Kid goes to the candy store: a visit to Thunderstruck Motors

fechter

fechter

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I had the opportunity and time to pay a visit to our friends at
Thunderstruck Motors today. Definitely like a kid in a candy store for me. Piles of lithium batteries, motors, controllers, and EV's of all shapes and sizes.

Roller was nice enough to take time out from his busy work to fix the recent flat tire on the Jackalope so I could take it for a spin. It now has a Nuvinci hub CVT which gives it stump-pulling torque in the low end and enough gearing to take it over 50mph! Way cool.

Notice how the swingarm pivot is lined up with the motor shaft, but the motor is mounted on the frame. Verrry smart!
 
These are what I want :twisted:
20 Ahr lithium iron phospate cells. A 20 Ahr, 48v pack would fit in the space of my 13Ahr lead-acids, and weigh significantly less.
Roller has been torture testing them and there have been no failures so far.

A 48v pack would go for somewhere around $1200, depending on how much you want to build yourself. No BMS needed.
 

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Here's a couple of spunky looking critters.
Etek powered dirt bikes. Maybe not street legal, but most streets aren't dirt either. That has to be fun.
 

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Nimbuzz said:
So what kind of motor and batts does that have?
Click to expand...

There's another thread on it here somewhere...

The motor is a one-off custom build brushless with a 150 amp controller :p
The batteries are the 48v, 20Ahr lithiums I was drooling over.
And the suspension is dialed in nice. Excellent handling also.
 
Do you have any specs on those dirt bikes?

Like motor, controller, batts, original bike....

Greg
 
Now here's something you don't see everyday, at least in this country.
It's like a one ton Chinese electric trike. I think you could haul an engine block in the back of that with no problem. It has a big electric motor under the bed and a huge set of batteries.

Top speed: slow. But that could be fixed.
 

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gwsaltspring said:
Do you have any specs on those dirt bikes?

Like motor, controller, batts, original bike....

Greg
Click to expand...

Brushed Etek motors, I assume Alltrax controllers, and various battery options.
 
And electric bikes:
(sorry, I don't really know anything about these bikes)
 

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We are having a transportation fair on island tomorrow and Randy from Canev is going to be there. I hope to talk with him about a MC conversion hence the question about the motorbikes.


http://www.canev.com/

Greg
 
fechter said:
Roller was nice enough to take time out from his busy work to fix the recent flat tire on the Jackalope so I could take it for a spin. It now has a Nuvinci hub CVT which gives it stump-pulling torque in the low end and enough gearing to take it over 50mph! Way cool.
Click to expand...

Do tell more about the Nuvinci CVT! Can you adjust the ratio at full throttle? Will it handle aggressive riding at low gear ratios? (read wheelies and burnouts)
 
Thanks for the photos Fechter! Must be great having so many EV suppliers on your doorstep.

Are those LiFe batteries the first generation Thundersky, or from some other supplier? They don't look like the ones that Electric Motorsport is selling.
 
Wow

Thats a beauty!! those hubs are amazing, any idea how much they cost? I have been on the Nuvinci website and there is a brilliant video on how they work, http://www.atcnuvinci.com/videos/cvp2-qt-lg.mov it would make a great hub for a motor driven project, a continuously variable transmission, you can get your motor running in the sweet spot.

In fact it wouldnt be too hard to make a system than controlled the CVT and the motor together to get an optimal spread of power, I can see all sorts of possibilities for these hubs, they look a lot more robust and durable than other internally geared hub that I have seen.

I mean a lot of the newer electric cars are using 4 wheel drive hub motors, how much more efficient would they be if the car could vary the gearing according to the conditions!! hmm.

Now the holy grail would be to incorporate this inside a brushless hub motor, you can then have an all in one electric CVT hub motor, job done!! with a max 2KW motor that would make for a great all rounder that would satisfy everybody.

Hmm so much to think about!! ha ha thanks for the pictures Richard.

Knoxie
 
Yo

An ebay is selling a gas powered nuvinci, you can see he has both a freewheel and a drive wheel on it, nice and simple using a gas engine, which you could of course swap for a nice electric motor.

I have heard complaints that the 400% range in gears isnt as good as some but heck its a lot better than nothing and it looks like you can pick them up for 200 pounds, the weight is a bit of an issue at 9lbs for the hub, thats a bit of a concern thats twice the weight of the Puma and you still need to add at least a 4lb motor to power it.

But still its a great hub albeit a lot of unsprung weight to be spinning at the axle, the price is good though and they can take 100lbs of torque on the gears which should be enough to cope with most motors pa users currently have.

The rolhoff is a better hub with a wider range of gearing 600% or so however they are considerably more money. I think I will use one of these for my conversion project though.

