TTX-GP Australia, Winton Raceway, Benalla VIC September 2-4

[jonescg]

Pffft. All racing is for sheep stations. Otherwise we wouldn't do it

Daniel has finally arrived with the Ripperton machine. He has a new 7 kWh pack, liquid cooled motor and controller etc etc. He's keeping it warm in his motel room

I suspect the catavolt machine might be third this time around, provided I don't overheat anything.

Jozz - seems again, one of the brushes is wearing a bit after then the others, but not a huge lot. It's still clean and cool at least. Like I said, I've not adjusted the brush advance at all, because we simply had no time for a dyno tune before hand. We might try to advance it with no load, and keep them as close as possible, but will no doubt be happy with any bike that doesn't smoke.

Qualifying is at 9 am! I want to sleep in till 8 for once!!!

[markcycle]

I Know Jon (Catavolt) is not posting so I'll step in a little, It's good to hear a heavy hub motor wheel can maneuver the mongral tight bumpy turns, that in itself is a proof of principle that a hub motor can handle beyond scooter levels, this alone makes the sponsorship investment worth it (I so want to see video please).

Jon is being very conservative with the controller settings, I expect he will inch things up as the weekend progresses. The forced air cooling has allowed more power but also has confused us as to where to set the thermal limit, so we are being careful.

I wish all good luck

[Philistine]

Was sorry I missed you guys, meant to drop you a line this week to catch up whilst you were in town, but I got caught up with a few things. I have met Toolman2 before, but never met SplinterOz, despite him only living a short ride away. Would have loved to see Voltron in the flesh.

Best of luck with the race guys, Cheers, Phil.

[dingoEsride]

Give it to it Chris, smoke the competitors not motor or tyres

[Jozzer]

Pffft. All racing is for sheep stations. Otherwise we wouldn't do it

Daniel has finally arrived with the Ripperton machine. He has a new 7 kWh pack, liquid cooled motor and controller etc etc. He's keeping it warm in his motel room

I suspect the catavolt machine might be third this time around, provided I don't overheat anything.

Jozz - seems again, one of the brushes is wearing a bit after then the others, but not a huge lot. It's still clean and cool at least. Like I said, I've not adjusted the brush advance at all, because we simply had no time for a dyno tune before hand. We might try to advance it with no load, and keep them as close as possible, but will no doubt be happy with any bike that doesn't smoke.

Qualifying is at 9 am! I want to sleep in till 8 for once!!!

Hi chris, Yes indeed, balance them as closely as possible on the stand, aim for 2mm advance (or 2mm average if they end up being slightly different).
Once you get a close balance like that, try with a little rear brake applied and at a higher speed for slightly better resolution (careful not to cook your disk!).

If 1 brush is wearing faster it may have a different resistance to its 3 parallel buddies, it's possible to tune the resistance by shortening the brush length (carefully cut and refile). If you can get a decent test setup (5-10A PSU and a multimeter) and have the time to do, check resistance as mentioned on the Agni Tuning thread, if worn brush has a lower resistance then gradually shorten the 3 buddies until resistance matches. If it is miles out of course it's best not to start cutting and seek another brush. How fast is it wearing? Reckon it will last the weekend?

Feel free to call if you need on the spot help, I'll leave the ringer on tonight!

Good luck guys,

Steve

[jonescg]

Thanks Steve, I took your number down I suspect a bit of the heating is coming from the inefficiencies at higher rpm. Qualifying is up early, so I'd better drag the team out of bed

The brush is about 5 mm shorter than the others, but probably enough to see me through the weekend. Kelly is set to speed control, 60 % power, 80% motor speed (voltage). We are using the thermisters as thermometers. When I roll in, Abraham checks the resistance of both motors, and it never got below 3 kOhm. Which is the limit really. Otherwise, battery side current is rarely exceeding 600 A, which is great. Lower gearing is working a treat for this tight twisty (frigging bumpy) circuit!

Will post pictures if the internet existed in regional Australia, let alone was free.

Cheers,
CHRIS

[glowwormbicycles]

We're only measuring current with the Cycle Analyst so the 600A peak battery figure may well be higher then any multi second current draws.

I've been measuring the motor's temp sensor resistances as Chris says and they've been out by about 0.5 k ohm at most, eg one motor at 4 k the other at 4.5 k.

We'll work on the brush advance today using Jozz's instructions.

