I had a blast today on my Crystalyte 5303

morph999

100 kW
Joined
Jan 20, 2009
Messages
1,721
Man, it was so much fun. The torque on it is crazy. I never even pedaled. I would pedal all the time on my huffy. The 5303 really kind of spoils you but it's so much fun. I got it up to 37 mph today on a newly paved roadway with no stop signs. It would have gone faster but I got scared. It feels weird being able to catch up to the cars on my bike. I feel like I'm breaking the law. I guess I kind of am. lol. I took it out two times today. If you haven't experienced an X5, you don't know what you're missing.
 
60v . Yeah, I went to a parking lot and rode around and around on it until battery was dead.
 
would it be enough to just visually inspect the axle nuts and then take a wrench and just give it a quick turn to see if it's loose or not? I could probably do that every now and then. I hit a bump...man it nearly jarred my teeth loose but bike was still okay.
 
Yea I'd just put a wrench on it. Maybe put some tension on it back and forth and make sure nothing moves around. 60 V sounds like fun..
 
I don't do any burnouts. Not into that kind of thing anyway. I saw your setup in a video, Ypedal. I think it was you. YOu were in some kind of wooded area on a bike that looked like a BMX.
 
morph999 said:
would it be enough to just visually inspect the axle nuts and then take a wrench and just give it a quick turn to see if it's loose or not? I could probably do that every now and then. I hit a bump...man it nearly jarred my teeth loose but bike was still okay.
Visually inspecting for loose axle nuts will only reveal one after it's too late.

My X5 gets torqued down with a 22 mm combination wrench. That gives me 23.5 cm of leverage. I put all my weight on it and give it a bounce.
Let Newton calculate what that's worth. I just figure I'm arm wrestling monster and give it what I've got.*

After the first ride, it took a full quarter turn and a bounce to get it tight again.
It was still tight after the second ride but needed tightening after the third ride.
I ended up having to tighten them about five times in the first ten days.
After that, they stopped getting loose. I know because I'd kept checking them.
Followed the same regime in the days following the tire change. They needed tightening three times and haven't loosened since. They were still tight the last two times I checked.
Any time the wheel is taken out it's in your best interests to bother checking your nuts unless you're nuts.

* The 9 Continent axle is more confidence inspiring than the Crystalyte axle after Justin described the process he witnessed at their factory.
 
The first time a new motor is installed, after the first ride the washers settle in and then it may be possible to turn the nuts another tiny bit. Any more than a tiny turn indicates a problem. Still haven't experienced more than 48v with mine. Sweet, glad to hear your upgrade is rolling. 8)
 
An old racers trick is to take white fingernail polish and put a stripe on the nuts and axle. Then you know if they've moved or not on a quick visual inspection.
 
it wasn't very loose. I gave it a small turn on both sides.

You really notice the peurkert effect with this 5303 motor. I can only reach top speed the first 10 min of the ride then it's down from there. With my other motor, the peurkert effect wasn't as noticeable.
 
morph999 said:
You really notice the peurkert effect with this 5303 motor. I can only reach top speed the first 10 min of the ride then it's down from there. With my other motor, the peurkert effect wasn't as noticeable.

I'd say the Peurkert Effect with SLA's is always quite noticeable when they are used with any electric bike since even with my little motor the best I ever got was 60% of rated capacity and it went as low as 52%. With your big motor you're probably getting even less capacity from your batts, especially if you are using 9Ah bricks. What kind of range are you getting from the 5 SLA's?

-R
 
with the Huffy/Forsen hub and Kenda Tires and a little pedaling, I was getting 10 miles of power...even those last 3 miles would be spotty, the energy would last the whole 10 miles.

With the 5303, I think I'm getting about 6 miles of usable power. With the 5303, it'll just completely die. With the Forsen, it would give bursts of energy every 1 second which allowed me to get home without much pedaling. The 5303 cogs more so it doesn't seem to roll as much as the Forsen hub motor. The Forsen practically free wheeled. You can barely even notice that there was a motor on. Maybe it's the different tires. Both are aired up to 60 psi though.
 
I think this new seat is beginning to make me impotent. I tried lowering it and then moving the front of it lower. I can't tell right now if my discomfort is from previous riding when the nose was higher or not.
 
Any one know of a way to figure the torque that should be applied to hub motors....?
Beings that there is limits to the nutz/axle steel and compression to the unit itself, one would think manufacturers would specify.
Also, why nutz use a bit of LocTite......and or aviation nutz & wire , cotter pin hole & nutz....?
grew up on dirt........
 
Does anyone know if nylocks come in the right thread? Double-nutting also helps as well.
 
I tighten the nuts gradually over a period of hours or even days, getting a bit more each time as the washers settle in for the first time. I use a small wrench, like a 6" crescent so as to not get much more than 20 foot pounds or so. The time I stripped out an axle It was using a big long box end wrench. Using the lighter touch, I don't strip axles anymore, but trying to get another hair tighter repeatedly gets the nuts real snug without putting high torque on them at any time. I have 5000 miles now since the last spinout, which happened on my first hub in the first half mile. No torque arms, even on the 5304.

The problem is not that the nut loosens itself, but rather that the washers bend and squash into the dropout. Or the dropout itself may deform due to lawyer lips. Either way, some space appears and now the nut is not as tight as before. I never ride a bike till the wheel has been bolted on for at least 1 hour and retightened. Nothing wrong with locktite and other methods, but they won't cure putting the motor on the wrong forks.
 
Dogman, what did you do after you stripped the axle on that motor? Was that fixable or did you just throw it away and move on? My hub is on super tight now. I've tightened it 3 times now. I feel pretty safe on it now.
 
I use automotive stud nuts (mounted backwards so cone side faces outwards), They are 1/3 longer and machined better.

The 406 front wheel drive motor I use, threads to the very end of the axel shaft. Using almost all of the threads on the shaft.
 
While I think you guys are <probably> right that this nut-tightening-only approach is good enough, Morph will never experience the true peace of mind that comes with a good torque arm. It's like a hockey coach's superstition - some things you gotta do to get that peace of mind. That comes with determinism.
I like the ones from amped bikes or ebikes.ca personally, having tried both.
 
I agree that a tourque arm or a pair of em is a fine idea. I just try to quash the idea that they can be a substitute for a good fit, on good forks. People think, "with torque arms, I can mount a 5304 on aluminum front forks and overvolt" RIP.

On the stripped axle, part of the problem was indeed, trying to use a previously stripped nut. I rethreaded the axle crudely, and used a smaller SAE nut for awhile. Later, after I burned up an identical motor, I swapped out the axle from the burned motor before selling the good one. Ebikes ca can replace a stripped axle.
 
Back
Top