Trials Motorcycle - 1st Build. Qs-motor +Votol

These cells linked below built into a pack by dogdipstick would be a great option.

15Ah is a good size for what you are trying to do. They Are as cheap as lipo and would use the same cheap alarms And an rc balance charger as lipo. They also are small enough to be split apart into multiple modules like lipo packs. Being OEM hybrid car batteries the quality and safety will likely be better than RC lipo as well. They are nice enough cells to justify a fancy BMS down the road too.

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=107299

This is also a great source for nice OEM modules slightly used.
https://batteryhookup.com/
 
I will look into the Mr. Dog battery -thanks for sharing the link. I'll PM him his pricing as I guess that is what it is coming down to.

Not scared to spend money on this part as I know it is the heart of my machine.

I will take 2nd shot at recapping to ensure I am following - appreciate the patience.

20s 20p 20ah seems to be what I am looking for.
I could build:
(2)6s + (2)4s -- 10s = 72v (Combined 20ah)
(2)6s +(2)4s --10p at 40C = 400amp possible
Is this a 20s 20p 20ah battery?

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Costs -if we are talking about 8 batteries in total at an estimate of $67 per, that is $540USD + $300 Charger - - - Is that good? I'm new here. Is this just a cheaper option? I see some batteries at $1K, $2K+ :oops:

The 20ah - what if I wanted to make it 30ah? I just connect more in Parallel? I think this is the hang up for me, calculating the ah, and then how to wire for more ah, but not increase volts. :confused:

The good news is I'm starting to gain an understanding of my needs as it relates to power from a battery and how much my motor/controller can manage. I feel I am in need of a maximum discharge current of 80A continuously (5.7kWm) and 160A peaks (11.5kW) paired with a 80A continuous BMS. Between 20-30ah. I'm pretty sure I'll skip the battery building process, but at least I know my power requirements.

Any idea on what I should expect to pay for a battery such at this? I really have seen pricing all over and most with the details that seem to be lacking in one way or another. So hard to gauge on price I would expect to pay.
 
The battery in your picture appears to be a 6s 4.5ah pack.

Thats 6 cells in series at 4.2v per cell. The total voltage of that pack fully charged is 4.2v X 6 = 25.2V.

The nominal avg voltage of a cell is what we use for the math. Depending on the exact cell type 3.7 or 3.8v is about the average voltage during discharge.

So when people say 20s they mean 20 cells X 3.7v for an avg voltage of around 74-75v. Its 84V hot off the charger.

If you connect the positive lead of that yellow 6s pack to the negative end of another 6s pack you now have 12s. That is now a 3.7v x 12= 44.4v Pack with the same 4.5ah capacity.

The voltage dictates the max rpm of your motor. The ah capacity is like the fuel in your tank. 4.5 Ah is 4.5 amps for 1 hour.

If you want more capacity you put more packs in parallel. If you parallel that yellow pack to another one you now have 6s 2p for 3.7v x 6s = 22.2v and 4.5ah x 2p= 9ah

Series adds voltage and parallel adds capacity.

If you believe the 40C label on the pack which I wouldn't then you are looking at 40c x 9ah = 360 amp peaks.

I find that RC lipo is pretty happy at 4c and I've peaked mine to 10c a few times but the voltage sags pretty bad. If you can live with the weight of more battery I would aim for no more than 10c with the cheap lipos. If you buy the fancy graphene ones maybe they work better. I always bought the cheap 10c or 20c rated ones.

One more thing. If you are going to buy RC Lipo try to get packs that divide evenly for balance charging. For instance a 20s pack can be broken into 2 X 10a packs and then balance charged in parallel all at once.

RC lipo is generally small ah and form factor so you end up with lots of parallel connections which adds cost weight and mess. For a motorcycle size pack the dogdipstick packs seem like a better size. You can find RC lipo in 20ah single packs but they get pricey. The small ones like 5ah go on sale a lot so us cheapskates just have miles of spaghetti wiring from all the parallel connections.

