Looking for advice on my custom cargo rig

Hello Endless Sphere!

Long time lurker, first time poster. I would like to start off by saying thank you to all those who make this place such a wealth of information and support. I can honestly say that my bike and business would not be where it is today if it wasn't for endless sphere. I'm also lucky enough to live in the same town as the wizards of Grin Tech aka ebikes.ca so a special thanks to Justin and Robbie and all the grin tech crew. Thanks to Paul at EM3EV as well for great customer support.

I have a long john style cargo bike that I built last summer that I use for my appliance repair service. I built the frame from an old Nishiki and steel square tube in my garage using a miller mig 120v welder and basic metal work tools like a grinder, drill press, and chop saw. Everything fore of the handle bars is home brewed (and slightly crooked :lol: ) including the fork. Custom heavy duty drop outs in the rear with disc mounts. The storage box I had welded by a local shop as it's aluminum and I have yet to get the gear to weld it. I had rough plans on paper but nothing concrete so I knew the mark 1 would be a learning experience. I essentially copied the old dutch bakfiet design. I hope to build another, much improved bike in the future because boy, I REALLY learned a lot (made many mistakes). I'm happy to report that despite the bumps and challenges along the way, the hacking and grinding and redoing, the bike really is a pleasure to ride, easy to control at low and high speeds and even rolls in a steady and straight line! Bike specs are as follows:

50kg curb weight 150kg gross weight with rider, tools, and part stock.
22AH 16s EM3EV pack
Mac 8T
40A 4110 Infineon controller
Cycle Analyst 2.3
Satiator
BB7 disc brakes (shimano hydro rear on the way)
Schwalbe Marathon 20" front 26" rear
60km range with 750 watt limit, fully loaded in urban conditions with pedaling. 80km range possible with light payload and lower wattage settings.


In the past 9 months or so, I have put on over 4000kms on my set up, hauling on daily basis, 25kg of tools and parts. My record payload was 240kg (530lb) incl rider but not including bike. I've had an amazing time transforming my business model to a sustainable and satisfying one. A few build pics can be seen at http://downtownappliance.ca/blog.html. Recent upgrades have been a 12v system for charging electronics and running LED's plus a new amazing cycle Satiator! I keep my pack and charger inside a vinyl leather projector bag as I have to remove the battery from the bike to charge. I installed a fan in the bag with a 40C bimetal to switch the fan on and off and 10k thermistor to control fan speed. The bag also has a spare 120 outlet plus USB power for the fan and accessory charging in the front pouch.

Here's where I'm at now. The "winter" conditions and extreme work load have put a lot of stress on my mac motor. I have been thoroughly amazed with the low speed torque and over all performance, but I want to make the switch to a direct drive motor for reliability and serviceability. I'm looking at the Crystalyte H3540 as a suitable replacement, mainly due to the improved cable routing and intrinsic simplicity of the design plus of course performance. Weight isn't really an issue as the bike is already a damn cow. I'm keen to hear feedback and recommendations on motor options plus anyone who might have experience with the H3540 motor. Here are a few photos of the bike throughout the past while.


Early build phase pre-box. In fact, That's the aluminum for the box right there in the cargo area!


In it's urban habitat!


Here's some of that extra paylod I was mentioning.


Large pizza compatible. This is before I got the larger pack, satiator and pouch. I can show a more recent photo of the inside fitted for a work day with tools, parts etc if folks are interested.


Front 5mm LED's with red and green for port and starboard. I may add an LED controller for different light modes.


Rear LED's


Pack and Satiator living happily ever after inside an enclosed space thanks to the 5v fan system. Early photo, please forgive the protective plastic. I left it on until the bag was complete. :lol:


Discreet? I hope so. Security/bomb threat? Maybe. Harper would probably think so.


Bag rear showing fan exhaust.


A happy rider, dishwasher, and bike enjoying the so called winter weather.

Thanks!

