Ninja 250 "Clone" Made in China

[inirico]

awesooome..
cool DIY process.. hope everything goes well.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Hi guys,

It's been a long while since the last update... Unfortunely not much happened on the build because I had some unexpected things to deal with (moving out to a new home).

Anyway, you are probably aware that in China the whole country has been shut down for a few weeks due to this virus everyone's been talking about. This, at least for me, has been a positive thing since I had plenty of time to catch up and continue moving forward on my build.

I started by finishing the battery box. That took a lot of work, sanding, coating with epoxy, sanding again, coating again, sanding... you get the idea.
Anyway, last time I coated it it looked like this:

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The battery will be air conditioned using Peltier modules and a water cooling system, still havent finished working on the programming part of the electronics but hopefully it should be done soon.
Since then I sanded the box once again, hopefully for the last time before I'll clear coat it, so that's why it won't look nice and shiny in the following pictures.

I've entirely removed the original steel battery box. I weighted it at a bit more than 6 kilograms. The new carbon box is a little bit above 1.5 kilograms so that's a nice weight reduction so far. I had a very hard time fitting the new box in the frame, but after a while it did came in eventually:

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After that, it was time to design and 3d print a box in order to protect my BMS:

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It worked pretty well. In the end, I plan to print another one and cover it with carbon fiber, for looks of course but also for better waterproofing. Just waiting for a vacuum pump to arrive in the mail so I could do it properly.\

Installed in the frame:

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Also designed some brackets to secure the box to the frame. Those are just some 3D printed temporary ones, I'll redesign them slightly and either make them out of carbon fiber, or cast them out of aluminum, I'm not decided yet.

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Also worked on integrating my Ant BMS screen into my dashboard. I had some useless gauges since this one was intended for a gas bike. The rev gauge and fuel gauges weren't used so I thought I'd just remove them and put the screen instead.
Wasn't really easy but it worked well in the end.

Started by removing the useless gauges and fitting the screen on the PCB:

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Cut the external cover:

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3D printed a part to better hide all that mess:

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Covered it in carbon fiber:

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Made a very ghetto vacuum bagging using a vacuum cleaner. Wasn't great at all, my bag was leaking and the vacuum cleaner didn't have a lot of succion power. I had to leave it like that for two hours which was insanely annoying:

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Spent almost a week of sanding, putting more epoxy, sanding again, etc...

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And finally it came out OK. Could have been better if I had a vacuum pump, but it's not too horrific. Hopefully next carbon fiber parts will be better with proper gear.

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Right now I'm riding the bike just like that, but that's a bit sketchy, I need to finish it quickly since its my daily driver.
Next steps to do
-build the battery box brackets,
- insulate the box with aerogel sheets (great fireproof material, extremely good insulation property to keep the temperature in the box as constant as possible)
- Make a lid to close the box
- finish the BMS enclosure

Once all of that will be done I plan to tackle an other composites challenge, copying the current gas tank from the current 5kg steel it's made out into a 1 or less Kg of nice carbon fiber. I also need to work on my battery air conditioning system before the hot days of summer arrive.

[MorbidlyObeseKoala]

Insulate with aerogel sheets? Where do you find those?

I had seen a video about a smaller company that started making and tweaking the final composition so I assumed it was getting a little more affordable but not to the point where you could put it in a motorcycle.

I'd love to put it in my walls at home to help my heating/cooling costs.

[john61ct]

crazy pricey, only for use where space is lacking

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Well I don't know about the prices where you live, but here in China it seems like I can find that for around 50 USD for one square meter in 10mm thickness.
That's not cheap but it's not completely insane, I'll probably need half of that.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Hello everyone who follows my build!

This week a bit of progress on the bracket attachments for my battery box. I 3D printed all the 4 brackets, two of them on the top of the box and the two other ones on the bottom.

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I had to take out the battery again, so here is a picture of how it looks like for those who are interested. I took this opportunity to better protect the BMS wires, using some nylon sleeves.

