Lowracer Hybrid Speedbike finished - 100% eco-friendly!

The video #5 of the "Lowracer Hybrid".....
It's the last creation video, because the bike is finished now!
Nearly a real "Perpetuum Mobile", just take a look...
For more informations just click the YouTube-Info.

[youtube]TE7lmnl-NlM[/youtube]

Thanks for watching!

Awesome. When can we see some road action?

Congrats on finishing it lowracer. She's a real beauty, and building the world's first fully fared leaning electric tadpole is a real accomplishment to be proud of. Along with road videos, I'm anxious to hear about performance and consumption, as well as how the front end geometry works for you in real world use.

I am most interested in how the faring works for you overall....Power consumption at different speeds, handling at max speed, side wind effects, noise levels. Would you want to use it as an every day commuter, or use an open bike/trike weather permitting with this one ready to go mostly for cold or bad weather?

Also, can you share how much energy you get from the solar panels, and how you tie their output to the battery pack. I have 500W of solar cells, and I'm torn between building a solar charging station for my bikes or trying to build some onto the bike to charge while parked anywhere.

John

Congrads for this huge work of design and engeneering, It has a very neat look and a clever power setup. I can't wait to see it fly the streets, and to know about its performance results.

Such a nice job. And your videos are a pleasure to watch.

Thanks to everybody!

BUT now, MERRY X-MAS!!!

Hey lowracer, Merry christmass

I have noticed a while ago you built a blower system to force air into your hub motor? I have a few questions about that. Do you still use the blower system? did it make a major improvement in the power you could put thu the motor? Do you think it could be used on a normal bike to stop water getting into the hub motor, along with the cooling effect? And with the fans are they just twin 40mm 12V ballbearing computer fans?

That bike of yours looks awesome tho, my high school used to race recumberants with a fairing like yours, tho it never looked quite so slick

futuristic 2050 look,but made now,looks mean and ready for slicing around.cant get over it .

Fantastic build Lowracer and another thumbs up to the quality
of the videos. Look forward to your next installment whatever it may be

KiM

itchynackers said:

Awesome. When can we see some road action?

Click to expand...

Yes, of course! But at first the snow must gone away!

John in CR said:

Congrats on finishing it lowracer. She's a real beauty, and building the world's first fully fared leaning electric tadpole is a real accomplishment to be proud of. Along with road videos, I'm anxious to hear about performance and consumption, as well as how the front end geometry works for you in real world use.

I am most interested in how the faring works for you overall....Power consumption at different speeds, handling at max speed, side wind effects, noise levels. Would you want to use it as an every day commuter, or use an open bike/trike weather permitting with this one ready to go mostly for cold or bad weather?

Also, can you share how much energy you get from the solar panels, and how you tie their output to the battery pack. I have 500W of solar cells, and I'm torn between building a solar charging station for my bikes or trying to build some onto the bike to charge while parked anywhere.

John

Click to expand...

The power consumption and the handling up to 30Km/h on bicycle ways is really OK! A higher speed I cannot recommend and is not programmed now, because we have "§§§" PEDELEC regulations here.

The side wind effect powered the bike. It's equal how you take the bike, from the side it looks like a rotor blade.

The bike is for ever with a "closed" cockpit, because the lights, navigation and the cameras are fixed at the cockpit. For a burning hot days in summer I wouldn't prefer this hybrid bike, it's like a little garden's hothouse. The air circulation is automatic, but here the problem, for sun's energy you can calculate about 1000Watt/m². With only 2 blowers It cannot get colder... Then I would need an compressor air-condition or a 500W peltier-element and that kills more energy than the electric drive!

Bad weather... that means rainy, stormy and coldness(-5C°) weather isn't a problem. I'd pimped out my air heater now. There are additional 2 resistors to heat up the 2nd half of the tunnel heatsink. At the 1st half are the MosFETS from the controller. Now I'm able to ride in bad weather, but not in high snow!

