MXUS 5T - 4 Banger Build

Jestronix

10 kW
Joined
Jul 18, 2015
Messages
510
Hi All,

I recently acquired a rare old retro Schwinn 4 Banger. I was looking for dual suspension bike to hit the trails with at low cost, the bike was in good nick so I picked it up for $200, not bad for a bike worth a lot in its time and in good nick.

Then I came across endless and the cogs began to turn. Price entry point for a good power output motor was the Mxus. I chose the 5T as I really dont want crazy top speeds and thought why not get something with good torque in the ranges I'll be riding in. For me happy to max out at 50 to 60kph.

I'm sourcing the mxus in a 26" from Sam at Ballarat E Bikes here in Oz. He put up with my endless questions and started on the wheel this week, hopefully it shows up next week :)

Sams also supplying a 60a controller, which will be interesting to setup and use. I was looking at lyens controllers.

Battery plans are 5x 4s x 5000ma hardcase turnigy lipo for stage 1, only looking to go for 10 to 20 min burns for now. Hope to make this a long removable battery mounted on the front bar. I want it to be removable as this bike will become a commuter bike during the week for stage 2. Headway cells will ride in a saddle bag style setup for a 40klm round trip, safe and inconspicuous commuter.

The old girl

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And expected output of around 4kw

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Cool bike!

Would recommend against Lyen controllers and headway cells. There are now better options in all respects.

Controller wise the Adaptto Mini-e is vastly superior to ride and live with. It's a BMS, it's the charger, you can change settings on the fly, it's properly silent, tiny and puts out plenty of power (run mine at 7kw daily)

Personally would highly recommend an 18650 cell based pack. Compared with headways it's smaller, lighter, more energy and more power while being just as safe. There are now a myriad of cells with various energy/power densities. You can tailor the pack to your range requirements.
 
It's a BMS, it's the charger, you can change settings on the fly
I never knew that, that is cool that its a BMS and a charger all in one package.
Id get the Adaptto Max-e though!!!!
I thought you were joking, but you got to buy extra stuff for it to do that. Charging Coil, etc.
 
The fingers said:
http://www.bicyclebluebook.com/searchlistingdetail.aspx?id=89291 8)
Nice bike and a great deal, I had Schwinn bikes since the 60's. :D

Wow I did get a good deal looking at those prices :) quality seems good, no rattles from the suspension etc, but it uses the old 22mm brakes so finding replacements will be hard and adaptors aint cheap. May just use regen.

Battery wise the red 38120HP headways look sweet, 10c continuous, no spot welding, can remove bad cells and 2000 cycles plus. So it will be hard to move me away from those advantages.


The adaptto looks great, but cost puts me off for now.

Yeh the triangle is small, I'll be running two types of batteries as described , one for commuting and one for lightweight small distance runs. But time will tell, will look at all options and recommendations :)
 
Jestronix said:
Battery wise the red 38120HP headways look sweet, 10c continuous, no spot welding, can remove bad cells and 2000 cycles plus. So it will be hard to move me away from those advantages.

The adaptto looks great, but cost puts me off for now.

A pack assembled 24s 1p of the headways will weigh 8kg and under an 80a discharge put out 5.4kw and get quite hot doing it. It will deliver about 600wh, so depending on the speed you want to go may not deliver the juice to get you 40km. FYI my hard tail bike with a 60amp peak controller commuting at 50km/h cruise averaged 24wh/km putting your projected range at about 25km.

A pack assembled 20s8p of LG HE4 or Samsung 25R cells will weight 8kg and under 80a discharge deliver 6.4kw and be barely warm. Total energy 1450wh, 2.4x the range. If you don't need the range then you could drop down the pack size, further reducing the weight/cost. Individual cells can be replaced, perhaps not quite so easily as the headways - however, the reliability of the 18650's is significantly higher - cell replacements are pretty unlikely compared with headways which seem to have a spotty reputation for consistency.

Regarding cycle life, with twice the energy you'll require half the charges. An 18650 pack discharged from 4.1-3.5v will last a long time. Frankly nobody has been running them long enough on bikes to run up against their useful lifespan. In the Tesla world the cell degradation appears to plateau and a very long lifespan is projected. It might not be 2000 cycles, but even if it's half that - that's still likely to be 4 years of commuting every single weekday. The reality is in four years cells will be 50% larger, more power dense and probably cheaper - you won't want to run out a pack for a decade.

I hear you on cost with the Adaptto controllers, however make sure you're adding up all the figures... if you're going Headways you will absolutely require a BMS, regardless of battery technology you're going to need to charge the thing. If you're going with a cheaper controller remember to buy two - they tend to explode right at the worst possible moment. tot up those figures and I'm sure you're approaching the cost of the Adaptto/BMS/Coil/Charger package. It's the best bit I've ever bought for any ebike.
 
Your right the headway's are heavy and take up a fair bit of room. Im leaning back towards the multistar packs in a metal container along the bottom bar, Iv run lipo on my drones for a few years, ive rammed batteries into the dirt from a couple hundred feet up with no fires. They do puff and are fairly prone to failure though. If I can get a year of week day commutes out of the multistar packs ill be happy.

