Cyclone 1200W commuter build

[glv]

This is my first ebike build. I'm a bit of a novice with bike mechanics and all these electrical details but I've turned my share of wrenches on cars over the years.

The donor bike is a Specialized Crossroads A1 with around 1500 miles on it. I've been commuting with it for years so I thought it only made sense to electrify it

Figuring I wouldn't get another shot at this I decided to get a bigger kit than I thought I needed. Reading around here it sounds like the real power junkies are all migrating toward geared drives so I ended up discounting the hub motors. I would love to have built an RC setup with one of Matt's custom built drives, but I was nervous to jump into my first build with something that seemed so complex and that's still in active development. That left the cyclone kits, which also had the bonus of being relatively cheap.

The kit was fairly easy to pick out, but the battery vexed me for a while. Luckily I ran across laufer's build thread where he noted he also planned to build a 1200w cyclone kit and found out that Ping was working on his next generation of packs capable of 3C continuous. Ping had some available via special request so I ordered one too.

The kit was pretty easy to put together. Cyclone supplies a longer 135mm asymmetrical BB spindle with the kit, but it's for an old-style cup-and-cone BB and my bike has a more modern cartridge-style BB. It was surprisingly hard to find retrofit cups; everyone has them on backorder ATM. I managed to scrounge one up at a local shop, but I got some funny looks asking for them.

I went a little overboard on electrical connectors. The folks at powerwerx.com must love me now. I got a bunch of 45A stuff, but I had trouble getting the 10AWG wires from the controller to seat correctly. I stepped up to the big bad 75A connectors for everything. Probably overkill, but what the heck.

It's not as neat and tidy as I'd like and having the battery mounted on the rear rack is not what I'd prefer, but overall I'm very happy with the final result, though there's plenty of room for improvement.

some pics of it in a bit of a patchwork state:

The battery lives in the trunk bag on top of the rear rack. I use the pannier for cargo. Note the fabulous "temporary" bungie mount for the controller.


The business portion


The other (drive) side. gotta love that tensioner


A close-up of the mount. The black screw in the top mount is threaded into the bottle cage boss. So far no twisting or shearing, but I will keep an eye on it. I've really cranked down on the nuts on the mount on and that black screw so hopefully it will all stay put.


The chain that broke on me the other day while shifting at full throttle. not recommended


You can see that the motor is not quite straight. I think it's just my fault for not quite mounting it correctly, I don't think it's moving on its own. It seems to work fine, but I may be affecting the efficiency a bit with the wonky chainline.


My next steps are to waterproof the controller and motor with some RTV and swap out the half-twist throttle for a xlyte thumb throttle. I'll probably wire up the CA current limiter at that point also so I can stop babysitting the amps and pay more attention to riding. I may try to move the controller to a nicer spot at some point and secure it more permanently.

My thanks to all the pioneers around here whose experiences made this much easier for me!

 

[morph999]

looks good. Do you like the cyclone? Does breaking a chain bother you? Do you think it will happen any more times?

 

[glv]

Thanks! So far, yes, I like the cyclone kit quite a bit, though I have nothing to compare it to. Any ESers here in the Twin Cities?

Problems/issues are minor thus far. There's a dead spot at the bottom of the throttle that you have to blip past to get any response, but I've heard this is typical of hall throttles. The controller is a little bulky. There aren't enough miles on it to wear out the freewheel yet, but I will probably be complaining about that in a month or two.

The only real mystery problem so far is the motor cutting out after I've been putting the spurs to it for a few miles then try to take a hill with (presumably) too many amps. The BMS won't cutoff until 90A and it's drawing nowhere near that, nor is the pack close to the 41V LVC. It doesn't come back to life if I unplug/replug the main pack connector anyway, so I'm ruling out the battery. The controller is barely warm to the touch when this happens so I have to believe it's something with the motor. The thing is the motor is only at around 130F when this happens and that seems kinda low for a temperature cutoff. I will probably try reattaching the heatsinks with some thermal compound or epoxy and see if that helps at all.

