Denver commuter e-bike
- Thread starter Toshi
- Start date
kbarrett
10 kW
Buy three different cans of bowflage at a sporting goods store, and go for the tweaker-camo look.
oatnet
1 MW
Toshi said:
Wow, now I am really glad I offered you my help.
I have actually received FAR more compliments/inquirys about my little 64kb sig than criticisms (3, including yours), and its placement is within the policies established for this forum.
After years of experience with interesting sigs on other forums, I personally would like to see more and larger pictures of people's creations in their sigs. I would be exposed to a broader range of creations than I have time to find on my own, and when someone does something new/different I am likely to notice it earlier. It adds a social element, revealing more about the personality of the forum member than just cold text and miniature avatar. This is why I have not caved to suit the minority of complainers.
When I am following the rules, why is this preference of mine less important than yours? It is sad to say, but nobody likes a 2-month-old forum cop.
At any rate, the easiest thing to do would be to add me to your kill file - its not like you inspired me to offer my help again. If that doesn't suit you and you don't like this forum's policies, I suggest you work with the mods to change them.
-JD
vanilla ice
1 MW
Whats in the water this month...
Drunkskunk
100 GW
Toshi said:Will surface rust hurt the arms or fork? I'm all for making the bike uglier and more unattractive. It does stay parked outside the hospital for 30+ hours after all...D-Man said:Dude, you should paint the torque arms! Paint is cheap! After all that work!
Yes.
kbarrett
10 kW
oatnet said:
Your large sig did bug me ... but I just ad-blocked the image and moved on. I think the only person I have publicly chewed on here was safe ... you aren't anywhere near his level of annoy.
My life is too silly already ... I shouldn't try running other's as well.
lawsonuw
1 kW
oatnet said:
Just wondering if there is a way to have it both ways. Is there a way for the forum's BBcode to automatically thumbnail pictures? I.E. if the picture is over X by Y pixels (maybe a user switch in the "img" tag?) a thumbnail is show that can be clicked on to show the full picture.
Personally I liked you signature picture Oatnet. It did get minorly annoying in long threads when you posted a lot.
Marty
recumbent
100 kW
Definately paint the torque arm & fork, for many reasons, all of them good ones.
Nice instalation, i want one just like it 8)
I also have a 48V/12 amp/hr from same supplier as you and only get about 10 amp/hr reading from CA, and about 45 kms (28mi) range without pedaling.
And i agree that "oatnets" avatar (on the bottom) is too large, and therefore mildly annoying.
Nice instalation, i want one just like it 8)
I also have a 48V/12 amp/hr from same supplier as you and only get about 10 amp/hr reading from CA, and about 45 kms (28mi) range without pedaling.
And i agree that "oatnets" avatar (on the bottom) is too large, and therefore mildly annoying.
Toshi
10 kW
Okok, I'll paint it. Eventually. Been busy off the bike:
And today, at least, I've also been busy on the bike, logging 21+ miles on the bike with some opportunity charging, bringing me to 292 miles in total.
However, I also think I threw a Hall sensor today. After this marathon series of rides today I took off down the street to my parents' place (flat street, 3 blocks away :x ) and the bike felt really rough and wouldn't start. I turned off the power and pedaled manually the rest of the way. I know, oh, the horrors! I did log a few miles on the road bike today as well.
Anyway, with the CA powered up the wheel won't start in a certain range of rotation but will (albeit very roughly) in other positions. It sounds like a Hall sensor, no?
So now what? Is this a ebikes.ca warranty issue? Or normal wear and tear? Should I replace it myself? Or send it back? ??? 8) (time to borrow the car in the meantime!)
And today, at least, I've also been busy on the bike, logging 21+ miles on the bike with some opportunity charging, bringing me to 292 miles in total.
However, I also think I threw a Hall sensor today. After this marathon series of rides today I took off down the street to my parents' place (flat street, 3 blocks away :x ) and the bike felt really rough and wouldn't start. I turned off the power and pedaled manually the rest of the way. I know, oh, the horrors! I did log a few miles on the road bike today as well.
