My second e-bike: Reality Check? (Pretty please?)

[docnjoj]

Did you get the triangle battery ? can't remember if you said.

Well, I ordered it. An existentialist would point out that I have not yet "gotten" it, and then ask whether a person can truly ever "get" anything, wherein a nihilist would say that yes, they can, however it doesn't really matter in the end.[endquote]

That is what I love about this place!
otherDoc

[Ykick]

Hey Joe, have you met Philistine yet? Good guy, down under - talks kinda like you...


btw, bullshit about the rain today. At least on my SD county weather radar.

[chroot]

You will enjoy the MAC with Cell_Man's custom battery 52v battery.

[Joe Perez]

Hey Joe, have you met Philistine yet? Good guy, down under - talks kinda like you...

No, hadn't run across him.

btw, bullshit about the rain today. At least on my SD county weather radar.

It wasn't pouring down like last week, but I can assure you that here in Carlsbad it was most certainly raining today. A light drizzle, but enough to soak the driver's seat of my car and make the drive home this evening unpleasant.


I just noticed your location- what part of The City are you in?

You will enjoy the MAC with Cell_Man's custom battery 52v battery.

[Ykick]

When I'm there around Linda Vista - USD. Majority of time out of town (NYC) but I was home last weekend for the heavy storms. There's been some good ones this year.

Be grateful for that drizzly marine layer, it's getting HOT inland. I know what you're talking about (drizzle) but that's not exactly rain, LOL... Just having some fun with you.

Carlsbad's nice and like much of SD county, many areas have significant hills. I'm also envious about the Mac, I run a 9C in NYC but I wouldn't mind losing a few lbs in the rear wheel and have a little more giddyup off the line.

[Joe Perez]

Yeah, I work in Vista and occasionally travel to Riverside and Temecula, so I know what you mean by "hot." On other other hand, I grew up in south Florida, so what the folks here in SoCal consider to be "hot" is laughable by comparison. I can deal with temps in the 90s every day so long as the humidity is low.

And I was actually asking about NYC. I do a fair bit of work in Manhattan- most recently built CBS Radio's new studios down on Hudson St.

[Ykick]

I can understand why you're not adverse to wiring. Still working the CBS radio studio gig? Lemme know if/when you're coming through NYC, I'll PM details if you would like to check out what I do when I'm here?

Good luck on the bike, good stuff, you'll enjoy that setup.

[Joe Perez]

So, no Star Wars fans here, then.

(And I really thought it was funny.)

I can understand why you're not adverse to wiring. Still working the CBS radio studio gig?

We finished the bulk of the buildout late last year, though I occasionally pop back in to do code updates or help them with major config changes. We had a busy week getting prepared for the start of baseball season recently- CBS is the headend for the Yankees network, and this was the first season being produced in the new facility. Quite a lot of custom code went into getting that all to work right.

Last time I was actually in town was last month when the Disney Fantasy cruise ship docked at pier 88 for the christening ceremony after crossing the Atlantic from the yard in Germany. We'd constructed a couple of studios aboard, and they just wanted me to be there for support during the media event in case anything went wrong. Such a hard life, you know, just lounging around on a ship, eating, drinking, and waiting for someone to have a problem.

Sadly, I don't have any new NYC jobs on the immediate horizon. At this point, all of the major radio groups in that market have finished their consolidations, so we're back to just the low level maintenance-type stuff.

[pwbset]

So, no Star Wars fans here, then.

(And I really thought it was funny.)

You had me chuckling out here in Montana.

[o00scorpion00o]

More of a Star Trek fan myself!

[Joe Perez]

More of a Star Trek fan myself!

[o00scorpion00o]

More of a Star Trek fan myself!

Haha

To boldly go where no man has gone before, it would take light years to get to the moon on that thing never mind travel the galaxy !

[Joe Perez]

It lives!



Still waiting on the triangle battery, but I finally got all of the mechanicals sufficiently assembled to hook up the controller to a pile of lead-acid batteries which I had lying around (I had to steal one out of the alarm system in the apartment, which I never use anyway) and perform a free-air test. Lo and behold, the motor rotates- and in the proper direction, even. Much rejoicing.

Now, on to this CycleAnalyst which has been feeling neglected for the past few weeks.

[Ykick]

Looks like a great start Joe! But, your workspace is way too tidy, IMO...

[Joe Perez]

But, your workspace is way too tidy, IMO...

I assume you're joking- the garage is an absolute mess right now.

