Help me write the ES wiki https://endless-sphere.com/w

[mark5]

Now that the forum is in good hands, and here to stay, I would like to give back in the form of a wiki.

This way when we get PM's from newbs and threads from newbs about stupid things, we can say, RTFW n00b!!! It's a lot fewer characters to type, and they can get through and correct and complete answers rather than the crude I cobble together half-asleep that half-answers their question.



This was some Wiki framework ideas that I had created in a previous thread. Please add/delete/re-arrange this stuff as you think would be good. Post your suggestions, and I will keep a running edited version of the needed framework as we edit and revise it etc.




Here was my crude framework:


The order we would need to have for FAQ's to work would be something like this.

Basic definitions: cell, parallel, series, battery and battery array, ESC, hall effect/sensor,

Basic units of electronics:
Amps, Volts, Watts, Watt-hours, Amp-Hours, Ohms, Henrys, Farads, Ri, etc. And an explanation and example for each one.

Then, after they finished the unit FAQ, they could move onto a basic formulas FAQ: V= IR, I^2R=Watts of heat loss, IR = voltage drop, C-rate, internal resistance calcs, PWM% calcs, various power and energy calcs, etc.

Then once they have finished and understand the core basic calculations, they could move onto higher level FAQ's, which are really impossible to grasp if you don't have the core basics solidly understood.

Like an FAQ on battery charging process, what happens and how it works and how to do it right.

An FAQ on understanding the relationships between torque and RPM to determine mechanical power, and conversions from watts to HP etc.

An FAQ on motors, and try to break down all the extremely wrong info people spread constantly about motors (and I was once one of them myself, thank you Miles and Jeremy)

An FAQ on understanding the differences that matter to the user in battery chemistries.

An FAQ on the role and effects PWM plays in the battery/controller/motor system.

An FAQ on understanding inductance and how inductance and temporary flux energy storage enables our bikes to function (because it really requires an entire FAQ just to itself).

An FAQ on motor efficiency and which areas are the substantial sources of loss, and how the 5 major loss groups change with RPM.

An FAQ on cell balancing and the various methods and mechanisms that can accomplish it, and which are practical and impractical in practice.

etc etc etc At least 20 more topics would be needed.

[Joseph C.]

You might want to start off with something a bit more basic to begin with.

Motor performance, battery range, speed, charging times, different battery chemistries, motor setups, ideal bicycles for particular uses etc.

If the first thing I saw coming here was detailed formulae and electrical equations I would run for the hills. You might loose a lot of potential ebikers as not everyone are convergent thinkers.

[liveforphysics]

Don't you think we should start with definitions though?

And to get the definitions, (like a watt, a watt-hour etc) we need to have a bit of math.


But I agree with you, and please please! If you've got a better structure, lay it out and I will edit/revise mine to make it more friendly for folks.

[Joseph C.]

Oh yes, I definitely think they should be there but maybe not at the very top.

If I get time tomorrow, I will write something up but Dogman is the true connoisseur when it comes to helping people. I will do my best though.

[salty9]

LFP,

As I'm sure you aware, there is a hellava lot of good info in the ES forums and it would be a shame to repeat it. I have been away from data base programming for a long time and am not familiar with today's data structures and procedures but I do know that data bases can be manipulated or mined for information. I would suggest that the forums be sifted against the FAQs by knowledgeable programmers and the results reviewed by knowledgeable volunteers to remove the chaff.

Chuck

[slayer]

well for me i would be very interested Luke to know about all those subject.

i realise with your resume that i have a lot of interesting things to learn

[neptronix]

I'm no expert in definitions, but i can help write some articles about what i know best ( RC lipo management, and geared hub motors ).

Definitions help, but what people want in a wiki is an article on one topic that is super extensive and/or links to the information they need from within.
Think about how you search wikipedia.

[ptd]

great idea luke. is this a format that could just be added to our index ? maybe just a single locked thread that only you can edit ? i had thought about something like a reference area, with an expanding table of contents (similar to exploring a hard drives contents), with links to wiki's (or just our own general definitions), youtube vids, podcasts. was wondering if there's a way to have mouse over pop ups (or maybe just futhur expansion), with a synopsis of the content, and maybe even ratings, like for dummies or techies kinda thing. we could even do some kind of online class. tests even. grades get you to the next level kind of thing (with respect to being able to join in higher level discussions, maybe). and maybe tests point to what the FAQ's might address early on.

so, can i be the noob that asks all the stupid questions ? i could get started on that straight away, lol. for generating the FAQ's ? or should there be some kind of write for each subject ? get enough of the same question, submit it for comment. revise, repost, revise, repost. different drafts. final's (for the moment) get posted under general definitions or something similar.

was also wondering about sub categories for the site in general, as well.

[GGoodrum]

Definitely definitions first. I'll help with the charging and balancing sections, if you need it.

-- Gary

[Lock]

etc etc etc At least 20 more topics would be needed.

Stupid Laws
Conspiracy Theories
Fast buck artists
False Advertizing
The Sex Life of ebikers

tks
10Ck

[neptronix]

Lock.. gotta give it a true forum feel right?

Throw in some of Morph's recipes too.

[Doctorbass]

Great idea Luke!!!

