Norco Bomber 2kw build

[Bill Nye the science guy]

Hi everybody, I want to post my build as thanks to everyone that has posted theirs which I shamelessly copied.

Mainly Timma2500's E-Tense build. I have read that thread atthe least 20 times.

Anyways I will post pics soon.

[jonescg]

"THE" Bill Nye Science Guy? Welcome aboard!

Photos or it didn't happen!

[MattyCiii]

"THE" Bill Nye Science Guy? Welcome aboard!

Photos or it didn't happen!

Indeed. Seriously, are you really THE Bill Nye?

That would be epic

[Bill Nye the science guy]

new guy problem, can I directly upload or do I need to find a photo host?

ebike easy, internet difficult.

Science!!!! is that proof enough that im the real Bill Nye

[MattyCiii]

Search the forum there's a tutorial about how to post pix. I use Picasa, works well

[amberwolf]

new guy problem, can I directly upload or do I need to find a photo host?

Forum Rules and Features

Science!!!! is that proof enough that im the real Bill Nye

No. What did you think of McKay?

[Bill Nye the science guy]

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here is the early prototype. 100 1700mAh nicd cells in 2 packs charged with a 16 hour 200ma trickle charge. I believe the motor is an ezee 500watt gear drive and a 17 amp controller. very pokey but I caught the ebike bug when I rode it for its 5 km of range.

I had problems with that controller because it is a 60' phase and the motor is a 120' phase so time for an upgrade.

[Bill Nye the science guy]

I tuck taped all the batteries in and bought sheets of plexiglass, heat formed them and screwed the into the frame. front brake hooked up I just bought cheap cheap crap to get it going to see how it would work. Also changed controller to a 500w 48volt hui hong(still can't find an exact match for that one on the boards but its generic Chinese) doubling the power makes it much better. I don't know if anyone can see the hub motor, does anyone recognize that motor? I thought ezee 500w.

went for a couple ride on the single track trails around town and was blow away by how fun it was. it is just one big downhill out there, as fast as your eyes can take looking for roots and rocks to avoid. it also helps in the tight technical areas where normally you could not pedal or gear down quick enough to stay on the bike the low end grunt of the electric powers right through it.

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[Bill Nye the science guy]

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So the range was pitiful with nicds and with my friends 10ah golden motor leaving me in the dust after 6km of trail riding and pedaling home I decided to redo the batteries. in hindsight I should have bought lipo but I went with nimh. but atleast I can charge them without being too worried about fire. so 8 packs of 15s 5ah wired in series 49cell x2 with charge harness to split them up.

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bought a CA, what a wonderful piece of engineering that is. the people at ebikes really understand their target market and make the product reliable but give you the info to modify it to what you need. Now that I can see what is going on with the motor its time to spice up the controller. beefed up all solder traces put in 100 volt 660Mf caps instead of the 440Mf soldered the shunt just a wee bit. ran 12 gauge wires to the windings, tight squeeze in there.

it now draws 35amps with the shunt soldered. I will do a bit mor maybe 45-50amps but it gets exponentially more dangerous with the power and my twist throttle and my lack of wheelie control skills

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I cheaped out on the lights for now 3.99 an two hose clamps each. removed one light for the CA but haven't used lights yet.

[Bill Nye the science guy]

Here is how I drove it before tear down

50km/h top speed, fast enough for me, I like the torque and light weight of the geared motor

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Not really happy the way the plastic turned out, it cracks from the cold, it is a pain to remove to charge and then when I did a face plant on a snowy trail most of the plastic had cracked somewhere. So reading through all the projects on here gave me some options and I ripped it all apart again to build a battery tank style

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used Bristol board for making templates

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moved over bottom bracket and crank from my devinci

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That's where im at for now, will mount the controller on the belly of the tank and seal it up well along with some fenders. I'll do some testing check for any stress and paint it in the summer. Can't wait to ride in shorts, not 5 layers of clothes and ski mask.

[Bill Nye the science guy]

double post.

[motomech]

Hi Bill,
Fun build thread.
The motor in the early pics(the shiny one), is definitely an Ezee geared motor.
FYI, it's a 400W(rated) motor that is very closely related to the BMC V1 series, which is also rated at 400 Watts. It employs white nylon gears which are still available from a couple of sources. The clutch ASM is getting rare and I only know of a couple of sources that still have them.
I mention this because you are definitely over-Amping yours(I'm assuming the black motor is the same, just painted). The general consensus is they are reliable up to 1200Watts, ,maybe 1500W if one is careful. The Achilles Heel are the nylon gears, which if the motor gets hot enough, can turn to mush. You are probably ok in the cooler climes of the Great White North, but combine a warm day, a long hill and 2K Watts and you will likely do them in. You might want to tone down that controller, or a least limit it via the C.A. It's unclear whether or not the composite gears from later versions of the BMC geared will fit or not, as I don't know of anyone who has tried. Perhaps one of the BMC experts like Coghog or Illia from Ebke SF would know.
The Ezee has a couple of known problems(bad solder joints at the Hall wire/PCB junction being the most common), but it is considered to be a high quality motor. It is also, I believe, manufacturered in Taiwan, not China.
I don't see, nor do you mention any torque arms? If there aren't any, you definitely need to get at least one on there.
I have a couple of Ezee motors sitting here and am looking into installing one on my GT Idrive. It uses bolt-on dropouts, like your Norco and after trying several "after-market" torque arms, and I'm at the point where I'm resigned to fab'ing some steel bolt-on drop-outs.
And I agree, you should have gone with Lipo, much more compact.