Anyway, with the CA powered up the wheel won't start in a certain range of rotation but will (albeit very roughly) in other positions. It sounds like a Hall sensor, no?
So now what? Is this a ebikes.ca warranty issue? Or normal wear and tear? Should I replace it myself? Or send it back? ??? 8) (time to borrow the car in the meantime!)
ngocthach1130
1 kW
Thanks for the idea on the double leg kickstand btw. I was just so worry it wouldn't fit because it look pretty large and rub the wheel. Also because the leg flare out like that i was afraid it'll hit the chain. to my relief it cleared the chain, by a bit. Didn't realize it folded in so low. I guess that's how it is able to clear the other parts. At first i thought it would fold closer to the bike frame. It's another reason i was looking at the other model which both leg fold together. Cost was something like 46 dollars. This one work like a charm though.
Toshi
10 kW
I have neither fixed the e-bike (see two posts above) nor painted its fork and torque arms. But those tasks are on the list, at least... What I did do just now (for another thread here) was to snap photos illustrating the similarity of saddle-bar drop on my road- and e-bikes. The photos were taken at a decent focal length (80mm plus some cropping and straightening so that the wheels were level in each) so that perspective distortion would be minimized.
Toshi
10 kW
I took advantage of the lately-rare nice day to work on the e-bike outside. First up was scraping off the surface rust with a scotchbrite pad then adding a few coats of anti-rust primer. (More pics than posted from today are here: http://toshiclark.com/images/biking/bikes%20and%20parts/rustoleum%20and%20water%20droplets%20-%20june%2012,%202008/ )
Cleaned up:
In the "paint booth":
Finished product:
Next up was removing the hub motor cover to drain the moisture that presumably worked its way in over the last 292 miles of rainy riding, thus causing Hall sensor type cflakiness. I undid the bolts, tried to work in a flathead with no luck, called ebikes.ca, and was told to lay the axle on something solid such as concrete with the side with undone bolts facing up then to stand/jump lightly on the rim! It worked.
It turns out that there was a bit of water in the motor. A few milliliters drained out immediately and there is moisture visible in the photo of the inner surface of the cover. There wasn't much visible moisture or corrosion on the stator itself, as far as I could see. I'm letting the motor dry face down overnight, and will try it out tomorrow.
Cleaned up:
In the "paint booth":
Finished product:
Next up was removing the hub motor cover to drain the moisture that presumably worked its way in over the last 292 miles of rainy riding, thus causing Hall sensor type cflakiness. I undid the bolts, tried to work in a flathead with no luck, called ebikes.ca, and was told to lay the axle on something solid such as concrete with the side with undone bolts facing up then to stand/jump lightly on the rim! It worked.
It turns out that there was a bit of water in the motor. A few milliliters drained out immediately and there is moisture visible in the photo of the inner surface of the cover. There wasn't much visible moisture or corrosion on the stator itself, as far as I could see. I'm letting the motor dry face down overnight, and will try it out tomorrow.
Toshi
10 kW
While on the phone with ebikes.ca I mentioned that I'd only been able to extract 9 Ah out of a nominally 12 Ah LiFePO4. At this point it appears that I may have not been giving the pack enough time on the charger: from my NiCad days in the RC world years ago I have had the habit of taking packs off the charger soon after the light or other indicator goes green. For LiFePO4 chemistries with low-current balancing circuits in the BMS it is beneficial, I am told, to leave the battery on the charger overnight if possible.
I will charge the battery this way after use for a solid week then repeat the range test. With any luck I'll be up at 12 Ah.
I will charge the battery this way after use for a solid week then repeat the range test. With any luck I'll be up at 12 Ah.
lawsonuw
1 kW
How about taping a few Desiccant Bags to the legs of your motor's stator? (http://www.mcmaster.com catalog page 650 has a selection) It should keep the motor dry inside longer.
