cyclone 360 motor kit,any positive feedback?

[jedgar]

I am looking at buying a cyclone 360 watt kit and I want to know if anybody is happy with that setup?
I seem to see in these posts that the biggest problem is water ingress so I plan to waterproof all that I can.I am also a big guy at 250 lbs but I like to pedel
so I am not worried about low power,I would like to get at least 40 km on a charge.I am planning to use a 24 volt 20ah ping battery.
I have a 2004 norco wolverine hardtail that I plan to mount it on,for on road use only.Currently I have a 250 watt 36 volt chinese folding bike that has been ok but I get only 20 km on a the stock 8 ah lithium battery.
Anybody have any positive experiences,I still want to get exercise but I an concerned with reliabity as I an partially disabled and can only walk a few blocks.
Thanks,jedgar

 

[deardancer3]

I am a big guy with a 360w cyclone, old style, motor mounts between front chainring and rear cog.

26" wheels, 8 speed 11-32 rear. read my hill climbing test.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13814&hilit=hill&start=15#p207565

(305lb total load 8% grade 9.3mph no pedalling)

I have a 20ah 24v lith iron phosphate pack, its a bit too much but, never have to take a charger.

Initially I had water problems, but sealing where the cables came in soved most moiture problems. throttle failed once.

I got a custom shimano front chainring freewheel.

top speed 22mph, great hill climbing, great range. just a bit of detail work to get everthing aligned.

I installed two systems for other people after they rode mine. they were also very happy.

 

[jedgar]

Thanks for the reply,
This has been probably been said before, but a list of fixes should be put together by this forum regarding cyclone products. The list should be emailed to cyclone both usa and taiwan.
I wonder how many sales have been lost due to poor service and product development? As for me, I may take my chances and order a kit anyways.I like plug and play, but I also like to tinker.I would pay more for the kit if quality concerns were adressed such as:water ingress,a separate contoller for the smaller motors,better brackets,better chainring freewheels,throttles(at least a choice of thumb or twist grip).Personally I am not an electronics guy, but I can solder well,so changing the internal controller to external without opening the motor would appeal to me.
I read about timbits post on the freewheel fix,but it is no longer available if anyone has any info on the parts needed or other options I would love to hear them.I really love the concept of the cyclone products,but not the quality concerns.
thanks in advance,jedgar

 

[Miles]

Thanks for the reply,
This has been probably been said before, but a list of fixes should be put together by this forum regarding cyclone products. The list should be emailed to cyclone both usa and taiwan.

Good luck with that... Cyclone is just a money making machine. What's needed is more competition.

 

[deardancer3]

Wanted to add:
I have had my cyclone for 3 and a half years. it has not failed once in the last two and a half years.

many throttles fail in the rain. mine failed too, but just the on/off switch.. not the actual throtttle.

I did develop some of the improvements and made them available to others. But hard to keep working for free when others are willing to pay (only a little and only sometimes), and, there are bills to be paid.

you will also find that cyclones generate a lot of emf noise; they need noise filters at the motor. otherwise they might screw up BMS battery boards.

d

 

[jedgar]

Thanks deardancer3,

How does one install an ems filter without taking apart the motor? And how does one waterproof a throttle or at least make it water resistant?
Also any info on how to make the chainring wobble free? I think also I like the idea of making idler pullys to keep the chain on.
Thanks ,jedgar

 

[heathyoung]

The throttle has a microcontroller installed, but may be replaced by a garden variety hall throttle.

EMF noise - put a large cap across the power leads, there is very little in the way of filtering on these motors due to the limited size of caps that will fit.

Internal controller is OK, you can mod easily enough, conversion to external is not that difficult, just need to access the hall and phase pads on the PCB.

Chainring freewheels - try sickbikeparts.com - they have a white industries freewheel designed to take some serious beating (kickstarting an IC engine!).

Big battery packs are a good idea - SLA on anything higher than the 180W just sags far too much.

 

[Kevinator]

I have the same type of kit deardancer has, the one that goes between the chainring and rear cog (1 chainring kit).