Bluefang said:

Hey lowracer, Merry christmass

I have noticed a while ago you built a blower system to force air into your hub motor? I have a few questions about that. Do you still use the blower system? did it make a major improvement in the power you could put thu the motor? Do you think it could be used on a normal bike to stop water getting into the hub motor, along with the cooling effect? And with the fans are they just twin 40mm 12V ballbearing computer fans?

That bike of yours looks awesome tho, my high school used to race recumberants with a fairing like yours, tho it never looked quite so slick

Click to expand...

The electric motor is nearly the contrary of the combustion engine.
In coldness the electric motor works better and more efficient,
if it's more warm(89C°) the combustion engine works excellent.
The reason, the resistance in the copper coils change with the temperature, if you can hold the temperature low, then you get the maximum power!

For wet conditions you cannot use this air cooling. The coils are insensitive, but the digital hall sensors with only 5Volts and a few milliamps are highly sensitive. Low humidity is no Problem.

The 40x40mm blower is gone last year. I decided me for another more powerfull blower, a 12V single stage radial turbo blower "Nidec GAMMA 30". It takes only 1/3 of the AMPs and I've got a higher volume of air. This little blower was so excellent for me, that I've taken it 4 times in my bike, motor cooling, controller cooling, fresh air and heated air!
The motor cooling installation must be short and compact(click attachment picture)

...on the road again!

TEST DRIVE!
[youtube]UwrKSVViKjM[/youtube]

INVISIBLE WIPER:

[youtube]QRBLGbx5u1s[/youtube]

That's a good solution, better than a wiper blade that would scratch up your cockpit.

What is that stuff? If I ever get to the point of being able to build my fairing, that'd be a nice coating to have on the windshield.

amberwolf said:

That's a good solution, better than a wiper blade that would scratch up your cockpit.

What is that stuff? If I ever get to the point of being able to build my fairing, that'd be a nice coating to have on the windshield.

Click to expand...

It's a mix of silicon oils! Plastic is not the same like glass! The Plastic can be in the most kinds different, so try to make tests.
Clean your windshield and coat it with silicon oil, with fuzz-free rag you polish up! Finished!

It's possible that must do that all half year, because the thickness of the coating is only 10µm!

Ah; that would probably turn out bad here, then. Silicon oils even of extreme thinness seem to pick up certain types of gritty dust very very well, and unfortunately that's somethng we have in extreme abundance here. So it would get dusted up, and then when wiped off it would scratch the cockpit/windshield up. Since the dusting up would happen sufficiently to cause problems seeing in even a single short trip, most likely, then being wiped down so often would very quickly permanently fog up the C/W with fine scratches.

Maybe I'm just unlucky and have never found the right silicon oils, but so far the ones I've used (for part lubrication in various applications) are all like that to one degree or another. Perhaps when cold they behave differently, but when heated to 100F+ they tend to get sticky.

I guess it's still worth some experimentation.

amberwolf said:

Ah; that would probably turn out bad here, then. Silicon oils even of extreme thinness seem to pick up certain types of gritty dust very very well, and unfortunately that's somethng we have in extreme abundance here. So it would get dusted up, and then when wiped off it would scratch the cockpit/windshield up. Since the dusting up would happen sufficiently to cause problems seeing in even a single short trip, most likely, then being wiped down so often would very quickly permanently fog up the C/W with fine scratches.

Maybe I'm just unlucky and have never found the right silicon oils, but so far the ones I've used (for part lubrication in various applications) are all like that to one degree or another. Perhaps when cold they behave differently, but when heated to 100F+ they tend to get sticky.

I guess it's still worth some experimentation.

Click to expand...

Yes you are right, with a wiper there are fine scratches... That's more a reason to use an anti-stick coating!
Another solution for you, you can test an anti-stick-coating spray for a welding machine. It's used for the CO²/Argon nozzle of the welding machine and it's not agressive to the most usual plastics. You'll find it in DIY shops.
NEVER USE powerful solvents like cellulose thinner or gasoline to clean the windows...