Basically there becomes a point where to get more amps of discharge current you end up needing a larger battery so the C rate stays reasonable. Its just the practical limits of the current battery tech. There are some exceptions to this rule but they are pricey. If you had a race vehicle and wanted the absolute most power density you could get then you can use the cells in this link and get 500amps continuous from a 5ah cell that fits in the palm of your hand.
http://www.ampahaulic.com/
 
DanGT86 said:
The battery in your picture appears to be a 6s 4.5ah pack.

more specifically, a 6s 1p 4.5ah pack.

These LiPo packs are normally all 1P, so they don't put 1P on the packaging.

To take Dan's example further, using two 6S 4500mAh packs in a 2P configuration, you can get an 18S setup like the picture below.
 

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So for conversation sake, Does this work out in other formats as well? as long as I end up to 72 volts, then match it for more capacity on with Parallel?

For example: 14.8V 8000mAh 90C 4S Lipo Battery (Understood this is not probably a true 90C)

5 in Series to get 20S and 72v with 8ah and give me 90C per, so is that multiply by 8ah = 720amps.
I would add in parallel another set of 5 of the same battery yielding me 5 x 8ah = 40ah?
Series is for Power and Parallel is for Capacity/Distance.

Is this now known as the 20s20p with 40ah with a max Amp of 720?

All great stuff by the way; learning lots.
 
Well, I've got the following bikes with different battery packs:
  • Oset 20 with 2x 6S 16AH LiPo's (48V controller)
  • Oset 16 with 2x 5S 5AH LiPo's (36V controller)
  • GasGas frame with Oset parts, with Oset 20Ah48V Li-Ion battery pack.
 
Now to find a reputable RC battery and build a MEGA PACK! I'm an online shopper, nothing local to me that will fit the bill. If anyone has some links or suggestions I'd love to take a look.
 
gbeals said:
So for conversation sake, and ensure I'm tracking. Does this work out in other formats as well? as long as I end up to 72 volts, then match it for more capacity on with Parallel?

For example: 14.8V 8000mAh 90C 4S Lipo Battery (Understood this is not probably a true 90C)

Would I run 5 in Series to get me 20S and 72v with 8ah and give me 90C per, so is that multiply by 8ah = 720amps.
The issue there is I only have 8AH to use, so I would add parallel another 4 sets of 5 of the same battery yielding me 5 x 8ah =40ah?
Series is for Power and Parallel is for Capacity/Distance.

Is this now known as the 20s20p 20s5p with 40ah with a max Amp of 450?
Do I have to match the Parallel? Meaning can I add only 2 or 3 for capacity? Or must it match the Series? This is where the balance comes in I'm thinking; ease of charging etc..

If I'm even close then this mean I'm starting to gain tracking with the understandings here. Again, thank you folks for taking the time. I like the idea of these high density Lipo vs the standard 18650; weight wise and Amp wise; why don't more choose this path? Is it due to not needing so many amps?

All great stuff by the way; learning lots.

4s1p example pack x 5 in series gets you a 20s1p 8Ah brick
5 bricks in parallel gets you 20s5p 40Ah megabrick
 
thoroughbred said:
gbeals said:
So for conversation sake, and ensure I'm tracking. Does this work out in other formats as well? as long as I end up to 72 volts, then match it for more capacity on with Parallel?

For example: 14.8V 8000mAh 90C 4S Lipo Battery (Understood this is not probably a true 90C)

Would I run 5 in Series to get me 20S and 72v with 8ah and give me 90C per, so is that multiply by 8ah = 720amps.
The issue there is I only have 8AH to use, so I would add parallel another 4 sets of 5 of the same battery yielding me 5 x 8ah =40ah?
Series is for Power and Parallel is for Capacity/Distance.

Is this now known as the 20s20p 20s5p with 40ah with a max Amp of 450?
Do I have to match the Parallel? Meaning can I add only 2 or 3 for capacity? Or must it match the Series? This is where the balance comes in I'm thinking; ease of charging etc..

