Trek Fuel (RE)build thread

[dougnutz]

OK,Maybe rebuild would more appropriate. This is my commuter:
2004 is Trek Fuel , it handles very well at 37mph (down hills).It has a 9c 2806 20amp kit from Ebike.ca. The battery is a little small but it has served well for the first year. There is a longer story there but after 3000 miles it’s time to upgrade.

My needs: are similar to a lot of commuters, I pedal a lot and I usually use about 4-5ah on a 16 mile round trip, daily. 14 miles are on bike trails but one half mile of my commute is on a pretty busy road with a posted 35mph speed limit. Most people go 40mph. On the current setup I can manage 33 pedaling at a sprint but I’m finding this just isn’t enough to take the lane and the shoulder is rough and full of debris. So my plan is to join the 40 mph club. No pedaling is the preferred option at that speed.
After much lamenting about Lipo I finally decided to pull the trigger and move over to the dark side.

Santa came early this year and brought me these. 6s 8ah nano tech I plan to series them. 8ah should give me capacity to spare.


I also got a set of Methods fabulous hvc/lvc boards.
View attachment 3

I purchased an Imax balance charger. It’s only 5amp charge rate but I don’t need fast charging. Besides it’s mainly going to be used for the occasional balance if my cell meter tells me they need balanced

I also ordered up a charger for bulk charging; which I plan to do most of the time. It has been preset to 74.4 v (4.13v per cell) This is where I am a little nervous. Based on other threads and my Life charger, this seems like a safe setup. I also plan to use the HVC boards to shut down the charger if a cell goes too high. Though I haven’t worked out exactly how I am going to do that yet (looking for advice here).


Lastly I purchased the 12 x 4110 MOSFET Extreme Modder Controller LYEN Edition.
Which I plan to set to 25 amps for starters then sneak up on 35 amps later. Since my plan is to change the controller out first setting the amp limit to 25 will keep the bms on my current pack from tripping.

I expect to upgrade the torque plate to be a pinch bolt style, as I do the controller change. I’m hoping to be able to run 30-35 amps without worrying about phase wire upgrades or heat. I will only be sprinting to 40 mph twice on the commute (once each way) and on flat ground. I need to try to make this bike as reliable as possible since it’s my daily transit. I do plan to buy another hub and transfer all the take-off parts to a second bike, but that may have to wait a little while.

I'm looking for advice and warnings. I plan to document all my conversion steps as I go so it will essentially be a build/rebuild thread for a commuter bike.

 

[Brentis]

Congrats.
Nice bike.
Green with jealousy for those packs.

My advice, Center that pack.
@ least off the rack.
Good luck.



Lot's of pics please.

 

[dogman dan]

Looks like a solid plan. I keep wishing I had some of those lipo boards, but $$.

I dont think you need to upgrade the wires for that 25 amp wattage. But you might just upsize the wire from the controler, to where it's about to enter the motor. It will help heatsink the wire that remains, but avoids having to actually pull the wires out of the axle.

Worked fine for my race bike, at 110v 40 amps. I just used 12 guage.

 

[Brentis]

Look here for some inspiration.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31030
Great job.

 

[dougnutz]

Congrats.
Nice bike.
Green with jealousy for those packs.

My advice, Center that pack.
@ least off the rack.

Thanks, I'm really hoping to get the battery into the frame. The batteries are a little too long to put two end to end along the frame rails. I could put two side by side with the third one centered on top of them. They are lighter than my current pack so I might mount them to the rack initially and then try to move them down. The only thing is I know if I get them mounted now I won't be motivated to move them later. Especially since I have already put 3000 mile on it as is.
I only notice the high Cg when making tight turns.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Having a similar suspension design bike, and having had my batteries on a rack for a day before moving them into the frame, I can say with experiance:

DO IT



It realy is THAT much better.

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

So, this is going to be your entire battery pack, the three 6S 8Ah Nanotechs run in series as 18S?

I'm not sure you would want to push that small of a pack to hard, but as long as you are able to monitor things closely (so you use a CA?) and not over-stress the packs, you should be fine, and remember, that 8 AH pack will effectively be only 4AH in the cold!

Your only warning will be that he voltage sags soon as you use about 1/2 the capacity to the point that it would near a full drain from the full 8 AH's

You will only be able to see the difference when you go to charge, and the balance charger will say what capacity your packs are at on the start of the charge.

+1,000 on putting the batteries in the frame! It will make things a lot less tippy at slow speeds especially when you are trying to load cargo.