Philtek said:

I'm looking at the Cristalyte H3540 as a suitable replacement, mainly due to the improved cable routing and intrinsic simplicity of the design plus of course performance. Weight isn't really an issue as the bike is already a damn cow. I'm keen to hear feedback and recommendations on motor options plus anyone who might have experience with the H3540 motor.

Click to expand...

I'd just add the 3540 hub at the rear, in a 20", keep the Mac in front, 2WD. Add a second controller. As long as your battery can handle the amp load you can use them both to startup quicker with a heavy load. (assuming there's no particular reason you *have* to be limited to 750W). There's a couple good threads about 2WD, and a few builds with details. Some use two throttles (like me) and some control both with one.

You can keep your rear disc brakes and your pedal gears on that motor.

The size difference in the wheel means the pedal gears would all be lower and slower, but I suspect that would help, rather than hurt. It also means the motor would have an easier time of it.

Ride angle, steering rake, trail, etc., will change, as will BB height and crank clearance, and kickstand height, so it's possible one or more of those will either force you to alter the geometry of the rear end to lower the dropouts 3", or not go with that small a wheel. (I would lower the dropouts by lengthening the seatstays to force the dropouts downward; note taht this may cause chainline interference and require chainstay modification or bypassing the stay via a tensioner or guide wheel on the top of the chainline).

See the "recent" (last half a year or so) pages of my CrazyBike2 thread in my signature for a bike that does similar load hauling/weight, using 9C DD 26" front and HSR3548 20" rear.

(there's also a link to a trike in progress to haul even bigger loads without using the trailer, plus being able to use the trailer, but it isn't even completed yet, much less powered)

Hey Amberwolf, those bikes are awesome! I get a sense from your builds that we might work in a similar fashion! Eyeballing and giving it good try.

I have considered the 2WD option, but for a work bike, I like the simplicity of a single motor system. Less to go wrong and plus, I enjoy being able to still pedal the bike normally like I did for a week when my hall sesnsors failed. A 2WD system would have that much more weight and drag.

That being said... I would really like a 2WD mountain bike. Future project!

So far, I'm thinking to keep the rear wheel a regular bike wheel with 8 speed cassette and have the H3540 in the front with a 20" wheel. How has youre experience been with the crystalyte motor?

I generally operate on the YLAR principle when building my bikes and stuff. It has worked out well enough, and since I can't ever cut anything right even if I measure it three times and mark it and remeasure it and compare things, etc., I'll still end up with stuff that doesnt' match when i'm done. So I "sculpt" my creations rather than "design" and "manufacture" them. :lol:


Motor itself has been fine, other than a couple of mysterious cases of the side cover screws unscrewing themselves (most of them are no longer original now due to losses on rides). No problems iwth that in a while now.

You'll want to ditch whatever cheap rim the thing comes in, and those thick crappy spokes, and have Grin (or yourself) lace it up with new spokes in a nice wide rim. See my CB2 thread from October-ish? maybe earlier? for when I put mine back on CB2, it has some more info on the rim and spokes. I think the rim was originally the kind used on the early Zero motorcycle, adn I'm using the 13/14g butted Sapim spokes from Grin, in radial lacing, Maxxis Ringworm tire, with no problems on those so far despite potholes and heavy loads. (wore out a Ringworm already due to a misaligned frame/wheel problem, which could have also been the cause of the cover screws undoing themselves).


Some thoughts about 2WD, just so you don't abandon the idea until you try it, at least.

The thing about 2WD is that while there is "more to go wrong" there is also less likelihood of it being an actual problem if it did, because you ahve two motors, and if one stops working for any reason, the other can take over.

Additionaly, if you are sharing the load (especially startups) between them, neither motor (or it's controller) is nearly as stressed as by itself. The *battery* will see more stress on startups, but there's not much to be done about that part without limiting the system in a way that makes it pointless to do 2WD other than for redundancy or traction control, unless you use a bigger battery or two of those, too, and I have found no need for that with any of the three battery types I've got here.