The old Amped bottle battery died just as I'd started stripping down and painting the car, so I had to quickly wrap that up and get it back on the road (I'm presently driving a Miata that's 1/3 shiny blue and 2/3 old, faded sparkly teal), so the fallout from that job is sort of scattered everywhere and has pushed a bunch of things around. There's normally not that much crap lying around on the workbench, and I just noticed that the cords for the angle-sander and hammer drill are lying untidily on the floor. (shame.)

I noticed something interesting about the controller I've got from Cell_Man; on the underside, written in marker, it says "1,00 mΩ." I assume that this is the shunt resistance, but I just find it odd that it came out to exactly 1.00 instead of .97 or 1.02 or something. In my experience, it's extremely unusual for components to actually meet their specified value. Are these devices typically inspected and calibrated individually, or is 1 mΩ just the nominal value?

[o00scorpion00o]

Nice one! Nearly there.

Was it the 12T again ? can't wait to see what you think of it with a good battery!

[Joe Perez]

Nice one! Nearly there.

Well, we're getting there.

One thing I've discovered is that trigger shifters are a pain to deal with. The half-grip twist throttle which I got from Cell_Man sort of fits, though I had to rotate it 180° from normal such that the pushbutton and rocker switch are on the top and facing forward, and even at that I find it ackward. My old thumb throttle didn't fit at all. Not real happy about the way that's all going together at the moment.

Thinking very seriously about swapping the shifter out for a twist-shifter like I had on my old bike. It's a Shimano X4 (1:1) so I've gotta find something that will fit with that quirky arrangement.

I've installed only one of the DocBass torque arms, on the non-chain side. A little grinding to both the torque arm and the frame were required, but it seems to fit like a champ now. The though that it's being held in place with nothing but glue is kind of spooky, but we'll see. On the chain side, I couldn't' figure out how to make the darn thing fit with the derailleur, so for now I've got one of my old e-bikekit shorty arms there. Somehow I don't think I'll be making enough power with this system to destroy anything with that combination.

Was it the 12T again ? can't wait to see what you think of it with a good battery!

10T. After the video which was posted a few pages back, that seemed like the winning combination. We shall see.

[Joe Perez]

First ride today!





Just a quick trip around the apartment complex, as I'm still waiting on the big battery, so for now it's just a 36v pile of old SLA tie-wrapped to the rack. The two white ones are 10Ah borrowed from a UPS, the small black one is a 5Ah unit I swiped out of the security system in the apartment. Even with this mediocre power source, the performance is quite impressive. Compared to the old Amped direct-drive motor at 48v, this one accelerates much faster and more smoothly- it's a torque monster. No idea as to top speed or hill-climbing, that will have to wait for the 52v battery.

The freewheeling geared motor is also great. Apart from being a tad on the heavy side, it pedals just like a regular bicycle. Some tweaking is still required on the rear derailleur- I replaced the SRAM X4 trigger shifter with an X5 twist shifter, because A: I prefer twist shifters, B: it allows me to use my old thumb throttle as opposed to the new twist-throttle that the kit came with, and C: it allows me to "nudge" the derailleur if the chain is having trouble dropping onto the next gear. It's still an 8-speed shifter on a 7-speed gearstack, so I may never get it perfect, but its usable. Worst-case, I have a seven-speed shifter / derailleur combo on the old bike that I can transplant onto this one if need be.


Same basic configuration as the last bike insofar as the controller and wiring mounted to the underside of the rack. I had to buy a different rear rack to clear the disc brake caliper, but it's the same model as the last one (Topeak Explorer), and has the same basic dimensions. I'm also ditching the plastic milk-crate, and going with two smaller foldable wire baskets on the side for this bike. They weigh slightly more than the milk crate, but the weight is much lower- better for handling, and a lot more stable when putting the bike up on the centerstand with a full load of groceries. Only one basket is mounted at the moment to leave me with wiring access.





Unsurprisingly, the Cell_Man kit comes with the same crappy white flat-pin connectors that seem to be the standard in the industry.

Good-bye.



Fortunately, we have the proper tooling for Molex Micro-Fit 3 connectors at work, so I've replaced all the low-current interconnects with those, and used Andersons for the high-current stuff. The Cell_Man controller and motor already had Andersons on the phase wiring, but used the crappy connectors on the battery interconnect. I used the same connections on the front end, on the CA, the throttle, brakes, etc.

It's kind of difficult to get a good photo of a black connector on a black wire against black handlebars.




Seems like there are still one or two bugs in the CA3 beta (the temp reading is kind of squirrely right now) but it's definitely working. As a sidebar: with the rear wheel in the air, you can indeed use the rear brake as a dyno load for testing and calibration.

This, however generates heat.

A lot of heat.

As in "Hmm, what's that smell? Oh, my rear brake is on fire. I should probably stop now."




