APL's V4 Cruiser Build.

[APL]

This control box is stuck in slow motion, but it's almost done. wire up the charge ports and controller plug and she's
good to go for now.



I cut the bottom of the box out, and mounted the shunt on the top of the case, to help with cooling, and it keeps the
wires nice and short. I thought I'd have plenty of room in the 4" case for everything, but it got crowded real fast!



Once I get the two case hold-down's made, I can finish up on the battery wiring, and start plugging this thing together.

 

[SlowCo]

Beautiful work again!

 

[APL]

Thanks SlowCo, I'm getting anxious, and it's getting hard not to just run through it and get it done.

Heres some more incremental progress,.. I found some 1/4" slotted aluminum on the bay for cheap, to make the hold
down's out of, and sawed out some pieces. Thought the grooves would give it the right look. Added some stainless thumb
screws, touched up the black, and they're done.



Pull the thumb screws, and the box and hold downs all come off the bike. Hopefully, it will be easy to plug the batteries
in, but that remains to be seen yet.



Once the batteries are done i think it's time to plug this thing together,.. dash is pretty much done.
Just started getting the battery box insulated with some fiberglass plate, and need to make some plastic side panels, and
foam spacers. Still have a lot of odds and ends to do, but she's getting close.

 

[APL]

Batteries are mostly done and should go in soon. Apparently these batteries are not made to mount standing up, and
seem a bit dangerous in that position. They just use paper washers between the nickel strips and cell edges and all the
weight of the batteries is going to put pressure on them in the vertical position. Nope,.. don't like it.
(Scooter batteries)



My quick fix is to 3D print a nub-board that distribute's the weight to the center of the cell's,.. at least on the bottoms.
Pretty disappointing, but at least I can put it together and ride temporarily, while I get going on another set of batteries.



Looks like I'm going to be building a battery pack sooner than I thought. Well, such as it is,.. it's got to be safe!
Now I can make plans for volts and amps to my liking, and a bullet proof case with all the proper spacers, wires, and BMS.
I'll also have a chance to separate all the cells and check each one for quality.
(Need to get a spot welder though,.. "in for a penny, in for a pound".)

I'll not be denied my ride though, this bike has got to roll! I'm just about done with all the odds and ends, except the
new rear wheel is going to take a while, but I can just use the one I have.



New wires, plugs, and BMS. All I need to do is heat shrink, and put them in the bike. :thumb:

 

[thundercamel]

How much current is that little pack supposed to be able to provide? Only three nickel strips as the series connection between groups.

 

[E-HP]

It's killing me not to see pics of the completed bike, with the pedals installed.

Are you going to fabricate something for a kickstand?

 

[APL]

Good question thundercamel, I don't know how much they were intended to put out,.. they had 30 amp fusses in them.
The battery builds differ from one another quite a bit, some have five strips, some have three, some even have 2400wh
cells instead of 2600 and still proclaim the 26ah. Pretty iffy stuff, and screams of an assembly line with vague quality
controls.

At the moment I only need about 20 amps from each battery, (parallel), to feed my little 40 amp controller, so I should
be safe for now, but a controller upgrade will demand more. Once I get my hands on the throttle I'll see how soon thats
going to happen.

All the more reason to tear these batteries apart and build them right. Makes for a good winter project, with no time
worries. Right now I'm in a rush to get this thing on the road, save whats left of the summer, and get some ride'n in! :wink:

Not to worry E-HP, the bike is finally finished, (for the most part), and some photos will be forthcoming! The only thing I
need is the 3D prints for the battery base, and I can put them in and seal it up. (soon!)

The final "to do" list keeps getting shorter, but longer at the same time with new things added! But I finally have it down
to one or two 'optional' things like adjusting the shock, and making a kick stand, etc.

Definitely need a kickstand,.. hate the dang things, but have to have them. Just like tool kits and pumps, they ugly
up a bike in no time.

Not sure what to do there yet,.. I have a 'stealth' kickstand planed, but might try to use the old aluminum one as a temp.
Don't know if the stealth is actually going to work very well yet, and will take some R&D. It hugs the motor cage, and flips
forward. Kind of a half baked plan at the moment.

 

[APL]

Guess I forgot to say that it's a 'double' kickstand, I wouldn't trust this girl with a single.

The 3D base plates are siliconed in with some black RTV,. and some barrier plastic to keep it off the cells. Heat shrink'ed
and ready to go.



