6KW 64V 20ah Cyclone Build with Headway Cells

[overhauledped]

I've bought a 6kw cyclone kit to convert a gas-bike and have a few parts left to source. The battery will be a 72v 22~23 amp hour battery.

I wanted to get some opinions on the parts i've yet to buy, does anyone know of a better deal then what i've selected to round out the rest of the build.

Bought
-http://www.turbobikekit.com/fast-cyclone-electric-bike-kit/cyclone-electric-bike-kit/cyclone-6000-electric-bike-kit-48-72-volt

Considering
Charger-http://www.batterysupports.com/72v-74v-84v-3a-lithium-ion-lipo-battery-charger-20s-20x-36v-p-170.html
BMS-http://www.batterysupports.com/72v-84v-20s-150a-20x-36v-lithium-ion-liion-lipo-battery-bms-p-296.html

and the pics are of the bike being converted.

 

[beast775]

Nice bike as is,looks to have good rims tires etc,6kw will be brutal on that frame! your gonna need a lot of weight in batteries unless you use lipo. cellman em3v is where i would start for batteries.

 

[overhauledped]

Nice bike as is,looks to have good rims tires etc,6kw will be brutal on that frame! your gonna need a lot of weight in batteries unless you use lipo. cellman em3v is where i would start for batteries.

Thanks i appreciate it. Unfortunately it had a few issues with the chains indirect routing around the motor and its' mounts. I was worried not only for the chain itself but for the 8 speed nexus hub as well due to the vibration and abrupt impact torque from the 3 HP motor.

I'm going electric for alot of reasons such as my work commute, commutes in-town, trail riding, and re-utilization of the bike and its parts

For the battery i went with a 60v 20ah pack=1280 watt. The pack consist of 20x A123 LifePo4 Prismatic 20AH cells. It ended up costing around $29 a cell shipped, (i think thats a good price but i'm not sure) They supposedly can do anywhere from 5c to 20c but i want them for 1-3c discharge range ... Heres the Link for the Batteries.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/In-Sales-free-shipping-100-new-original-3-2V-20Ah-A123-LiFePO4-Prismatic-APP72161227-battery-cells/709858939.html

I also picked up the following BMS/PCM (60v150A Continous max) and Charger (360w)-

http://www.batterysupports.com/60v-150a-20s-20x-32v-lifepo4-battery-bms-lfp-pcb-pcm-smt-system-p-290.html
http://www.batterysupports.com/60v-73v-5a-lifepo4-battery-charger-20s-20x-32v-life-charger-p-163.html

 

[docnjoj]

The only problems I see are that the cells are most likely not A123. I bought 14 about 2 years ago when at least they were stamped "made in USA" but at the 2.5 year mark they are getting all out of balance. These are probably not the real thing. We have an A123 engineer on the board so you could check with him. Good luck on what looks like a beautiful bike.
otherDoc

 

[overhauledped]

Damn, just checked and nothings shipped yet seems like everyone i ordered from has long processing times.

Still curious as to whether or not anybody has any experience ordering from ~ http://www.batterysupports.com/ or these guys~ http://www.aliexpress.com/store/401852

edit** just read above post

 

[overhauledped]

The only problems I see are that the cells are most likely not A123. I bought 14 about 2 years ago when at least they were stamped "made in USA" but at the 2.5 year mark they are getting all out of balance. These are probably not the real thing. We have an A123 engineer on the board so you could check with him. Good luck on what looks like a beautiful bike.
otherDoc

how was their performance leading up to the 2.5 year mark , were they close to a123 in charge/discharge & capacity?

Do you think i stand a better chance of getting a genuine product by going through Victpower? I read of them also getting mixed bag reviews.
- I went with starlight because the have 100% positive feedback (in last 6 months) and they have above average ratings on thier feedback page~

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/feedback-score/401852.html


They are however about to get some negative feedback from me if they dont start messaging me back lol

 

[docnjoj]

Definitely do not use Victpower! We bought from them originally but the cells were rejects slated to be destroyed. Long story short, don't do it. Those cells looked OK but were really not. I have had good luck for a little over 2 years but now they are having difficulty and will need to be replaced. New AMP20 A123 are 70 + shipping from America, but they are the real thing.
otherDoc

 

[overhauledped]

Definitely do not use Victpower! We bought from them originally but the cells were rejects slated to be destroyed. Long story short, don't do it. Those cells looked OK but were really not. I have had good luck for a little over 2 years but now they are having difficulty and will need to be replaced. New AMP20 A123 are 70 + shipping from America, but they are the real thing.
otherDoc

i already purchased the cells about 10-12 days ago so theres no backing out on that really. However with that said, i didnt buy from Victpower instead i bought from Starlight, which may not be any better but i guess i'll find out soon.