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I reinforced one of the top brackets with some layers of carbon fiber. It's pretty strong now and I think it looks nice. I did entirely screw up the other bracket, I stupidly put it under an hallogen light for too long, so the plastic deformed and got all warped. I've already built another one and I'll probably install it this evening. Nothing has been clear coated yet so that's why the finishing looks quite rough, I prefer to have the whole thing completed before doing all the finishing work, because there's a good chance it'll be scratched while working on the other stuff:

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Bike now looks like that, not much changed but it's getting cleaner:

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I've ordered the aerogel and hopefully I should receive it before this weekend. Now the next step will be to start working on the lid to close the box, I'm still not sure yet how I will make it, that won't be as easy as it looks.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

A bit more work those past couple of days:

Made the second top bracket. It's a 3D printed part reinforced with several layers of fiber. Took a bit of time to sand smooth but it came pretty nice in the end:

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Also, I couldn't resist to try and see how the bike would look like with the clear coat, this will be temporary as I'll redo that properly once the build will be finished sice I was obviously unable to reach a few spots, but I wanted to have an idea of how it would look like. So I started by masking everything:

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Then put two layers of clear coat:

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And after it dried, here is how it looked like:

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I'm extremely happy of the result, I've spent a whole lot of time sanding the box very smooth to begin with and it seems like it really paid off.
Now I'll move to the next step: making the lid to finally close the box. I still don't know how I'll make it, I need it to be watertight, easy to manufacture and still look good. So far I haven't found any way that fully satisfies me so I guess I'll just have to start making it and figure it out along the way.

[SlowCo]

Beautiful work

Good luck and enjoy building. I'll be following your progress.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Beautiful work

Good luck and enjoy building. I'll be following your progress.

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated!

[j bjork]

How is the progress, it has been a long time since the last update

Interesting build to follow

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

How is the progress, it has been a long time since the last update

Interesting build to follow

Thanks

Been a bit busy with other stuff and projects lately, so I haven' done much on the bike. It runs perfectly fine and carries me to work everyday.
Still need to make a lid to close the box, but I have a temporary lid made of EVA foam which looks fine and does the job for now.
Hopefully I'll have time to get back at it, I'd like to at least close the lid and also start working on a carbon body kit.

[Gizmosis350k]

Reading your thread i have experienced emotion of enthusiam, awe, concern, humour and amazement and ultimately dismay because
I love your bike and I know i dont have no where near the tools and expertise to do the same for my build lmao


Carbon Fiber and 3D Printing looks AMAZING i was also thinking of converting the built in dash that comes with the bike but... OMG

The battery box is amazing i had no idea the stock one was so heavy!!

Jesus what have i gotten myself into lol

I'm also now gravely worried about controller choices. Is the BAC 8000 more reliable than the notorious Kelly controllers, or will Sabvaton 200A reign supreme? Find out on the next Episode of SLA vs. LiPo4 Z!

[Dauntless]

So let's see:

You're still using the 3000w QS? Which controller did you stick with? And you get 16kw peaks and acceleration somewhere between a 250cc and a 400cc?

People keep asking about the bike itself. Have you ever noticed some older bike that seems like it? Often they could be knocking off something 20-30 years old.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Reading your thread i have experienced emotion of enthusiam, awe, concern, humour and amazement and ultimately dismay because
I love your bike and I know i dont have no where near the tools and expertise to do the same for my build lmao


Carbon Fiber and 3D Printing looks AMAZING i was also thinking of converting the built in dash that comes with the bike but... OMG

The battery box is amazing i had no idea the stock one was so heavy!!

Jesus what have i gotten myself into lol

I'm also now gravely worried about controller choices. Is the BAC 8000 more reliable than the notorious Kelly controllers, or will Sabvaton 200A reign supreme? Find out on the next Episode of SLA vs. LiPo4 Z!

Thanks for your kind message, much appreciated!

I'm still using the Sabvoton controller for a few reasons:
Pros:
-Throttle feeling is perfect, in my opinion
-Very reliable, I had no issue whatsoever so far
-Doesn't heat
-Easy to configure and set up
-Cheap (I got it second hand for half the price)

Cons:
-Slow ramp from 0-20kmh (but really high torque from 30-90 km/h, which is what really matters to me)
-I could live with more power

There are two main reasons why I keep using it, first one is because I like it, but second one, maybe the most important one, is that my bike is not street legal, so I don't want to invest too much money in it, in case I get caught and the bike gets impounded (I know, I'm evil, but they keep on changing the laws so what was totally legal a few years ago isn't anymore...I just cant' buy a new bike every year just because legislators can't make a stable decision). So I'm going for the "best bang for the buck" solution, my setup only cost me about 1300 USD Including the cost of the bike, the battery, controller, motor, etc. All these parts were 2nd hand to keep cost as low as possible.
So, to be clear, I don't think I would use the Sabvoton anymore if my bike could be street legal, I would be able to throw more money at it, so I'd do more research and get a more powerful option.

