Custom built, self made ebike frame project

[Jordan.1]

UPDATE 29.07.16

It's nearly done! The main frame is nearly finished. Welded the rest of the headtube + the gussets. Came out pretty good. Only thing to do now is the reinforcement for the seat tube (at the cut). I added this part a few days ago when I used the Simulation for structural improvements. It should reduce stress extremely.

But now some more pics for you guys

And an obligatory GoPro pic

 

[XLR8]

It's nice to see a craftsman at work. Great project.

 

[Jordan.1]

UPDATE 18.08.2016

Didn't post sth for quite some time now, so lets go I'm nearly done with the swingarm posting this reply, but I will start at the beginning of it of course:

First thing, of course was buying new material. After that, I had to cut soooo many things. Its so much work, taking hours. This aint a joke, its really hard to cut all the angles s.o. precisely. I didn't use my band saw this time, I used the table saw. And with every cut, the cut itself became better and cleaner. It was quite a risk to buy a saw designed for wood to cut aluminum tubing, but it really worked out good. And precise

So here you have a few pics from cutting:

After that, I had to fabricate the clamps:

Most parts in one picture:

Then I cleaned the metal with acetone and some filing

Finally I put everything together, fit was pretty decent:

And started welding, most welds became really beatiful :

Only thing to do now is welding the reinforcements (gussets) to the swingarm.

Stay tuned its going to be awesome!

 

[Jordan.1]

UPDATE 10.09.16

I didn't post sth for quite some time, cause I've got lots of things to do at the moment, (like planning some stuff for university etc..), but still continued this build of course. Like I said in the post before, I had to weld the swingarm still, which worked out pretty good:

I really start to feel and see how my welding skills are improving, it's always looking better compared to "last time" welds.

Next, I couldn't resist to sit on this frame of course :lol: . So I used my old Rock Shox Totem and Monarch to build up the frame.
The fit was pretty decent, even better than I was expecting. What can I say about it? Well, it's just AWESOME to sit on a frame you've been planning and working on for sooooo long. The geometry and suspension is absolutely perfect, just how I wanted it to be I really cant wait to build this thing up with a beefy motor and controller. In the pic below, you can see the frame during build up with some old spare parts.

But of course, theres one last big step missing: T6 heat treatment.
Luckily, the Kebab restaurant at the next corner allowed my to use there oven (maybee cause I'm eating way too often there *shame on me*)
Had to crank it all the way up to 500 degrees celsius and let the frame in there for 20 minutes.

Then I had to cool it down with a minimum of 60 degrees/minute (6060 alloy, 6061 needs way faster!), so I've carried it quickly to my basement to cool it with a ventilator.

Now it lays here, waiting for the last heat treament step, which is 8hrs @ 170 degrees.

 

[Skaiwerd]

Got to love a kebob place down the down the street to toss your frame into for a quick heat treat. Best part of the story. If you round over the edges don’t go to far as the crisp edges define its minimalism, that I like. Please keep up the good work when you have the time. Will the swingarm fit a 27.5 inch x 2.8? Make inframe gussets that are also the motor mounts for the cyclone 3000 and this would be a hit. Please work on this idea for your next one, that i would be interested here in USA.

 

[recumpence]

I hate to muddy the waters (heat treating can be a very volatile topic), but, I have never heat treated any of my aluminum frames. They have been fantastic without. This frame is so over built it would be fine without. That being said, if heat treating is an option, go for it.

 

[Promodbike]

Hi guys, this thing is one year old !?

Whats up, Jordan ?

Are there difficulties or anything in the way ?
i want to see the finished bike, it is very interesting.

 

[macribs]

Forgot all about this thread, and had to re read it all. I agree, we really need to see the final result of all this hard work. That kebab pizza oven was the icing on the cake. Really made my day. Great learning project for an engineering student, and I must say kudo for keeping with your initial plans and go all the way with heat treatment and all. That frame should hold up to all kinds of abuse year after year.

What kind of motor and battery did you end you using?