And the DocBass torque arm. I only did the wire-side for now, since I can't quite figure out a good way to put one on the chain-side just yet.




Paul has promised that the triangle battery should be shipping "soon."

The wait is killing me.

[Ykick]

Molex upgrade looks nice! Those cheesy white connectors are a Chinese joke on US IMO. You're gonna get wide-eyed with A123 battery compared to that pitiful SLA though.

Looking good Joe!

[Joe Perez]

First off, a big thanks to everyone who contributed along the way. It's been a long road getting here, but the bike is finally done. First commute today, and I am seriously impressed.

The hills no longer exist. They are simply gone.

When I built the first bike, I thought I was making a wise choice selecting a direct-drive motor based purely upon the motor's size and rated capacity. I now realize what a horrendous mistake that was. This diminutive little planetary motor is an absolute torque monster. Those 15% grades that used to darn near kill me before (and which did, in fact, result in the destruction of the Amped bottle battery- twice) simply aren't relevant anymore. Even though I have the current limit set to only 25A on the CA, I was still gunning it up those hills at 15-20 MPH without the slightest sign of protest from the bike. Motor temp never rose above around 50°C, so I'm apparently not even pushing it all that hard.

Admittedly, it's not much to look at. No penis-shaped holes in the motor or anything:





But this one's a definite winner.


I took the short route to and from work today, covering 9.7 miles and consuming 3.9 Ah with moderate pedaling, so I'm quite happy about the efficiency. Despite the fact that I was burning needlessly large amounts of power gunning it up the hills to see what it could do, range should not be an issue. I'm also finding the throttle re-scaling function of the new CA3 to be quite handy. After I got into work, I re-scaled the throttle (such that full throttle in = 2/3 throttle out) simply to make it easier to start the bike from a stop without wheelie-ing it. I'll be happy when the non-linear rescaling gets implemented (eg, so that the first 10% of throttle input only gives you ~1% of throttle output, and then linear to 100% = 100% thereafter) but for now this is more than adequate.

[Ykick]

Looks like a very practical ride! Clean, tidy, good balance, decent brakes, probably 25 mile range easy. You did good...

[Joe Perez]

Power utilization is getting better as I get back into shape. Yesterday was about 19 Wh/mi, which is just phenomenal considering the hills around here.


Something really strange happened this morning, though, and I'm still a little freaked out by it.

I was cruising down Poinsettia Ln. going east on my way into work. Poinsettia is four lanes, divided, with wide bike paths. Very nice road, good visibility. Speed limit is 50 MPH, and I was doing about 30-35 (going downhill with the motor freewheeling, pedaling like a madman.)

So coming up behind me and on my left is an SUV. He passes me and is signalling a right turn. I was going sufficiently fast that he only had maybe a 30 meter lead on me by the time he got to the intersection, at which point he *stopped* and waited for me to pass before making the right turn.

?!?!

The natural behavior for any driver in the US, and even moreso the driver of an SUV, is supposed to be either complete oblivion towards bicyclists, or to act in a way which maximizes the probability that the bicyclist will be killed. So needless to say I was already hard on the brakes and slowing in preparation for the impending assault. But not only was this fellow aware of my presence, he actually YIELDED to me, rather than attempting to murder me.

What is this society coming to?

[richmpdx]

Yes, I occasionally encounter considerate auto drivers who risk getting rear ended by another car because they stop in a situation like that. Of course, on a bike you become essentially invisible to most motorists, so assuming they will cut you off is a survival necessity. I have enjoyed reading this thread. Glad you have achieved the desired results with your build. Seems like a good selection of components and capability to make a reliable commuter ebike.
Rich

[Ykick]

I'm conflicted about drivers who stop in lanes to give right of ways in situations like you describe and other encounters. While it may provide a warm fuzzy feeling about SUV drivers and we should appreciate the gesture it can also create complicated hazardous situations.

One example is gridlock traffic on 4 lane roadways - from the inside lane Mr SUV decides to stop and allow oncoming vehicle to turn in front of them. Unfortunately, what about the box truck sitting behind Mr SUV blocking a clear view of the outside lane?

How about in your situation if Mr SUV wasn't stopping for you but instead double checking an address before executing the turn and then decides to go and takes you out?

Unfortunately most drivers don't have enough common sense and training to account for hazards of granting right of ways. Especially, in unusual compound situations. I do appreciate attentive drivers of hurtling machinery and while their hearts' in the right place, I always assume the worst and plan accordingly.

MSF is the best place to learn how to read and decipher traffic situations.

[o00scorpion00o]

Hey Joe,

Well done, nice build, nice and clean. I knew you would be impressed with the Mac.

Those triangle bags really work a treat, shame you can't get anything like that here.