I started to put them in the bike, but ran into wiring issues with the 10ga switch box wires being too hard to bend around,
and need a little more length. So I'll have to settle with using just one battery for now, until I can get some silicon wire in,
(like I should have done in the first place).

But, plugged everything in, put the side covers on, powered it up, and it spins like a champ! :thumb: Except the rear chain
is rubbing, so I have to move the motor drive gear to the middle position.

Always have to get the bugs out! Theres no escape.

Anyways, once I get the drive gear moved, she's ready to test ride and see what the one lunger can do. Only problem is,
the weather has decided it wants to rain now! Just my luck,.. but I shouldn't complain about that,.. it's been way to dry.

Too wet out to take proper pictures, but I took some shop pic's of the cranks so at least you can get an idea of how that
tuned out for now. (Sorry about the ugly block-stand,.. I should make something nice.)

The cranks are 130mm shorties.







Lots of tweaks and adjustments to do yet, but at least she's ready to test ride.

 

[APL]

I finally got out to do some test riding, and she's riding real nice! Not without a lot of bugs though,.. the first thing it did
was spin off the front freewheel into the frame and strip all the threads out of the adapter.
I must not have had it very tight. So now I have to run without a front chain until a new one arrives, no biggie.



The CA is not reading any watts from the new shunt that I installed, so I'm going to put the old one back in when I get
the new silicon wire for the control box. (I checked all the wires)

Lots of issues with chain line rub, but I wound up putting together a 5 speed cluster that seems to work alright,.. it has
plenty of low end torque with a 26T, and will do almost 40mph with the 15T for high, depending on the headwind.
At some point I'm going to have to dimple some tubes to get it to work better though.

All in all, she's working pretty good, and at least I'm back on the road at long last. It has a lot more power than the last
bike I had, and is perfectly usable the with this battery, but of course, I'm itching to see what two of them will do! 8)

Once I get the CA hooked up right, I can get some watt readings and see what the single battery is putting out, and once
I get the new power wires in, I can see what the dual batteries will do.

So,.. no decent photos yet with the front chain missing, and the rear wheel still not built,.. but these things take time.
At least it's out of the shop and rolling. :thumb:

 

[mxlemming]

Looks fantastic now. You got it up to 40mph! That's pretty fast! Nice work.

How much does it weigh all in?

 

[SlowCo]

What a gorgeous machine again! Really nice :thumb:

 

[APL]

Thanks! I've just been riding it, and enjoying the cruise, running the batteries through some charge cycles,
and making small adjustments. I have a pile of new parts and tasks to do, but putting it off so I can just
enjoy the bike and get used to it, after four months of constant building!

I haven't weighed it yet, so it's just a guess, but I'm sure it's going to crack 80lbs. She ain't no lightweight
that's for sure, but I'll get it weighed out pretty soon.

It handles really well, and I can cross my arms and go no handed easy, it's rock solid stable, and I haven't had
any issues with the motor being so close to the ground so far. I couldn't be happier with the ride!

Riding on the one 13S-10P battery is just about right, it doesn't weigh a ton, and has instant acceleration from
0 to 30 mph in the 26 cog. Off the line torque is fine, but could be better (as always).

Lately I've been rethinking the whole drive train - battery voltage thing, which is holding up the rear wheel
build because of the type of hub I'll need.

Think I'm going to go single speed with the thread-on White Industries 'ultra heavy duty body', and something
like a 60-70v pack, and try to gear it for a 30 mph top speed, give or take. This will give it a large cog in back,
with awesome torque off the line, and still have great acceleration with a 10P pack. And I don't have to mess
with chain line or a rear der.

I still have the option of using the two 10P packs in parallel for some 20P chain snapping power, but I don't
foresee doing it every day, 30+ lbs of batteries is heavy on an already heavy bike. DH forks have limits.

I've been looking at different battery cell configurations to see what will fit in the box nicely, but haven't
settled on anything yet, even with all that space, it always seems to be just the wrong size somewhere!

 

[E-HP]

Dang, I missed the update posts. Looks fantastic! I bet it will be crazy quick on 70V, but sounds like plenty of fun as-is.

 

[miro13car]

with the motor mounted so low it really only for smooth roads .
simply motor is exposed and so low you really have to watch for curbs anything sticking above the ground.
those sprockets configuration so nice , so you can help motor with pedaling.

 

[ZeroEm]

Don't think it's as low as my trike 4" and I don't hit anything but don't go off curbs.

