ZOMGVTEK's 2011 Build Thread...

[ZOMGVTEK]

After over a month on backorder, the BM-6's and assorted other small stuff finally shipped out.

The bike should be fully assembled in about 2-4 weeks. I should get wire and connectors within a week or so, and the bike should be mostly done shortly after.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Wire and connectors showed up today. I think I have a plan for mounting the batts, so im holding out any major wiring until thats all set up.




The 4mm HXT's fit fairly poorly, as you can see. They are both slightly different designs and dont fully insert.


Charged up 2 packs and shoved them into a Priority Mail envelope. Add a little tape and its good to go.


I beefed up the traces to the FETs heavily, and apparently the current limit was indeed a bit high. About 90A, or just over 4KW loaded. I cut one of the 3 wires, its back down to 59.xx in stall, only 40's slammed WOT from standing. Thats good enough for now.

The bike is quite light. Its under 20lbs more than the bike stock, motor, controller, batts, etc included. But about 3-4Ah of useable capacity isnt good for much past 5-10 miles of abuse.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Everything I need is on the way, I should have everything I need to finish off my bike by the end of the week..

We decided to switch it up from 44.4V @ 20AH to 88.8v @ 10AH. This makes some minor changes in how the battery is set up, and we need more balance extensions and BM-6's to monitor the cells. I finished the pack harness, but don't have pictures of it just yet. This new config means we need new controllers, Lyen 12 FET's should be here in a few days. Got the 3 position switch, probably a 'kiddie' mode that limits speed to something like 25MPH, and only 2KW. Then the high power mode, 65A @ 120% throttle, should be close to 6KW with a fresh pack.



This is how im dealing with combing the 8 packs to make 4 Anderson's at 22.2V 10AH. The bike will have 4 Anderson's that connect to the pack, all in series, for 88.8V 10AH. The chargers will have 2 Anderson's each, charging 20AH @ 22.2V, 200W each. 400W total charging power, which I probably can handle for now. The bottom wire is continuous in the image, and is significantly longer than the top one. It was not tinned prior to wrapping with copper wire, crushing with pliers, and soldering in the later connections. Looks to be a very solid connection. I intentionally wicked as much solder into the finely stranded wire as possible, to solidify the connection, and help dissipate any possible heat generated into the length of the wire. I highly doubt the connection would ever get warm, let alone hot enough to melt the solder and rely on the copper wrap to hold things together. I'm actually anticipating the top wire has a bit more resistance at the junction to make up for the added 6" of wire the bottom lead has, to ensure even discharge. The balance wires are connected anyways to help balance cell voltages between the 2 packs. This will be covered with a hard heat shrink, and the entire 4 pack string will be covered with 5 mil shrink wrap, only 2 Anderson's and 2 6S balance extensions exposed.

I will take some pictures of the final harness as soon as I get more Anderson's in, right now one end has just bare wire. All of the 4MM HXT's are soldered. They're not that bad to deal with now that I did a dozen of them. This 200º silicone insulation on the Turnigy 10GA is great. It wont shrink back or melt as I pump solder into it.

[ZOMGVTEK]

A box from some 'Lyen' guy showed up today...





The e-bike parts stash is nearly complete. Just waiting on the 6s balance extensions to get back in stock in HK, the 6 more BM-6's on the same order, Anderson's, and 5mil shrink wrap.


The top shows one finished harness. The other 3 I don't have enough Anderson's for just yet.


This is one of the parallel balance plugs, need 3 more of these, and then a similar setup to charge 2x 12S2P packs.

The controllers are flashed to 57A Rated / 160A Phase, regen enabled, 3 position switch set to 30/50/120% throttle.
I will mess with it some more when the bikes fully configured, probably will need to beef it up a bit and run closer to 80A peak.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Andersons showed up today, along with the battery shrink wrap...












Thats the phase wire combo im using to get the Lyen controller running on the GM hub.


88.8V Harness!


Charged the batts up, read 100.1V hot off the charger...

Don't have any pics just yet, but the bikes up and running, and I clocked it at 40.5MPH... Its quite fast. I put the current down to 30A, which is still over 3KW in real life. I'm waiting until I get a good torque arm setup before I will feel confident running 6-7KW into the rear tire.