Cheers

Knoxie







http://cgi.ebay.com/NuVinci-Honda-G...oryZ2904QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
Lowell said:
Do tell more about the Nuvinci CVT! Can you adjust the ratio at full throttle? Will it handle aggressive riding at low gear ratios? (read wheelies and burnouts)
Click to expand...

You need to back off the throttle to gear up, but you can gear down under load. It was able to pull wheelies and handled enough torque that the axle slipped in the dropout once. Torque doesn't seem to be a problem.

The Currie scooter with the NuVinci hub appears to have some kind of automatic shifter that works under load, but not having actally seen one, I don't know how that works.

There is some friction loss in the gearing, but Roller's measurements indicate the overall efficiency is nearly the same as for fixed gearing.
 
Malcolm said:
Thanks for the photos Fechter! Must be great having so many EV suppliers on your doorstep.

Are those LiFe batteries the first generation Thundersky, or from some other supplier? They don't look like the ones that Electric Motorsport is selling.
Click to expand...

The blue top batteries are not Thundersky, but I forget the name of them. According to Roller, they have a bit less voltage sag under load than the Thundersky's.
 
Thats Staton-Inc selling the bike. They've been around a while for gasoline powered assisted bicycles...

http://www.staton-inc.com/

Here is an ebay link to the hub alone...

http://cgi.ebay.com/NuVinci-CVP-Model-N170S-Gear-ratio-is-350-Bicycle-hub_W0QQitemZ110138363262QQihZ001QQcategoryZ42320QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting
 
Great pix, Fech,


The Chinese trike is a hoot... (even just the front chainring)

BTW, is that a huge variac on the bench?
 
v_tach said:
Thats Staton-Inc selling the bike. They've been around a while for gasoline powered assisted bicycles...

http://www.staton-inc.com/
Click to expand...

Probably the best looking gasser I've seen. Maybe a good platform for creating a hybrid gas/electric bike, particularly a parallel hybrid.

http://www.staton-inc.com/Details.asp?ProductID=3207
<img src="http://www.staton-inc.com/image_thumbnailer.asp?path=d:\inetpub\staton-inc\images\HPIM1352.JPG&width=800">
 
TylerDurden said:
BTW, is that a huge variac on the bench?
Click to expand...

Yes, I think that's the "battery charger" for his car. It goes into a bridge rectifier and he just watches the ammeter while dialing in the voltage. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
 
This is the first pics I have seen of a rear rack on a FS bike, besides a seat post one.

Anyone else done this kind of a rack or know of a manufacturer?

Greg
 
WOW..... MAN...... :shock:

They would have to kick me out at closing time.. or put me to work ! ( Heck.. i'd work there for free ! ) wowzers ..


Actually.. about the rear rack thing .. i was at Zellers ( canadian version of Wal-mart ) they had a cruiser frame with a rear rack welded to the frame, looked like crap, to me.. but was sure built strong ! Baby blue looking whale of a bike.. just not my style . :wink:
 
Ypedal said:
or put me to work ! ( Heck.. i'd work there for free ! )

Ypedal, c'mon by! I think we can accomodate your requirements.
---------

thanks for the write-up Fecht, and the ride on your 707.

---------

The NuVinci is pretty fun, so far. The jury is still out if it's "worth it" for this particular bike. One thing I've noticed is that I'm choosing (oddly) to top out at about 33-36mph instead of the 40mph w/o the hub. I cruise at full-throttle almost all the time, now I use the NuV to set my top speed. 35 feels good on the road, and I don't feel as guilty about blantantly breaking the law.

Consumption over 20-22 mi rides is still right at 30 Whr/mi, averaging about 25mph. This is essentially the same as w/o the CVT. The benefit I am getting comes in the expanded performance band. I can lift the front wheel off the ground in low gear, and I haven't even tried to ride in full top gear . . . I was holding 52mph with quite a bit of gear left. I do think efficiency of the hub (and certainly the system) starts falling off pretty quickly at those speeds. I have small (20") wheels, so the hub is spinning much faster than spec. It gets pretty warm after a ride. that's fluid shear stress for you.

I think most people would get a way fine with a sh*tmano 3-speed hub, and get a lot more out of their bike systems.

On the Jackelope, I already had 4kW+ available, and it takes about 2.5kW to go 50. ... which is faster than I need.

Long story short. . . I like it, but don't require it for good performance. . . but it has made an awesome bike more fun to ride.
Click to expand...
 
If you put the hub in its lowest gear, use full throttle, and wait for the bike to hit top speed (for that gear), what would the acceleration be like if you then upshift as quickly as you can without causing the motor to slow down? I would think this would result in faster acceleration than you could achieve any other way.
 
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