Drew12345 Trek Fuel Ex7, BBSHD, Battery in Saddle

Short clips of riding the past couple weeks. First clip is getting flat. The last clip is trying a very short manual. Really bad but will practice every ride. Hopefully by summer, I will be much better at it.

[youtube]pq3hxr9jKes[/youtube]

I'm working on another vid where I pushed the bbshd kinda hard and taking temps along the way.

BTW, my motor came loose again. I'm pretty sure I installed it correctly. Anyway, I ordered bracket below. Should be here next week.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/California-Ebike-Stabilizer-Bar-BSBF-1-for-Bafang-mid-drives-BBS01-02-BBSHD-/112133918731?hash=item1a1bb3d00b:g:7ewAAOSwFV9X1xxw

I want to really learn how to wheelie. I will spend next 6 months and see how far I get. This video will be part 1 of many and will track my progress. Even though I have bbshd and battery on this bike, I'm doing no motor on for now. Once I figure out (if I do), I will start trying with motor.

[youtube]dlOWhWQ3P4s[/youtube]

its a lot easier to wheelie on a regular bike with pedals. Its starts getting complicated when you have to time your electric throttle response and trust your system to do it for you.

Back in my BMX days we kids used to ride all around town like little hoodlums. I was the first of my crew of friend to be able to ride a wheelie the entire length of our grocery store parking lot in town, and let me tell you this thing is longer than a football field! By the time you get to the other side your hauling a$$ on the pedals

Good ole days

Maybe I'm trying to make myself feel young again by attempting this...lol

There are 2 kinds of wheelies. Balance point, and power wheelie.
Balance point wheelie, you lift up the front very high, and you can maintain the same speed, pedal or coast... you are riding on one wheel.
power wheelie, you dont have the front up quite as high, and you have to keep pedaling a little faster to keep it up until you cant go faster and you drop the front.

Balance point wheelies are harder to learn, because you have to trust yourself, trust the back brake to catch if you go too far, and its just unnatural feeling at first.
On a normal bicycle, you just have to learn to trust your rear brake as you go over backwards, and not bail with your feet down everytime you lift the front too high... on motorcycles this is easier to avoid since you're going much faster. lol.

Yeah, I'm trying to learn the balance point wheelie. The high speed one scares me. I don't want to bail at high speed. I think I would injure myself more.

I just started being able to wheelie a pedal bike several weeks ago (I'm 50). I've been able to wheelie my Crf50 pit bike for a long time now and started working on circles. I haven't had much luck wheeling my BBSHD on a full suspension bike though. 6 weeks ago I bought a fat bike that I'm gonna put a cyclone on later this winter. Wow! That thing wheelies really easy! I think when your riding a balance point wheelie you have to keep your CG over the contact patch of the rear tire. These wide low pressure tires have a huge contact patch that makes it a lot easier. I've never been able to wheelie a pedal bike more then several pedal strokes, but 2-3 weeks after getting this fat bike I was good for over a block and still getting better.

Wow, would like to see a wheelie on fat bike. Must be really cool. And makes sense about bigger patch being easier. Maybe I should deflate my tires some

Not sure if I will ever get the wheelie down. It's fun trying though. One thing I like about the BBSHD is that the bike is still light enough to do stuff like this. Wouldn't think of trying on my stealth futr. That thing weighs 100lb.

drew12345 said:

I went for first ride today. I got a little less than 7 miles on 6ah battery. ..

Overall, I really like the BBSHD kit. Even though this mid drive is not as powerful as my aft mid drive, it's compact, quiet, reliable, and seems has enough power for the trails. It was simple installation. ..

I'm not sure about the battery yet. It's nice and compact, but heats up fast.

[youtube =_NMRziDPgxM[/youtube]

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Really sweet indeed. Appreciate makers posting their builds with sufficient detail as to be replicated by others. And nice work on the video - a real treat to make the view sweet.

As to your battery - I've made my own packs for better that 5 years now, have researched extensively and feel I possess a sufficient modicum of know-how & experience as to provide perspective. Yea, 6ah is just not enough. And the heating is a big no-no. Any such is indicative of an over-current draw. And while damage may be slow coming - the damage is nonetheless inevitable - premature failure of the pack. 6ah is not just a capacity measure, but a measure of max current. And your cells C-rate sets that as a hard ceiling. 6ah x 1C is 6amps and your draw is obiously more. Check motor specs to see optimum, min & max. I'd believe it closer to 30 amps. A 20ah pack with a safe 2C yields 40 amps and would be better.

Or you could get away with 12ah cells at 3C for 36 amps. What cells are in your pack and have you checked the spec sheet for those?

