Nova Cruz Voloci Re-vamp

[skeetab5780]

Wow, that really looks like a lot of work. Losing magnets was a common failure mode, especially if run at higher than 48v.

Hey fetcher looks like each hall has a blue and a green going to it. The green is in the center of the hall. Which do you think is pos and neg?

EDIT: center is negative so Grn is black!

[skeetab5780]

Getting ready for the first test ride! controller wired up and phases tested

A nice blank canvas! Now time to mess it up!

I took a look at the old hall sensor board and traced the center pin to be black, so apparently the green is black and the blue is the positive lol oh well

Shortened up the phases, and could have made them a tad shorter imo

Got the soldering iron heating up while I sorted all the small wires

Soldered the throttle wires and the red black to the halls, left the others dry until in find the correct hall combo

6 tries later we got it running in the right direction

Got some colored tape and labeled the phases and insulated them at the same time

Got the Kelly KBS72121X zip tied in place for now, may need a mud guard later...

Neatened up all the small wiring

Routed the phases so I could fit a cover in place when I get around to it

Obviously water will run down these wires so if anything I will add a weep hole in the bottom of the cover for now

[pwd]

Nice work there. The cables do look pretty neat, especially with minimal connectors. Makes me want to get out and do some work on my ebike.

[skeetab5780]

Nice work there. The cables do look pretty neat, especially with minimal connectors. Makes me want to get out and do some work on my ebike.

Thanks Pwd! I don't know why but I always solder my halls and throttle wiring, so my used Kelly controller wires get smaller and smaller everytime I lop them off for another project

[fechter]

Maybe dumb question, but did you strip the insulation off the phase wires before putting them in the terminal block? Those are enamel coated copper and sort of a pain to strip. You might get contact without stripping them, but you might get a high resistance and heating under load.

[skeetab5780]

Quick video of the testing progress so far

[electricalbicycle]

You might want to check the stock Voloci throttle output Voltage. It seems to me that they have ONE Hall Sensor that puts out about half of the 5V. Since Nova Cruz/Voloci made their own controller, they could use any Voltage they wanted. Maybe Halls were expensive back in 2001?

The Kelly controller (and others) probably expect 0 (or near zero) to about 5V (or nearly 5V) that you would get from a dual Hall Sensored throttle.

If you are only sending half the throttle Voltage that the controller is expecting, you probably only get half the performance. Now, if you get double the performance by going to an off-the-shelf Dual Hall Sensor Throttle, watch out for your high Voltage battery pack and your thin (-ish) wires.

[amberwolf]

Single-sensor hall throttles output a range usually from just under a volt to just around 4v, typically. Most of the common ebike controllers are designed around this range. Some hall throttles may use a different voltage range, but the majority of the ebike ones are this way.

Kelly controllers (at least some) have either programmable throttle input range, or at least switchable between the hall range and a potentiometer 0-5v type.

Dual hall throttles aren't built so that you get a greater voltage output range or greater power in a controller.

They are built so that they are safer---one hall goes up in voltage as the other goes down, so that a controller designed around this will sense a failure on either one and shutdown, so there can be no runaway throttle condition.

[skeetab5780]

You might want to check the stock Voloci throttle output Voltage. It seems to me that they have ONE Hall Sensor that puts out about half of the 5V. Since Nova Cruz/Voloci made their own controller, they could use any Voltage they wanted. Maybe Halls were expensive back in 2001?

The Kelly controller (and others) probably expect 0 (or near zero) to about 5V (or nearly 5V) that you would get from a dual Hall Sensored throttle.

If you are only sending half the throttle Voltage that the controller is expecting, you probably only get half the performance. Now, if you get double the performance by going to an off-the-shelf Dual Hall Sensor Throttle, watch out for your high Voltage battery pack and your thin (-ish) wires.

EB this bike has no stock parts on it, the throttle is a Magura and controller is a Kelly. Bike works good now

[skeetab5780]

Single-sensor hall throttles output a range usually from just under a volt to just around 4v, typically. Most of the common ebike controllers are designed around this range. Some hall throttles may use a different voltage range, but the majority of the ebike ones are this way.

Kelly controllers (at least some) have either programmable throttle input range, or at least switchable between the hall range and a potentiometer 0-5v type.

Dual hall throttles aren't built so that you get a greater voltage output range or greater power in a controller.

They are built so that they are safer---one hall goes up in voltage as the other goes down, so that a controller designed around this will sense a failure on either one and shutdown, so there can be no runaway throttle condition.

Ya the Voloci throttles could be fairly dangerous if your inexperienced, a few of the bikes I picked up had the magnet in the wrong position or even backwards so upon battery hookup the bikes would just go full throttle

[skeetab5780]

Maybe dumb question, but did you strip the insulation off the phase wires before putting them in the terminal block? Those are enamel coated copper and sort of a pain to strip. You might get contact without stripping them, but you might get a high resistance and heating under load.

I didn't notice any heavy varnish or coating on the ends of the phases, but I will keep an eye on them once I start putting more power into it

now I need a 15 or 16s battery that draws more than 20a before sagging to 3v per cell!

thanks for the heads up!

[fechter]

It could be a problem if not all the strands have a good connection. It would behave normally at light loads and burn some windings at higher loads.