Traction control is another reason for 2WD. A front hub on most bikes can become unloaded enough to slip in some turn situations, and lose steering control unless power is removed. If you're in a situation where you have to keep applying power *while turning* or in some other maneuver causing the same thing (up a hill, driveway, sand or ice or water on oil, etc), then you now have to provide all of that same power via pedals alone, and if you werent' ready for the transistion and have it in the rigth gear for that, you might have a situation you cant easily or quickly get out of. (possilby even a crash, in traffic conditions). With 2WD you just let off the front and push more on the rear, and sail right out of the problem.

That's been my expereinces, so far, though I don't have nearly the load on my front wheel as you do on yours, when you have a big load on the bike.


It does take some getting used to which one to apply power to in which kind of sitaution, but once you ahve it it's really hard to not want it on all your bikes.

It's even possible to create a computerized traction control, but that's beyond my abilities at present, and might take some of the fun out of riding since controllng the thing just right is part of the fun of the ride (I may be limited to 20MPH, but the law doesnt' stop me from gettng there as fast as I like ).


As for drag, there's not much--not enough to worry about. You have a lot more from cargo weight, etc., most likely. I can't really pedal anymore, which is one reason why I have motors in the first place. If I could balance CrazyBike2 at the low speeds that low gearing gets me, I might be able to pedal it, but I can't--it has nothing to do with the motors on there, just the balance. If I motor up to 10-12MPH, I can then shut motors off and pedal fine until it slows down enough to no longer stay upright easily, and then i lose pedalling abiltiy as I try to compensate for that; it's just how my brain and body work.

I *can* pedal the trike, even with a much much much draggier X5304 on a flat tire around my lumpy and dog-hole-pitted mostly dirt backyard. :lol:

I'm sure at faster speeds all these motors get draggier, but I don't think it's an issue really, up to 20MPH at least. Dunno how fast you need to go.

FWIW, the Mac, if a geared motor, also freewheels and would have negligible drag vs any DD motor, so there's not relaly any reason to take it off if drag would be the factor for removing it.

Weight is another thing...but you're only talking 15lbs-ish to add to the bike with another motor, and honestly it won't make much difference vs the rest of the weight you've already got on there.



EDIT: added:
FWIW, if you get controllers that can also run sensorless, you can pull the hall plug off and run them that way if you ever have a hall fail for any reason, and still keep going. It's often not as good for startups especiall with heavy loads, but at least the mtoor can still help you.

Nice work! As long as you don't have to climb huge long hills, you might be able to keep using the original motor a long time.

But a larger, rear drive motor does make some sense to me. Get the slowest rpm you can, so the HS vs the HT. I'd say a 20" rear motor wheel would be very good, but a 26" will also work fine, if you feed a bigger motor 2000w. That's been the butter zone for my huge cargo bike, a stout 26" motor (5305 crystalyte) and underpowering it some, but still having 2000w for the larger hills I sometimes climb.

Dual motor also makes a ton of sense to me. Two 1000w motors is also 2000w. If you do have issues down the road with your clyte motor, you can always put the original motor back on till you get things fixed.

I also am a very poor pedaler , due to an illness. But if I was as unable to pedal much as Amberwolf, I would have a backup motor on my everyday ride bike. I'll suffer if I have to pedal home, but at least I can.

Love the way your box works out, able to carry a pizza is important shit! then the top becomes a cargo deck. 8) The satiator is a key item too, for charging wherever you go with no worries about road bumps breaking the charger.

hmm... All good points.