 

[Skaiwerd]

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Jordan.1]

Hey guys, I'm sorry for not keeping you up to date. In the week after the kebab restaurant 500 degree heat treatment I've finished the T6 treatment in a big oven from a company that produces high-tech limb prostheses. It's always good to have some contacts. Now the frame is sitting in the basement waiting for its motor, but right now I don't have any time because of university. Right now, I'm in the middle of my practical semester at Bosch, had to move away from my hometown for still 3 and a half months.. coudln't take my workshop with me. On top of that, I wrote my pre-thesis with the topic "development and production of a 3-axis Gantry-CNC milling machine". The machine I developed is nearly finished, I just need to produce the last few parts, which I will do in the next semester. After this is done, I will finally build up the bike I'm totally excited already

With the CNC-mill at home, I'll be able to produce better tooling for framebuilding or -of course- frame parts with nice shapes.. really looking forward to this. In any case i will keep you posted when somethings happening with the frame!

Got to love a kebob place down the down the street to toss your frame into for a quick heat treat. Best part of the story. If you round over the edges don’t go to far as the crisp edges define its minimalism, that I like. Please keep up the good work when you have the time. Will the swingarm fit a 27.5 inch x 2.8? Make inframe gussets that are also the motor mounts for the cyclone 3000 and this would be a hit. Please work on this idea for your next one, that i would be interested here in USA.

Yeah I really appreciate the kebab restaurant doing this for free! I won't round over the edges, because I also like the look and I think it makes the frame look unique and some kind of "prototype-looking". I designed the frame for 26" x 2.75" tires, but making another swingarm for bigger wheels is not a problem at all. Heat treatment is the only problem..
As much as I like the cyclone motors, I don't like the fact, that it's not my construction. I'd like to do as much as possible by myself, and keeping in mind that I will have a CNC machine at home will make many things way easier. But of course I will keep this idea in my mind :wink:

I hate to muddy the waters (heat treating can be a very volatile topic), but, I have never heat treated any of my aluminum frames. They have been fantastic without. This frame is so over built it would be fine without. That being said, if heat treating is an option, go for it.

Well I'm somehow feared that this thing could break over time, because I don't really know how good my welding really is. Of course I cut some of my welds open and checked them (they where always good), and from the outside they look good aswell, but still theres this fear inside of me, because I'm doing all the development etc on my own without any experiences. Plus the alloy I'm using is 6060, not 6061 (which is common in the USA). It's pretty hard to get 6061 in germany, especially extruded profiles. Looking at the material properties, there are huge differences.. 6061 would be way better but like I said, i couldn't find any distributer..
The best alloy thats available in round tubing is 7020, which is again better than 6061 + theres no need in heat treatment, i will definetly give it a shot in future project, when I have the tools to miter-cut round tubing.

Hi guys, this thing is one year old !?

Whats up, Jordan ?

Are there difficulties or anything in the way ?
i want to see the finished bike, it is very interesting.

As I mentioned above, I don't have enough time right now to finish the bike. But one thing is for sure, I will show it to you guys!

Forgot all about this thread, and had to re read it all. I agree, we really need to see the final result of all this hard work. That kebab pizza oven was the icing on the cake. Really made my day. Great learning project for an engineering student, and I must say kudo for keeping with your initial plans and go all the way with heat treatment and all. That frame should hold up to all kinds of abuse year after year.

What kind of motor and battery did you end you using?

For this frame, I guess I will use a QS205 motor or somehing similar. The battery will be 72V nominal with a capacity of around 20Ah. But for the first test, I will use a spare 12 Fet hot rodded controller with cooling fans (hehe ) and my 48V battery just to get a better feeling of the bike.

At this point I want to thank you guys for reading my posts and commenting on my work. The community is so nice here It's really motivating me, and I'm definetly looking forward for more self made EV stuff

Inquiring minds want to know.

What does that mean? Sry for my bad english

 

[Skaiwerd]

Jordam.1

Your welds look very good. I was just looking for an update, thanks. Might you have any design file you’d share? Just as a starting point for geymotery layout etc. not to copy. Side view with swingarm would be ideal. Maybe I’ll try a steel tube version. Aluminum I get costs $5 per lb vs $1 per lb for steel and the steel welds so easily with the multiplaz plasma welder. I do love Aluminium too but with engineering there are compromises.

 

[12-C]

Nice job!

I've always wanted to weld, never have the time to learn, and it makes it even harder when I don't have the equipment lol :lol:

I have a nagging itch to do a build in carbon fiber. I have experience with that. But a bolt on motor from tangent now means I'd rather be riding than sitting in front of the computer working CAD and making plugs and molds.....

Keep posting once things pick up!