I'm not too worried about breaking chains anymore. I think the skipping caused by the old worn cassette in the rear may have aggravated the problem. To be safe I back off the throttle to shift. So far so good.

I got a new rack and trunk bag yesterday that has a slide-lock mount that let's me easily take the battery pack with me when I go into a building. The old trunk bag had velcro straps threaded under the rack which was fine, but kinda fiddly to mount and unmount repeatedly... it seems like it was made for more of a universal semi-permanent mount. The new bag has fold-away panniers if I need to stop at the store on the way home and the rack has a channel for stowing a U lock. It was not cheap, but so far I like it a lot.

Rack:


Bag:

 

[EVnewbie]

I would love to get that gear reduction box with freewheeling conventional bike chain gear!
Good to see Cyclone has gone with the "stroke monkey" style of driving the chain to a freewheeling crank. I have a 48V 35 amp brushless motor that I would love to attach to the gear reduction box of the Cyclone kit. It looks very well done and hopefully provide many years of reliable commuting. Could the kit be mounted in the bottom of the frame triangle, on the seat post maybe? This would prevent dirt from hitting it when going off-road.
As far as internal hub gears go, you would probably blow out a 7-speed version but there is an option. The Fallbrook Technologies CVT-P rear hub is rated for 5,000 watts, has a 340% variable ratio range and will handle your build. Change the derailluer chain for a stout BMX chain and be on your way. Ain't cheap, though! In this game, as most-- $$$

 

[glv]

Yes, the reduction is nice and compact, if a little noisy. I don't mind too much, it's kind of like an aural speedometer I'm going to try to take the motor apart to do some waterproofing this evening so I'll take some macro pics of the inner workings of everything. Paco/Headline may sell you the reduction separately if you could figure a way to mount it to your motor. It's worth emailing him if you're serious about the idea.

The stokemonkey is a pretty slick setup too. It's probably a little heavier than the cyclone, but (I'm guessing) much quieter since it's driving the chain directly rather than through the planetary reduction.

It's very doable to mount the motor on the seatpost. I decided against it because a) I was trying to keep the center of gravity as low as possible since I already have 24 pounds of battery + cargo high up on the rack and b) those gears and chains whirring near my shorts just kinda make me feel nervous. Other than that it should work fine, though. You could even use the bottle cage bosses on the seat post to help hold things steady like I did on the downtube.

That CVT hub is really cool, especially since you can program it. It would be sweet to set it up to vary the ratio to keep a constant or max amp draw from the motor at full throttle. Or maybe have it hold the motor in its top efficiency zone and vary the ratio based on ground speed. But, yeah, beaucoup bux, maybe some other day.

 

[EVnewbie]

Thanks for the information about your kit, giv
I guess the dream drive would be a 5305 X5 hub motor in stroke monkey configuration driving a White Industries freewheel crank through a CVT-P automatic controlled hub with a motorcycle rim/tire combo. As electric bike #1 is nearing completion, #2's design is taking shape. The sad part is I have three bike frames to choose from be it a Norco dirt jumper bike, a chopper frame and a AeroEnvironment charger bike with 7speed Nexus hub. Alas, the married part does not allow for $3K bike builds.
It is so much easier to throw $$$$ at the problem then slooooowly design out the device.

 

[glv]

I like the way you think. Build it and take some pictures (and videos) The nexus is a nice hub. I wish they made a 5 speed, it would be perfect for my setup (if it could handle the power)

I managed 44 mph this evening downhill. It actually feels better in the 40s than in the 30s. I even got a shout-out from some passing dirt boys. It was pretty warm here this afternoon (95F/35C) and after my ride the motor casing was too warm to hold your hand on (160F/70C) but no cutouts. Maybe reattaching the heatsinks with some thermal compound helped a bit. Even the 8AWG battery wires were a bit warm afterward.

Waterproofed the motor and controller last night. got some pics of the reduction and the wiring internals. I can try to diagram the pinouts for the halls if anyone is interested or if I ever blow up my controller and go with an ecrazyman or a kelly.