[Bill Nye the science guy]

ya the motor is just painted. the gears are white nylon inside, I have heard about this clutch but my motor does not free wheel .when of the throttle there is still a little bit of magnetic drag like a DD and cant say I saw a clutch inside. I wonder if sealing and putting 100ml of oil would cool enough to save the gears from melting?

here is a question, when this motor dies what is an upgraded geared motor over the ezee, and still be light weight.

torque arms are definitely on the list before the back wheel falls off.

the one advantage of nimh is they are tough and you can limp home on dead batteries that are still not discharged below a volt. but the manufacturers claims of 5000mAh may include energy down in that range where as lipos have an operating range they are tested in so the claims might be more accurate

for torque arms you could make a template, get a shop to rough cut them and then you grind them to final shape to save money.

[John in CR]

Welcome to ES Bill. Thanks for the reminder of our first ebike rides. How fun it is simply can't be explained and must be experienced to appreciate. Just wait until you're confident enough in your bike to hand it to someone else for a test ride. The smiles every first timer comes back with are priceless.

Now I need to go find out what this Science Guy thing is about, since I haven't heard of it.

John

[pdf]

FYI, there is an EZee that is rated for 900W, it is the one that is fitted into the Edgerunner. 900W on 48v. That is a lot of power through a geared motor. The torque is pretty impressive.

[Bill Nye the science guy]

Welcome to ES Bill. Thanks for the reminder of our first ebike rides. How fun it is simply can't be explained and must be experienced to appreciate. Just wait until you're confident enough in your bike to hand it to someone else for a test ride. The smiles every first timer comes back with are priceless.

Now I need to go find out what this Science Guy thing is about, since I haven't heard of it.

John

I (Bill Nye the science guy) had a hit show in the 90's educating kids and making science fun. though with the invention of the video game console kids stopped believing in science. so I moved up to boring Canada where they don't believe in education and work on projects in my filthy garage, every once in a while something science like happens in the news and I show up on CNN for about 10 seconds to explain something as complex as the gulf oil spill repair procedure but am cut off disrespectfully because the weather man wants to reiterate what I just said. then they are out of time.

bitter..yes!

I will check out this edgerunner 900watt motor. any other good geared hub motor options?
I will put some ATF fluid in it and drive it till it pops, then we will know what it can take long term. I wont run more than 50A too fast for the trails.

[Whiplash]

Bill! I used to watch your show! If this is really you I am glad to see you are enjoying the E bike revolution with us!! Nice build

If that is not the MAC motor from Cell Man, you should give his a try, it has been proven well into the 2500 watt range as long as you are easy on the throttle in the really rough stuff... This motor has Grey gears that are wider than most, and a better clutch ETC. You can get them here:
http://www.emissions-free.com

I recommend the 1000W version with matching controller as they are a bit hard to find a controller that works well with them. Get the 8T or 6T version depending on the speed you want, if its mostly off road, I would go with the 8T the 6T does like 38-40 MPH on 12s LiPo fully charged..

[mushymelon]

Bill Nye the electrician maybe. I think his daughter would be too old for a tricycle. Why would bill nye need a big dewalt onsite radio it looks well used and theres a stereo in the shop already.

And I think I recognize the build in the background.

I think someones having a little fun with us.

Why Bill Nye?

[kfong]

Easily solved, just post a pic with you standing with your ebike. That would put you on celebrity status

[melodious]

I have my doubts as well. Never thought the science guy was so messy! Who leaves a light bulb sitting on the ground?



Then again it could be him. Things could be weirder.

This is Jim Morrison signing off from my iPad in a beach in Greece! Break on through!

[Bill Nye the science guy]

Lol. Good observations.

I am not the famous Bill Nye. Didn't know he had so many fans. I hope he knows. It ticks me off how they ask him a question on CNN, he begins to explain and they just can't stand waiting for the answer.

I am a big fraud. Lol

[jonescg]

So disappointed...


Yes, science communication is seriously lame in the mainstream media. We're constantly told to dumb it down, whereas our whole purpose is to raise science awareness of the general populous up.

[amberwolf]

You mention "49 x 2" for your NiMH pack: does this mean you are using 49 series by 2 parallel? If so, I don't recommend you parallel the NiMH at all (charge or discharge). It can result in dramatic failure. There's a number of discussions on why.

http://www.endless-sphere.com/w/index.p ... H_%26_NiCd
http://www.endless-sphere.com/w/index.p ... H_%26_NiCd

[Bill Nye the science guy]

ok that was a lot of reading, I charge in 8 series packs with a delta peak charger. I have a charge connector and a controller connector to separate all packs for charging/join all the packs for 2x49. what is the concern on the discharge side of things. I don't have a bms to blow up. as long as packs are both charged. is there a heat/resistance runaway on discharge. I thought they would balance each other as they discharge during use?

parallel charging is craziness.

I will switch to lipo once my ebike allowance builds back up again, maybe those nano 10s packs.

[Bill Nye the science guy]

I found the problem with discharging nimh in parallel . the pack with the lower resistance does most of the work and when you let off the gas the lazy freeloader pack dumps current and quick charges the low resistance pack. probably over heating it and wearing it out.

charging of any type in parallel will cause failure. nimh don't like trickle charging. nicd can stand C/10 trickle but nimh is I believe C/20.

I am installing a pack selector switch, when one dies I will switch to the other.

thanks for the info.