Overvolted the "Name that Motor" today

[catchinem]

It is a 500 watt 36v setup.Hooked up 4 SLA's to the upside down bike today. Wanted to see if the controller, lights, throttle, cruise ,etc could handle it. Everything worked fine. The motor and controller didn't even get warm. There was a significant increase in the speed the wheel was spinning. Maybe even twice as fast and the motor even sounded smoother. At 36v there was a little whine. at 48v no whine at all. Mind you that there was no load on the bike. What should I expect when I put it to a road test? If I decide to invest in a 48v battery setup what kind of analyst gizmo should I get to monitor the battery pack. I'll probably go with Lifepo4. Thanks.

 

[NeilP]

If I decide to invest in a 48v battery setup what kind of analyst gizmo should I get to monitor the battery pack.

depends on what controller you have. If your controller is already wired to take a Cycle Analyst, then go for one with the Direct Plug option.

If the controller does not have a Cycle Analyst plug then get the Stand Alone version with the remote magnetic speed sensor.

http://www.ebikes.ca/drainbrain.shtml

What should I expect when I put it to a road test?

If you mean what speed , then there is only one way to find out, and that is try it.

Get up some pics so we can see it

 

[Drunkskunk]

from 36 volts to 48 is a 33% increase in voltage, and will give you a 33% increase in motor speed unloaded
But your wind resistance and road friction increase with speed, so you aren't going to go that much faster. More like 20-25%

At a Wild guess, that motor did 20-22 mph at 36 volts, and will probably do 25-28mph at 48volts.

A wattsup meter will work for an inexpensive start. But if you're investing in LiFePo4, get a controller that can handle a direct plug in CA, and get one of those. Its worth the cost.





As a side note, if you like it at 48 volts, wait till you try 72.

 

[SamTexas]

It is a 500 watt 36v setup.Hooked up 4 SLA's to the upside down bike today. Wanted to see if the controller, lights, throttle, cruise ,etc could handle it. Everything worked fine. The motor and controller didn't even get warm. There was a significant increase in the speed the wheel was spinning. Maybe even twice as fast and the motor even sounded smoother. At 36v there was a little whine. at 48v no whine at all. Mind you that there was no load on the bike. What should I expect when I put it to a road test? If I decide to invest in a 48v battery setup what kind of analyst gizmo should I get to monitor the battery pack. I'll probably go with Lifepo4. Thanks.

Good to know that it can take 48V. Did you measure the voltage of the lights on 36 and 48V batteries? If you did, are they the same?

Do you have a cheap bicycle computer? You can use that to measure the speed. BTW, "Pioneer.com" is printed on the hub motor, so it's not quite nameless.

As a side note, if you like it at 48 volts, wait till you try 72.

Don't try it unless you're willing to ruin the controller and the light. Most likely your controller has 63V capacitors.

 

[Gödel]

What should I expect when I put it to a road test?

While the bike is upside down make a Prony Brake out of a coil spring and a caliper brake to get some idea or get the RPM/torque or RPM/hp curves for the motor. If you have one curve you can determine the other from hp = TQxRPM/5252.
Torque in lb-ft = Wheel radius in feet x coil spring pull in pounds.

BTW, monitor the motor current since it can reasonably be said that current kills motors. Try testing it at least three different [low] voltages.

 

[catchinem]

Thanks guys. I'll be working on it again Sunday the 1st and I'll check voltage to the lights at 36 and 48. I may even strap the 4 SLA's to me or the bike and give it a road test. I haven't decided on a rack mount or triangle mount for the battery pack I haven't bought yet. Rotor ,handlebars, and new longer hydraulic brake lines will be delivered this week.Those brake lines are going to be fun. I may ask for help!

 

[SamTexas]

... make a Prony Brake out of a coil spring and a caliper brake ...

You made it sounds like a simple, quick and straight forward instrument. Can you post a picture of your creation along with the time and cost it took you to build it? Thanks in advance.

 

[The Mighty Volt]

48v in any motor is under-volting!!!!!!

 

[wesnewell]

$3 for a simple digital vom to $100+ for a CA. The $3 vom works fine for my setup at 66-100V. At 60v or less, an HK-010 works great to for $19.