I'm really sorry but I can't tell you if the BAC8000 is any good. I've heard that it is, but the only way I could tell you is if I ever tried it, which unfortunately I had no opportunity to do so. I tried a few other controllers brands (Kelly, Mobipus, Lingbo) and have a good friend who tried a lot more (APT, Yuyang King, and some other I forgot), and each one we tried had drawbacks. Overall, Kellys seemed to be the best ones (reliable, powerful but a bit low tech and terrible programming interface).

Don't worry about your build, it is not as difficult as it looks and you'll probably really enjoy the result, so just do it!

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

You're still using the 3000w QS?

Yep

Which controller did you stick with?

As stated above, Sabvoton (72200), 210Amps current draw from battery, 510Amps current max per phase.

And you get 16kw peaks and acceleration somewhere between a 250cc and a 400cc?

Yep. Note that it's not motoGP style 400cc bikes, the one I was riding against was a 400cc scrambler so that's a realatively low power bike, but not entirely sluggish (my friend posted a youtube video of us riding against each other earlier on this thread). But it could do much, much better with another, more powerful controller.

People keep asking about the bike itself. Have you ever noticed some older bike that seems like it? Often they could be knocking off something 20-30 years old.

Sorry I did not understand the question.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

It's been a while, but finally some updates:

I managed to finish my battery box, yay!
First thing was to install the insulating aerogel sheet. This thing is very easy to cut with a knife, but it makes a big mess and lots of dust. So, I had this idea of using glue spray all over it. Firt it helped in keeping the particles within the material, then it helped a lot making it stick to the carbon box. And later on, it helped tremendously to apply the tape all over it, without that the tape wouldn't have sticked at all. I think this idea was a huge success so I can recommend doing it that way.

So first, installing the sheets:

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Then, taped it all over, for a few reasons: First to help a bit more containing the dust, then to help sliding the battery back inside more easily, and last but not least, to provide some kind of protection against moisture, because the aerogel seems a bit vulnerable to water.

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Also made a custom wiring harness for temperature sensors management. The ANT BMS provides up to 4 temperature sensors ports (plus 2 temperature sensors are directly integrated into the BMS itself, so that's 6 in total), so I thought it was a nice opportunity to use them. I've got one sensor directly inside the battery cells, two sensors mounted inside the battery box in different spots, and one sensor outside on the bike's frame to monitor the external temperature.

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Once that was done, I had to reinstall the battery inside, which was the worst nightmare ever since it is extremely tight in there. It was particularly difficult to screw the battery negative terminal, I had to build some custom tools to do that. Eventually it dit fit.

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I made a flat lid out of carbon fiber and used some automotive silicone sealant to form a watertight gasket all around it. Waited overnight for it to cure:

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Hopefully it will stay watertight, because we have quite a bit of heavy rain these days and I already ran two time into some pools deep enough that water flooded the box entirely (the lid wasn't installed at that time, so the battery got soaked, still fine though).

The insulating properties of the aerogel are pretty impressive from the brief tests I've made so far. After charging the battery, the inside of the casing was 31 degree C and the outside temperature was 27 degree. It only dropped one degree C after more than 2 hours... I got bored to wait so I didn't care to monitor ater that.

Aerogel is more than 4 times better at insulating than any other material, so that means having this 15mm sheet would be comparable to having a 6 cm thickness of expansed polyurethane all over... That's insane! Plus it can widthstand extremely high temperatures, so I guess it can tremendously help to contain a battery fire. But I really don't want to witness its effectiveness regarding fireproofing anytime soon, so let's just leave this at theory...

These past days rides revealed also that this battery is very impressive regarding heat emission. On the 13 kilometer my daily morning trip takes, riding at reasonably fast speeds, it only heated by 3 degree C. So I guess I shouldn't need any cooling, maybe only a bit of heating in the cold winter mornings and it should be just fine.

Now the last remaining thing to do is to carbon wrap the BMS box !

[tylerwatts]

Very nice progress and that battery box and aerogel is impressive! Nice job.

Cheers
Tyler

[Gizmosis350k]

......Sir your build is inspirational. I am at my wits end because taking into account now the immense amount of tooling and other expertise, precision fabrication, etc.

