Nova Cruz Voloci Re-vamp

[skeetab5780]

Such a nice day out I decided to take the Voloci for a ride to lunch! This thing is a constant head turner...even more so because this one does not have the headlight and directional or mirrors on it. Since its running 12s they do not work as of right now. I do have an idea to run them off the 9s on the pack since the pack is made up of 3s packs

either way its a ton of fun especially on flat city travel

I want to change the brakes out on this one since it will be the one I ride around. But I have a feeling I wont have the proper spacers

No head light makes the wires hard to hide, I may try to re wire this one and neaten it up

Chain needs to be tightened a tad bit on this one, you just have to loosen the rear wheel and sinch bolts and turn the axle wheels back

[efMX Trials Electric Freeride]

a dirt bike style number plate / front fairing would hide the wiring and look cool.. maybe even improve aerodynamics a bit depending on the fairing shape (and vehicle speed)..

[electricalbicycle]

If you had the headlight/turn signal mounting bracket, there is a guy on eBay (mopedmart) selling Voloci Headlights and Voloci Turnsignals. He is also selling handlebar switches. At one point, he had Voloci mirrors. He also had some stuff that didn't go on ebay...like sprockets, chains, seats. Its been a while since I dealt with him, so he may be out of some of those things. He used to have Voloci forks and tires and wheels.

[skeetab5780]

I have them all, i took them off since i dont use them at the moment. Ive recently talked to mopedmart he is getting me a list of his voloci stock soon. But yeah i think he only has what you listed. Nothing too good

[skeetab5780]

So just out of curiosity I cut one of the stock battery housings to sort of use it as a cover for my battery that is too big to fit inside it. I only did this because I have over 20 housings and this battery will remain in one of these bikes for testing purposes.

Dremmel cut along the bottom edge and bent/snapped it on other half


Taped down the pack connections to make them as low profile as possible

Cover fits on but it doesn't go down all the way, still want to add a few more cells to this pack so this is just temporary until I take it apart again

[electricalbicycle]

Your last picture with the battery cover installed looks great. The cover looks very nice just barely sticking above the Voloci frame. Your cut off battery case is about like the SLA Battery Cover on the SLA version of the Voloci.

The SLA version was cheaper but seems more rare than the removable NiMH battery.

This is a photo of the stock SLA Battery Cover. This allows for a taller battery (3 SLA 12V batteries) but is not as removable as the NiMH battery pack. There are aluminum end plates at both ends of the SLA Battery Cover. The two long edges of the SLA Battery Cover have Caterpillar edging.

The controller has a setting for NiMH and one for SLA. The charger is different for SLA vs NiMH. The LED battery capacity changes in the NiMH vs the SLA batteries.

Since the battery can not be easily removed, Nova Cruz flipped the battery compartment plastic so that the VIN Number is visible at the bottom of the frame as opposed to being visible below the removable battery.

Below are photos of the battery cover from the SLA Version.

IMG_2398.jpg (327.53 KiB) Viewed 708 times

IMG_2406.jpg (356.86 KiB) Viewed 708 times

[skeetab5780]

Yes i think the SLA version is more rare for sure. I feel like when they moved production to cranston pa on the energy grants they mustve went full NIMH mode and stopped making the older model. You can fit 3x 12v 16ah batteries under those covers they are really big. They double the battery compartment.

I only had 3 sla versions out of 11 bikes. One of which i already sold

[skeetab5780]

After a grueling 2 hour wait at my local RMV one of my Voloci scooters is officially on the road and legal to drive around town! I tried to trick my controller by powering the tomos light system from the 9s tap off my battery and it doesn't work...not sure why I will test further tomorrow. May need to just use a 12v converter

Funny story i go all the way to the RMV on the Voloci and i forget the darn paperwork i filled out that i left in my backpack i didnt bring..doh! Ride back get my bag and I say to a few friends “watch it die on the 2nd trip” and low and behold my battery died in the middle of the street because i neglected to charge it for a few weeks of local trips. I had to push the bike all the way back to my shop to charge up...this is when having no pedals really sucks.

But obviously since its road legal now i need a voltage meter of some kind to gauge how far i can ride.

[skeetab5780]

For the fun of it I threw a pair of dirt bike renthal bars on the Voloci since they are a bit wider my thought process was that it will neaten up the wiring easily. I took it for one spin down the street and hated it... I like wide bars on other bikes but the Voloci is too agile and nimble for these darn things...Put stock ones back right afterwards

It did neaten wiring but its not worth it


Then I rewired the battery pack and controller with the stock charging port and drilled a small hole in cover for battery wires to enter the enclosure, also you can see I'm using a old SLA pos 48v charger with the pot all the way down to 50.4v to charge my 12s pack...not the most ideal situation and I will not let it go full charge or charge alone at the moment. this is all I can do since my HV satiator was run over by a fork truck...

HV satiator carnage

[fechter]

Ouch! That looks like a warranty issue on the Satiator. It should withstand being run over by a truck.

What batteries are you using in that one? You mention 12s. With a decent modern Li-ion battery, the Voloci would be so much more useful than the original lead-acid design. A lot lighter too.

[skeetab5780]

Im using 12s 21.25ah LIPO battery made up of 20x 3s 4250mah packs. This battery fits perfect into the bike, but it is only capable of about 25a continuous. I haven't really challenged the bike on any significant hills to see how it does. But riding around the flat city and slight grade is fun. I have still been commuting to work on my Vector lite with the pedals so I can assist for exercise that is well needed.

my plans are to order a 48v 30ah 18650 pack which will be much heavier and require a big SLA Voloci cover, but that will increase the weight. The bike is super nimble and handles like a stunt bike, you can do the tightest figure eights on this thing and get your knee close to the ground and its not scary

I am going to perform a range test with the existing battery and if its not over 20 miles with hills I will probably change it out

[skeetab5780]

Pic of my legal sticker! Now I just need to get these damn lights working...