While you work on that you dont spend your time on your 100MPH ebike That leave me few more time to work on mine!

Just like a wiki, the E-S also need a world record holder!

Doc

[CrazyJerry]

The wiki is a great idea.

~ CrazyJerry

[TylerDurden]

Please.
Everyone.

When creating reference documents, observe the difference between a FAQ and a tutorial (or article).

They have been confused on this bbs far too many times by well-intended, but misinformed or pedantic authors.

[ptd]

When creating reference documents, observe the difference between a FAQ and a tutorial (or article).
They have been confused on this bbs far too many times by well-intended, but misinformed or pedantic authors.

maybe the FAQ's could just point to the tutorials. and speaking of tutorials, is it possible to view a thread, but only the op's posts ? might make for a really quick way to view a build's progression, almost like an instructable. ok, i now see how you can sort by author, but in a 50 page post, it's still a bit of a pain.

[karma]

a few other forums ive registered with over the years had the same idea. like diyaudio.com they had a nice wiki database but after numerous problems with data corruption they dumped it.

[Erogo]

In the absence of an official (!) wiki or FAQ or tutorial or whatever, the content of ES is the implicit substitute. By which I mean that noobs reading content on ES will take it as "gospel" to a greater or lesser extent.

And, if you look at the content of some posts on ES (no offence intended to OPs) it's bollocks. Not all of it, obviously, but there are instance of folks getting units wrong, basic understanding wrong, putting apostrophe's in the wrong place etc (joking).

I reckon it's worth, when you spot that, just dropping a PM to the author, and suggesting they correct the mistake, so that it's not sitting there for someone else to mislearn from.

The correction'd have to be done in a way that preserved the flow of the thread, but do youse reckon it'd be worth those corrections being made? Or at least flagging that there's a mistake?

[url link] xkcd comic, the one about "Someone's WRONG on teh internet" [/url link]

[grindz145]

It is Definately time to start organizing some of the critical data into a wiki. It is one thing for a guru to be able to find what they need, most of us don't have a problem doing it, but to really help a vast majority of people get going, something a little more organized is definately the way to go.

[Hyena]

Yeah I'm happy to help. It'd be good to organise all the basic and some of the more technical stuff together in an easy to find resource. I know a few times I've gone looking for documents on pin outs for less commonly used features on infineon boards and had to trawl through a heap of threads to find what I'm looking for.

At the more basic end I've made a few simple video tutorials which many have commented they found useful. Some people find watcing it easier to take in than reading alot of text that may go over their head.

This one shows how to fit a basic hub motor kit and should satisfy most noob questions about "how hard is it?"



Also this one on checking and balancing lipo with a battery medic. I mainly made it for people I'm building packs for but the basics would apply to most noob lipo questions.

[rhitee05]

Wiki is a very good idea.

I like the idea of having a basic info section, but not sure if we need to go into ground-up fundamentals. For a lot of things just a link to the appropriate Wikipedia page is sufficient, no need to duplicate efforts. For some things it might be useful to link to Wikipedia but have some additional material to put it in the EV context. Once you get into EV-specific stuff it's useful to have dedicated write-ups.

I mainly like the wiki idea because it's a way to consolidate lots of the really useful info into one place, and allow it to be added and updated over time. Wiki format is much better for that than all the sticky/FAQ threads.

[grindz145]

So how can I help? What can I do to get the wiki started, and get it hosted here at ES?

[justin_le]

I would like to give back in the form of a wiki.

Hey Luke, this is a great idea and will be the next on the agenda for MrVass (my software guy) to setup after the first priority which is the corrupted image problem. The nice thing about Wiki's is that they are easy to have as a perpetually evolving and improving document, we don't need to try and nail the exact organization and layout at the beginning. So if you want to start flushing out some of the content on the topics listed then that could be a fine starting point.

I probably have at least 2 dozen half finished ebike tech articles and FAQ's that I started writing over the years initially for the ebikes.ca website but never got around to finishing them. Attached is one on different ebike battery types Circa 2008. Amazing how already irrelevant and dated a lot of it is.

In line with what Hyena was mentioning, some way of consolidating all of the ebike related videos that people here have shared into a video gallery of sorts would be useful too. I don't think there should be videos embedded within the wiki, more just a page with thumbnail image links to all the different videos grouped loosely by subject (ex. installation videos, destructive test videos, troubleshooting videos, ebike trip videos etc)

Justin

[Miles]

Count me in, Luke.

We need to filter out some of the misleading information that pervades the forum. High torque motor winds, motor efficiency and rpm, using watts to specify drivetrains etc. etc.

I vote for SI (MKS) to be used as the primary units system for the wiki. Using a coherent system makes understanding relationships so much easier....

[ptd]

I vote for SI (MKS) to be used as the primary units system for the wiki. Using a coherent system makes understanding relationships so much easier....

would it be so difficult to just do both? coherent is kind of subjective

[Miles]

I vote for SI (MKS) to be used as the primary units system for the wiki. Using a coherent system makes understanding relationships so much easier....

would it be so difficult to just do both? coherent is kind of subjective

Well I did say primary. In this case, coherent is not "kind of subjective". Absolutely no reason not to have local units in brackets, though...