Moots Zirkel 52v 20ah 8fun. Wahoo!

Started with a hard tail Gecko Genesis but thought I needed FS so I installed the kit on the Zirkel.
Off for a ride.

I put on about 200 miles of dirt on the XT drive train without too many issues. Still learning how to ride it. Got the NuVinci on and now learning that system. I used an old derailleur as chain tensioner until I get one in the mail. The battery bag didn't hold up and I had to duct tape it together as I am on a week long trip in the high country. I couldn't mount the bag using all the straps didn't help. Got 30 miles of open road and about 70 on dirt trails on the NuVinci and the hub is leaking. I used 17.5ah on the 30 mile road ride averaging 27 mph. Never dropped below 25 or over 32. I pedaled fast but not too hard the whole way. Changing out gears today when I get back to the shop and will have to give up some top end. There just isn't enough range to do dirt and road. It really needs 2 chainrings. The big issue is wind resistance at speed and not near enough low gear for the steep trails. I find myself hitting the 26A mark frequently and 24A constant on the open road and that is with heavy and fast pedaling. Battery is dead on my cadence computer so I can't tell you the cadence. I can tell you that I can easily pedal at 90 rpm for extended periods of time.


I really love the trails and going off trail and chasing prairie dogs, rabbits and coyotes. This thing is a fricken motor cycle with skinny tires! I have looped this so many times and have done some crazy peroets trying to ride up stairs at the school and am paying for all this HP and fun. RIght now I can hardly breath, laugh, cough, sneeze or even get up easily. Feels good to have blood running down various parts of me and cactus needles in my shins and Russian Olive thorns in my head. The vintage late 70's bear trap pedals are once again reaping havoc on my legs. 90% of my riding is done at night. Usually the night rides average about 3.5 hrs and 25 miles. I use a Zebra H600 Mk II 18650 XM-L2 Cool White Headlamp http://www.zebralight.com/H600-Mk-II-18650-XM-L2-Headlamp-Cool-White_p_130.html which is suprisingly bright and has a very low setting that is great for reading in a tent. You cannot use any UltraFire battery! Must use at least a NCR. I bought 4 different types of Ulta batteries with impressive numbers. None will work on high for more than a minute. Orbtronics is what I settled on and they work great and are a bit overkill.

I got an email from Eric at Luna. He said the watt meter was not meant to be mounted on the bars. I can hardly see the display in the day time and was looking for other options. Alot has to do with my failing eye site and the ability to focus on it and ride at crazy speeds. He told me that I should get a CA. I did not think they hooked up to this setup so I am waiting to hear back on how to do it and will get a couple of those for mine and the DH bike I did. I am still needing to play with different throttle positions and ordered 2 more types of throttles and have a bar mount 15w light on order from Luna. The bars are really busy as it is so I will probably have to make a new stem and bar combo to get some more rise and a wider bar. Also have some thermometers on order. Not looking forward to installing those.

For now I am using the Luna Samsung 52v 20ah 26f? pack. Have yet to do any programing to the controller and it needs it. There are a good bit of things I would like to change as I get used to this. It is a work in progress for sure. Building new batteries and making some type of hard case is in progress for the DH bike. I got a spot welder but decided against using it. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hand-held-S...460933?hash=item35c3df5845:g:GSAAAOSwMmBVoxwV It only has a .12mm thickness limit which is not enough IMHO for what I will want to do eventually. I took apart the Luna battery and they used several layers of thin tab material and it was too wide for the holders and looked really bad. There was even a hole blown through a good part of one where something shorted out during production. Several of the spot welds were not even contacting the battery tops. These may just be connections between the layers and not actually contacts to the battery and the first layer was done well to the battery. Wishful thinking but looking at the rest of the pack I can hardly expect better quality in the unseen parts.
When I used to race RC cars we undid the spot welds and soldered on heavy copper bars. Later when I got a battery sponsor all the cells were soldered together. This is much better than spot welds for high current applications but soldering up 180+ cells is something I wasn't looking forward to, hence the spot welder purchase. I did spot weld some .15mm tabs on and it worked kinda. I just can't see the current flowing through such small points and with high resistance contact points the rest of the tab to battery contact as efficiently.

More as the saga continues.

Almost done with my EV Charge wall. New sub panel for 2 wall chargers for cars and one for my bike.

I am actually getting used to the right hand thumb throttle on the left side. Should have for real left throttles in soon.


I also played with the programming and added the 9 assist levels and no speed limit. Coulnd't get the drivers to work for the USB cord.

Nice build! Is that moots titanium?