I do already have a full back up kit that I could use to make a 2WD system. I guess I'm just nervous about making things more complicated than they need to be. I figure I will try an H3540, most likely in the front since that's how the bike is set up and if performance is lacking, I will probably go 2WD

Regarding performance, although my bike is not street legal for Vancouver (over 500 watts, assist from dead stop, thumb throttle no pedelac) I do try to keep it as close to legal and as low key as possible. The last thing I want when I inevitably get into an accident is for the bike to be clearly not legal and have a law suit on my hands. My bike is part of my business image so if I get into some kind of at fault collision, folks might try to go after my business for money. Bike theft is also rampant around here, and for work, I often park downtown or in shady areas so I have an incentive to keep the bike looking like an unassisted cargo bike. I figure the less tricked out the bike looks, the better, granted, it is already pretty tricked out haha. Also, less money in the bike will make it that much less painful if or should I say when it gets stolen. Brings me to my next question, anyone have experience with those fancy GPS tracker units? I should probably invest in one now...

There's a few threads on various trackers, theft deterrents, etc.

My biggest deterrent is having ugly very unique bikes that look too heavy or cumbersome to deal with stealing, and not leaving them unattended in places I *know* stuff gets stolen from, at least not at times it's much more likely and not for very long. Also with the wires hanging off CB2, it looks a little on the dangerous side according to various local people that comment on it. (most don't notice that, though...most don't even notice the motors, even when I ride up without pedalling).

The trike will (eventually) be a bit of departure from teh "ugly" deterrent, but being so big and unique it is a lot less likely to get messed with than a random bike-looking bike would.

Also, people know me and my bike at most of the places I go, and I've had it be protected by others when someone "suspicious" was hanging around it, and I was inside somewhere shopping or working or whatever. Sometimes it was just by someone that wanted to talk to me about it, and they didn't want it to go away before they could ask!

But if you make it stand out, easily visible, it'll be harder for someone that isn't you to get away with it very far even if they do steal it.

Maybe put your company logo huge on all sides of the cargo box? Paint it up in a bright color(s), and wear a "uniform" or logo shirt that has your company logo and the same color as the bike. This not only ties the bike to you in people's memory, it also makes you on the bike more visible to others while on the road, whcih might make you a *little* safer in traffic.

Just a bigger front motor makes sense to me. As I was saying, get a slower rpm one if you can, then you can put a lot of wattage through it without making it so obviously fast, and it will do stop and go more efficiently.

Investing in a new Grin controller and Cycleanalyst for it could help too, since you could then program speed limits or dial down the amps, but then be able to up the limit easily if you encounter a big enough hill to need more watts.

48v 40 amps is really great on my big cargo bike, but to minimize wear and tear to wiring and plugs, I generally ride it CA limited to 30 amps.

dogman dan said:

Investing in a new Grin controller and Cycleanalyst for it could help too,

Click to expand...

Like these?

Philtek said:

Bike specs are as follows:

50kg curb weight 150kg gross weight with rider, tools, and part stock.
22AH 16s EM3EV pack
Mac 8T
40A 4110 Infineon controller
Cycle Analyst 2.3
Satiator
BB7 disc brakes (shimano hydro rear on the way)
Schwalbe Marathon 20" front 26" rear
60km range with 750 watt limit, fully loaded in urban conditions with pedaling. 80km range possible with light payload and lower wattage settings.

Click to expand...

Or do you mean one of his newer controllers, and the v3 CA?


As far as current limits go...I don't limit anything on CB2, and the only wiring or plug problems I had were with the halls just cuz moisture and JSTs don't get along (so they're soldered now). (well, I had a problem wiht one anderson PP on the front 9C, but that was an angle issue, contacts twisted out of line from wire tension on a curve).

What speeds are you targeting with your motor?

For a cargo hauling long john, I would stay away from a 'fast' wind motor. I think a HT3525 would be better suited unless you often have long stretches where you have an increased speed.

