Scruffman's Bike Build - Battery Reconfiguration and rebuild

[Scruffoid]

Hiya all.

First a bit about me. I am an IT guy but educated as an electrical Engineer. From Liverpool in Sydney.

Bought this Rotary Australia 2 Stroke 200Watter Bike about a year ago.

Done a lot of Km's on this beast as i live about 28km from work.

But as with us all 200watts in petrol is nothing like the 200watts Hub motors that Hyena is supplying.

So I bought the beast into work tonight to start making some torque arms for the rear in preperation for the package that is coming from Jay.

It had a max top speed of 25km before i thought that maybe i might try one of the more efficient CDI unit that you can by from Germany and this sure did make a difference bumping the max speed to about 33km/hr

I am a shift worker and do a lot of riding after midnight when the roads are really quite. So i got some nice healights. I have Dual Led Lenser H14 focusable lights. These are incredible lights and they are really sheap for what they are. Just added a dual Stem setup as i am gonna need room for my cycle analyst and beside that is my iphone holder for GPS speedo etc.

So done a lot of reading on here so trying to get my bike ready for the electric motor i have made some torque arms. They are 5mm steel. This picture is from the almost finished item. I did some minor changes and bent it to fit in etc. I Will give it a paint job etc as well. Planning on attaching it to the Disk brake points as well as some work drive clamps around the frame. Will be using regen braking on the back so want it to be strong. Made a similar unit for the other side as well.

Scruff!

[TylerDurden]

Greetins,

If you haven't experienced it yet, you may find the night riding with electric power to be dreamlike.

[1000w]

you may find the night riding with electric power to be dreamlike

I know where you are coming from.
Cheers.

[Hyena]

Just watch it doesn't become too dream-like after a long shift, otherwise you'll be waking up in hospital to a nightmare!

Good to see that smoker going in the bin, the people who live along the route you travel will appreciate the electric conversion too!

Nice work on the torque arms, if you want to make them a bit more secure again and you have a sturdy pan brake you could bend it slightly inwards along the dotted line here - that way it's using the whole back end of the frame to stop any rotation too. I think you said the frame is steel so 5mm each side should be sufficient.

Bike 007.jpg (110.26 KiB) Viewed 3128 times

We're at the mercy of the chinese postal system at the moment but I'll have you zippying along with 199.9w of near silence very shortly

[Scruffoid]

Jay already beat you to it an bent it in like that. As i said in my post that the pic was taken before it was finished. Just gotta figure out an easy way now to cut some slots in the extension piece there to put some worm drive clamps into it. Maybe drill lots of small 3mm holes in a line or something. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Yes i am very much looking forward to the serenity of a night time ride with little noise. Should be great !

Jay this a different bike to the one i was going to use. This is a Alloy frame.

We're at the mercy of the chinese postal system at the moment but I'll have you zippying along with 199.9w of near silence very shortly

So does that mean im gonna have to be a ricer with a 200W sticker on my hub

[Scruffoid]

Ok got all of my Bike goodies from Hyena bar a battery pack. So here is the pics of how it has all coem together. Nothing out of the ordinary but i am happy with how its turned out so far.

Still cant wait to ride it under electric power but it is a lot better to ride unpowered now than it was with the petrol motor attached. I used to dread the day that the petrol motor would fail i reckon i could manage to ride a fair way with the electric motor onboard.

[Hyena]

Looking good mate, those torque plates should take care of business nicely.

So you sorted out the back brakes ? Or did you want those others you were talking to me about for the front ?

[Scruffoid]

Yeah im gonna put em on the front....

Wayne

[Scruffoid]

We have LIFT OFF!

Bike goes like dream. A testament to the kits that Hyena supplies.

Managed a top speed so far of 52Km/Hr on flat ground which Im really please with as im only running 30Amps 72Volts. This was acutally done on the 120% mode thou so its a bit more juice

Now its time to located that batteries in a more permant place. Gonna start constructing a alluminium Trianlge mounted box for the frame at work tonight.

Got a hold of these and i have a lot of them as well

Its a DC - DC convertor. Takes a input voltage range of 29 - 80 Volts and outputs 24V @ 8A Max. Ive got some 6Volt ( 4 AA Battery ) lights on my bike that i am gonna hard wire to my pack via a 7806 regulator hanging off this baby.

More to come later tonight. Hopefully we can start a full commute on this baby next week.

Scruff

[Scruffoid]

Update

Rode to work the last two nights on my beasty.

