Cowardlyducks - E-BikeE builds

[Cowardlyduck]

Done at last!
This is the final build video of this full suspension electric Red BikeE AT.


Cheers

[thundercamel]

Great work! Please post some videos of the red bikeE getting put to it's intended use, which is always what I want to see after a youtube build series. Maybe some camera angles showing the suspension movement while riding?

Speaking of suspension, where did you get that front fork with the durometer at? How well does it work? My friend might want one for his bikeE. He has gotten some seat skewers from this site before, and they have some other bikeE parts.

I also assume the tall seat back is preferred over the short seat back? Probably aren't any of those available...

Edit: I'm just watching your short to long seat video now.

[fechter]

Big battery = less voltage sag on acceleration.

How is the handling? That has a pretty radical rake angle.

[Cowardlyduck]

Great work! Please post some videos of the red bikeE getting put to it's intended use, which is always what I want to see after a youtube build series. Maybe some camera angles showing the suspension movement while riding?

Speaking of suspension, where did you get that front fork with the durometer at? How well does it work? My friend might want one for his bikeE. He has gotten some seat skewers from this site before, and they have some other bikeE parts.

I also assume the tall seat back is preferred over the short seat back? Probably aren't any of those available...

Edit: I'm just watching your short to long seat video now.

Thanks!
Yeah, I intend to do some video of a it riding at some point. Just spent so much time doing this build video I'm over it for a while for now.

The suspension fork took a long time to find! Aliexpress ended up being pretty much the only place I could find one that was both center suspension and disc brake which I needed to run a 16" wheel in it since it's a 20" fork.

And just now I've attempted to look it up again....the original listing is gone and I cannot find anything like it again
The title from the one I bought was

Aluminum 28.6 100 mm 20 INCH folding spring disc brake shock absorb bike suspension fork

From memory, I ended up searching a bunch of variations of 20" forks as many of the listings don't include details like disc brakes or style of suspension. Many of them are intended for folding bikes also so that can help. I'm sure if I needed to get them again I could spend hours searching again...but to anyone else wanting these at this point I say good luck! And please share the listing if you find it.

Yeah the long seatback is definitely preferred. Interestingly although the red AT has the original stock long seat back and my blue CT is a getto extension version, they are both very comfortable.

Big battery = less voltage sag on acceleration.

How is the handling? That has a pretty radical rake angle.

Handling is fine. Takes a bit of getting used to and it does dip a bit into corners, but it works well and handles great. I've had the front start to slide on me a few times during hard cornering on dirt, but been able to easily recover it every time.
I was thinking about adding a spring pulling the back of the fork to the frame to help with the flop. They do this on Giant Revives from the factory and it seems to help.

I'm about to take it on a very long, semi-rural off-road ride today, so will see how it performs.

Cheers

[neptronix]

Cool. That's a badass battery!!!!

[Cowardlyduck]

Cool. That's a badass battery!!!!

It was originally intended for my LMX64, but the dimensions were slightly larger than listed so I couldn't use it.

It certainly punches! Even factoring the usual exaggerated specs I reckon it could do 200A peaks, 80A sustained without breaking a sweat. At full throttle pulling 60A it only sags about 4V which is pretty impressive for some no-name Aliexpress '40Ah' pouch cells.

Cheers

[neptronix]

It certainly punches! Even factoring the usual exaggerated specs I reckon it could do 200A peaks, 80A sustained without breaking a sweat. At full throttle pulling 60A it only sags about 4V which is pretty impressive for some no-name Aliexpress '40Ah' pouch cells.

That is impressive; i believe my maximum voltage drop on my 25ah 47V nominal RC Lipo pack was 2-3V, and rolling voltage drop around ~0.5V. Low voltage drop means train-starting torque potential levels
Your results are awfully close by using a LOT of battery. I would very much prefer a battery like yours.

I imagine that despite all that power, you have eliminated the power wheelie problem that these bikes tend to have with where you've placed the battery. Am i correct?

[neptronix]

For 20" forks, the spinner grind seems to be fairly well constructed, and suntour also makes some nice 20" suspension forks in various firmnesses, with decent stanchions, if you're unhappy with the Chinese one you bought.

Finding one that doesn't hit the pedals on a CLWB is another matter.. ( luckily, the BikeE seems immune to this. )

[Bigwheel]

The Schlumpf crankset caught my eye. Speed or High Speed? I have used them for years and they are a great product. Makes so much sense for a project such as yours also although I use mine on bikes with 700c wheels.