If I'm even close then this mean I'm starting to gain tracking with the understandings here. Again, thank you folks for taking the time. I like the idea of these high density Lipo vs the standard 18650; weight wise and Amp wise; why don't more choose this path? Is it due to not needing so many amps?

All great stuff by the way; learning lots.

4s1p example pack x 5 in series gets you a 20s1p 8Ah brick
5 bricks in parallel gets you 20s5p 40Ah megabrick

HOLY CRAP - I get it now. :roll: Much thanks to everyone. Not sure why that took me so long to comprehend.
 
With your zippy example above 6s 6200mah packs, you need to buy 9 of those to have 18s 3p.

It would be 3 groups in series each containing 3 packs in parallel.

The reason people dont all do this is complexity, wiring costs, and safety.

Rc lipo is dangerous when mishandled. You need to treat them like a gas can. If they get out of balance and you overcharge some cells to more than 4.2v they can explode and will burn like a ziplock bag full of solvent because they are essentially bags of solvent. If you drop one on the floor its garbage. Mechanical damage can cause an internal short circuit and they blow up. People have lost bikes and houses to lipo fires.

That little balance lead with the 7 wires in the zippy pack needs to be hooked to the other 7 wire connector with the other cells in parallel. So you need wye adapters for those balance leads as well as the main discharge wires. Its easy to spend $5-10 Per wye adapter. So you are probably looking at $20 of wiring per series pack. This wiring is easy to mix up when its all crammed in a bag or box and its unfused. If you plug the wrong things together you get severely burned and possibly blinded. That is known locally as KFF or kentucky fried finger. :kff:

Rc lipo is a cheap and easy way to get going and test out a higher powered setup without needing a huge pack but there are lots of safer and more durable solutions.
 
gbeals said:
So for conversation sake, Does this work out in other formats as well? as long as I end up to 72 volts, then match it for more capacity on with Parallel?

Theoretically, yes. However, no two cells are exactly the same, and no two packs are exactly the same.

When you have a bunch of cells connected in series, there's only one current path through all the cells, and it will be the same.

When you have cells/packs in parallel, the current distribution will be slightly different depending on each cell/pack's internal resistance, state of charge, temperature, etc. etc.

So if you're building packs with more than one current path through the cells, I believe there are certain best practices for that, which TBH I'm not qualified to comment about.

So my preference is to keep it simple and use large cells only in series.
 
That is why I was suggesting that you get wye adapters between the balance leads in each parallel group. Something like this:
balance wye.jpg

In the above pic this WYE adapter would be for paralleling 6 packs of 2cells.

When you parallel a 6s lipo pack together at the main discharge lead (red black Pos Neg Large wires) you are pulling current from both packs but the lower resistance one will do more of the work. this will discharge one faster than the other and your cells will be off balance. So the best practice is to add a WYE adapter to the small connectors too. In this case of your 6 series cells in each pack both cell #1 are connected to each other. Both Cell #2 are connected to each other and so on up to 6. When the parallel cells are connected to each other at the individual cell level then they discharge perfectly evenly because the better cell can help out the worse cell. You always want the voltage of the cells to discharge evenly. Lets say #1 in the first pack had 6.5ah and cell #1 in its parallel connected partner only held 6.2ah. You would get the full 6.2+6.5=12.7ah from the parallel group with a cell level wye adapter between them. Without it you would not get full capacity because the cell with slighly less capacity would drop to a lower voltage sooner and could be damaged while discharging or overcharged while charging.

Moral of the story is that you want parallel cells to be able to talk to each other at the individual cell level unless you have some kind of active monitoring on each pack or unless you never discharge near empty and never charge near full. Even then you would want to monitor them often for safety and take good notes so you could learn to trust them.
 
I do like the simplicity a 6s provides to me while I'm digging my teeth into this new EV world.

I found this battery online seems to have good reviews.

OVONIC 6S 22.2V 16000mAh 25C 50CPeak LiPo Battery Pack with AS150 Plug for UAV Drone for around $200. The size could hopefully fit; that is on my list for today.

