Denver commuter e-bike

[Link]

one need not have Mark_A_W's handlebar setup or Link's battery box...

Hey, it's not like anyone actually SEES the thing when I'm riding it :wink:. And you're the one with a MILK CRATE bungee-corded to your rack .

 

[lazarus2405]

And you're the one with a MILK CRATE bungee-corded to your rack .

See, he had a perfectly good Swagman pod, but he decided that he couldn't be bothered to engineer around its obvious flaws. And now he's stuck with a milk crate.

So, Mr High-seat-low-handlebars, do you know what that crate does to your aerodynamics? Kiss your laminar flow goodbye!

 

[Toshi]

ngocthach: I have seen TD's posts about the fold-out wire baskets, and was contemplating REI's nylon version of the same. There's little chance I'll ditch the Ortlieb for the battery's side, however, since it's waterproof. I just don't trust a battery + Anderson connector if out in the Pac NW rain.

I'd really rather not break the battery up into two pieces. Harder to carry, more connections to troubleshoot, and the ebikes.ca LiFePO4 seems solidly constructed as it is, certainly more so than my pint-sized recreations would be.

With regard to the centerstand, it folds backwards. In all your heckling about the milk crate photo it was missed that the centerstand is folded up in that snapshot...

lazarus: I returned the Swagman pod to amazon.com for a refund. 8) The milk crate actually doesn't work too well, not so much for aerodynamics but because my butt hits it when it's bungeed against the seat as it is. Hmph. At least it was "free" having been swiped from the local grocer's loading dock shortly after goods were unloaded from it. For Costco trips and the like I may have to resort to the traditional method of using a (Zip)car.

Today I'm going to attempt a long ride, an even 20.0 miles point to point (vs. a loop). After the rack debacle I'm going to stick to the paths of major bus routes, even if it means I'm out in traffic more often.

 

[TylerDurden]

All is not lost... no matter what you finally get, you can always spray paint it to look like a crate.

 

[Toshi]

Today I'm going to attempt a long ride, an even 20.0 miles point to point (vs. a loop). After the rack debacle I'm going to stick to the paths of major bus routes, even if it means I'm out in traffic more often.

20.3 mph average including stoplights and tooling around the Home Depot parking lots (they don't stock M12x1.25 locknuts suitable for 4-series axles, in case anyone was wondering). 18-20 mph with pedaling up hills except for the steepest, and 22-27 mph with pedaling on the flatter bits. Max of 31.9 mph with no rack incidents today...

17.5 Wh/mile including pedaling most all the time with my newly-tall gearing. 7.68 Ah used out of 12 Ah in theory. Driving rain. Not too pleasant, overall, but I proved Justin@ebikes correct: the bike meets my original design goals of a 20+ mile range at 20 mph in Seattle's terrain. Note the two substantial hills near the end of the ride on the elevation marker at the bottom:

 

[lazarus2405]

It's despicable. Lowes doesn't stock any M14 fasteners at all; they have a whole drawer for them, empty. This has been the case for me in both Oklahoma and Illinois. :|

This weekend methinks you need to do a full range test. Pack a lunch and just ride till you can't anymore. Plan your route so you end near a bus line. :wink:

 

[Toshi]

This weekend methinks you need to do a full range test. Pack a lunch and just ride till you can't anymore. Plan your route so you end near a bus line. :wink:

Until my intern year starts officially on June 19 I'm actually about equally busy (or idle) all the time... thus the opportunity to spend such time on the bike:

I racked up another 14+ miles tonight heading to and from downtown with stops here and there for errands and dinner with my father, bringing the total mileage per the CA to 207. One of those stops was at REI: the "silver handbag" is now returned, having been replaced by a pair of similarly-waterproof REI Safari panniers. I figure keeping the lock, cable, tools, sunglasses, and extra clothing in a pannier on the other side will improve the side to side balance a bit.

One problem I have been having lately is the Powerpole on the battery pulling itself out a smidgen over bumps. Although it's just a matter of cycling the power on the controller and plugging in the connector again it's annoying as it forces me to stop. I think I'll start using a bit of electrical tape around the connector each time, even though it's snug within the waterproof pannier...

I actually like your idea for a range/battery capacity test, and tomorrow may well be the day to perform such a feat, as I have errands taking me far and wide, a sunny weather forecast, and no fixed appointments until 4 PM.