 

[Jordan.1]

Hello Guys,

maybe most of you have forgotten this project, and I had to pause it for way to much time because of different reasons - mainly time and finances. Neverthenless - its going on now. I ordered the QS205V3 Motor + a suitable Kelly Sine Wave Controller. While the Motor - just looking at it - is a absolute beast, the Controller is really small. Its continuous phase current is 80 Amps, peaking at 200 Amps for 20 seconds. Ofcourse i will use a 72V Battery. Heck, its even smaller than my old 14fet infineon style controller .

Maybe some of you remeber, that i mentioned something about a selfmade CNC mill earlier? Well - it was one of my projects in university, some kind of "smaller bachelors thesis". I completed it some time ago already, and always like to put it to good use: To fit the Controller neatly in the bottom bracket area, i had to machine away its mountings. I even tested to make own chainrings - will see if this works like im hoping it to do

Now i will have to go on with ordering parts for the bike, lace the motor etc.. I need brakes, bullet connectors, throttle and much more.

 

[spinningmagnets]

Well done!

 

[Deafcat]

Good work on the frame, lots of steps very well done. I was a bit concerned about the small upper shock mount plates and apparent lack of bushings/load bearing hardware of appropriate size, but I'm sure you've considered all of that.

Also excellent work on the heat-treat, that's an important step for frame longevity, and doing it in a kebab oven is downright awesome :lol:

Kudos!

 

[Jordan.1]

Good work on the frame, lots of steps very well done. I was a bit concerned about the small upper shock mount plates and apparent lack of bushings/load bearing hardware of appropriate size, but I'm sure you've considered all of that.

Also excellent work on the heat-treat, that's an important step for frame longevity, and doing it in a kebab oven is downright awesome :lol:

Kudos!

Thank both of you very much!

The thing about the shock mounts is: I made simulations for lots of load types. Just looking at the simulation, it should be all fine, as stresses are low enough. But we'll see, how it'll do its job over time.

I pretty much tried to go the best "scientific" way when developing the frame, as I have no experience in frame building... Let's hope for the best

 

[crossbreak]

nice to see this progress! I am keen to see your gear reduction setup. Hope you will use this in a mid drive setup? Any more final decision about a motor yet?

 

[Jordan.1]

I've got news for you

Finally put the Motor in its rim and test-fitted it to the frame. It came out, that the brake disc and its screws wont fit, if you mount it in a 150mm dropout.. so I desgined a spacer and milled it out of aluminium. So if you're reading this, while you*re planning to build a frame aswell: You need 160mm Dropouts (150mm Motor + 5mm spacer each side (each side, so that its symmetrical)). Then of course the brake disc mount needs to be adjusted more "to the inside".

To mount the motor then, I had to bend the frame open by 10mm - i had to use a threaded bar, to do so. The swingarm is way too stiff.. couldn't even manage to elastically bend it by more than 1mm (by hand) :thumb:

Then I used my angle grinder to put some flat spots on the motors axle, so that i could apply a cable tie in order to make the wires come out further away from the screws.

Next step was designing the cable guiding parts, which i will 3d-print (the printer is already running while typing this..)

 

[Jordan.1]

23.03.2020

Guys...it's finally done! The build is completed - which means I already tested it on the streets aswell.. It's awesome!

The only annoying thing is: I dont have a 72V battery, which means i dont have the power output I'd like to have.

But at least, I can show you the attached pictures.

 

[litespeed]

Looks great.

Tom

 

[ScooterMan101]

With your talent you can build your own battery pack.


It would sure be nice if you lived somewhere close to me . I would show you a Frame that I would like to build,
Which would be very similar to your's .
What is your head tube angle ? and wheel base ?

23.03.2020


The only annoying thing is: I dont have a 72V battery, which means i dont have the power output I'd like to have.

 

[Jordan.1]

Thx guys!

Yeah I will build a 72V battery as soon as i have time and the $$$ for the spare parts needed. I already have some pretty nice prismatic cells laying around, which I'll combine into a pack - again, using my 3D-printer. We already used these cells in the formula student team i've worked with...they are so powerfull, that we even had to relable them with lower specs in order to get them imported .

So maybe this summer, i will be able to finally build a powerfull battery. Still, security is my number one, so i will do some testing beforehand..

Currently, I'm finishing my masters thesis and I'm looking for a job in - guess what - the E-Bike industry. Wish me luck!

@ScooterMan101
Oh man, I'd love to live in Cali...I dont like our weather here in Germany during winter
Head tube angle is at 65°, wheelbase is 1250mm (including the forks' offset)