[skeetab5780]

Hmm so I may have to upgrade to LED on the lights on these Voloci's...I just did a few tests on the load of the 12v system. I was able to simply pull the left turn signal/horn switch off the handlebar mount and simply probe with my test leads on the red and black wires in the system. This seems to be the easiest way to power the 12v system. My only concern is when my 12s battery is low and the on board converter starts to work again, it will then be back-fed with another 12v source potentially causing problems.

Edit: found the source wire that delivers the 12v from the controller to the Tomos system and I was able to cut it

the headlight and rear running light draw 3.2a at 12v when headlight switch is on
the rear brake light draws 1.7a when brake levers are pulled...I was hoping to run the system off a 12v 3a converter since I don't want to get a huge 10a one with a heat sink and have wasted energy

I'm pretty sure I am going to not put directional on for now since I can use hand signals by MA state law

LED here we come!

[fechter]

If you shop around, you can find LED headlights that have the dc-dc built in and can run straight off pack voltage. This might allow you to run all the other lights off a 3A converter. I wouldn't worry about the wasted energy on the larger 10A converter but the size might be an issue.

[skeetab5780]

If you shop around, you can find LED headlights that have the dc-dc built in and can run straight off pack voltage. This might allow you to run all the other lights off a 3A converter. I wouldn't worry about the wasted energy on the larger 10A converter but the size might be an issue.

You know what that's a great idea, I've been watching a 36-84v led headlight on Ebay for months for another build and didn't even think about that.

Just picked this up for $11.60 shipped I think I will remove the handlebar bracket and mount it where the original Voloci headlight was on the top stanchion of forks

[fechter]

I have one that looks just like that one. It works great. I took it apart and potted the little circuit with epoxy to make it waterproof. You will just need to wire it with a switch that goes to the battery voltage.

[skeetab5780]

Got a little work done on the wiring harness of the stock Voloci bike, I took the E brakes off to clean up some wiring, and i'm pretty sure I will not be using any directional in the front so I will cut the bracket down eventually.

I soldered and heat shrunk the wiring so now if I ever need to take the bike apart I cannot disconnect them but I don't really care, and the big bulky connectors always run against the frame and hinder steering at times

Dremmel cut the LED headlight mount so I could fit it in place where the stock one was

Pulled off EBrake wiring and switches

Obviously this will cause my brake lights to not work, I will address this later if I ever do tons of night riding all of a sudden...


decided to wire the horn in for fun

mess of wires

shrunk them down

Put a little tape over them and zip tied the bundle in place so it doesn't hit or rub

Still a little ugly wiring, but its much better

[electricalbicycle]

This may be a bit late to help with the elimination of the wire harness connectors that you just did. Still, maybe someday if you run into a problem, the schematic MIGHT help.

[skeetab5780]

Thanks for that EB! I'm sure it will come in handy one day

So I decided to move the horn to the center just under the headlight since I might shave the front bracket down but im not sure yet if I want blinkers or not in front so I will keep it for now.

Makes it look better either way IMO It helps hide the lower wiring loom

[skeetab5780]

Here you can see where I added a 3s 12ah accessory battery for now. It fits perfectly above to motor battery and is made of the same cells. I just quickly put some XT60 connectors on it, made a 12.6v charger for it and soldered in a quick power tap wire into the left handlebar terminals. So I basically just have to plug in the connector when I need lights.

This was the easy fix for now since I like to run my 50v battery for more top speed!

Should have heat shrunk the wiring instead I use tape like a pro! Oh well its just a first test run

[skeetab5780]

Ride/review video

[skeetab5780]

Did a little bit of work to the Zootr scooter proto-type. Changed out the bent front forks with something inexpensive. And while doing so the headset fell into a million little ball bearings so I had to throw a sealed new headset on it. Used a BMX stem upside down and had to order some special length 40mm 1-1/8" spacers since I didn't want to cut the steerer tube(Voloci handlebars are a bit low)

then I swapped out the bars to a used set I had kicking around that weren't steel, and i'm neatening the wiring at the moment.

I need to make an adaptor for the drum brakes, not sure on that yet

Shortened throttle wiring need to solder resistor since its a pot throttle

[skeetab5780]

So that awful 12s battery left me stranded yet again! It just cannot handle the 40a current the controller is demanding...I got sick of it finally and decided to lose some top end speed and put in a 10s battery pack. The pack is made of 80x 18650 cells and is 17.6ah. It is also taller and doesn't fit under the NIMH cover so I will likely have to use a large SLA cover. But on a positive note, now all my accessories work again! and I can fit another 80x cells for a 35ah pack which will give me a 40 mile range! pretty sweet

I can notice that it is a bit slower and I hate it, but it still cruises around fine. I just don't like cars on my ass

this battery is lighter than the 12s also and I no longer need the additional 12v accessory battery anymore!

[fechter]

If you replaced the controller with one that does field weakening you could get a higher top speed with the lower voltage battery.

[skeetab5780]

If you replaced the controller with one that does field weakening you could get a higher top speed with the lower voltage battery.

I have been pondering this myself, then I need the 12v converter again and lots of extra parts. If anything id like to find something that will fit under the controller side cover any ideas on brand?