E-Patriot

Hi Everyone,

I've been a member for a while and have made a few posts here and there before but I haven't had much to contribute. My build has been slow since I haven't had much time at all to devote to it what with work and family commitments. My biggest mistake was instead of buying a working bike I decided to buy components and assemble them, this meant I had to learn about such things as headset bearings and the ins and outs of disc brake mounts for example, with quite a few mistakes along the way This bike wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for this forum

Here she is in all her glory. I'm definitely going for the Stealth look here. Still some finishing to do but I was so close I just had to take it out for a spin



Specs:
Crystalyte HS3540
Lyen 12Fet sensorless controller
Orange Patriot frame (Don't know the year but maybe 2002-'04)
Marzocchi Bomber 888 RV forks
Halo SAS 24" front rim
Hope M4 front brake & 203mm rotor
Maxxis Hookworms
3x 6s 5000mAh Turnigy Lipos in series for 18s (75v)


I made the rear dropouts from 10mm steel. Took me almost 2 days with a grinder, drill, and file to shape them to match the dropouts. They sit snuggly into the frame and don't need anything else to secure them apart from the rear wheel nuts.


The battery box is aluminium angle and fibre board. More of a mockup really, fibre board is just cheap and easy to work. I intend to replace the fibre board with Carbon sheet for looks. With that shock position there was no chance of putting the batteries inside the frame triangle. The bottom of the box is fibreglass and is shaped to sit over the top tube, this spreads the battery weight into the frame and allows two of the packs to sit on either side of the tube a bit lower down. I was aiming for stealth so the sides of the box hide the controller and some of the wiring. Its is big enough for me to double my battery capacity, maybe triple it.

Performance
I'm pleasantly surprised. So far I've only had 6 runs on it. Only one of which was to LVC (deliberately). I'm logging distance, max/average speed, and mA put back into the packs when charging. This allows me to get some rough figures for efficiency. Flat out it'll do 42mph and feels super stable. Riding for economy with plenty of light pedalling at 17mph I can do 25miles. It pulls up hills very well. So far no CA but I'm thinking of making my own equivalent with an Arduino, just for the challenge.

This is at 18s with the controller set to 30A. Soon I'll up it to 45A just for a laugh

Future
More Amps
More Ah
Carbon the battery box
Cut down the bars - they're so wide my arms hurt!
Enable regen
Paint the frame
Tidy up the cables and lose the ghetto duct tape look
Switch for 'legal power' before I get lifted by the cops

This has been a lot of fun and I don't think this will be my last build!

Well? Whadyathink????

Wow, what a freaking war-wagon. I love it.

Those bars look huge! Old freeride frames are perfect for high-performance ebike builds. Definitely looks like it could avoid radar...

It will looks really nicely finished with carbon to cover up the box too man, nicely done!

Might not hurt to add "drill ventillation holes in side cover" to the list of things to do. Pushing that amount of power through it, you'll probably want to.

That frame setup looks great ,should be bomb proof too ,how do you find riding without rear brake

Ya, I think I've seen wimpier ICE dirt bikes.

Be sure to let us know how those Hookworms work out for you (I'm looking at running the hooks, holy rollers, or even a set of fat franks on a proposed board track style build).

Meanwhile, I too would like to hear about what you're going to do for a rear brake...

If it were me, I would just do regen for the rear brake. It will do most of the work and then let the front do the rest... Nice bike!

Agreed, a regen rear brake could do well with that big hubbie. Besides, IIRC, you can program the controller for various degrees of regen.

BTW, I'm thinking that a rear regen braking system might be very useful on long downhill slopes (I'd still probably want a dedicated rear brake to go with it tho). This reminds me of the old hand lever operated "compression release"valves that some dirt bikers ran many years ago.

Thankyou for all the kind comments. "War Wagon" hehe I like that very much

Yeah a rear brake is on the agenda, I think its is a legal requirement over here. It'll be a disc for sure since that's all the frame will take. I don't know that I want to spend alot of money on a hydraulic one though since I don't think it will get much use. Plenty of power up front for emergency stoppies! If I can get a half decent mechanical one cheap I may go that route since I plan to use regen primarily. Whether I trigger the regen with the lever or a button I'm still undecided.

As for the current lack of rear brake or regen it hasn't been an issue. In fact I'm getting a bit more drag when coasting than I'd like. I dunno if I setup the Lyen controller right but it drags pretty hard at speeds over 20kph, below that the drag disappears very suddenly and the bike coasts quite well from that point. Pedal above 20kph and the drag kicks in again. Anyone else experiencing the same??

I've definitely considered improving air cooling of the motor. At the moment it only gets warm but once I add more Ah and start running at high amps for longer I may go for it.

Awesome build mate. Great work.

I run Hookworms on my Greyborg, they are awesome (don't do much offroad myself though). If you are looking for a cheaper (than hydros) solution for your rear brake, I run Avid BB7s on my Greyborg and I find they are as good as my Shimano hydros (not that they are fancy hydros), I love my BB7, I think I paid about $67 or so on Chain Reaction. The advantage with cable discs is you can (if you want) easily run them in conjunction with an ebrake. (Unfortunately this photo is the wrong side to show the bb7s)

+1 on the Avids.

I swapped a generic front disc brake out for an entry level Avid BB5 w/160mm disc and was pretty impressed with the (pavement) stopping power (on "knobby" tires no less). Installation, adjustments, and pad replacement are also very quick and easy on these Avid brake systems.

BTW, you might be able to get away with just the BB5/180mm on the rear of that machine of yours (I think I got mine for ~$45USD). Not sure about what kind of hub motor case/disc/caliper clearance you have tho...

Anyway, great looking build you've got there (you too Philistine).

You can get a pair of bb5 on ebay for 45$ sicck patriot frame by the way!