Interesting... I run 5.8Ah 1P of Lipo rated at 25C (zippy compact) and can get 25 km on the juice and about 50km with me putting in the hard yards pedalling. 9-10km with a 6AH pack means the battery cant push enough amps and is stressed to keep the rated capacity.

5AH of high discharge lipo might give you longer range.

arkmundi said:

drew12345 said:

I went for first ride today. I got a little less than 7 miles on 6ah battery. ..

Overall, I really like the BBSHD kit. Even though this mid drive is not as powerful as my aft mid drive, it's compact, quiet, reliable, and seems has enough power for the trails. It was simple installation. ..

I'm not sure about the battery yet. It's nice and compact, but heats up fast.

[youtube =_NMRziDPgxM[/youtube]

Click to expand...

Really sweet indeed. Appreciate makers posting their builds with sufficient detail as to be replicated by others. And nice work on the video - a real treat to make the view sweet.

As to your battery - I've made my own packs for better that 5 years now, have researched extensively and feel I possess a sufficient modicum of know-how & experience as to provide perspective. Yea, 6ah is just not enough. And the heating is a big no-no. Any such is indicative of an over-current draw. And while damage may be slow coming - the damage is nonetheless inevitable - premature failure of the pack. 6ah is not just a capacity measure, but a measure of max current. And your cells C-rate sets that as a hard ceiling. 6ah x 1C is 6amps and your draw is obiously more. Check motor specs to see optimum, min & max. I'd believe it closer to 30 amps. A 20ah pack with a safe 2C yields 40 amps and would be better.

Or you could get away with 12ah cells at 3C for 36 amps. What cells are in your pack and have you checked the spec sheet for those?

Click to expand...

Thanks Arkmundi and raged. Yeah, I only got 7 miles because I charged to 80%. After that, I charged to 100% and got 10 miles. I'm running 30Q cells. My original plan was to get 2 of these mighty mini's. I like them because they are small, safer and easier to maintain than lipo I used to use. So I bought one and waiting to see how it performs. Yeah, unfortunately it does get hot and know it's bad. But I am thinking about buying another because I like how small they are. That will get me 12ah which is plenty. And I do want to get a large pack for riding longer distances. I wish I knew how to build a pack like you.

drew12345 said:

Wow, would like to see a wheelie on fat bike. Must be really cool. And makes sense about bigger patch being easier. Maybe I should deflate my tires some

Not sure if I will ever get the wheelie down. It's fun trying though. One thing I like about the BBSHD is that the bike is still light enough to do stuff like this. Wouldn't think of trying on my stealth futr. That thing weighs 100lb.

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(not me!)

[youtube]5bmVnsmizBo[/youtube]

I wish that was me!

drew12345 said:

But I am thinking about buying another because I like how small they are. That will get me 12ah which is plenty. And I do want to get a large pack for riding longer distances. I wish I knew how to build a pack like you.

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Its not that hard and I and others on the forum would be happy to mentor you in the process. I believe I have the most perfect battery pack in the world because 1> I'm using the highly reliable and highly energetic A123 nanophosphate LiFePO4 cells, 2> I'm getting them on the cheap through OSNPower, 3> using their kit which makes it possible to both construct and deconstruct a pack easily, and 4> the AMP20's are a good format and contain enough energy for all my needs tripping. Whether by my design, or others, I encourage you to DIY pack with the best of currently available cell tech on the market.

Thanks Arkmundi. I'll read through some threads on this.

Here is vid of some singletrack riding did recently. Also ordered Luna Eclipse ring. Will update here when I get it.

[youtube]vfR7Yg1xgNs[/youtube]

Offroad night ride. These rides always scare me. You never know if someone will be on trail late at night and if they are safe. Then you have all the creatures that come out in the night. There was some huge bird on the trail that took off as I rode right by it. Not sure what it was. I was going too fast. Anyway, that is the thrill of night ride. Also, got a cool camera angle of the motor.

[youtube]7Dcvm8Fm5n8[/youtube]

Probably an owl on the trail? So you had to space out from the BB on the chainring side to miss the chainstay? So what was the top speed difference between the 2 rings?

Hi Snowscum. Yeah, in video below I switched to Luna Eclipse 42 chainring. I don't think I can give you accurate answer about speed diff. I didn't really do a speed test with original ring since this setup is for singletrack. Best I can say was between 29-31mph with original. The 42t is around 27-29. I'll make a note next time I'm out to check max speed for you. Take care.

[youtube]9MVOsZnSAs8[/youtube]

Found this little park that has a large bump in the ground that can jump off of. I'm terrible at jumps but was a lot of fun.