Im really not so keen on spending long hours spot welding, i was thinking about spot welds the other day, very little surface area on the battery right, only the four tiny contacts, must lead to a bit of resistance. Ive had thoughts of loading up button top cells in a pipe and compressing some kind of conductive material between them, someone needs to come up with a tesla style pack where each little fuse wire simply touches the cell, but we want 20amps out of our cell, i wonder if they pull that on each fuse?

Yeh cheap vs adaptto , the mini-E size really attracts me and sinewave quietness. so man options.
 
Wow........ Is all I can say after I took the first ride today, videos on u tube do nothing to let u know what your in for. :)

I had a bit of trouble with the phase lines as they just wouldn't work when matching the colours , Sam suggested swapping them around. Turned out to be it:) yet I have to set the controller in reverse, and no swapping the phase wires doesn't fix it. Maybe hall sensors?

Deep in with the endless adjustments and fiddling.

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Installed, and set.

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Let's just say I found streets I didn't know about and tested out hills :) scoots up with ease.

Running a tiny 1.8ah 16cell lipo pack, 25-50c nano tech packs from my drone, got about 15 mins buzzing around, I saw about 50amps from them on the controller. My big packs arrive mid week :)

Stoked, also I'm running a 5t winding which give oodles or toque :)
 
You have a torque arm, right? Looks like you're pushing 4000-5000W peak so you should definitely have one, but I didn't see it in the pics. Just making sure you don't twist your dropouts open and get in a wreck..
 
Baron said:
You have a torque arm, right? Looks like you're pushing 4000-5000W peak so you should definitely have one, but I didn't see it in the pics. Just making sure you don't twist your dropouts open and get in a wreck..

Only the shitty little ones that come with the mxus, however my dropouts are a perfect fit to the mxus axle, as in they are square dropouts with a round end , they fit like its factory made. However I'll be adding some as backup, no regen atm moment either.

Well one of my tiny and old lipo packs dropped a cell today, so I popped on my bigger packs but only 14s. One thing I did notice was that at 14s and 60amps I finally got the motor to show a little warmth.
 
Just discovered this thread. Nice work.

Lets get those torque plates happening. An arse is an expensive replacement! :mrgreen:
 
Samd said:
Just discovered this thread. Nice work.

Lets get those torque plates happening. An arse is an expensive replacement! :mrgreen:


Elbow grease this weekend along with attaching the rear disc :) just waiting on the 12t freewheel :)
 
Jestronix said:
Elbow grease this weekend along with attaching the rear disc :) just waiting on the 12t freewheel :)

Very cool and collectable bike!

Ineresting factoid; Mert Lawwill (watch "On Any Sunday") designed the 4 Banger linkage.

Sorry to say, that 12T freewheel ain't gonna fit :?
16T is the tallest single speed freewheel that will thread onto your motor.

Soldier on..
 
Yeh she's an old beauty, the front forks are pretty average , but the rear is dam nice and suffers no peddle bob, but sags under braking and now hugely when I put the throttle down. I've got it set mega soft though.

12 T sold here from these guys and they only sell mxus http://kinaye-motorsports.myshopify.com/products/12t-x-1-375-freewheel
 
Jestronix said:
Yeh she's an old beauty, the front forks are pretty average , but the rear is dam nice and suffers no peddle bob, but sags under braking and now hugely when I put the throttle down. I've got it set mega soft though.

12 T sold here from these guys and they only sell mxus http://kinaye-motorsports.myshopify.com/products/12t-x-1-375-freewheel

Yep the 12t will fit. Its a product I developed and shared with Kinaye. Fits fine.
 
Yep, they were about prior for BMX shafts. Takes a lot of explaining across languages to modify them to fit a hub!
 
Thanks guys, battery pack in and blackened things up a bit.

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So 66v @ 60amps today near 4kw feels good in this 5T , punched a few trails and open paddocks at speed, climbs hard :)

Dam I need some bigger forks though, flex and travel are an issue. I'm now looking for some down hill forks if anyone's got some suggestions at a reasonable price.

Have to say Sam, this controller does the job, blue tooth is sweet.
 
Samd said:
Nice!

I've got some marzocchi monster rctvxyz thingies from about that vintage. Rough but functional. Only owe me $150. Not sure if I have the 20mm they axle. Pm me if of use...

my lord they are big shocks, then i saw the super monster !
 
Anyone got any ideas on why I have to run my controller in reverse and set the phase wise like such, I've tried every other combo. It's weird, phase wires are all good. I want to solder them up later on and get it sorted.

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Well got the disc brake in thought I had everything sorted.


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Had to grind the back of the calliper to squeeze between the disc and motor. I had maybe a mm to spare

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Tight fit.

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Interesting the shot doesn't show it, but the wheel spins freely.

So I forgot one thing, out on the ride things started to get noisy. It started rubbing, I thought maybe that breaking pulled the calliper straight etc, nope, heat was the enemy.... The motor was a mm bigger after 20 mins riding, and thus no clearance. So I headed off home, things got louder this in turn created more heat, made it home whilst letting the whole world know with a massive screeching sound.

I thought I could move this out with washers but it hits the phase cable, I'm gunna see if I can't grind the top of the screws tomorrow and grind some more off the calliper.

I want my rear brakes !
 
cwah said:
just put a spacer between your rotor and your motor to get it sorted!

Trouble is the screw hit the phase cable, v2 mxus has the cable entering the axel at that point, plan to shave the tops off.
 
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