Marty
Marty
recumbent
100 kW
Toshi, Is there any way (feeler gauge maybe) you can measure the air gap clearance between the magnets and coils?
Good work on the torque arms BTW, i want one.
Good work on the torque arms BTW, i want one.
Toshi
10 kW
Sorry, I try to stay far away from spark plug feeler gauges, especially since I now am carless! I don't have the tools to measure the air gap, unfortunately.
Marty, that's an interesting idea. I'd be worried with them coming undone and unleashing their contacts into the motor at high rpms, however. I'm also not sure if they'd keep the moisture away from the Hall sensors, which appear to be the culprits in many of the cases according to ebikes.ca's troubleshooting pages.
Marty, that's an interesting idea. I'd be worried with them coming undone and unleashing their contacts into the motor at high rpms, however. I'm also not sure if they'd keep the moisture away from the Hall sensors, which appear to be the culprits in many of the cases according to ebikes.ca's troubleshooting pages.
lawsonuw
1 kW
From the water visible in your pictures I'd expect the humidity inside your motor was 100% or more for quite a while. That high a humidity is really hard on machines. Even just getting rid of the humidity in the air will help quite a bit. Also, I don't think desiccants are very strong. If the stuff can be powdered with your fingers the motor should safely shred any bags that might come loose. In any event, if the bags are tied on securely with Nylon or Polyethylene thread they'd have a hard time working or corroding loose.
Assuming the bike is stored inside in a low humidity environment. This may be a situation where drain/vent holes would help more than they'd hurt. I.E. the motor might get wetter in the rain with the drain holes, but will quickly dry out once brought inside. *shrug* I really should get my e-bike back together so I can test some of this. The weather is even cooperating, Wisconsin is getting hammered with snow and rain this year.
My one cents,
Marty
Assuming the bike is stored inside in a low humidity environment. This may be a situation where drain/vent holes would help more than they'd hurt. I.E. the motor might get wetter in the rain with the drain holes, but will quickly dry out once brought inside. *shrug* I really should get my e-bike back together so I can test some of this. The weather is even cooperating, Wisconsin is getting hammered with snow and rain this year.
My one cents,
Marty
Toshi
10 kW
Ok, I took your advice, Marty. Just ordered up 1 pack (10 bags) each of the first five smallest sizes of desiccant bags from McMaster-Carr. Securing them will be fun -- you mention tying them on with thread (and indeed I _should_ be able to do that given that I'm doing a year of general surgery starting in 12 days!) but I'm not quite sure where I'd tie them to. We'll see.
8)
8)
Toshi
10 kW
So I dried out the hub motor overnight, and opened up the controller case just for good measure (it was dry as a bone). And when I hooked everything back together just now... the same jerkiness and lack of starting from one position is there. Bah.
Time to go through the ebikes.ca controller diagnostics with the multimeter, I guess, and then give them another call.
Here's a shot of my lovely weatherproofing job on the controller that I'll sadly have to discard in order to get at the controller's innards for diagnostics:
Time to go through the ebikes.ca controller diagnostics with the multimeter, I guess, and then give them another call.
Here's a shot of my lovely weatherproofing job on the controller that I'll sadly have to discard in order to get at the controller's innards for diagnostics:
Toshi
10 kW
Troubleshooting results:
Battery voltage just fine at 56V. Throttle power at 5V as expected, and signal from 1-4V. 12V power to the Hall sensors. The two of them wired closest to the ground on the controller go from 0V to 12V. The farthest one goes from 0.0V to 0.6V. Resistance is infinite/off scale at 20kOhm with no battery but with the Hall sensor cable connected on the two good sensors, but is on the scale on the bad one. With battery power connected but the Hall sensor cable disconnected the Hall sensor power and all three sensor leads are 14V with respect to ground.
So it's the Hall sensor, it seems. Justin @ ebikes.ca is mailing me some sensors so that I can pull open the motor again and replace the culprit. Time to read threads here on how to replace them, especially on how to pick the correct one... (is it as simple as the wire on the controller being the same color as the wire leading to the Hall sensor?)