With a 72V 10Ah Pack i am managing to ride my 28Km journey in 40 Minutes and consuming around 8AH from the pack.

Perfect and Hyena provided a bike that met the requirements perfectly.

Have been riding it with the pack inside a plastic tool box on a rear seatpost mounted pannier rack.

Decided today as i was sitting in my man cave that it was time to begin work on my Alloy triangle mounted battery box. Here are some pictures of what i acheive today.

Have some nice strips of thin Alluminum skirting board covers from work . Measured and bent to fit Inside my Frame. Criteria for me was 2 wide battery mounting. Room for the controller on top. Maintain the ability to easily transport my bike on a rear car bike rack.

The criteria meant that i needed to leave a 90mm space on top of the box for my largest object, the bike rack. Anyways here are the photos

Bare battery box

Baterries Installed

Crank Clearance

Will organise some nice alluminum plates for the side covers on the coming days.

Will also be mounting the Controller and the DC-DC convertor Tomorow

Scruff

[itchynackers]

Looks great. You may need some padding over that screw head inside the box. The screw could wear a hole in your batteries (bad news).

[Scruffoid]

Looks great. You may need some padding over that screw head inside the box. The screw could wear a hole in your batteries (bad news).

Yeah those were only temporary ones. I have nice flat headed screws in there now. And i also have a piece of sheet rubber stick over the top of it with gaffa tape.

Thanks for your input thou.

Have actually almost finished off the box today gotta take my size covers into work tomorow and run em on the linesher to smooth off the edges. Might even tig weld up the corners that have now been trimmed up so that they no longer overlap.

Wondering if i should go the carbon fibre look alike contact on the box or go a nice simple black one.

LOL gut says black and geek in me says carbon look

Scruff

[chairshaker]

Excellent looking job. Noticed that your mirrors look great. Are you happy with them and where did you get them.

[Scruffoid]

Excellent looking job. Noticed that your mirrors look great. Are you happy with them and where did you get them.

The mirrors come from two different location. Both were bought off ebay thou. They are Off road dirt bike components that you can buy to making your dirt bike road legal. I needed to mount them underneath the handlebars as with all teh other junk and associated cables that are on the bar it is impossible to get them to actually fit anywhere else.

In saying that having them mounted lower is better i think anyways as your shoulder and arm doesnt get in the way of your view as your riding. I use them constantly when im riding and it saves the accidents that are very common, which is turning the wheel/bar as you look over your shoulder to look

Just gotta make sure when your purchasing mirror for motorbikes, There is a couple of different thread types so you need to be sure that you buy matching threads.

I would not even consider riding on the road without a mirror its gives you so more more situation awareness.

Wayne

[Scruffoid]

Ok Finished the battery box. Well as finished until i decide to add something extra

Im happy with how phase 1 turned out.

Now i got 6 hours before i go home from work to machine up something to hold this new headlight onto my beasty.

no idea what im gonna do yet but im sure my experts here at work will help me out

[Racer_X]

Battery box came out really good, and you even left some space on top for the controller. One question is it easy to remove batteries if you have to take out to charge?

[Scruffoid]

Yeah the top battery slids out very easily then you just lift the others out.

No problems at all.

On other news. Here is the mounted light will test it on the way home tonight.

You can see here I just made a flat plate mount auto some Alluminium. A bit worried about the lever effect on the mount and fatiging the lower joint. Will keep a close eye on it.

And now all thats needed is the properly hook up the power to the new light which ill do tomorow.

On a side note. Just found my 2nd bullet connector on my batteries had fallen off. They appear to have dry solder joints in the negative plug.
They are Zippy 22V 5AH units. Wonder if other are experiencing this as well.

Scruff

[Hyena]

Battery box looks nice mate. If you want some advice though while you're fabbing stuff up I'd make a thin channel out of that checkerplate to hide all your controller wiring - that'd finish it all off nicely.

ANOTHER bullet came off ? Damn that's some very poor QC on hobbyking's part, I'll be sure and give all the ones I use in future a good tug. One of those coming unstuck is a quick way to to burn out your cell level parallel harness - good think you're still waiting on 2!

The new headlight looks good, I've been looking for an excuse to try one myself but I've already got a few of those T6s I showed you at Hyena HQ the other week.

[rui_fujino]

your build is looking excellent! i really like the look of it tho you do have alot of stuff on your handle bar...
I do like where you have placed your side mirrors!

