forward to seeing the Specialized up n running again soon

Update: I've ordered the Battery Medics and some 5s harnesses, 2 medics should do the trick for a 20s 10ah pack i think? Anyone?

Out of curiosity I weighed the bike tonight, it came in at about 32.7kg. Allowing say 1.3kg for torque arms, powder coating, small lightweight chain device and a bit of wiring, it should end up around the 34kg mark.
Considering i originally optimistically aimed for 30kg, i'm happy with that

Now gotta figure out how to charge and balance the bugger!

Paul

[Hyena]

Nice one mate, looking shmick!
Bolts to hold the CA in though ? You butcher
I would have used urethane or silicon or something to stick it on from the inside. Luck the rest of the build is sexy

Update: I've ordered the Battery Medics and some 5s harnesses, 2 medics should do the trick for a 20s 10ah pack i think? Anyone?

Fingers crossed you get some good ones, I ordered 5 from HK recently and only 1 was ok, the other 4 were inaccurate as shit.
With 2 medics you can balance half your pack at a time.
Personally if you want a good balance charging solution I'd get a 10S hobby charger and split your packs into 2 10S halves and parallel charge them.
If you want to do an all in one balance connector I recommend centronics over DB25 - they're easier to plug and unplug and it's less likely you'll short pins

[sn0wchyld]

Nice one mate, looking shmick!
Bolts to hold the CA in though ? You butcher
I would have used urethane or silicon or something to stick it on from the inside. Luck the rest of the build is sexy

Update: I've ordered the Battery Medics and some 5s harnesses, 2 medics should do the trick for a 20s 10ah pack i think? Anyone?

Fingers crossed you get some good ones, I ordered 5 from HK recently and only 1 was ok, the other 4 were inaccurate as shit.
With 2 medics you can balance half your pack at a time.
Personally if you want a good balance charging solution I'd get a 10S hobby charger and split your packs into 2 10S halves and parallel charge them.
If you want to do an all in one balance connector I recommend centronics over DB25 - they're easier to plug and unplug and it's less likely you'll short pins

its an utter pain in the ass finding good ones these days. I just bought a handfull of the 'blue case' ones off ebay, they seem very accurate, with the same 'red board' layout and components (ie larger fets than the yellow/green ones seem to have), but with one very major issue... some genius in the chinese engineering department thought it'd be a good idea to add a 'safety feature' where by the BM's wont go in to balance or discharge mode unless ALL cells are above the set balance/discharge voltage. So you cant plug 'em all in at the start of a charge and hit 'discharge' and leave 'em to do their thing... you need to wait until all the cells in that string are above the 4.1v or whatever you're balancing too, and only then can they be switched on!! WTF!?!?!?! if only I knew how to reprogram these Fing things they'd be perfect!

good call on the centronics too! I always figured they were pin types too, given the little holes in the female side...

Another option for you timma if you have the $... get two cellpro 10x or 10xp's... they can be put in sieries, then (if you get 2 10xp's) you've got a 1200W 20s balance charger !! I'm thinking of getting a 2nd powerlab8 once I've got a mid drive sorted since it'll probably be running on ~12-16s, then I'll have 2800W of balance charging POWER!

[Timma2500]

Chain device finished. 3mm carbon fibre backing plate, modified Paul's Chain Keeper and DMR roller. That chain aint going nowhere!
And no ebike build is complete without some lightening hole drilling I still wana do a bit more relieving of the Chain Keeper to sit closer to the Bash guard though.

002.JPG (178.3 KiB) Viewed 871 times

005.JPG (157.39 KiB) Viewed 871 times

007.JPG (212.89 KiB) Viewed 871 times

010.JPG (217.73 KiB) Viewed 871 times

Jay: Haha, yesss i'm a rough bastard sometimes and the CA installation was one of those times lol. I might plug weld the holes later and take your advice with the silicon How do Stealth hold theirs in?
Yeah at $14ea for the medics, i figured it'd be worth a shot. Wow 1 out of 5 is bad luck, did you order more or just give 'em a miss?
Have you got any further on the DiamondBack commuter build lately? We're overdue for an update

I've got two Hyperion 12s chargers i could use, but i'm not sure how i can use them to charge half a pack each while keeping them in the bike... Argh, this is starting to be the tooo hard basket! Are the DB plugs really that bad?

SnOwy: Do you mean you need to wait till all the cells are above 4.1v each before they will start balancing? If so, thats f*cking stupid!
Yeah righteo, i'll have a look around for these whiz bang centronics plugs....
Ouch! Those Cellpros look the goods but 2 of them starts to get expensive... Are they what you use? Hmm 2800w of charging power is tempting though!
Can you network both chargers together to charge 20s or do you charge each 10s half separately?

God i hate the electronics side of these things, give me fabricating / mechanical work any day!

Paul