What do you think bout the quality of Headway cells when purchased via Aliexpress Vendors?

and

Do you think its safe to say there are no legitimate A123 20Ah cells on Aliexpress?


Link to cells i purchased
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/In-Sales-free-shipping-100-new-original-3-2V-20Ah-A123-LiFePO4-Prismatic-APP72161227-battery-cells/709858939.html

 

[overhauledped]

also heres another quote i recieved + Link

" Bill Wang
RE: General inquiry about your A123 20Ah lifepo4 battery,A123 20Ah,A123 AMP20
18 Mar 2015 2~:~~

Dear sir:

I am sorry that this full tabs A123 20Ah is not in stock now

I wonder if the weld tabs A123 20Ah cells are ok for you?

http://jrpower.en.alibaba.com/product/60078378466-800392512/Brand_new_weld_tabs_A123_20Ah_Lifepo4_battery.html

warrenty for the voltage and capacity.

price is just 18usd per cell

best regards

Bill"

 

[docnjoj]

Don't do it. Those were some of the stock removed from Fiskar batteries that were defective. At least wait till the real A123 gets sorted out. They are now 65 plus shipping, which is a lot, but they are guaranteed and definitely the real thing. There is a thread about them active now.
otherDoc

Thread is here.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=67941

 

[overhauledped]

Well i guess i was wrong before when i said there was no backing out. I cancelled my order and I wont be going A123 by the looks of it.

Even a AliExpress/Alibaba vendor said, "i hope you can consider my advise and A123 20HA is not much in martket"

another Ali' Vendor said,

"To be honest,the cylindrical battery cell's performance is better than prismatic battery.Headway battery cell is also our best-selling products,"

Pretty Sure i'm going with Headway cells now. Seems like they are still plenty popular and being produced with a little higher quality control. Debating whether to go 20pcs via usa supplier or 25Pcs for the same price via aliexpress / Alibaba

 

[overhauledped]

Just an Update.

I got the engine removed sometime last week without much difficulty.



Soon after removing the engine I recieved my 6Kw Kit from turbobikekit.com

The kit shipped out from taiwan. It look like it's in essentially undamaged condition (minus minor motor controller mount tabd being slightly bent) but i'm waiting on my batteries to make sure everythings functioning. The motor looks incredibly solid like it coud run for a decades or something, so far i'm thoroughly pleased with the purchase. It also didnt take too long to get here, and that was real nice



Install was fast and the motor itself was on the bike in under an hour. Unfortunately i dont have pictures of that yet.

I ordered my 20S Lifepo4 Bms & Charger from batterysupports.com (supower). It should be here pretty soon. There was a slight delay in getting it shipped because they were waiting for more to produced/available. They did a really good job of responding for an overseas company and seemed to really appreciate thier customers

I also ordered 40 30182 Cells and went with an American supplier for the ease of communication aspect. It was getting a little daunting losing bits of every message to language/translation barriers

 

[999zip999]

so I guess you are in the old USA ?
The thing is going to be a Monster. You better be readily and maybe a three speed switch and a C.A so you can turn the amp draw down to start. If a friend say's he doesn't want to ride it don't talk him into it. 6,000 watts mid drive.

 

[overhauledped]

so I guess you are in the old USA ?
The thing is going to be a Monster. You better be readily and maybe a three speed switch and a C.A so you can turn the amp draw down to start. If a friend say's he doesn't want to ride it don't talk him into it. 6,000 watts mid drive.

Indeed, i used to live in So Cal a while back but i've been over here in Florida for awhile now (I'll update my info in a bit)

I appreciate the kind comments & ideas though. I was going to buy the cyclone speed limiter so it wouldnt need a license plate but i forgot all about the three speed switch since there wasnt one included in my kit.

The average commute in my area is typically 1-7 miles and up to 15-20ish before you are no longer in town. I'm hoping the battery is big enough at roughly 1.3kwh to give me plenty of acceleration when staying in the average commute zone without having to worry about depleted battery's or battery abuse. I plan to travel at an average cruise speed of 20-50 mph

The bike itself has a 8 Speed Red band Nexus Internally geared Hub that i'm definitely going to baby given the output. It has a Moped front fork & drum brake. The Drum brake may pretty good when i get compressionless brake cable's . The self-ennergizing action of the drum brake coupled with cheap china cable housing make for a relatively squishy brake.