The chopper would be cool for some high-speed cruising. Throw this kit on there and do some cruisin

 

[glv]

I just replaced the kit-included freewheel with a custom-made White Industries ENO from these guys for $65+shipping. It's a perfect drop-in replacement for the Dicta brand one that's included. In fact it looks like SBP sells most of the parts from the cyclone kit individually, including the freewheel.

The old one was no longer spinning freely after only 100 miles so I highly recommend this upgrade if you have a 3-chainring cyclone kit (not sure if it works for the 1-chainring kits). The Dicta brand freewheels they sell are cleaned and relubed, which, they claim, helps them last a lot longer. If you still have the original freewheel and don't feel like dropping the coin for an eno then you could try this also. They have instructions here.

The hardest part of swapping it out was unthreading the crank from the old freewheel. I had to put the crank arm in a vice and put an impact wrench on the freewheel tool to get it off

I tried taking the old one apart, the cover comes off without too much drama if you have a freewheel tool and a pin spanner. Lots of loose tiny bearings inside (at least 50). If you want to clean it you could loosen the cover to make some more room to spray stuff in there, but completely disassembling and reassembling looks like it will take some patience and dexterity. I lost a few bearings after getting about half of them back in so it's probably toast now :?

 

[glv]

During the last few days I've noticed a new vibration through the frame. It appears to be coming from the motor unit itself. I may pull the reduction apart and see if there's something going on there or on the output shaft bearing.

The bike's eating up rim brake pads too. I got some new kool stops this last weekend, but they squeal terribly. Hopefully they'll quiet down a bit as they break in.

 

[glv]

Two new developments, neither of which are all that great.

My Cycle Analyst died. Justin was very helpful (and quick!) in diagnosing the problem and giving me some remedy options. The culprit ended up being the untimely death of the backlight LED which must also be a key part of supplying power to the display module. Shorting the LED pins had me up and running again sans backlight.

As for the vibration, it has gotten steadily worse and now there are new noises from the motor/gearbox. I pulled the reduction apart to see if there was anything obviously wrong in there. The bearing in the block is fine as is the one on the reduction output shaft and those on the planet carrier, but it the planet gears themselves are in rough shape. I found some metal slivers (presumably from the planet gears) in a few of the valleys of the ring gear which was causing a noticeable noise as the planets would hit those spots. The motor output (sun) and ring gear are intact so I assume the planet gears are made of softer stuff.

I swear the thing is lubed with lard, it smells like BBQd pork basted with motor oil. It's all shiny with metal when I rub it thin on my fingers so it's possible it contributed to the failure, though it's hard to say.

Anyway, I'm going to put it back together with some fresh moly lube and see if it's any quieter now that I've cleaned out all the gear bits, but I suspect I don't have many miles left before the planet gears finish shredding themselves. Time to get in touch with paco and see what he can do for me.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if I could get hold of harder planet gears? Is that kind of stuff typically stocked somewhere or are they likely bespoke for this drive unit?

 

[glv]

unhappy gears

 

[Miles]

 

[kentlim26]

Scarly gears for me. I better not to run too fast on my cyclone kit. The 900watts and 1200watts, has too stress on the tiny gears. It seem to wear off too fast.

 

[glv]

paco is sending me a new gearbox for the price of shipping ($30US). I'll report back on how this one does, here's hoping it's better than the approximately 5 weeks and < 200 miles I got from the original. :?

Since the ring gear and motor shaft look pretty much pristine I'm entertaining the idea of having some planet gears cut from stronger stock (price permitting, of course). Since I'll have this old broken gearbox sitting around I guess I might as well try to rebuild it.

I've never worked with machine shops before... could I typically bring in the parts and say "make me some of these" or do most shops expect CAD files? Are gear tolerances loose enough that I could measure stuff with some 0.25mm dial calipers or do I really need a good micrometer to do it right?

 

[Miles]

glv,

Is the bore of the gears 22mm? Bearings 608Z?

 

[glv]

Yes, correct on both counts. Am I lucky enough that these are standard parts?