A final note as I'm still running without torque arm with a 20A CA-imposed current limit: hill-climbing on the 407/26" combo sucks with the 20A limit. On a 6% grade near my house 20A vs. 35A in reality equates to 10-12 mph with me working as hard as I can vs. a solid 18 mph with moderate effort. Not fun, especially the perception that the bike isn't doing its part to haul its not-inconsiderable weight... I'm dropping off the wheel with the machinist on Friday for torque arm fitment, so soon enough I'll be back to wasting power with abandon.

New panniers for battery (left side at the moment) and miscellaneous junk (right):

Novara Safari Panniers

 

[TylerDurden]

It's despicable. Lowes doesn't stock any M14 fasteners at all; they have a whole drawer for them, empty. This has been the case for me in both Oklahoma and Illinois.

Check Tractor Supply. They'll be half the Lowes price too.

 

[kbarrett]

One problem I have been having lately is the Powerpole on the battery pulling itself out a smidgen over bumps.

Maybe an anderson block-lock?

 

[Sturdly]

Try Stoneway Hardware, more fastener stuff there than you can imagine. They always were well stocked and then they bought out the Doc Freeman inventory. Silicone bronze, stainless, you name it they have it.

 

[Toshi]

One problem I have been having lately is the Powerpole on the battery pulling itself out a smidgen over bumps.

Maybe an anderson block-lock?

Thanks for the suggestion. Electrical tape seemed to work well enough, and in case my rack or panniers fail again it'd be nice to have the connector be able to pull itself apart rather than ripping through more expensive bits.

I pushed the bike until it died today, and didn't get as many Ah out of the battery as I hoped. The battery is nominally a 48V 12Ah LiFePO4 from ebikes.ca. Today's ride's stats didn't quite reflect that: 21.57 miles at 18.9 Wh/mi, with 9.055 Ah extracted prior to the CA refusing to boot up. LVC was at 37V in the CA.

I may have to follow up with Justin@ebikes, as I'm not sure if the charger he sold with the pack auto-balances (or if the pack's own BMS does so). When the packs were first offered for sale there was some talk on the ebikes.ca front page about the user possibly having to manually balance the pack every once in a blue moon, and I might need to do this yet have no idea on how it would actually be done given that the pack is packaged up solidly as a brick.

 

[lazarus2405]

That seems odd. Justin and Zev personally test every single pack they sell, so if they say it was a 12ah pack, it was a 12ah pack.

Is your CA's RShunt value correct? Too high of a value would make it record a less current than actually goes through the controller. Of course, if this was the case, your Wh/mile numbers would be quite off, and they don't sound off.

Was the pack fully charged? Are you sure?

What cut out in the end? The controller's LVC, the battery's BMS, or the CA's LVC? When you say "refused to boot", it sounds like it was the battery BMS. In that case, I would think it probable that things aren't balanced, leading to one low cell causing the BMS to cut everything when the pack overall has energy to spare. You'd have to ask ebikes.ca how to go about snooping in their battery.

 

[Toshi]

I imagine RShunt is set correctly, since the controller and direct plugin CA were sourced from Justin. The pack was on the charger overnight with the light green for several hours. I'm not sure what eventually cut out: the tape came loose and the Powerpole came undone, but then things wouldn't turn on when I plugged everything back in. I retrieved the mileage, Ah, and Wh/mi figures by pedaling and turning on the CA using the current generated through my own effort. :x

 

[lazarus2405]

Interesting.... Perhaps the current surge caused by charging the capacitors when you reconnected it pulled the voltage down for a fraction of a second and tripped the BMS? Or perhaps it just wasn't happy? Did you remember to buy the battery chocolates after every 10 cycles?

I'd suggest you redo the test tomorrow. In my opinion it's very important to know exactly how much juice you're carrying.

 

[Toshi]

I'll redo the test next week. Tomorrow morning the machinist is coming by to pick up the wheel for torque arm fitment! 8) (And then I'll be away all weekend in any case, so it's just as well that the bike will be out of commission.) I can hardly wait to release the hounds once more, bumping the current limit back to 35A once a proper torque arm is in place.

 

[Toshi]

[On May 23rd] the machinist is coming by to pick up the wheel for torque arm fitment!

The machinist finished things up last night, and I picked up the new fork/torque arm setup today. It looks sweet. I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

 

[JeffD]

The machinist finished things up last night, and I picked up the new fork/torque arm setup today.

Very nice design - what shop did you take it to? Did the machinist come up with the design himself or did you have to supply a CAD drawing?