Pics very much appreciated, and most of all, have fun with it!

 

[neptronix]

battery in the frame is absolutely the best scenario. Particularly for handling.

I fear that rear rack cracking your seatpost or seat collar on the frame. That's usually what happens with anything over 10lbs on a seat post. This can be got around by making a reinforcement from the rear rack that bolts to another part of the frame far enough from the seat post area to extert the stress of 10-20lb yanking away at the metal as you hit bumps and such.

You might want to consider one of these bags:

https://www.revelatedesigns.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=store.catalog&CategoryID=1&ProductID=5

( it's a non-branded version of what hi-powercycles is selling )

 

[dougnutz]

battery in the frame is absolutely the best scenario. Particularly for handling.

I fear that rear rack cracking your seatpost or seat collar on the frame. That's usually what happens with anything over 10lbs on a seat post. This can be got around by making a reinforcement from the rear rack that bolts to another part of the frame far enough from the seat post area to extert the stress of 10-20lb yanking away at the metal as you hit bumps and such.

You might want to consider one of these bags:

https://www.revelatedesigns.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=store.catalog&CategoryID=1&ProductID=5

( it's a non-branded version of what hi-powercycles is selling )

The current battery pack weighs 8 lbs. The lipo weighs 6.5 with no case so the end result will be about the same. Plus I carry panniers on the rack. Which weigh about another 10 lbs. The paniers ride alot lower so I've never noticed them affecting the handling. At least not the way the battery does. But like I said, this has been the setup for the last 3000 miles and has served well.

Batteries in the frame, or at least forward of the seat post is one of my top priorities. Thanks for the link too, the shape of the frame makes it really hard to get a proper bag in there. I think I am going to have to make something.

 

[dougnutz]

Ok, I ordered up some bullet connectors to match what comes on the pack. They came in a huge envelope 8.5x11 padded envelope !?… anyway they seem a little puny to me but should work for 30-35 amps; they also match what comes on the nano techs which seem to be rated at 25c (200+ amps?)
View attachment 2Sorry my phone doesn't do macro that well.

I did a quick and dirty solder job on the connector for the charger so I can do a first balance charge on each pack separately. I hot glued the ends do to make it harder to short them out, ugly but effective.


I took a reading of the starting balance so I can compare it to the finish balance, that way I can check to make sure my tools agree with each other. I also have a fluke 88 meter that I will triple check with if they don’t agree
Here it is already to go. Hopefully there will be no fireworks. But just in case I will have the video camera ready.

 

[dougnutz]

So charging and balancing went rather uneventfully. I didn't expect anything but all the Lipo hype had me a little anxious. I can hear all the Lipo veterans chuckling
Anyway I'm wiring in the Lyen controller:

The phase wires have the same exact colors as the original Ebikes controller so can I assume they are the same??

The hall sensor wires are a little more confusing. I seem to remember a thread about how to wire a lyen controller to 9c halls. But I can’t seem to find it. Search isn’t being my friend today. Does anyone know the correct color combination? The Lyen controller has red, green, blue just like the Ebikes controller but for some reason I seem to remember them being wired differently.

 

[dougnutz]

Ok via PM this seems to be the correct wiring

Controller: Motor:
Hall:
Yellow Yellow
Green Blue
Blue Green

Phase:
Yellow Yellow
Green Blue
Blue Green

I'll try this and see

 

[dougnutz]

Battery pack is done. Well for the short term at least. I still need to work out how to mount this into the triangle, but I want to make sure things work first. I used some old plexi glass sheets that I had lying around. A little plastic weld from the hobby shop and instant battery box. The fit is pretty snug and I have some padding below and beside the lipo packs for a little vibration resistance. If one of these cells puffs up any I may have to cut the plastic apart to get the pack out

I finished changing the controller connections over to match my old controller. Just to make it easier to swap them if needed.

I'm planning to set the rated current to 30 amps and the phase current to 70. This seems reasonable for max settings.

 

[Brentis]

Looks good & simple :wink:
I am interested in more detail on the battery box.
More pics please.
I'm a visual learner.

Keep up the great work

 

[dougnutz]

Looks good & simple :wink:
I am interested in more detail on the battery box.
More pics please.
I'm a visual learner.

Keep up the great work

Sorry I didn’t take a lot of photos of the battery box as I constructed it. It’s really just plain old 1/4 in plexi-glass like they sell at home depot. I used a circular saw to cut it, and sanded the edges lightly. Then used some wood clamps to hold it together while I glued it. pretty simple design, mostly closed bottom and open top. I didn’t completely close the bottom because I wanted to be able to push the batteries out rather than pull on the wires

Then I installed it in one of my panniers. The weight is still too far back for my liking but it’s lower to the ground now.
View attachment 3

I drilled two small holes into the lexan then attached it directly to the panier mount so the box effectively attaches to the rack with the panier around it for weather protection.