Nice build, Really heavy duty. Excellent battery mounting solution considering your options. Which brings me to my question:
How did you mounted the battery box?

Hmm struggling to get BB5s for a reasonable price. Hydro's aren't much more.

Racer_X - I used two exhaust clamps like this. They are readily available from any car parts shop in a good range of sizes. It's easy to build off the flat side, I used light gauge aluminium angle.

mylittlepony said:

Hmm struggling to get BB5s for a reasonable price. Hydro's aren't much more.

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Don't bother with hydros. They're a pain in the ass, and the ones you can get for a little bit more than BB5s are total crap, and will actually have less performance than the bb5s//7s. A good mechanical disc brake is nearly always the way to go, unless your going to spend $300+ on hydros, and you're willing to mess around with bleeding them.

Thanks for giving me the tip "mylittlepony"
I have seen those before and tried to figure out a way to use them, and lo and behold you have accomplished a perfect way to use them.
Now that I look at your battery box mounted again, I can see how you did it. It looks very stable.

Having the battery in the center is the only way to GO, I have tried in the bike rack and it was not a predictable handling.
So now you illustrate how to do it in a full suspension bike with almost no triangle space. Killer!

Yours is a bit better than my DH effort on a Cannondale Gemini lol. Batteries have to be in the middle for sure, I could get 47mph on flat with 16S Lipo though.

Duct tape for the win!

So far I've been running my Lyen 12Fet on stock settings i.e. 30A Battery Current and 70A Phase Current. Today I changed that to 40A Battery, 80A Phase. I didn't really notice any increase in acceleration or top speed. Actually if anything my top speed is reduced. I think my range is reduced too but that is fairly subjective since it depends on how I ride. Finally I found the motor stuttered alot if I tried to accelerate hard. So for the moment I'll be returning my settings to 30A/70A.

Can anyone recommend a better setup? To be honest I'm quite happy with performance at 30A/70A but if there's more to be had then I'd like to try it I suspect my phase current should be set higher to prevent the stuttering but I don't really know why :?

Any advice from you all would be greatly appreciated.

On another note my carbon fibre sheet arrived today - so goodbye ugly fibre board, hello sexy carbon!!

mylittlepony, update us with some pics of your battery box in carbon fibre. Thanks

Even though I have got a Stealth Bomber I bought a Patriot 2005 frame and swing arm off eBay yesterday as I like the shape of this frame and I plan to build up an bike for the experience and my wife can use it. I plan to make up some form of grp battery box and prob run at 48v. It won't get anywhere near the bomber but it will still be fun!

Go for it Justtoby. Be sure to start a thread with some pics for us. I'm interested to see how you solve the same problems.

As for my CF box - the material arrived but I just haven't had time to do any work on it. Autumn has arrived and brought with it lots of wind and rain

Thanks for the encouragement.... There will be problems aplenty I am sure

So I had a couple of hours free and spent it replacing the side panels on the battery box with the Carbon fibre sheet I bought. Wow CF is tough stuff, I went through 3 stanley knife blades! It is very easy to sand though.





The CF is VERY glossy and not quite as 'stealth' as I had in mind. Still, it does add a bit of bling and looks alot better than wood Saved a bit of weight too (as if a few grams will make any difference on this monster)

I took the opportunity to extend the box 40mm since it looked odd with a gap between the back of the box and the seat tube. I just need to do the top and rear sides now and I'm in business. The plan is to put some sexy looking mesh at the front 'air intake' to tidy it up but for now I'm short on time and just want to get it ridable again.

Another 3x 6s 5Ah Lipos arrived from HK so I'll parrallel them up with the 3 I already have for a total of 66v 10Ah. As most of you will know range depends largely on how you ride but I find the bike generally does 15-30Wh/mi so with the extra batterys I'm expecting anywhere from 20-50mile range.

"mylittlepony" wrote: In fact I'm getting a bit more drag when coasting than I'd like. I dunno if I setup the Lyen controller right but it drags pretty hard at speeds over 20kph, below that the drag disappears very suddenly and the bike coasts quite well from that point. Pedal above 20kph and the drag kicks in again. Anyone else experiencing the same??

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To answer my own question above - Disconnect the 'regen enable' connector you tit. Now it free wheels much better off throttle and makes the bike easier to pedal. I'll re-enable regen once I get the rear brake lever microswitched up.

Looks really really good mate. Pretty much puts my 1st build to shame :-( haha.

Dunno if you worked out your amp settings yet, but phase amps should be about 2.3-2.6x the battery amps...

So if your trying for 40 battery try about 90-95 phase and you may have better results.

Personally on my lyen 18fet with my hs3540 on 18s, i am at 45/110 amps.

Also re the regen, there should be an option somewhere in the software to change the settings. I cant seem to work it out now, but remember playing around when i first set up.

I may be wrong but im pretty sure 1 setting enables regen above 20km just for coasting like you were describing. so u get some extra battery juice down the hills etc. And another setting will only enable it when you actually brake.
If no one else chimes in maybe shoot lyen an email. Very helpful guy

mylittlepony, thanks for the detailed pictures of the battery box. I got a better idea of how ingenious your box is.
On my next project I will attempt something similar and i will give you the credit if it turns out as nice as yours.
Thanks again for sharing.

Pretty epic build for your first bike, I freakin love those beefy ass Orange frames. Somebody needs to make an ebike with battery storage inside the frame, but make it look as good as an Orange.

Thumbs upon the build!

etard said:

Pretty epic build for your first bike, I freakin love those beefy ass Orange frames. Somebody needs to make an ebike with battery storage inside the frame, but make it look as good as an Orange.

Thumbs upon the build!

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That would be a stealth bomber or fighter, they just cost a lot as they have lots of quality parts.