Its quite fast, going 40 MPH through a block at night, with no lights of any kind, reflectors, or protective gear. Im thinking we might want to wear helmets...

More pics will be added as the setup is finalized, and the other two bikes get somewhere. But for now, this setup is great. The batts are VERY solidly mounted, Id feel confident tipping the bike upside down, bumps are smooth.

[ZOMGVTEK]

I got my cheap 10mm wrenches in yesterday, got around to making a torque arm.
Only finished one, the other one will be done tomorrow, and current is going up.
They were about $3 each wrench, shipped. Quite the cheap and sturdy solution.




It turned out fairly well. Looks to be extremely sturdy, and fits very tight.




My fairly well calibrated speedo says over 40MPH... I will do a run with a GPS tomorrow.

The bike has been great thus far. 40 MPH is quite fast, considering its over the speed limit of most places I tend to ride my bike.

[ZOMGVTEK]

40.5 isnt bad...

[sn0wchyld]

PowerPole'd the chargers and PSU. Some of the stuff finally shipped from China, still waiting for the backordered 4mm HXT's so I dont have to cut off all the connectors on the LiPo.

Hey zomg what are you useing to gob up you terminals there?

And how long did it take hk to restock the hxts? Cause im waiting on the same stuff now....
Chrs. Nice bike btw.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Hey zomg what are you useing to gob up you terminals there?

And how long did it take hk to restock the hxts? Cause im waiting on the same stuff now....
Chrs. Nice bike btw.

Thats just some hot melt glue.

HXT's took about 3 weeks to ship. They weren't officially 'in stock' until about 4 weeks after I ordered... Then they quickly disappeared.
Im now on week 2 of waiting for balance extensions... My friends bikes both need a pack more to run 88V. But thats not a big deal, since they still did essentially nothing yet to get the bikes up and running.

[ZOMGVTEK]

The other wrench went on the other side, and the current went up to 60A. A bit more acceleration in the low to mid range, but not as much as I was expecting.

Position 1 on the switch is now 35% throttle, 99%, and 120%... I hit 46 on GPS at 120% throttle, and probably could have creeped into 47 with a little more room. It picks up speed really slow past 40 or so, and you're covering ground fairly fast.

I probably should have some sort of protective gear past jeans..

[ZOMGVTEK]

I did a bit of a refresh on the setup... The controller is now mounted under the batts on the top rail, more hidden. Front and rear derailers are gone, as well as the shifters. I put the cheapo switched brake levers on, and will get a hydraulic disc setup for the front soon. Until then, burnouts are hard since the motor is cut with the brake application. Nice for safety, and its easier to kill the cruise by just hitting the brake... I put 10 gauge phase wires out of the controller, and cut the motors wires down to a few inches. Controllers power inlet is now the same 10 gauge as well, traces to the FETS are beefed up.

I still need to hold the batteries into the L bracket a bit better than a single strip of tape, mount the BM-6's better, and figgure out a easy way to run the Watts Up meter so it can at least read 44V of the 88V, and tell me the current and 1/2 power ratings.

This is the only pic I have for now, a dark phone image showing my charging setup.


Ethernet cables made into a parallel 6S charging harness. Each charger handles each side as a 20AH 6S LiPo pack, charging at 10A/200W.

One of my friends started putting some time into his build. Heres the only picture I have of his bike, but he has the same stuff I do, so you can assume what its going to end up like.
Should be up and running by the end of the week.

[sn0wchyld]

hey mate
lookinng at your setup again you may want to check the range of your rear suspention, looks like if you compressed it more than about 50% you might get close to rubbing your main lead wires from the batteries on your tire...

on a different note, how do you find riding with the wider bike? im thinking of mounting batts in a similar place....

cheers

[ZOMGVTEK]

hey mate
lookinng at your setup again you may want to check the range of your rear suspention, looks like if you compressed it more than about 50% you might get close to rubbing your main lead wires from the batteries on your tire...

on a different note, how do you find riding with the wider bike? im thinking of mounting batts in a similar place....

cheers

I since put a little guard in place, which should eliminate the wire from ever rubbing. It generally wasn't that close before, the rear suspension is super stiff.