I left the original interior panel in the panier to cover the battery and wiring. That way I can still keep my spare parts in the same panier without worrying about dropping something in the battery box.


The finished product.


This semi perminant. I think I will keep this pack arrangement since it's simple, and gives me time to work out the detail of hvc/lvc for the pack.

 

[dougnutz]

Ok, just took my first ride with new setup. <insert colorful adjective> was that a wild ride. From the first blip of the throttle I started grinning and haven’t stopped yet. The combination of a 12 fet Lyen and Lipo is unreal! I know it’s been said a million times but wow. I’m not even running high power compared to some people. The CA read 74 volts hot off the charger. The controller is set to 30 amps but the CA is reporting a max of 65. I never saw it above 33 though. 65 amps seem like a glitch, not a real reading. Either way it hit 43 mph on very slight downhill grade. I guess I am officially in the 40 mph club. One thing for sure 43mph is definitely a lot faster/wilder than 33.

When I got back from the ride I had a few loose spokes. I think they were a little loose beforehand, I had heard some creaking, but now they are definitely loose. I hope I am not on my way to a bunch of broken spokes.

Another odd thing is that the motor seems quiter.

 

[dougnutz]

First two weeks gone by and the Lipo pack is/has been uneventful.One minor issue with the case, the plastic weld didn't hold on the bottom. Fortunately there isn't anywhere for these to go but a routine inspection showed the bottom had broken out of the battery box. I sanded things down and re-attached it. so far so good.

These are 8ah nano tech packs and while there seems to be some debate about how many ah they will actually produce. I'm consuming 4ah on my commute and my cell monitor says the packs have 67% remaining. I sort of doubt the accuracy there, but it works out to an ending voltage of 3.72 per cell, you decide. Things are staying nearly perfectly balanced too. I did one balance charge just because I can. But the rest of the time it's bulk charging, definitly the way to go, I would hate to balance charge every day.

We have snow today though so the bike is parked for a bit.

 

[biohazardman]

First two weeks gone by and the Lipo pack is/has been uneventful.One minor issue with the case, the plastic weld didn't hold on the bottom. Fortunately there isn't anywhere for these to go but a routine inspection showed the bottom had broken out of the battery box. I sanded things down and re-attached it. so far so good.
View attachment 1
These are 8ah nano tech packs and while there seems to be some debate about how many ah they will actually produce. I'm consuming 4ah on my commute and my cell monitor says the packs have 67% remaining. I sort of doubt the accuracy there, but it works out to an ending voltage of 3.72 per cell, you decide. Things are staying nearly perfectly balanced too. I did one balance charge just because I can. But the rest of the time it's bulk charging, definitly the way to go, I would hate to balance charge every day.

We have snow today though so the bike is parked for a bit.

Most plastics, I used abs can be easily bent to shape when heated by a heat gun. Makes things stronger, edges not so sharp, and less or no glue will be needed. Good job on the build. What you don't want to crash and burn in hte snow? :?

 

[dougnutz]

Most plastics, I used abs can be easily bent to shape when heated by a heat gun....

Ya I am still noodling out how to get the battery into the triangle of the bike. I expect to build another battery pack and will probably use abs next time. Though I was suprised how strong the lexan turned out to be.

 

[biohazardman]

Nothing wrong with Lexan it is good stuff. We often use what we are the most familiar with or is the easiest to obtain. Plenty of plastics/composits around to use. I have some more battery werq to do myself good luck with yours.

 

[dougnutz]

More Power Muahahaha,

Ok so the new setup has about 800 miles on the clock (plus the original 3k at 48v 20 amps) and I have decided to up the power. I have been running at 30-35 amps. Now I am bumping it up to 40. I think this will probably be the limit for me at least for a while. The main reason I am upping the amps is because I don't want the controller to be current limiting at top speed. I've been told if that if you reach max current before you reach max speed you will start to produce lots of heat in the controller because of the current limiting. This makes some sense to me and I trust the people giving me the advice.

I only run full throttle for about 1-2 minutes twice a day where I have to deal with traffic on a busy road. The rest of the time I'm running about 20 mph and pedaling hard.

Anyway I am curious to hear from others who have run a 9c at about 2500 watts...