I'd run 18s1p 16ah
Amps Continuous at 25*16 = 400
Ams Peak at 50*16 = 800

16000_1800x1800.jpg


Even if the Amp is half of its posted value; I'd still be in a very respectable 200/400 Amps with 16 AH.

alternatively I also found this battery little less at 14000mah, but reviews seem good. Cost is $100 each at some stores; others have it for $189 ea.
1-800x800.jpg


I am then looking at this quad charger/balancer to keep the cell all nice and heathy.
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Cost for this charge plus 3 batteries would run me $800(ish) - Seems reasonable and within the specs I'd need for my Trials Application.
 
Tattu batteries are good stuff. Had my E-trail running 3 years on 3 x 6s 16.000 mah and where still fine. They are not cheap but in the end "you only get what you paid for"
 
Xtr6 said:
Tattu batteries are good stuff. Had my E-trail running 3 years on 3 x 6s 16.000 mah and where still fine. They are not cheap but in the end "you only get what you paid for"

After seeing what you have been building. That's plenty enough reason for me to buy Tattu. I just bought me some Tattu. However due to where I live I had to pay a Hazard Fee, then Shipping fees - which is SUPER common for me. Still a happy battery owner. I felt it may be best to double my order. :)

battery.jpg


Figured with the extra 3, I can build a second pack if it is needed. But I do have plans to build two bikes so if this works out I'll be able to use for the other bike. If I can find more space, I can always start adding more capacity. Good to have options.

I don't really have much to base my riding style in the trails on, but I'd say not very aggressive; I have my moments though. :twisted: With a Lap trip I have 28Ah that will give me 350/750 Amps LOL. At 14Ah, I'd be happy with 1-2 hours of non-aggressive trail riding. The trail is pretty aggressive, but I try not to be.

Still looking at my Charger Options. Going with a Quad something...
 
If you can live with the weight and volume it would be in your best interest to just run all of those packs at the same time.

No sense in letting half of them sit on the shelf. They'll be much happier cranking out high amps together.
 
DanGT86 said:
If you can live with the weight and volume it would be in your best interest to just run all of those packs at the same time.

No sense in letting half of them sit on the shelf. They'll be much happier cranking out high amps together.

If they fit I will surely add them. Im super space restricted.
 
I know what that is like. My RC lipo stays perfectly balanced most of the time. I bulk charge it outside or under supervision in the basement and I always check it with a cheap cell log meter before And after I ride just to make sure there aren't any weird erratic voltages or outliers. I have some cheap audible LV alarms that I will hook up if I'm getting below the halfway point of my capacity.

Every once in a while I will balance charge the whole pack but most of the time it doesnt need that and its not worth the hassle of hooking up all those wires and starting up the balance charger.

If you get them all into the frame you arent going feel
Like pulling them all out to balance charge. So you should probably expect to have a bulk charger set to 75v to do the whole pack at once. If they only require balance charge every few months you can get a really cheap 6s balance charger and do them one pack at a time.

Also, dont ever store them full.
 
rynhardt said:
DanGT86 said:
The battery in your picture appears to be a 6s 4.5ah pack.

more specifically, a 6s 1p 4.5ah pack.

These LiPo packs are normally all 1P, so they don't put 1P on the packaging.

To take Dan's example further, using two 6S 4500mAh packs in a 2P configuration, you can get an 18S setup like the picture below.

May have swayed me to purchase 6. :) I learned from my friend who has the 2020 Electric Motion. He has 30Ah battery, he cruises around for 4 hours and has 25% left. My body will give out before that, but if I run all six I should be super close. Settings (reduction) will of course allow me to stretch it and not have too much power when its not needed (if that is even a thing)
 
There is no single right answer. Being full for any amount of time is bad for them. It causes the formation of dendrites which will eventually destroy the cell. They are also more dangerous when full because there is more energy in them. If they are charged to their absolute upper limit and then allowed to sit somewhere warmer then the voltage can rise beyond the upper limit from the temp change.

Some people say they dont mind charging the day before A ride. Its not like doing that will instantly break them but it does shorten their lifespan.