 

[Gödel]

... make a Prony Brake out of a coil spring and a caliper brake ...

You made it sounds like a simple, quick and straight forward instrument. Can you post a picture of your creation along with the time and cost it took you to build it? Thanks in advance.

Here's the classical picture for one
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=prony+brake+wiki&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1134&bih=797&tbm=isch&tbnid=xdWa5yXh5JSfRM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSRW_Prony_Brake.png&docid=1JKd5M2VKz6u3M&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/NSRW_Prony_Brake.png&w=730&h=385&ei=rWH-Tv3yJeft0gG72pidDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=794&sig=102793154617015424895&page=1&tbnh=88&tbnw=167&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=56&ty=34

You need something to rub on the wheel perimeter and something that measures the drag, so a caliper brake and spring from a hardware store will probably do. You also need a tach and the wheel radius and you need to measure the spring constant.
At least in principle it's easy but high, uneven caliper brake drag forces may complicate matters. With a 500W motor you already know the rpms and torques you can expect.

 

[SamTexas]

Here's the classical picture for one
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=prony+brake+wiki&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1134&bih=797&tbm=isch&tbnid=xdWa5yXh5JSfRM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSRW_Prony_Brake.png&docid=1JKd5M2VKz6u3M&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/NSRW_Prony_Brake.png&w=730&h=385&ei=rWH-Tv3yJeft0gG72pidDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=794&sig=102793154617015424895&page=1&tbnh=88&tbnw=167&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=56&ty=34

You need something to rub on the wheel perimeter and something that measures the drag, so a caliper brake and spring from a hardware store will probably do. You also need a tach and the wheel radius and you need to measure the spring constant.
At least in principle it's easy but high, uneven caliper brake drag forces may complicate matters. With a 500W motor you already know the rpms and torques you can expect.

A quick internet search would reveal all that info.

What I was asking is: Did you build one? Did it work? How long did it take you to build and test it? Can you post a picture of the one you built/tested?

 

[Gödel]

Here's the classical picture for one
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=prony+brake+wiki&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1134&bih=797&tbm=isch&tbnid=xdWa5yXh5JSfRM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSRW_Prony_Brake.png&docid=1JKd5M2VKz6u3M&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/NSRW_Prony_Brake.png&w=730&h=385&ei=rWH-Tv3yJeft0gG72pidDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=794&sig=102793154617015424895&page=1&tbnh=88&tbnw=167&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=56&ty=34

You need something to rub on the wheel perimeter and something that measures the drag, so a caliper brake and spring from a hardware store will probably do. You also need a tach and the wheel radius and you need to measure the spring constant.
At least in principle it's easy but high, uneven caliper brake drag forces may complicate matters. With a 500W motor you already know the rpms and torques you can expect.

A quick internet search would reveal all that info.

What I was asking is: Did you build one? Did it work? How long did it take you to build and test it? Can you post a picture of the one you built/tested?

Never built one.
I'd estimate building, testing and debugging the first version of such a thing would probably take a morning, not including fetching the parts. Start with a very light drag and see if the numbers make sense as far as matching the rpm/torque curve of your motor.

You could also use the drive wheel to drive a generator and vary the load on the drive wheel by loading the generator with low valued resistors but the Prony Brake is much simpler.

 

[NeilP]

All very nice...but still no pics of the unknown motor. Get some of those up and if anyone can identify it, then it will make the job of telling you what it is likely to be capable of taking a lot easier.

So get some pics of the controller and hub up, and we can maybe give a better idea of what it can really be over volt'ed too.

 

[catchinem]

The motor made for Pioneerbike.com and the controller. Motor is 500 watt 36 volt.

 

[NeilP]

The motor made for Pioneerbike.com and the controller. Motor is 500 watt 36 volt.

NO, the motor is NOT 500Watt. 500 watt is the controller rating NOT THE MOTOR,
Your controller is rated at 500W so at 36 volt that is about 14 amps from the battery.

The motor will take what ever you can throw at it till it overheats...but for short bursts ( within reason ) it will take whatever the controller can give it.
Feed it from a Lyen 18 FET controller at 100volt and 65 amps and It would almost certainly take it. That equals 6500 Watt

It may get hot and running it like that continually at Wide Open Throttle would almost certainly cook it, but looking at the size of it, it would certainly handle it. Need to see how big the phase wires coming out of the axle are to be safe

So it is your controller that you need to upgrade..