Battery voltage just fine at 56V. Throttle power at 5V as expected, and signal from 1-4V. 12V power to the Hall sensors. The two of them wired closest to the ground on the controller go from 0V to 12V. The farthest one goes from 0.0V to 0.6V. Resistance is infinite/off scale at 20kOhm with no battery but with the Hall sensor cable connected on the two good sensors, but is on the scale on the bad one. With battery power connected but the Hall sensor cable disconnected the Hall sensor power and all three sensor leads are 14V with respect to ground.
So it's the Hall sensor, it seems. Justin @ ebikes.ca is mailing me some sensors so that I can pull open the motor again and replace the culprit. Time to read threads here on how to replace them, especially on how to pick the correct one... (is it as simple as the wire on the controller being the same color as the wire leading to the Hall sensor?)
Toshi
10 kW
A couple of updates:
1) Three loose Hall sensors have arrived from ebikes.ca. I'll be attempting to replace the recalcitrant one later this afternoon. I'm not quite sure at this point how I'll tell which one is bad, but I'm guessing that it'll either be obvious from the physical look of it, or resistance over its leads with the multimeter will be significantly different than its peers (assuming its leads are accessible in situ).
2) I grew sick of carrying the panniers around by hand, what with their load of 18 lbs of battery along with a charger, my helmet, my lunch, etc. Thus I caved in like a middle aged woman with a rolling "backpack" :x and found this helpful little gadget on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsonite-Micro-Mover-Luggage-Charcoal/dp/B000A7VRD2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1214172438&sr=8-1
In folded up state it should live quite happily atop the rear rack secured by a bungee, and will be a godsend for wheeling the panniers about when off the bike during the day.
3) One of the reasons I was considering the (overpriced relative to the Novara) Bianchi Milano was that it had a full length chainguard. These are rare beasts these days as they only work on single speed bikes or bikes with internally geared hubs such as mine. However, they are really, really convenient, offering the ability to ride without the tell-tale rolled up pant leg.
Thankfully at least one reputable company seems to make new chainguards (as opposed to the faux-vintage Schwinn ones cluttering up eBay): QBP. Quality Bicycle Parts is a distributor of many a line of bike parts, but they also own a few brands such as Salsa and Surly. They made a new brand last year, Civia, focused on high-end bike commuters. Their Civia Hyland model in particular came with a nice chainguard:
Best of all, this chainguard is available separately, too! (through QBP, of course.)
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?action=details&PageID=30&SKU=CG2400
4) Due to all this Hall sensor business I haven't ridden the e-bike since June 9, so my mileage has been stuck at 292 mi since then. Instead all of my commuting and errand-running has been on the road bike and the bus -- recall that I sold my car and didn't replace it about 5 weeks ago. While I haven't become a sun-hating miser I definitely have found myself curtailing my activities just because I didn't want to ride back home in the dark, in the rain, uphill...
5) phpBB allows one to turn off display of others' (including one's own) signatures and avatars. This board is much cleaner with them off... Ahh. 8)
6) For those of you who enjoy the photos that I have taken and posted in this thread (or have seen http://www.toshiclark.com ): my camera body (Canon 20D) is for sale on eBay! The auction ends Wednesday, which is also the first real day of service as a surgical intern at the county hospital. Yikes.
1) Three loose Hall sensors have arrived from ebikes.ca. I'll be attempting to replace the recalcitrant one later this afternoon. I'm not quite sure at this point how I'll tell which one is bad, but I'm guessing that it'll either be obvious from the physical look of it, or resistance over its leads with the multimeter will be significantly different than its peers (assuming its leads are accessible in situ).