Cheers, Abraham

[voicecoils]

[AussieJester]

Damnit stuck on mobile at present hard to make out o if that was CHRiS blowing buy the competition down the straight- ::fingers crossed:: it was? Did CHRiS manage to get some slicks this time or is he still running street tires...Give it SHiT CHRiS our adopted WA boi

KiM

[glowwormbicycles]

#voltron 1, #Catavolt 2, #ripperton DNF for TTxGP AUS Winton Race 1

[AussieJester]

Way to go CHRiS!!! pwn the frock motored cycles mate hehe

KiM

[jonescg]

Great day today!! I managed to get my times below 2:00! I did a 1:59.8 - almost as quick as Daniel's 1:59.3. Unfortunately his improvements didn't translate into reliability. He's increased the voltage to 175 Volts (on a Kelly 180 V controller) but it seems to be overvolting it

Race was good - made a great start and held it, only to swap places with the Catavolt several times. We also had to contend with traffic on the course - the frigging race control cocked up, sending the retrieval marshals out on the track!! frocking hell there's a race on!!

I kept on Jasons tail until the end of lap 6 when he was plagued by overheating issues. Went on to see the chequered flag

Looking forward to tomorrows racing! Hope danny get's his machine going - but I suspect we won't be qualifying first thing.

Trev Hedge took a bunch of pics on Friday:
http://www.mcnews.com.au/MotorcycleRaci ... /index.htm

[liveforphysics]

Awesome!!!! Right on guys!

[Jozzer]

Fantastic, well done!

Jozz

[markcycle]

Terrific racing Great work guys
Jon needs some magic to turn those heavy Headway cells into light weight Lipo "OH YEA that's called money"

[jonescg]

Ta guys

I think the only way I can get first if if Daniel has a technical problem. The only way I can beat Jason is if he makes a mistake, and/or has a technical problem Wait till you see the on-board footage from my bike - some good dicing going on out there Jason was saying the motors would cut power, but return to them soon after. Hence he could still keep pace to finish up. Jon said he's going to increase the thermal cut out today, so if he doesn't smoke them, he'll smoke me!

Very VERY happy with the Agnis right now. Once they are in balance they are on song. Only cracked 154 km/h down the straight, and Daniel might be a tiny bit faster with his heavily modified Mars, but it's a tight technical course anyway. And I'm still running on shitty cross-ply road tyres that squirm like bitches out of turn 10

Abraham will no doubt keep youse posted through Twiddle or whatever the youth of today use

Oh, and if you want a cringe-fest - listen to the commentary from the FX guys

[AussieJester]

Huuuuge effort on crappy street tires CHRiS! Dont over commit yourself buddy we want you & Voltron back in one piece!

I'm continually blown away by your efforts CHRiS, mounting a "challenge" to race from WA alone shows how commited you're to this electric motorcycle racing, its just so damn impressive CHRiS, you could trail the field and I would still be impressed by the effortyou put into this, not a big effort for fully sponsored teams granted, but as a virtal privateer who has to fly his bike and himself from the otherside of the country mate, its truly inspirational IMHO...

KiM

P.s huge wraps to the fellas in the east helping CHRiS out too

[glowwormbicycles]

Totally agree AJ !

The sun has come out and our race should be on in the next hour.

Lots of petrol heads are interested & impressed just seeing something totally different out on the track and having a laugh when the bikes come back to the pits and we all run out with our multimeters to check on things

We've been eyeing off various race bikes and waiting for one to blow a motor or gearbox to make way for the next leccy convert

[AussieJester]

From my experence the "racing crowd" are MUCH more open to "change" and will look into different options more willingly than your average Joe Blow on the street, hope I worded that correctly?

Give em hell CHRiS

KiM

[glowwormbicycles]

Chris WINS!

A heap of hard work paid off.

Both bikes threw controller faults mid race but they recovered and Voltron kept the lead with far more speed on the straights.

Check my twitter for lap times, I snapped a pic of the live timing and uploaded. Still waiting on official timing to be printed.

[adrian_sm]

Congratulations Chris!

[Stevil_Knevil]

1st TTX-GP 1st place podium finish for one of our own



Well done, Team Voltron..we are all very proud of you.

Now, let's see pics of spewing champagne and trophy girls

[AussieJester]

Thats the shit right there CHRiS SUPEEEEEEERB job my friend have a beer for me too will ya haha
get back home safe, thanks to the guys that helped you out again very very very kind of you all to
offer the amount of time and support to get CHRiS on the race track

So when and where is the next one? any scheduled for Barbagello Raceway here in the West does anyone know?

KiM

[glowwormbicycles]

Next (last) one at Wakefield Park.

We are off for drinks and dinner!

[jonescg]

Thanks KiM! Yeah fantastic day out - can't be more pleased with the result. Daniel would have blown me away had he not blown his controller first. Great dicing with Jason too; should make for some decent racing. Huge effort by SplinterOz and Voicecoils to keep me running all weekend. I need to source some sticky tyres for next month. And possibly the month after - rumours are spreading fast that the international final might be held here in Australia