Here's what my kit looks like today:

 

[dumbass]

I am looking at buying a cyclone 360 watt kit and I want to know if anybody is happy with that setup?
I seem to see in these posts that the biggest problem is water ingress so I plan to waterproof all that I can.I am also a big guy at 250 lbs but I like to pedel
so I am not worried about low power,I would like to get at least 40 km on a charge.I am planning to use a 24 volt 20ah ping battery.
I have a 2004 norco wolverine hardtail that I plan to mount it on,for on road use only.Currently I have a 250 watt 36 volt chinese folding bike that has been ok but I get only 20 km on a the stock 8 ah lithium battery.
Anybody have any positive experiences,I still want to get exercise but I an concerned with reliabity as I an partially disabled and can only walk a few blocks.
Thanks,jedgar

My first 2 Ebike setups (my wife and mine) were Cyclone 360 kits. No major ussues with them except mine had a problem last year cutting out now and then. Never took the time to find the problem but I am guessing it is in one of the brake connectors down by the motor because it tends to come loose.

As for the battery I would recommend Thunder Sky packs instead. They are a lot cheaper, better and available here in the states. You can get 2 - 12v 20ah lifepo4 packs for $208 and I think that includes shipping anywhere is the US. The only additional thing you need is a BMS or LVC if you want to add it and most people do (but I am currently running without ether for the past year). Here's the link; http://elitepowersolutions.com/products/product_info.php?cPath=16&products_id=74

You can also remove them from the plastic case if you want.

 

[jdcburg]

As for the battery I would recommend Thunder Sky packs instead. They are a lot cheaper, better and available here in the states. You can get 2 - 12v 20ah lifepo4 packs for $208 and I think that includes shipping anywhere is the US. The only additional thing you need is a BMS or LVC if you want to add it and most people do (but I am currently running without ether for the past year). Here's the link; http://elitepowersolutions.com/products ... ucts_id=74

Hi DA - Are you saying you successfully run these as a 24V pack without a BMS or special charger? I could afford to get into Lithium at that price - jd

 

[dumbass]

As for the battery I would recommend Thunder Sky packs instead. They are a lot cheaper, better and available here in the states. You can get 2 - 12v 20ah lifepo4 packs for $208 and I think that includes shipping anywhere is the US. The only additional thing you need is a BMS or LVC if you want to add it and most people do (but I am currently running without ether for the past year). Here's the link; http://elitepowersolutions.com/products ... ucts_id=74

Hi DA - Are you saying you successfully run these as a 24V pack without a BMS or special charger? I could afford to get into Lithium at that price - jd

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I bought my first pack (24v) last year and I have never used a BMS or LVC on them. But I only have about 50 cycles on my first pack and maybe 5 on my second 24v pack. And I am still using a 12v B&D charger for lead batteries or I use the 24v charger from Currie which is also a lead battery charger. My cell range after charging is 3.49 to 3.61 in pack #1 and closer on pack #2. If you have a problem with the cells getting out of balance (maybe .2 or more) you can buy a cheap single cell charger for $13 and rebalance them. Then they will be good agin for several charge/discahrges (maybe 10 to 100 cycles). Please understand I am not promoting this idea I am just telling you what I do and others are doing. If you go this route I would recommend that as money is available you add a LVC foe individual cells. You can buy them with a screen that handle 8 cells so you only need 1 to handle a 24v pack and they only cost about $30. This is something i intend to add this summer but I do not intend to ever use a BMS. I will very likely buy a set of 8 or even 16 individual cell chargers for charging though. This will increase my charged voltage from the 3.49 3.61 to 3.65 for all cells. And it is as good (actually better) then a BMS. But it is slower because the charges are only 2a each. But I only ride about 20 to 25 miles and consume maybe 10ah to 15ah. So my max charge time would be about 7 hours and that's about what it is now with the B&D or Currie charger.

As I said if you setup your wiring correctly (as I did with Anderson connectors and jumpers) you can use a standard 12v car charger to charge your 24v pack and it will charge all the cells at the same time. And to tell you the truth doing it this way actually improves the balance a little over using a 24v charge (Currie). And it doesn't matter if your batteries are lead (SLA) of lifepo4 batteries it still works fine. If you need info on how to setup the wiring for this I can take some pic for you.