2) I grew sick of carrying the panniers around by hand, what with their load of 18 lbs of battery along with a charger, my helmet, my lunch, etc. Thus I caved in like a middle aged woman with a rolling "backpack" :x and found this helpful little gadget on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsonite-Micro-Mover-Luggage-Charcoal/dp/B000A7VRD2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1214172438&sr=8-1
In folded up state it should live quite happily atop the rear rack secured by a bungee, and will be a godsend for wheeling the panniers about when off the bike during the day.
3) One of the reasons I was considering the (overpriced relative to the Novara) Bianchi Milano was that it had a full length chainguard. These are rare beasts these days as they only work on single speed bikes or bikes with internally geared hubs such as mine. However, they are really, really convenient, offering the ability to ride without the tell-tale rolled up pant leg.
Thankfully at least one reputable company seems to make new chainguards (as opposed to the faux-vintage Schwinn ones cluttering up eBay): QBP. Quality Bicycle Parts is a distributor of many a line of bike parts, but they also own a few brands such as Salsa and Surly. They made a new brand last year, Civia, focused on high-end bike commuters. Their Civia Hyland model in particular came with a nice chainguard:
Best of all, this chainguard is available separately, too! (through QBP, of course.)
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?action=details&PageID=30&SKU=CG2400
4) Due to all this Hall sensor business I haven't ridden the e-bike since June 9, so my mileage has been stuck at 292 mi since then. Instead all of my commuting and errand-running has been on the road bike and the bus -- recall that I sold my car and didn't replace it about 5 weeks ago. While I haven't become a sun-hating miser I definitely have found myself curtailing my activities just because I didn't want to ride back home in the dark, in the rain, uphill...
5) phpBB allows one to turn off display of others' (including one's own) signatures and avatars. This board is much cleaner with them off... Ahh. 8)
6) For those of you who enjoy the photos that I have taken and posted in this thread (or have seen http://www.toshiclark.com ): my camera body (Canon 20D) is for sale on eBay! The auction ends Wednesday, which is also the first real day of service as a surgical intern at the county hospital. Yikes.
Toshi
10 kW
One of these Hall sensors is not like the others...
Detail:
It's curious to me that this one seemed mounted so much closer to the magnets' surface than its peers. This construction clearly seems to have contributed to its early failure.
Detail:
It's curious to me that this one seemed mounted so much closer to the magnets' surface than its peers. This construction clearly seems to have contributed to its early failure.
Toshi
10 kW
Quoted from another board where I don't capitalize:
Toshi said:11 PM update:
pesky little bugger chiseled out after heating epoxy with the soldering iron:
new sensor in place after reaming out the hole a bit with an awl:
new sensor bathed in epoxy. 90 second curing is too fast! last time i buy that stuff. note dabs of electrical tape covering Worlds Ugliest Solder Joints (TM). it's probably been a dozen years since i last soldered in earnest.
finally, a high tech mounting solution for the desiccant bags. the stator is stationary (fixed to the axle), as it's the hub shell that rotates about it, so i figured this mounting setup might do.
11 PM update:
pesky little bugger chiseled out after heating epoxy with the soldering iron:
[img]http://toshiclark.com/images/biking/bikes%20and%20parts/hall%20sensor%20fun%20-%20june%2022,%202008/Images/IMG_5053.jpg
new sensor in place after reaming out the hole a bit with an awl:
new sensor bathed in epoxy. 90 second curing is too fast! last time i buy that stuff. note dabs of electrical tape covering Worlds Ugliest Solder Joints (TM). it's probably been a dozen years since i last soldered in earnest.
finally, a high tech mounting solution for the desiccant bags. the stator is stationary (fixed to the axle), as it's the hub shell that rotates about it, so i figured this mounting setup might do.
if this all doesn't work and the Hall is still bad then i'm just going to order a pedal-first (vs. immediate start) controller and sell my current one. pedal-first controllers don't rely on Hall sensors so this problem would be guaranteed to not recur.
Mark_A_W
100 kW
There's no lip seal on the side plates? Just outside the main bearings?
Toshi
10 kW
Correct, the side plates have no seal or gasket.Mark_A_W said:
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