[Cowardlyduck]

For 20" forks, the spinner grind seems to be fairly well constructed, and suntour also makes some nice 20" suspension forks in various firmnesses, with decent stanchions, if you're unhappy with the Chinese one you bought.

Finding one that doesn't hit the pedals on a CLWB is another matter.. ( luckily, the BikeE seems immune to this. )

Actually the BikeE does require a fork with centre suspension or it will hit the pedals also. This is why it's so hard to find a fork. I've only seen one person do it with regular forks and they had to spread the cranks a bunch to make it fit. Not something I am keen on.
I was actually about to buy some Suntour forks when I started this project, but they disappeared from the Amazon listing before I had the chance to pull the trigger. I am yet to find anything else like these one's (centre suspension, disc brake, 20") and the Aliexpress seller I bought them from is no longer selling them.

The Schlumpf crankset caught my eye. Speed or High Speed? I have used them for years and they are a great product. Makes so much sense for a project such as yours also although I use mine on bikes with 700c wheels.

High speed. Agree they are great. I have one on my other BikeE also, and previously used one on my Stealth Fighter.
It certainly beats the 60T chain-ring I tried running on my BikeE CT for a while.

P1070427 (Medium).JPG (170.45 KiB) Viewed 313 times

This thing was ridiculous and almost as large as the front wheel. Had the chain come off the RHS a few times and wrap around the end of the crank/pedal area. Once the chain came off the RHS completely falling onto the ground, wrapping itself up in the rear wheel and making me fishtail for 10m before crashing....it was after that I decided to get the Schlumpf fitted.

Cheers

[Cowardlyduck]

Well that didn't go as planned!

Was out night riding testing my rear shock at 250PSI (which is nice btw) and hit a curb cut/lip at a normal speed. Heard a clunk and stopped. After going a bit further kept hearing it clunking once per revolution and stopped again to figure it out but it was pitch black and could barely see. I thought I felt a broken spoke and figured it would be fine to ride the few km home, so I did without issue.

Was only once I got home and flipped the bike over that I found this!!!

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DSC_7041.JPG (605.21 KiB) Viewed 241 times

DSC_7042.JPG (692.04 KiB) Viewed 241 times

I have never seen anything like this before...and I can't believe it kept going, relatively normally at decent power also. It could just as easily have been a broken spoke with the way it got me home.

The bike is around 30KG and I am around 85KG, so it wasn't a weight issue. I had to grind down a small part of the motor flanges to get it to fit next to my stand mount, however as you can see from the photos, this is not where the failure occurred and is unrelated to this issue.

I can only hope it was a random manufacturing defect as Grin has already agreed to replace it under warranty. After recently learning that the RH212 is technically less efficient than a Leaf motor, and experiencing this, I'm not super keen to get another one, but I can't complain about the price. Obviously if it happens again I'm never touching a 212 again, but for now I'm hopeful it's just a random thing.

Cheers

[neptronix]

Holy crap.. i have also never seen a motor fail like that.

[cloudy]

Needed a break from building the red BikeE AT so I did a major overdue service on the blue CT.
Brakes, chain, rear freewheel all have over 7000km on them with the rear tire having over 3000km.
My motor hasn't been opened in over 15000km, and after cleaning it up from the Ferro Fluid I added, it looks pretty good.

Hi Cowardlyducks, can I ask what type of ferro fluid you used, and also what paint for inside the motor? Thanks for sharing this interesting build.

[Cowardlyduck]

Hi Cowardlyducks, can I ask what type of ferro fluid you used, and also what paint for inside the motor? Thanks for sharing this interesting build.

Welcome Cloudy!
Where abouts in Australia are you?

The FF I use in all my motors is Statoraid from Grin. You can risk it with other stuff, but it could eat wire insulation or worse, spontaneously combust if it gets too hot.
The paint is some Red Insulating Varnish I managed to import from the states many years ago. No idea on the brand....it just say's anti-seize.
I doubt you could get it any more as importing stuff like that seems impossible these days.
Any electric motor insulating varnish would work though.

That being said, it isn't really necessary any more. I only painted mine because I vented the side covers of that motor, adding Ferro Fluid later. I would not recommend venting the side covers unless you're chasing maximum performance. FF is really enough and for more, just add hub-sinks.

Cheers

[cloudy]

Thanks for your reply, exactly the information I was after. I had been considering venting the side covers, but felt that was a solution looking for a problem.... I'm not chasing maximum performance so Statorade will probably be enough. I'm surprised such a small amount (8-10mL?) will be enough to increase thermal conductivity to the outside world, but plenty of posts on the forum do endorse it.

I'm in Tassie and loving it. Plenty of hills to cook your motor on.