Endless Sphere

First season for us. We have been doing it some three weeks now between freeze ups. Fun stuff. Have a few gallons made so far. Best tasting stuff we have ever had. Farmer up the road does it commercially and warned me that it can easily become a sickness.

Some data, corrosion factors on some common SS. http://jiano.typepad.com/fbc/0310_stainless_steel_and_corrosion_resistance/chart.gif by common types https://www.cartech.com/globalassets/alloy-techzone/technical-solutions/technical-articles/selectaloydiagramrevapr20061.gif Cold worked! Note big chang...

Got it. One thing to plan on is that when running fewer packs in parallel, you will up the current demand per pack. You may want to base your wire gauges on that higher demand if you plan on going back and forth, just by swapping jumper cables. Look forward to seeing the build.

That motor will run 12s at 70 amps. https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-aerodrive-sk3-6374-149kv-brushless-outrunner-motor.html Not sure why you would run them at 5s. 10s or 15s if you can deal with the rpms. Parallel strings personally I would not go below 14g. Series 8 or 6 gauge and all as short ...

Its a ridgid 4ah battery pack https://www.ridgid.com/ca/en/ac840087-18v-4amp-lithium-ion-pack I really can't imagine needing 12 gauge, when you take the tool apart the wires are somewhat thin, maybe 16 gauge max. With a dozen batteries in parallel i doubt i'll be pulling 40amps from each battery, m...

What are the batteries makeup- c rates. Lithium tool packs? 5s2p with 18650 cells? They could put 40 amps out if so. Would stick to 12awg if so.

Not sure that 440c would be better than 410, 409 or 12c27 in this app. Yes it is stronger, harder, and overall a much better pc of metal, but the increase in chrome is not what you want here IMO. You need some strength at temperature in these thin highly cutout rotors and don't want them to change h...

Looked into a few of the proven stainless alloys and I think now it is more than just overall cosmetic issues. It is a huge family of materials these days. Lots of considerations in surface scale and deterioration over time- use. The proven grades do also share many of the alloying elements that mak...

As far as grabbing power with the same caliper, same amount of pull on the lever, does a 203mm rotor have substantially more than a 160mm rotor? Or is the difference just in heat dissipation? You would see a sizable increase in stopping power. 101/80mm radius would be roughly 1.26 times the leverag...

I would think a non or low chromium high tungsten grade HSS (High speed steel) best for a light rotor app. It needs to be bendable so you can align it (because nothing is perfect). And it should fail in a way that doesn't produce razor sharp fragments. HSS gets poor marks in both regards. What hard...

Nice looking rotor. Bigger is better and Certain to help. Big family of materials in the Stainless grouping. Many are not good at all for the app. May explain some of the crumpling fails. The H or HR (heat resistant) grades would be better but still too broad a product range to address all the perfo...

spoke flanges way too close together. You get stronger brakes at the cost of a weaker wheel

Closer flanges should make a stronger wheel vertically and should also be stiffer-stronger under brake and drive loads. Laterally certainly not as good. Interested in how the dual 8's work out.

In the world we inhabit, bicycle disc brakes can't dissipate as much gross energy as bicycle rim brakes. Tiny 140 -160 mm ones are certainly at a great dis-advantage. No argument. Super thin ones are also poor examples of their potential. Those twin 8" rotors your playing with, it gets close. When ...

Rim brakes are great for slow mo, but will never come close in ultimate performance. Not even!

Agree Luke, that moto brakes are the way to go on high speed setups. What we are seeing in the fails is not tensile fail, but what looks more to me like compression buckling of the brake pad contact area of the rotor. High heat would certainly accelerate this as would stacking spoke loads to it. IMO...

The spoke design is specified such that the mechanical stresses and the thermal stresses occur in opposite orientations, attempting to cancel each other out and lowering the total stress in spokes as opposed to adding together. The heat stress tensile loads the spokes and mechanical loads are in co...

Odd folks think your rotors are mounted backwards. As a man who has overheated and wadded up a half dozen bicycle brake rotors into a hot mess of steel, I found mounting them they way you did so it pulls on the rotor spokes vs pushing on the rotor spokes enabled them to survive much longer at extre...

Below, when the battery itself is froze, you must thaw it, which will take forever, before you use it, or charge it. It does not take a ton of insulation to keep a battery warmer than 32F, if its only 25F overnight. So the best way to go is not letting it freeze solid unless its under long term sto...

Most Li cells are safe to charge down to freezing temps. Below that some types will be damaged. Some types can be charged safely at low current levels below freezing. Looks like some battery preheating should be standard operating procedure in colder areas for those using regen.

They are balance leads. There is a negative and others connect to each cell voltage step (positive side of cell or - cell group if that voltage step is made with more than one cell in parallel) in increasing order. You use them to charge, monitor when balance charging or monitor individual cell volt...

6s (six lithium polymer or ion cells in series) will be slightly less voltage (4.2 x 6 = 25.2v hot off the charger) than the 2- 12v ( 2x 13.6v = 27.2v hot off the charger) lead bricks. This will not be very noticeable as your lead bricks drop quickly and sag much more than the LI bricks will. You al...

I use the 8ah zippy bricks. Started with 4, in 2p-2s and went to just 2 as your thinking on my bbs02 bike, which is much like your demand. It is plenty and much lighter that way. Easy to double up if you want, need more range down the road.

Would think a Big advantage of a trike is that it does not need to be kept from crashing to the ground when it has a 300 pound load. Don't have a clue what you would do with such a load when coming to park on uneven ground and not having a well thought out stand setup on a bike. Trailer would solve ...

Belt drive Thread started in 2012. Some nice builds along the way. http://52.25.253.50/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=42785&sid=8f8e4abd29730ba609d33b8c1b082d25 Also, check with lightning rods as he has lots of experience with the gng belt drive and can advise what to expect on real power limits of the...

Trike? Some heavy duty motor axle types. 2 speed axles are common that would allow them to crawl up steep stuff and cruse along nicely on the flats. http://www.cyclesmaximus.com/hillwashingmachine.jpg http://img.weiku.com/a/002/568/3_wheel_Flatbed_tricycle_with_CE_9887_2.jpg https://image.made-in-ch...