[youtube]mWubA-yvF58[/youtube]

Trying to cross a thin wall of concrete that is about 3 feet high on an ebike and fell off and got a few scratches.

[youtube]ZrbfQyf1PWs[/youtube]

3 more videos I posted.

[youtube]Ue5x7pHjCYU[/youtube]

[youtube]6x4HVyfWT98[/youtube]

[youtube]FOi4p_JTmGk[/youtube]

Too warm today so trail was soggy in a few spots. Cut my ride short.

Thanks for the great thread. I'm contemplating a very similar build and love how you did yours. Great information about what has worked and what hasn't I'm currently riding a Trek hardtail with a DD rear hub at about 2300w. It's powerful and simple, but is not good for trail riding. I appreciate you taking the time to document your project and post pics.

You're welcome Wolfeman. Just giving back to the community that I learned so much from.

Yeah, DD on trails is much harder. It does feel like an anchor your riding with. But sometimes I do enjoy DD on trails because you can accelerate really fast.

BBSHD is a great motor for trail. It's not as powerful as my DD but a lot more fun.

arkmundi said:

As to your battery - I've made my own packs for better that 5 years now, have researched extensively and feel I possess a sufficient modicum of know-how & experience as to provide perspective. Yea, 6ah is just not enough. And the heating is a big no-no. Any such is indicative of an over-current draw. And while damage may be slow coming - the damage is nonetheless inevitable - premature failure of the pack. 6ah is not just a capacity measure, but a measure of max current. And your cells C-rate sets that as a hard ceiling. 6ah x 1C is 6amps and your draw is obiously more. Check motor specs to see optimum, min & max. I'd believe it closer to 30 amps. A 20ah pack with a safe 2C yields 40 amps and would be better.

Or you could get away with 12ah cells at 3C for 36 amps. What cells are in your pack and have you checked the spec sheet for those?

Click to expand...

I have to agree with you on this one arkmundi.
As much as I like Luna products, my BBSHD can still easily pull 32 amps on full throttle. Just one of these mini pack is just not going to cut it. You'd be lucky to get 150 usefull battery cycles from the high heat degradation of cells. Put TWO mini packs (TOTAL 14S4P) and you should be just okay (probably get 300 cycles). Put THREE mini pack in parallel and you'd be golden (14S6P) with a good cycle life, only asking about 5 amps per cell then.

drew12345 said:

Thanks Arkmundi and raged. Yeah, I only got 7 miles because I charged to 80%. After that, I charged to 100% and got 10 miles. I'm running 30Q cells. My original plan was to get 2 of these mighty mini's. I like them because they are small, safer and easier to maintain than lipo I used to use. So I bought one and waiting to see how it performs. Yeah, unfortunately it does get hot and know it's bad. But I am thinking about buying another because I like how small they are. That will get me 12ah which is plenty. And I do want to get a large pack for riding longer distances. I wish I knew how to build a pack like you.

Click to expand...

The thing is, now that your first pack has gone bad, capacity will be significantly lower. If you parallel this now-low capacity pack with a new mini cube, the old pack will drain the newer one fast... the overall capacity will be handicaped and the new pack migh even suffer from the older one sucking juice real fast... at a too high C-rating.... thus damaging the newer one...

Look at the 30Q cell specs : https://eu.nkon.nl/sk/k/30q.pdf
asking 15A/cell is sort of a bit of a stretch. Especially if you do it continously (like with the BBSHD)
asking 10A/cell will yeild only 2700 mAh garanteed (2983 mAh typical-tested).... but that's if you go from 4.20V to 2.80 V....
From what I recall, a 52V BBSHD has a LVC either set to 43V or 41V (either 3.07V/cell or 2.93V/cell).... So you'd be lucky to pull out 2800 mAh per cell.

If you look at the discharge curve graph on page 6, you'll see that if you pull 15amp per cell (or 30 amps on this 2P pack), you'll only extract 2100 mAh/cell before you reach 3.07V LVC, and on the same graph, you could see that cell temp would reach 73°Celcius !!! Really bad for the cells. On the other hand, with 3 mini packs wired in parallel (overall equivalent to 14S6P) a 30 amp BBSHD draw means only 5 amps draw per cell.The same graph shows that a 5 amp/cell load, you can extract 2500 mAh/cell before you hit the 3.07V LVC and the cell temperature will only rise from 23°C to 40»C, thus no harm done to the cells from excessive heat).

Temp is a major parameter to account for lithium batteries

I think the mini cube is awsome if you always plan to hook up at least 2 in parallel for the BBSHD's power hungry needs.

I'd be curious to know (in the real world... Not just in a lab). How many cycles did your single 14S2P mini battery pack last with all that stress on it.