If you order the Cyclone kit from TW why don't you consider the 3 chaining system? It maybe a better setup for the mounting. But if you go with the 1 chaining system be sure you have the room to fit it into the frame. Mine was so close I had to do some trimming. And don't forget you will loose your kickstand with the kit you are looking at. So you need to plan for that......

EDIT: One of the problems I had on my wife's bike is the kit would never stay in alignment. I found the problem this winter when I took all the bikes apart for a good servicing. I found that one of the frame bars had been crushed by the Cyclone mounting bracket allowing the mount to slip and rotate under motor torque. Of couse when this happens on the bike trails the only thing you can do is give it a kick back into aproximate alignment and tighten it more. You guessed it....the more I tightened it the more i crushed it frame bar and the more it slipped. I think they call that the domino or snowballing effect. But the nice thing about this mounting method is it's had for others to see the motor when your riding.

 

[jdcburg]

Thanks for the info. Right now I use 2 12V 12ah SLAs. I hook them in series to power the bike (24V) and then rehook them in parallel to charge with a 5 amp 12V charger. Sounds like that's what you do with the Anderson connectors and your packs.

I am not jedgar who started the thread, however. I just jumped in when I saw the post about the Thundersky pack. I have a full suspension mtb with a Unite 350W brushed motor in the triangle. It powers a sprocket on the BB spindle like the Cyclone 3 chainring but I put the motor-driven sprocket on a separate freewheel to reduce drag. You can read about it here http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=15529 With the noisy Unite motor mounted that high it's not very stealthy tho - jd

 

[dumbass]

Thanks for the info. Right now I use 2 12V 12ah SLAs. I hook them in series to power the bike (24V) and then rehook them in parallel to charge with a 5 amp 12V charger. Sounds like that's what you do with the Anderon connectors and your packs.

I am not jedgar who started the thread, however. I just jumped in when I saw the post about the Thundersky pack. I have a full suspension mtb with a Unite 350W brushed motor in the triangle. It powers a sprocket on the BB spindle like the Cyclone 3 chainring but I put the motor-driven sprocket on a separate freewheel to reduce drag. You can read about it here http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=15529 With the noisy Unite motor mounted that high it's not very stealthy tho - jd

In a sense I guess we are doing the same thing, On those bikes (Cyclone kits) I run 2 12v (SLA or lifepo4) packs in series but charge in parallel. Each battery has it's own Anderson connector set. When pluged into the bike the bike plug (4 - Anderson connectors) has a jumper built into it to convert the 2 12v batteries into a series connected 24v pack. My charger has the same 4 Anderson connectors but they do not have the series connection jumper. Therefore, they charge both batteries in parallel at 12v. My charger is a 2a, 6a, 10a.

Yes I have seen your video before and it is simular to the Cyclone 3 chain setup but the Cyclone motors is much quieter. If you have ever heard a Currie Ezip/Izip motor the Cyclone is about half as noisy as the Currie. But it's also 4 times the cost.

 

[jdcburg]

Yes I think Currie uses Unite motors. I got mine from Razor but it is a standard Unite MY1016Z3, widely available for $25 to $35. The motor isn't that noisy but the gear reduction really whines under power. I took it apart and greased it but it didn't seem to make much difference - jd

 

[dumbass]

Yes I think Currie uses Unite motors. I got mine from Razor but it is a standard Unite MY1016Z3, widely available for $25 to $35. The motor isn't that noisy but the gear reduction really whines under power. I took it apart and greased it but it didn't seem to make much difference - jd

Yeah, I may have mentioned that i also have 2 Ezip bikes and know the noise they make. But other then the noise I love the bikes (wife and mine). We like them enough that we ride them 99.9% of the time now. your right the noise does come from the greabox not the motor. They come new with a small amount of heavy grease smeared on the main gear and when is squeezes off to the side the noise get worse. Some people have actually installed a grease fitting so they can get it a squirt of grease now and then. I think that's one of the worse things they can do because there's no where for that grease to go. So eventually the gearbox will get overloaded and that grease is going to wind up getting into the motor windings...... I am doing a major project on my Ezip now and when completed I am going to try a test to quiet the gearbox. With luck it should reduce the noise 50% to 75% or more. I'll let you know how it works out.