CroBorg Commuter

[Alan B]

Order Status

The good news is that the frame arrived. The box was well packed and slightly beat up. Some shipping damage is evident, but nothing too severe.

The bad news is that a number of things are missing.

I sent email to Accountant.

[Alan B]

Got a quick reply. Looks like another shipment will be made.

Excellent customer service.

[Alan B]

So I have the frame to work on now. I will be making battery measurements and plans. I can work on mounting the plastic and getting the hardware for the swingarm. I'm thinking I should use stainless steel bolts and hardware on the swingarm. Any reason not to?

I can also work on mounting the 24 FET controller, and figure out what I'm going to do about the rear shock. I can also verify the seatpost diameter and get that ordered.

I'll have to wait for the forks, crank and front hub. They'll probably ship today. This last order took about 3-4 weeks.

If anyone needs any measurements on the frame or motor, let me know.

[Alan B]

The Good News is that there appears to be enough room for 24 each 6S 5 amp hour Lipo packs in the battery areas of the frame!

The Not So Good News is that:

1) there will be little room left for wiring, so that will be a challenge, and

2) the 24 FET controller doesn't quite fit.

At least not where the controller is supposed to go. It will fit in a battery space, but that would cut in half the battery pack. Could put some batteries in the controller space but it is not as large and not set up for battery supports.

For some reaso I thought the 24 FET controller did fit, aren't some others running that controller on their 'Borgs?

[Philistine]

I have the Lyen 24 Fet in the groin part of the frame, it sits in there with zip ties to suspend it from the points. Maybe several mil each side? It takes up that first part of the frame (ie the groin part

[Alan B]

Thanks. That is what I recall seeing. Here is the posting with a picture showing lipo in both battery areas and a Lyen 24 FET in the underseat controller space:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25459&p=505757&hilit=filthy+clam+shot#p505757

Unfortunately my Lyen 24 FET doesn't quite fit there. It is close but is a bit too long.

Hopefully I can figure out how to get it in there. Wonder if the case on mine is a bit longer than standard. Or perhaps the frames vary just a tiny bit.

Did you have to make any mods to get it to fit there?

[Alan B]

New info on the Cromotor.

Mine is marked 72V 3000W. Turns out they say it can handle 4000W continuous. Wonder what the efficiency is at that point, which would allow us to calculate the max power dissipation.

edit: update:

For what it is now - the same mass and weight, what's the maximum continuous power they can do on their motor?

4000 W is data from manufacturer.

If you want to use your motor for many years as daily comuter, that would be it.

For racing, and in the cold weather 6000 W is still on the safe side for up to 60 minutes (real life result)

7000 w is too much, dangerzone, heat can make damage on the magnets.

[Alan B]

Anyone with a 24 FET Lyen type controller that fits in your Greyborg frame - it would be helpful if you could measure the length of the controller case (not including flanges). It seems there is a little space inside, and perhaps the cases vary in length a little, or there is a slight variation in the frames that affects the fit. I will make some measurements also. My 24 FET won't fit but the interference is small. So it should be possible to shorten it slightly to allow the fit.

[Alan B]

Some fresh Cromotor data:

...

Cromotor 50mm wide stator 18x4 winds is 9.3kV and should be available by mid March. Just keep checking the 1st page of this thread [Greyborg USA Dealer thread] for updates.

We had seen the Kv before, but not the wind data, though I suspected it from writing inside the motor in photos. 18 strands, but only 4 turns!

[zombiess]

Some fresh Cromotor data:

...

Cromotor 50mm wide stator 18x4 winds is 9.3kV and should be available by mid March. Just keep checking the 1st page of this thread [Greyborg USA Dealer thread] for updates.

We had seen the Kv before, but not the wind data, though I suspected it from writing inside the motor in photos. 18 strands, but only 4 turns!

I'm going off the writing too. Not a motor winder so someone would have to tell me how to count it exactly, but I can tell you that there is a bundle of what looks like 18 strands in parallel going to the teeth. It's a beefy SOB for sure. As for power. Mine took 10KW for 10 mins of playing around really hard racing cars in the video doing 55+ mph and was only warm. Wheel size makes a big difference on what you can get away with because I'm able to get my motor into the efficiency range really quick with my 21" diameter tire at 100% throttle. I'm looking at ebay right now for a 6ft long K-type thermocouple to install into the winds so I can monitor the motor temps while riding. I do know that after checking the motor at 5 mins and 10 mins after turning it off it was quite a bit warmer, about the max my wimpy super sensitive fingertips can handle (probably 55Cish).

If you plan to go nuts, ventilating the covers is always an option, but I wouldn't do that until after testing it thoroughly.

I'll probably spend some of my own money in a little while and take one of the motors, have it laced into a 26" wheel and test it out, but I can tell you that keeping a motor in a large diameter wheel under 100V is a good idea, just feed it amps and you'll get one heck of a grin. I have to keep my phase amps artificially low to keep the bike from looping at lower speeds. I'm going to see if my friend will mod a swing arm for me and make it 16" longer instead of my current 8" longer with a mount for a longer shock I have so I can really feed it some phase amps and get some motorcycle like acceleration. Only good for exhibition, but I have another identical frame and want to see what this thing can do.

I also can't wait to get my own Greyborg Frame and build it. My wallet can sure wait, but I need one for demo purposes and after riding a much earlier and less refined one I was quite impressed.

don't mean to spam the post, just trying to provide what info I can, hope you guys don't mind, if you do, just PM me and I'll edit.

[Alan B]

Thanks for your input and observations. I'm stalled at the moment on this project waiting for parts, there are a few things I can work on like getting the side panels mounted and putting the swingarm together and planning batteries but am focussing on some other projects at the moment. In one sense it is good this build is stretching out a bit for budgetary reasons, but I'm anxious to get it going soon. The big hangups right now are the forks, front hub, cranks and rims/wheels.