Yes it is Ty.
Put on a LH twist throttle. Cut it down and am trying to get used to it. Kind of weird.
Put on a single pulley rear chain tensioner. Works fine.
Not crazy about the NuVinci gearing but love the variable speeds. At least I'm not throughing chains.
Went on a mud ride yesterday. That was a blast spinning the rear wheel all crazy like. Just need more gear on both ends as I am pulling 26A pretty consistently now on hill climbs and on the flats on high power. I thought it was supposed to cut off at 25A?

Got the drivers to work for the USB. Had to run the exe file as administrator. Haven't hooked it up to the control yet but I think this has to be done.
The motor is getting too hot and it is too hard to see the amp meter while pedaling. It got so hot yesterday I couldn't touch it. As the volts went down the amps went up and it over heated quickly. Lucky I caught it when I did. The voltage dropped VERY fast after that and I had to pedal home with assist off at 39v. 25 miles of dirt trail starting out at 56v.

My buddy I was with was at 48v when his BMS just cut all current out of the battery. His motor was no where near as hot as mine. Unplug and reconnect the battery and it would just buck and shut off. Next day it is doing the same thing. Batteries were just warm on both bikes.
I got the temp sensor mounted but the wire isn't long enough to put in the motor. HAVE to get this installed some how.

One thing to note. The triangle bags CANNOT hold the battery weight if the bike falls over. I had 2 bags fail now because the bike fell over while leaning against something. I see now why most of these E-Bikes have kick stands. It doesn't take much to upset them when leaning bar and seat against a wall or car. I leaned mine against the car and the RV. When I went into the RV the RV rocked and the bike fell over. Same thing with the car. Bumped the car and the bike fell over. Hard lesson learned twice. Prop it up against a non movable object or just lay it on the ground to begin with. Before you mount the bag with battery in it, put a Zip Tie or velcro strap or two around the pack. Maybe this will keep the zipper from coming unstitched. Not sure that is the only problem with these bags as I had 2 of the velcro straps come off in my hand just trying to get the straps open to put it on. One on each bag. The stitching is not very strong even though they look good. Don't pull the straps at an angle to the stitching at all, they will pull out easily like a tag on a t-shirt.
I know this isn't mounted the best but the issues don't have anything to do with that. Other than the battery coming out the bag has held up fine while riding with no issues. I have looped the bike numerous times and had it flip over and land on me a couple too without issues. Get some addition straps on! You don't want this to happen on a ride if you crash just right or lay it down hard.

Had a fire one street over. Roads were blocked so I took the bike over to investigate. 4 miles later I barely made it home. Took the pack apart and found 16 cells were shorted and 3 others around the bad spot in the pack from the factory were low on voltage compared to other good cells. Should of returned the pack the day it was delivered, but eager to get these two bikes on the road, I didn't. Lesson learned.

Emailed Luna, Nothing they would do. They said I didn't store the bike correctly or the BMS failed. I have less than 12 charges on this pack but it doesn't sit idle for long. I mostly do short 3 to 6 mile rides these days or just a lap or two around the properties trails.

Looked at the BMS, WOW! Not a great job of assembly. This is NOT my work here!



Luna had no cells nor BMS so I found some 26F cells and a Bluetooth BMS which came in today. Just waiting on the new welder.

Interesting observation, the cells that failed were in and next to the group that had been shorted out during the build of this pack from Luna. I noticed the damage the first day I received the pack after taking the wrap off! I decided to use the pack anyway being we were in a rush by then. My Bad.
I did order a 24ah triangle pack from Luna a few days ago for my birthday present to myself. LOL

Did the BMS short out during use or do you think it was assembled like that? Must have made a big spark and a bunch of smoke.

There's your problem....


Looks like the bottom left cell's Nickel strip is under the protective circle thst protects the negative to positive...the strip is right under it. Easy to spot.

fechter said:

Did the BMS short out during use or do you think it was assembled like that? Must have made a big spark and a bunch of smoke.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what happened first. It is clear that some damage was done at the factory seeing more than half of the nickel strip is blown out. I noticed no smoke when it started to fail but I was riding and the pack is in the triangle frame bag. I didn't open up the BMS till after the failure.

Philaphlous said:

There's your problem....

Looks like the bottom left cell's Nickel strip is under the protective circle thst protects the negative to positive...the strip is right under it. Easy to spot.

Click to expand...

I didn't notice that and see no shorting there but the more than half of the nickle strip being blown out is what I saw. I don't see how they could say that I didn't store the pack correctly and that is why it failed. I have 2 other ebikes that hardly get used any more at all with no issues, not mention the dozen RC cars, 2 drones and my lipo car and motorcycle batteries. They are all stored in the same place in my shop. Give me a break! And what about our BMW I3?