Open it up, and slide the board out..there will be a row of screws down th side holding the heat sink to the case. Take them off and the 4 end screws with the wires coming out, and slide the board out. If you have an on/off switch at the other end, you may need to un solder those wires first.

What we need to see is the capacitors and the row of FETS...want to see the numbers written on them. from there we can then determine what voltage your controller can actually handle

 

[NeilP]

Got the controller open yet?

 

[catchinem]

I've been digging into it literally Neil. This thing has been injected from end to end with some rubber like stuff. I may just cut this one up because I have 2 more just like it.

 

[NeilP]

Ok, so only 50volt caps..so I would not go over volting more than that...48 to be safe...depends what the FETS are.
Can you see how many of them there are yet?

 

[wesnewell]

The motor made for Pioneerbike.com and the controller. Motor is 500 watt 36 volt.

You need to understand that motor and controller ratings are based on continuous operation 24/7 at that wattage. Normally, you can put up to 10 times the rating to the motor for short periods of time before any damage will occur, and can run it for miles at 3-4 times the rating. Controllers are rated the same way. To find the max output of a controller, you need to know the max amp rating and multiple that times the voltage you are going to use, VA=W. For instance, my 48v 500w controller will put out 30A (42A after I changed the shunt value), so running on 60v it will put out 60x42=2520W max at 60V source. The most wattage is used at takeoff, and rarely will the controller ever put out max wattage unless your bike is way under powered.

 

[SamTexas]

Have you test ridden it yet catchinem? What is the top speed on 48V?

It's strange that you have both 50 and 63V capacitors. Usually the bigger capacitors all have the same voltage (50, 63 or 100V). BTW 4 SLAs in series has a voltage of 50.8V fully charged and rested. Hot off the charger (not yet rested), the voltage could be as high as 54.0V (13.5 *4).

 

[wesnewell]

I don't think those are the main power caps. Looks like the power caps are in brown cases behind those small ones. Power caps are going to be a lot more than 47mf. At least 10 times more and there should be at lest 2 of the same value next to each other, and then phase caps for each phase normally the same. I've got 50v caps in my controller that uses 100V 1000mf power caps.

 

[SamTexas]

I don't think those are the main power caps. Looks like the power caps are in brown cases behind those small ones. Power caps are going to be a lot more than 47mf. At least 10 times more and there should be at lest 2 of the same value next to each other, and then phase caps for each phase normally the same. I've got 50v caps in my controller that uses 100V 1000mf power caps.

Good observation. You're propably right.

 

[NeilP]

Well spotted

 

[catchinem]

I'm still building it. Got the new rotor on the rear wheel, new handlebars, new seat, and new hydraulic brake lines to reach the handlebars. Waiting on new shift cables and new brake pads being delivered. I will bleed the new hydraulic lines after i install the new pads. I'm looking hard at Cell_Mans 52v 11.5ah triangle battery. $600 is a major decision. I'm still researching batteries and possibly a new controller if we all decide that I need to. I guess I'll go get the saw out and cut this controller open so that we can know what it can handle. I'm getting a $1k bonus check this week and I'll probably spend it on this build, so $$ is not a factor. I'm just taking my time trying to build a nice bike. I'm 57 years old and this is my winter project.

 

[NeilP]

Of course, if you have spare controllers, just pump up the volts on one a bit at a time and see what it can handle.

As was spotted earlier, lets se what those big caps are rated at, and then the FETS...but you will probably be OK up to 50 volts..
Lyen builds up some good controllers, ready to go. anythng from a small 6 FET controller up to monster 24...and maybe 36 FET ones that are good for almost 150 volts

"New" second hand one for sale here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=34387

or one of these would do you fine
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=19587 6 FET 4110 for $89
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=17683 12 FET for $129
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=16605 18 FET for $199

They will all handle the same voltage...good for up to 20 series LiPo..maybe 24 Series LiFEPO4 MAX 100volts

More FETS simply means more current = More Watts to the motor..so more power when you need it