[skeetab5780]

Took the Voloci's out for a nice Saturday ride. Took one of the street legal registered ones for my GF to use, and I rode the modded one running the 72v Kelly with a 20s6p 18650 pack

It was super wet out from all the snow melt and it being the first nice day...we both didn't have mud guards on and we had to keep it pretty slow. Overall it was a pretty fun ride with no mechanical issues we did only 6 miles ride

I changed the rear sprocket on the 72v voloci from a giant 63t to a 52t to get more top speed and it is fast!

[skeetab5780]

On only the third ride the brand new Voloci motor has officially lost another magnet lodging it into the stator causing me to limp home...Should have known better using 72v but oh well. It only lasted about 8 miles of good abuse riding hilly dirt bike trails, then on the ride home I took road and it was still too late...I feel that even at 15s 40a this thing will eventually lose the magnets also. I have not tried to re-glue them I am giving up on "hot rodding" these things. figures the stock street commuter bikes all still run perfectly fine!

I have already took the entire bike back apart to use parts for another build.

[fechter]

Bummer. 60v was determined to be about where the magnets fly off.

It would be great if the rotor from a BBSHD would fit in there. No way those magnets will fly off.

BBSHD rotor.png (82.89 KiB) Viewed 499 times

[skeetab5780]

Ya its a shame, they are pretty fun until they fail, but not worth the time it takes to dis assemble the entire bike repeatedly. I could try a epoxy and re-glue the magnets but that's even more time invested to possibly still fail. I wonder if the limiting factor is the RPM or the heat or both combined? Im curious if 44v 60a will make the magnets fail since I want to add a phaserunner to my street commuter. We may see

[fechter]

I'm sure it's a combination of heat and rpm. The hotter the epoxy gets, the weaker it becomes and the lower rpm it takes to fling a magnet off. Glue with a higher temp rating would help, but only so much.

[skeetab5780]

Took the street Voloci out for a cruise on a nice day!

[Elect Ron]

Hi, new member here. We just picked up a pair of NiMH Voloci bikes yesterday from a local CL ad (metro west Boston area). Untested so far as the seller hasn't found the chargers yet! Obviously it's been a few years since the bikes were last used. Impressed with the build quality of the custom bits. The accessories... less so. Rust on all the rims, two broken brake levers, one throttle completely stuck, the other one binding, as well as all the switches.

Sorry for tacking this on, still finding my way around here.

Edited to add: The seller said he's been friends with the Ulrich brothers since college and he was one of the original investors.

[Elect Ron]

IMG_20190616_140352.jpg (40.12 KiB) Viewed 260 times

[skeetab5780]

Grats on the bikes! Did you happen to buy these from Dedham Ma? There are two on Ebay from a lady from there and she wouldn't budge on the price. Do they run what are you plans one parts bike or make both runners?

also keep me in mind if you need spare parts

[Elect Ron]

Yes, the same listing was also on CL and we agreed on a lower price.

They "ran when parked" but without a charger, I'm still in the dark. One pack reads 7.2 volts but the other one only about 100 mV. Neither is very promising I suppose. I don't know much about e-bike stuff, or even current bicycles (never even had a front suspension bike before, let alone full).

I want to get both of them running for me and my wife. She has a really short commute. The second one would be for fun, occasional errands, trips to the ice cream stand, etc. If we could just get them back to stock performance/capacity we'd be all set. No plans to hack these, except LED lights and a USB outlet would be nice. We'll even register them and stick to the speed limit LOL.

I can't seem to find official specs but I did find Thomas Ulrich's site. The stock NiMH battery is 36V, 13 Ah according to him. Looks like Chinese lithium packs around that mark are going for $120 and up. Should even perform a little better than stock due to the lower weight, right?

So, you have any chargers in your inventory? The seller still can't find them.

[Dui, ni shuo de dui]

It might be a little late, but to solve your magnet problem, have you thought about using some kevlar wire all around the rotor?
Just dip them in epoxy and as long as they don't touch the stator there should be no way that your magnets will fly off again.

[skeetab5780]

Yes I have chargers for the Nimh batteries but they are likely toast and you probably shouldn't use them(if you want one for kicks PM me). I would use the original housing and get a custom 18650 lithium pack for them the 36v models run on 10s lithium. If you run them any higher like 12s then the on board dc dc converter will cut out and stop output of power to accessories which can get annoying.

I can almost guaranty the bikes will power up and work fine with a new battery, the easiest way is to take off the left side cover to expose the controller and tap the new battery into the red and black fat battery lead wires going into the battery compartment off the controller board.

its funny she sold them to you cheaper I offered be $250 and local pickup, then she declined and I warned her these things may take a while to sell LOL

either way im glad they went to a good home and to a fellow ES'er! cannot wait to see you guys go riding together!

Ulriches site is so old and out of date that I think this thread has the newest info on the internet for Voloci updates. Especially with ever evolving battery technology. Lifepo4 is already extinct for us and that was the craze when Ulrich was around modding these bikes.

[skeetab5780]

Whole box of chargers I see atleast 3 Nimh version right on top



Still got about 50 motors and nimh battery sleeves without ends...need 3d printer some day