Its a bit wider than I assumed it would be, but its really not a issue at all. Its marginally in the way if you were to pedal, but it probably wouldn't be hard to adjust. I just don't pedal, so its just fine for me.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Heres a shaky video... The mic didnt manage to pick up super loud wind noise that I assumed it would. It was probably mostly the position of the mic and the angle I held the camera at. I need to get a good solid mount and make something a bit more exciting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTU4ovuF75c

[ZOMGVTEK]

Finally hooked up the Watts Up to one 22V string, first time actually measuring the power the bike is using.
Now, this is only one of the 4 22.2V packs, so voltage is 4x higher at the controller

24.46V
71.40Ap
23.29Vm
1665.0Wp

6660 Watts Peak, Total, = 8.93 HP.

This was done at 99% throttle, motor stalled into a wall. 6660 Watts isnt bad for a stock 1000W Golden Motor knockoff.
No torque plates, just one 10mm wrench bent into shape, super tight axle nuts, and nordlock washers.

If the torque increases linearly at 100A, I think wheelies would be a major concern. It already wants to lift if you're slouched back.

[icecube57]

Isnt much life left in that GM motor be careful at these power levels. As said earlier your windings are a healthy brown color.

[ZOMGVTEK]

One of the halls would quit on my motor when it warmed up. I made a thread elsewhere regarding this, but might as well throw it in here to document it along with the build.







New halls... This was then covered with silicone.





The new halls went in today, and the motor is running alright. At high loads, and very low speeds, the motor is quite rough.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Isnt much life left in that GM motor be careful at these power levels. As said earlier your windings are a healthy brown color.

I'm actively looking for a spare GM, or a replacement motor that can take more power. Id like to be able to throw 10KW at it. The acceleration is OK with a fresh pack at 70+A, but when the pack drops down to 90V or lower, it starts getting a little sluggish.

I guess I can always just run more voltage...

[ZOMGVTEK]

Heres some more recent photos of the bike...

[icecube57]

From my understanding the GM is basically a 9C 9x5. Slightly faster wind. At 48v it should do 33mph. But at these power levels you shouldnt use a motor that continues to draw insane power at high speed. Yes it technically give it more torque at higher speed but low KV motors are more suited high power instead of a high KV motor like the GM. I suggest that you drop down to a 5x12 or a 6x10 or a 7x9

[ZOMGVTEK]

My motor always did 24-26 MPH at 48V. It never went faster than 26 MPH, on 12S LiPo or 48V of Lead. The older GM hubs were higher speed than these.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Is it a bad idea to entirely submerge the motor? We used to do it all the time.

The blue NEXT bike my fried had was taken out of commission after the front rim cracked. It was easier to just get a new $150 bike, which rides WAY better anyways.
It was less than 2 hours to get the new bike up and running.



Here is all 3 bikes together. Identical setups, on assorted cheap bikes.



Heres a fairly low quality video thrown together with assorted clips, intended for another purpose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijzDT1Bz6u0

[ZOMGVTEK]

I had the controller flashed to 60A after the hall failed, and the CA was reading about 95A peak. I dropped it down to 40A, and its now reading 65A peak, average of 4400W during acceleration, and its really not notably slower. I raced my brothers bike that I normally SLIGHTLY pull on, and he had slightly more mid range punch, same at the low and high end. I was abusing it fairly good and the motor stayed cool to the touch, only slightly smelled. I don't think the motor is putting out any more power past 60A or so... I will try messing with it more, bump it down to something like 20 just to see, then up to 80 in increments of 5.

I inflated the tires to about 60PSI and I save about 300-400W at 40 MPH, its down to below 2KW.

[ZOMGVTEK]

Mounted up the chargers onto a board, hanging in the garage. Also made one torque plate, the other one will be done sometime in the future.

[ZOMGVTEK]

My bulk charger is done. 4x Meanwell SP-500-24 in series, 4.1V/cell target, rated at 20A, set to about 15A.