 

[Miles]

Yes, the bearing are the common skateboard type, but whether you can get the gears is another matter...

Next thing to determine is the gear pitch. Can you estimate what the outside diameter would have been before they got mangled?

As they originated in Taiwan, it's likely they used Metric Module Pitch, I think.. If so, it looks like 0.8 Mod.

 

[glv]

Thanks for your insight, Miles, I find this all very interesting, not to mention helpful!

It's tough to estimate how much of each tooth is missing without seeing a new gear for comparison. I tried to find pairs of the least worn-looking teeth from each gear and most measurements are a hair shy of 35mm. If you forced me to guess I'd say the original diameter could have been 1-2mm more than this measurement, but 2mm might be a bit high.

 

[12p3phPMDC]

Can you measure the outside diameter of the ring gear as well....?

Maybe it's a Matex copy... you may get lucky and be able to put
in a higher torque unit...?

 

[Miles]

At 1.0 Module pitch a 33t gear is 36.65mm O.D.

At 24 Diametral pitch a 33t gear is 1.458" = 37.0332mm O.D.

 

[lesdit]

I took apart my unused 1200 gear box, I was more worried about how small the input gear/motor shaft was. Since it only has a few teeth, I would have thought that it would be the first to wear out. Your planet gear teeth look like that have been 'thinned out' for lack of better words to use. I added some moly laden grease to the thing and buttoned it back up.
How many miles did that worn one have? Maybe they forgot to heat treat those planet gears, or something ?

 

[glv]

The ring gear OD is 78mm. For fun I measured everything else I could think of:

*planet carrier bearings center-to-center distance is 37mm
*output shaft is 20mm diameter and has a 6mm key
*mounting holes on housing are 75mm apart center-to-center fitting 5mm diameter bolts
*the 9t motor output shaft is 12mm diameter

Miles, thanks for the calculations. Everything else on this gearbox measures cleanly in metric units so I'm leaning toward your first figure as the correct one. I'll see if I can find a set somewhere...

Yes, "thinned out" is a good way to put it. They look a bit as if they've had tiny grinders put to them on one side with some of the extra material squished out away from the plane of rotation (like mashing the end of a stick of butter on the counter). The ring gear and motor output shaft appear to be hardened judging by their complete lack of any wear. Perhaps these planet gears are softer by design so as to not damage the less-servicable motor shaft and ring gear.

I hope it's as simple a problem as them not being heat-treated and that the next gearbox (paco claims it is 'tested') will not have these problems. Mileage on this setup is a very short 239 (around 5 weeks of commuting).

 

[kentlim26]

paco is sending me a new gearbox for the price of shipping ($30US). I'll report back on how this one does, here's hoping it's better than the approximately 5 weeks and < 200 miles I got from the original. :?

Since the ring gear and motor shaft look pretty much pristine I'm entertaining the idea of having some planet gears cut from stronger stock (price permitting, of course). Since I'll have this old broken gearbox sitting around I guess I might as well try to rebuild it.

I've never worked with machine shops before... could I typically bring in the parts and say "make me some of these" or do most shops expect CAD files? Are gear tolerances loose enough that I could measure stuff with some 0.25mm dial calipers or do I really need a good micrometer to do it right?

US$30, it is acceptable, afforable for me too. I am pleased to hear that.

 

[12p3phPMDC]

The ring gear OD is 78mm. For fun I measured everything else I could think of:

*planet carrier bearings center-to-center distance is 37mm
*output shaft is 20mm diameter and has a 6mm key
*mounting holes on housing are 75mm apart center-to-center fitting 5mm diameter bolts
*the 9t motor output shaft is 12mm diameter

Matex products (at least the US distribution) are close, but different.
lots of different models, but they have a 75mm series.

75mm OD on the ring gear
11 tooth 12mm shaft
25 tooth 19.5mm female serated output.

anyway...close but no cigar.

What is the reduction?
How do they configure the planetary....i.e. what is fixed, the ring gear?

 

[Miles]

9.33:1 [75t; 33t; 9t]

The ring gear is held by the aluminium case.