My current top speed is 43kph and I would like to hold it around there, so from the ebikes.ca Simulator, looks like an h3540 should put me right in that ball park, maybe a bit faster. Obviously, if I'm heavily loaded I go more slowly but I think the h3525 might be a bit slow... Plus, my controller and pack can easily handle 35 amps so a mid wind like the 3540 should perform well. I think if I juiced my phase amps up with the h3540 I could get similar torque to what I have now. My CA is limited to 14 amps with the current set up, and a phase current is somewhere around 25 amps I beleive, so fairly throttled performance, keeps me pedalling which is what I want. Also, Regen to slow me down would hopefully conserve my brakes as I go through pads every 3 months or so.

How's the bearing quality on the H series motors? Do they keep water out well? Is it worth upgrading them off the bat? How does the motor fair with moisture? I sometimes ride 60km during a busy day in heavy rain so ability to handle moisture would be a big plus. My Mac motor bearings have had a bit of a rough go, getting clackety after the rain season.

Justin has a video about water and motors, and it pretty well shows there is almost no way to seal them up against moisture completely. But you can make them so they get rid of what gets in there, which can help a lot.

The best thing you can probably do for wet areas with motors is to put a drain hole in the absolute outermost edge of the sidecovers, same place on each side, and just at teh point where the magnet ring inner circumference ends, so any water that gets in can easily get out without pooling. When parking it, make sure the holes are at the bottom.

If you like, you can make plugs for the holes to use when actually riding, and remove them when parking, but if they are tiny holes, then usually not much will get in but all of it will be able to get out. (and realistically, most people won't keep using the plugs after a while, they'll get tired of doing it--it's inconvenient. I probably wouldn't use them even if teh weather here was damp enough to need this mod)

For helping prep a motor against rust, Kingfish has a great thread about DIY rust removal and repair, which includes "proofing" the motor against rust before reassembly, etc.

The fast motor will work, I keep forgetting you are going to put it into a wheel much smaller than 26". Give it 2000w, and it won't lug and make heat like a 26" wheel with 1000w. Even loaded heavy it will be fine in that small wheel.

Or, is that a 26" wheel in front? Looks small compared to the dishwasher. Go for the HT crystalyte if it's 26", if possible to find one.

Don't really need the latest controller and V3 ca. Just need a DP model, so you can limit amps or speed if your bike turns out faster than you'd like it to be, or you need to look more close to legal by toning down the power most of the time.

Re the water, just a couple tiny (1/8") vent holes in the motor cover will let vapor out. But coating the insides might be a good idea. Vapor will suck into the motor every time it cools, but the warm motor will push it right back out again, preventing any accumulation of water. In wet climates, vapor can suck in down the wires, and then be trapped in there by the seals.

Last week I finally picked up my HS3540 from Grin and straight laced it up in a 20" 23mm rim but not before drilling some vent holes in the case. I drilled 2 larger holes towards the middle of the cases, and 6 smaller holes at the edge of where the casings meet the hub. I'm hoping that these holes will provide cooling and of course, allow water to flow outwards, hopefully aided by centrifugal force of the air/water in the hub. I might treat the stator with a coating at some point but for now I'll leave it bare and perhaps use a spray to remove moisture and debris. After experimenting with the phase wires, I finally got it right and motor is running smoothly.

Acceleration was quite alright, even with the same programming I had for the Mac which had a phase of only 25 amp and 14 amp battery limit. Top speed seems to be a bit faster, at around 47 kph. I boosted the phase to 45 amps, and started fiddling with my Regen settings as I'd found it a bit too powerful.

My battery charge limit is 12 amps but if I engage Regen at anything over 30kph, I'm hitting about 13 amps, sometimes tripping the bms overcharge amperage limit. I've tried using XPD and the software EM3EV provides but I can't get the Regen as low as I would like. During my 35 km of city riding today, I managed to Regen 9.6% of my charge! Nice surprise.

Ofcourse, variable Regen would be excellent... Hopefully a soon coming feature for the Cycle Analyst V3?

"Speed holes"

Sweet! I should read better, you have the CA stuff already. Looks like you have what you need for a long time to me.