[jkbrigman]

Diggin on that "cyborg eyes" look on the front of that bike. You got enough light up there to burn the grilles off oncoming vehicles!

So, I'm looking carefully at that bike and there are a number of key things about it that seem to have all added up to a great build:

- big, strong triangle with room for the batt box and controller,
- excellent dropouts, plenty of room to install the customer torque plate,
- awesome wheels and tires
- front suspension and suspension seatpost
- trigger shifters to offer more room for throttle (? I should ask that more than anything)
- plenty of handlebar space plus lights mounted on the accessory bar
- great disc brakes and fenders

Any plans to add a rear rack?

[Scruffoid]

Thanks for the positive comments.

Yeah my Bars are pretty well packed. When i originally bought the bike it had these really huge shifters so i bought the smaller ones that allowed more room for stuff. I work in IT and after i leave work i am on call. So i need to be able to see my phone at all tiems in case soemone calls me while im riding. Before the CA i was using it as a speedo but i could really put the iphone in my pocket now and wear headphones but hten that leads to the next problem. I wouldnt be able to hear my Lipo alarm buzzers

So I was actually thinking on my way to work today that i need some sort of Visual LED or something that could simply turn on to alert me of an issue. I have a mate of mine working on a battery medic style device that will show all the packs on the bike at once. Perhaps all we need to be displayed on the bars is one simply LED. When it sees a cell below a preset value the LED comes on. If it flashes we can assume its sag if it stays on the get off the gas LOL. Will discus this with him tongiht. Will be really easy to run a pair of thin wires to an LED on my bars.

I quickly turned on the new light last night when i got home from work. All i can say is OMG!!!!!!! its damn bright. I would suggest the 800 Lumens they quote are not over stated. Will try to get some pictures of it tongiht once it gets dark here. Damn i love working hard ROFL. if you have read it it takes 24 - 90 V input and they claim it draws 12W but the CA was saying 200W so needs some investigating.

I have a rear rack that i was initially using to hold my battery pack. Took it off last weekend. Gonna add it back on so i can pack some luggage in it. Thing to know is that i commute on this bike no matter what the weather. Hence i need lots of lights as i commute on motorways and bike paths which are terrible for hitting stuff on. In the rain visibility for normal bike lights so goes right away so the extra lights are for bad terrain and bad weather etc, I am very much into safety, so you wont see me posting a vid jumpings off rock shelfs or weaving in and out of traffic, but i love the others that do the videos keep me occupied at work at night.

[Scruffoid]

ANOTHER bullet came off ? Damn that's some very poor QC on hobbyking's part, I'll be sure and give all the ones I use in future a good tug. One of those coming unstuck is a quick way to to burn out your cell level parallel harness - good think you're still waiting on 2!

Mate your not wrong. Lucky both times i have been watching the charge closely. I was sitting there thinking why the hell is that still charging and then im like oh crap.

So i make sure to check all teh leads now before i start charging to make sure they are all still connected until i get over my phobia of it LOL

Scruff

[Scruffoid]

Well i guess we all gotta do this at some stage

Made my first LIPO fire tonight. Well lipo balance wire fire at least . Thank god the little thins wires burn through rather fast and act like a fuse ROFL.

So now i gotta replace all the balance wires on two of my packs. So im gonna go the whole hog now and make a full balance plug that all the packs come into so i can balance charge all my packs. I purchased a Hyperion 1420i to help me do this.

The list of toys is getting larger

I hate that burnt component smell that seems to linger forever

Scruff

[Scruffoid]

if you have read it it takes 24 - 90 V input and they claim it draws 12W but the CA was saying 200W so needs some investigating.

Turns out this is a Controller wiring issue that was sorted by Connecting pin 3 of the CA-DP plug to GND and pin 2 to the positive side of the shunt.

[Scruffoid]

I commute 30Km each way on my bike. The Battery pack on a couple of occasions was really close to being fully drained on a few commutes.

So solution add more batteries.

So This is what it looks like now. Added an extra 3 * 6S 5AH batteries.

So now we are running 18S 3P for 72V and 15AH (1080 WH) woot!

Battery box still has plenty of room in it as you can see, Another 3 Batteries to maybe go 24S3P jsut for fun

Charging is still all done in Parallel as a 6S9P using a hyperion 1420i so i balance charge to 95% TVC to prolong pack life a little.

I added some soft rubber mats that are used for camp flooring into the box to help absorb bumps etc while riding.

Controller is now mounted to the bottom of a rear rack.