I still need to find a source for the Schlumpf chainring, and perhaps the dual front disc brakes. If I can't find the duals I'll have to go with a single.

[zombiess]

Thanks for your input and observations. I'm stalled at the moment on this project waiting for parts, there are a few things I can work on like getting the side panels mounted and putting the swingarm together and planning batteries but am focussing on some other projects at the moment. In one sense it is good this build is stretching out a bit for budgetary reasons, but I'm anxious to get it going soon. The big hangups right now are the forks, front hub, cranks and rims/wheels.

I still need to find a source for the Schlumpf chainring, and perhaps the dual front disc brakes. If I can't find the duals I'll have to go with a single.

Hygia for the dual front brake setup. Chain ring is a standard 110 mm 5 hole chainring. Accountant told me 32 tooth fits no problem, up to 36 can be done with mods to the plastic. Just buy one off ebay.

[Alan B]

...

I still need to find a source for the Schlumpf chainring, and perhaps the dual front disc brakes. If I can't find the duals I'll have to go with a single.

Hygia for the dual front brake setup. Chain ring is a standard 110 mm 5 hole chainring. Accountant told me 32 tooth fits no problem, up to 36 can be done with mods to the plastic. Just buy one off ebay.

Great info! Thanks!

[Alan B]

Wow, that excuse didn't last long. A box arrived today with forks, hub, schlumpf drive. That was FAST shipping!

So, as soon as JRH is ready with the moped rims I can ship him the hubzilla and front hub for wheel building.

[BATFINK]

Any pictures?

Sent using Endless-Sphere Mobile app

[Alan B]

I do need to put up pictures. Have a bunch.

I made some measurements of the axle and rear dropouts. The Cromotor 16mm threaded axle ends are 1-1/4" long from the disc brake mount on one side, and from the freewheel threads on the other. Some spacer washers will be needed on both sides to prevent rotating parts from touching the dropout.

The Nut is 5/8 thick, so uses about half the available thread space when fully engaged.

The rear tubular swingarm dropouts are slightly more than 3/8" thick.

There is not much room for a torque plate, and Accountant indicates one is not needed if the Cromotor is seated fully into the dropouts. Excellent!

The Cromotor with 16mm threads and 10mm flats has a substantial area of flat to resist the torque. Very nice.

[Alan B]

Here are the requested unboxing photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Alan.Biocc ... directlink

[ryan]

Wow, were all of your boxes dragged here? They should actually put them on the truck instead of dragging them behind.

Can't wait to see this come together.

[Alan B]

Shipping is tough on boxes. Hopefully having a US dealer and shipping in larger containers will help.

I'm going slow on this build. I want it to be a really good one.

Collecting all the parts is a bit of a chore. The details are slowly coming together.

It appears that the Turnigy 6S 5AH battery bricks will fit nicely, though the wiring wil be snug. The Zippys don't fit well at all. So I'm getting more Zippys and will put 18S 16AH of zippys on the mountain bike, and take all the Turnigys for the Greyborg. But for next weekend I'm taking both and lashing them together temporarily on the BikeE. So that will be 18S 31AH. The Zippys are a bit optimistic on their amp hour rating so in reality probably more like 29AH.

I was going to put more Turnigy on the mountain bike, but the Zippys fit a little easier and a lot fewer wires are required, so I'll go with 6*3=18S 2P 16AH Zippy on the Mountain Bike. The Turnigy I have, plus more will go toward the Greyborg. The BikeE will get a smaller pack. Not sure what at this point, but if I can fit a pack inside the frame that will determine what batteries to use.

I'm trying to make all three of my ebikes be 18S. That makes chargers easier to manage, especially since I want to have them at home, work, and portable.

[Alan B]

Ebikessf.com repaired the Schlumpf drive for me. Thanks Ilia! It suffered some shipping damage, one of the ears for mounting the chainring was bent, but it is much better now.









The above drive is a licensed variant of the Schlumpf drive that takes standard chainrings and crank arms. I obtained this one from Accountant.

This is a "speed drive" model that shifts between 1:1 and 1.6:1 by pushing the button in the center of the hub left or right with your heel. When in 1.6:1 the chainring turns 60% faster than the crank, effectively making the chainring equivalent to one having 1.6 times as many teeth.

This is important since the Cromotor is so wide it doesn't leave room for a wide freewheel. Usually only a single speed freewheel is used, and the smallest units have 16 teeth. So the front chainring needs to have a lot of teeth to pedal along with the motor at speed. This gives two gear ratios, one for pedaling without motor at low speed, and another for pedaling along with the motor at cruise speed.

[chroot]

Make sense about the CroMotor better off use single speed with combine Schlumpf drive. Thanks for details and I might get Schlumpf drive for my CroMotor. Problem is they are cost ridiculous - I checked Google search.

[gensem]

Make sense about the CroMotor better off use single speed with combine Schlumpf drive. Thanks for details and I might get Schlumpf drive for my CroMotor. Problem is they are cost ridiculous - I checked Google search.

Accountant/Zombies do have a good price on the speed drive.

[chroot]

@gensem - Really, I'll check with zombies later after I meet up with ilia and Lyen in SF today.

[Alan B]

I obtained the drive photographed above from Accountant (the Greyborg people) for a good price.

[MattyCiii]

@gensem - Really, I'll check with zombies later after I meet up with ilia and Lyen in SF today.

Chroot,
Did you get to talk about price, or availability of the Speed Drive? Speed Drive seems like just the ticket for pedal-augmented e-power!