Do you build electric powertrain for a living? Because.... LOL

I am doubt my ability to try and replicate this, I see a Ninja 250 for sale here but I am skeptical of the various tooling and fabrication i will need to get to this point >_<

https://jamaicaclassifiedonline.com/aut ... -84013.htm

LOVE YOUR WORK

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Thanks for the kind message, much appreciated!

Do you build electric powertrain for a living? Because.... LOL

Nope, just a regular dude, my job was in IT, but I just got promoted in engineering last week.

I am doubt my ability to try and replicate this, I see a Ninja 250 for sale here but I am skeptical of the various tooling and fabrication i will need to get to this point >_<

Don't doubt yourself, you can do anything you want if you really put efforts into it. I was unable to do any of this shit just 5 years ago, barely knew anything about making stuff back then. I learned everything through youtube and practice, and now I'm able to build this and became engineer. Anything is possible, if I can do it then anyone can!

As for tooling, what I did was to plan a small budget every month and buy some tools, one at a time. This way it doesn't make big one shot expenses that the wife might complain about, and it leaves you some time to master and appreciate each tool before getting a new one. And then, once every year (christmas or birthday), threat myself with a "big" tool (a mini lathe, a small CNC machine, a 3D printer, whatever)

Anyone can build anything, really.

[jonescg]

Looks great! I haven't checked in here for a long while, so it's lovely to see

[Gizmosis350k]

Thanks for the kind message, much appreciated!

Do you build electric powertrain for a living? Because.... LOL

Nope, just a regular dude, my job was in IT, but I just got promoted in engineering last week.

/quote]
Amazing.... Goals, I'm also in I.T. but more entry level, closer to just data entry rn.

I am doubt my ability to try and replicate this, I see a Ninja 250 for sale here but I am skeptical of the various tooling and fabrication i will need to get to this point >_<

Don't doubt yourself, you can do anything you want if you really put efforts into it. I was unable to do any of this shit just 5 years ago, barely knew anything about making stuff back then. I learned everything through youtube and practice, and now I'm able to build this and became engineer. Anything is possible, if I can do it then anyone can!

As for tooling, what I did was to plan a small budget every month and buy some tools, one at a time. This way it doesn't make big one shot expenses that the wife might complain about, and it leaves you some time to master and appreciate each tool before getting a new one. And then, once every year (christmas or birthday), threat myself with a "big" tool (a mini lathe, a small CNC machine, a 3D printer, whatever)

Anyone can build anything, really.

...Okay i was JUST looking at a 3D Printer as well.... I think i will be patient and go this route...thank you sir this is very inspirational <3

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

...Okay i was JUST looking at a 3D Printer as well.... I think i will be patient and go this route...thank you sir this is very inspirational <3

Go for it! 3D printer is what motivated me to build all kind of crazy stuff in the first place, its a great tool!

I'm building one right now, I need it done to re print a new version of my BMS box since the other printers I have are too tiny to print that.
It's not finished but right now it looks like this:

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It's a gigantic beast, 1m x 1m x 1m40!
For those who are interested to see the build, you can follow the progress here:
https://forum.v1engineering.com/t/mpcnc ... uild/19393

Hopefully I'll finish it soon... I used PLA plastic to print the BMS box on by bike, but PLA, which is a biodegradable plastic, really doesn't like the sun. It's already very discolored and I fear it will become brittle and start cracking...

[Skaiwerd]

Nice work on the bike and printer especially! My measly 400x400x500 is jealous. What print board and firmware did you use? Did you make your own heated bed in that size? I print only pteg because of the sun and heat resistance over pla. Printing .4 layers with a .6 nozzle big time saver.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

Nice work on the bike and printer especially! My measly 400x400x500 is jealous. What print board and firmware did you use? Did you make your own heated bed in that size? I print only pteg because of the sun and heat resistance over pla. Printing .4 layers with a .6 nozzle big time saver.

Thanks!
For this printer I'm using the Duet2 Wifi board. Great board but a bit expensive, a good old Arduino/Ramps works really well too for far less money.
The duet does have some nice features though.
I'm making my own heated bed out of a big 10mm thick cast aluminum plate and nine 300W each heating pads.
I'm usually printing with PLA as it's a very rigid plastic. I don't mind too much about sun exposure since most of my prints are intended for indoor use, if they need to be exposed to the outside conditions then I consider carbon wrap or just simply a thick coat of paint.
It's also the nicest one to print (no horrible fumes, stick reasonably well to the bed, not too much warping).