I leave them around 50% for long term storage and if I am riding the next day I'll charge to 70-80%. Then the day of the ride I'll put them on the charger while I gather my gear and they'll be pretty well topped off by the time I'm ready.

RC balance chargers have a storage mode thats usually adjustable so you can easily charge or discharge them to an optimal voltage for sitting.

I just didnt want you to be tempted to try your new charger and dill them up just to leave them sit for months while you build the bike. If your want to try the charger out just make sure to discharge them back to 3.7v.

You can double a cells life by only charging it to 80%. Look at this graph below. Notice the quick ramp on the far left. The voltage ramps up Really fast between 4.15v and 4.2v. So basically it takes very little additional energy in to make the voltage rise quickly. So if you stress them by stuffing them to 4.2v you are not really gaining much actual range compared to only charging to 4.15v. Little differences between cells show up very quickly at the top and the bottom of the charge/discharge curve. So if you are going to have balance problems its likely going to be at either the full end or the empty end. The middle is pretty safe. I balance everything to 4.2v per cell which for me is 84v. Then when I bulk charge my charger is set to only 83v which is 4.15v per cell. That way I'm bulk charging within known balanced territory. Hope that makes sense.

66FAA154-75A5-4C9E-87B8-CB103BD1D028.jpeg
 
The EM has a Li-ion cell 13s10 and this is less powerfull then the lipo. The c-rate of the cells from the Em is lesser then the Tattu lipo.
You wil notice that you can really get some serious currents from the Tattu pack. If you buy a Nucular controller charging is another piece off cake. You can Charge through the controller. I build in my pack a Bestech BMS jWhatsApp Image 2020-07-06 at 14.59.11.jpegust for charging. Discharging without BMS and had never problems with them.
 
This is the original Eta 48V 25Ah battery, but It could only delivors 200 Amps. Nikkel is 0.3 mm.
Replaced 10 bad cells after some mounths of abuse. Now I Have a lipo pack that is only half of the weight with 10Ah but can drive 45 minutes full power on the trail Track. Just enough for me.WhatsApp Image 2020-08-11 at 12.11.51.jpeg
 
Some details of te gearreduction of the Em.
 

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Xtr6 said:
Some details of te gearreduction of the Em.

You Sir are a FREAKIN' HERO! This is so helpful.

Gearing is next after I sort a few last items out related to batteries.

Excellent to hear you are getting 45 mins full blast on trail with 10ah.

1. Controller - I'm going to look at the Nuclear; I hear it come up a lot. I have a Votol Em-150 for this bike - more power than I need. So far I don't like that the regen is only on/off, no progressive. Also kind of a pain to figure out, but learning curve isn't too bad. But I'm planning to build two bikes, no reason to make them exactly the same.

2. Charger - I'm looking into Good Charger that will hopefully make my life easier.

3. BMS - I'm not opposed to putting one on, I don't know much there, so have to start my research. I did like the LVA mentioned earlier.

4. Charging... The actual process of charging. Im hopeful I can figure out something to plug in and do both balance and charge while in bike. Not sure.. I haven't really formulated any plans, just winging it step by step. :) I have some guidelines only to follow as my plan.

5. Buttons... Oddly enough I'm having issues here. I really do not like the 3 button switch I see on most bikes for speed mode change. I want 1 button that allows me to cycle through the 3 speeds. Then have a light or gear indicator showing me what mode I'm in. I'm leaning more towards the gear indicator. The gear indicator just seems to have 1 wire per gear, so that is pretty straight forward. Now I'm looking to find a 3-way button (No clue what it is called, making it hard to Google search) that will cycle through the gears. I'm also looking at little control modules that would have sound when I click the button - coming up empty though. Just don't want to have to look down at a little switch and then have to ensure I'm on the right setting, while moving. Stand up only bike, no seat so not ideal to be messing around with.

6. Then Gearing - I will now study and disect the photos shown above. I'm looking at a few gokart sites that offer shafts/gears, but haven't dove in fully here just yet.
 
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