Have been looking around for 60V batteries. Lunacycle selling the Sur-Ron 60v 32ah Spare Battery. One or two of them may work for me. Maybe cheaper to build.

 

[spinningmagnets]

You are a great ES builder!

Many complain and never build. You build and never complain!...

 

[APL]

Thanks for the awesome compliment spinningmagnets!

 

[ZeroEm]

These are cheap. :lol:
60V 20ah

 

[spinningmagnets]

APL's custom battery pack build has been split off into it's own thread:

"APL's Pressure Contact Battery box"
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=113512

 

[nicobie]

I don't know how I missed this thread until now, but I have to say that you do excellent work. Overall some of the best I've seen. Nice to see you brazed the frame. Brazing is getting to be a lost art. When all I had was a torch I used to braze a lot, but after my first MIG I got lazy. I still have a bunch of fluxed brazing rod.

Beautiful Bike!

 

[APL]

Thanks nicobie!

Brazing is getting scarce these days, but it still lives on, and we are sure lucky to have the skill. Like most old world
things, it has quality and a feel that modern ways lack. There's something mystical about melding metals and steel
together with a flame.

Welding is cool too though, and the two skills make a good pair. I keep threatening to get a Tig welder, and hopefully
I'll have one before I build the next bike. There's a lot of places on this build that I was wishing I had a Tig!

 

[APL]

Well, lets see, I suppose I should post an update on this build,.. Fall is at the doorstep and the season is coming to
a close here soon. No new photos, since I've been a slacker on the rear wheel build, and just enjoying draining batteries.

But, I've been able to draw 1500 watts out of the one battery at full throttle, which is way more than the last bike, and
means that I should be able to draw about 3KW out of the two batteries in parallel. Don't think my system is up to snuff
for that though, so I haven't tried it yet.

Anyway, in conclusion, the bike is running great and is super stable.

 

[APL]

So the Dreadster is getting a remake this winter, lots of upgrades. Just finished the 16S/11P compression pack that fills out the battery box and makes the battery situation much safer.



That dumps into a Daly 100A BMS and a 100A shunt. A nice spot next to the shunt for a flat ANL fuse, but I already have the dual-fuse switch box that I'll be using, with better access and redundancy.



I'm hopeful that this Votol EM-100 clone will be a go'er , because it looks so cool, and it's good for 80A and 3Kw. it has a hack-port
for programing too. Probably won't need too,.. since it's pre-programed for generic use.



I decided to just call it a dirt bike and throw a simi-knob on the back, the Schwalbe super moto X. The dirt bike genre justifies the big power look, and I'll just CA it to 750w for the street.



Decided on the beefy Surly threaded disc hub, twisted by the Sick Bikes/White Industries dual-bearing jack-shaft freewheel. This
thing is made to beat. Bolt on steel cogs are dirt cheap and range from 24T - 40T (if I remember right). I hope to wind up with about a 17T/36T cog set. Top speed will be set at around the legal 30 mph.

Single speed hub means bad chain line though, so that's the battle at the moment. (Some fool brazed a tube in the way.)



Did the spoke calculator fail, and now I'm waiting for new some new 12g spokes, hope I get it right this time.

The old Crystalyte has seen better days, and it has too many winds to spin fast enough even with the 65v battery, so I'm going to use it on a back up bike, and pull the trigger on a new Leaf motor. Damn the $$$, full speed ahead! :thumb:

The 4T Leaf should spin at around 840 rpm at 65v, and if I'm right, I should be able to get a 36T rear cog to work. High rpm and low gearing means more torque and less stress on the battery system.

 

[thundercamel]

Looking nice! Will you be using the Super Moto-X off road, or mostly on pavement/concrete? It sure can lean on the paved curves! I ended up wanting a little more traction on the crushed limestone trails, but this is for the front of my SWB recumbent, which is very sensitive to losses in lateral traction.

 

[APL]

Thanks thundercamel! Mostly on the pavement,.. this bike is so low that 'dirt tracker' is probably a better term for it. So, trails once in a while maybe. Mostly trying to justify the legality of this thing.

Not too worried about it though, cops look for crazy speeders, and the lawyers look for the accidents.

The Schwalbe dirt-look tires are good pavement tires, and have the 3mm green guard, but still a little on the thin side. I'll also be using some Tuff-Guard protection strips between the tube and tire this summer, and hopefully that will help too.

Never used them before, but a flat last year caught me off guard, and was a real pain in the bung!