 

[overhauledped]

As i was writing about it a little while ago My Charger and BMS just came in. The BMS is 20S lifepo4 150A max-continous. and the charger i dont remember much about , i'll update with info on that later

I also started doing some very very very crude mockups to get a visual and found a pic of the motor on the bike

Heres the Battery Charger-



The BMS-



Bms/Charger/Controller Pic for size Reference-



Motor on Bike-



Crude Mock Up-

 

[ebike11]

Cant wait to see it done

 

[overhauledped]

I just bought brass strips as my interconnecting bars on these cells does anybody know roughly the amperages on something like these? The continous rating of the controller is 120amps so i'd like to build a pack capable of the reaching this continous rating without cooking the strips.

Dimensions for the strips i bought are~ 1/2in/30.48mm wide, 0.064in/1.62mm thick, 36in/91.44cm

 

[overhauledped]

Cant wait to see it done

I hear that, cant wait to get it done. Besides waiting on the batteries, i'm hung up on the box building. Its hard to decide between woodworking or just letting a professional metalworker weld/braze a box to frame

 

[999zip999]

Did you get the orange headway battery connectors~spaces. They make buss bars too. Ez peze assembly.
Never over tighten the screws on headway battery.
Charge all cells to 3.6v in parallel before assembly in series.

 

[overhauledped]

Did you get the orange headway battery connectors~spaces. They make buss bars too. Ez peze assembly.
Never over tighten the screws on headway battery.
Charge all cells to 3.6v in parallel before assembly in series.

i did not get the spacers because i dont think have room for the cells when kept in rectangular format, Its going to be 20x 3.2v 20ah packs, each wrapped pack will consist of two individual heatshrink wrapped cells for the total of 40.

the two cells in each pack will be connected via the brass strips i bought, each brass strip will be drilled with an eyelet connector for the bms and also drilled at the correct spacing for the cells terminals when they are touching . I will connect a positive and negative wire to each battery packs with an eyelet connector to interconnect the pack's into one large pack

I am having trouble picking out the anderson connectors to interconnect the 20x packs. I was thinking anderson connectors because it would be very easy to balance them in parallel then reconnect in series

But, i cant decide on the correct size, whether it be the pp45 connectors or the pp75 which is essentially whether i want to go 10awg(pp45) or 8-10awg(pp75)

i also wonder whether i can crimp all the connections without the anderson tool.

 

[ebike11]

Is it neccessary to use that large bms unit?? I use pouch cells totally 72v and do not use any bms.
Im just careful charging and discharging. It would save space not mounting that bms unit

 

[999zip999]

How much will that battery weigh ? Hard to imagine that many headways.
Will they be insulation against rubbing or what ?

 

[999zip999]

Many who have headway cells or other lifepo4 cells use voltphreaks single cell chargers. I have four 3.6v 2a voltphreaks chargers. I can put all together for almost 8amp that stop at 3.6v so you can parallel a string of cells to bring all cells to 3.6v. Or just use one @ 2a.
I also have a set of 6s sense wires to check each cell or parallel cells to see the performance of the bms or to balance thru the plugs. Easy and fast with a cellog or other meter. I just like to be able to easy check of cells or monitoring of bms and cells.
There are different models of voltpheaks so someone might suggest the correct one to order as not all the same. With where is the best place to find them. As I got mine from the used section of E.S.
I do have two 1220 thunder balance chargers not working now. And had a hyperion 1440 that dnumn has now to try and figure out as it stopped working.
P.s. I posted from your pm here so that others can give opinions or tar and feather me. They all know how I like a good tar and feather PARTY.

 

[overhauledped]

Is it neccessary to use that large bms unit?? I use pouch cells totally 72v and do not use any bms.
Im just careful charging and discharging. It would save space not mounting that bms unit

The Bms was the smallest box and it is roughly the size of 2 and a half cells (negligible), the medium size box is the charger and it is not mounted and is pretty compact/light definitely not gonna notice it in the backpack. The big thing that will be hard to fit is the controller. I'm still doing the mockup i'll show what i've got so far here in a bit.

 

[overhauledped]

How much will that battery weigh ? Hard to imagine that many headways.
Will they be insulation against rubbing or what ?

I recieved the in stock portion of my cells in today actually. the headway cells weigh 343g x 40 = 13.72kg = 30.24lbs + Bms (558g=1.23lbs) + cables (?)