BTW - I think you take some of the best pics on the forum.

 

[Toshi]

Very nice design - what shop did you take it to? Did the machinist come up with the design himself or did you have to supply a CAD drawing?

BTW - I think you take some of the best pics on the forum.

Thanks, Jeff. Proper equipment, lighting (flash is the devil), and white balance goes a long ways to making even a torque arm somewhat visually interesting...

I actually didn't go through a shop. Instead buildyourown, one of the fellow members of the ridemonkey.com forums who has been following my mammoth alternative personal transportation thread, contacted me to offer his services after reading of my plight with the ghetto crescent wrench setup.

He's a machinist and toolmaker for a local textile manufacturing company, and all I did was send him a photo or two of the getadirtbike design found on these forums, lend him the wheel for a week so he could fit it to the axle flats, and then he did the rest. The fork was from his basement -- he's a rider and bike builder in his spare time.

 

[Toshi]

I've had two days back on the bike since getting the new torque arms. Today was especially unpleasant: 50 degrees, driving, cold rain, dark grey skies, wind, the whole shebang. The bike performed quite well, and now I'm just shy of 254 miles. Cheers to the 250 mile mark.

I did encounter some problems with wheelspin on two stretches of road. One was a steep (probably 8%) grade with switchbacks and some fallen leaves. I had to back off the throttle in turns else risk funny feelings as the wheel scooted laterally. The other was heading up Boren from Yesler, for the locals. The pavement has some largeish (~3 cm), smooth stones embedded in it, and that plus the mild ~5% grade also forced me to back off. Keep in mind that it was raining like the dickens today, and I think I would have had problems with rwd as well, albeit with less handling oddness in turns.

The torque arms themselves seem to be doing great. They're quickly becoming surface oxidized, which I assume won't harm them structurally. I'm hitting consistent 40A peaks on rides with 35A sustained and aside from a moderate "growling" noise from the hub motor in the 10-15 mph range under load the bike is silent and uncomplaining.

Finally, I've replaced the Ortlieb pannier in the glamour shots with a bilateral :lol: set of REI Novara Safari panniers. They're similarly waterproof, and have a single zipper at the top like the Ortlieb Bike Shopper. However, running the battery's cable up from the downward-facing controller to the entrance at the top of the bag and then down to the battery resting in its bottom caused somewhat frequent disconnects of the Anderson Powerpole.

My fix was to cut a small hole in the waterproof fabric at the lower-anterior corner of the battery-containing pannier, just large enough to allow passage of the battery cable. The new cable routing is from the controller (near the junction of the down and seat tubes), along the chainstay (with much electrical tape), and then poking upwards two inches to enter the pannier. I've had no disconnects even over sizable bumps and potholes with this new setup, and the waterproofness doesn't seem to have been compromised too badly.

 

[icecube57]

Kudos!!! To you and your build. Well have to race one day lol!

 

[oatnet]

It's despicable. Lowes doesn't stock any M14 fasteners at all; they have a whole drawer for them, empty. This has been the case for me in both Oklahoma and Illinois. :|

I recently discovered, much to my suprise, that my local mom-n-pop "Ace Hardware" has a great collection of fasteners, much more robust than my local Lowes and Home Depot combined. I get all my 'M' fasteners there now. Maybe other ACE's are similarily equipped!

-JD

 

[Toshi]

oatnet/JD:

PLEASE, oh, PLEASE resize the image in your signature. It is so large as to be disrespectful to the other users of this forum, and quite a few users have asked you to do this before. Here is a smaller version: http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/5816/img28104sigre9.jpg .

While on the topic of signatures, taking the www. from links to endless-sphere.com/forums threads will cause the forum software to automatically truncate their display nicely (eg., instead of http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/etcetc use http://endless-sphere.com/forums/etcetc). Using the url=blah tag (see my suggested signature edit below) also helps.

Finally, my local Ace hardware(s -- visited several) didn't have M12x1.25 Nylock hardware. M12x1.75 regular nuts were as close as they got.


cleaned up suggested oatnet signature:

xtracycle prototype
standard prototype
The original stable

 

[Toshi]

So I've been reading a few of the trainwreck threads of late by safe (as in threads started by him with the luxury of not reading his actual posts thanks to the magic of the Ignore/Foes list). This one in particular had some good insights by recumpence and a few others, I thought: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4568 . In order to save others from having to wade through the dreck, here are a few paraphrased points with which I agree:

1) Hub motors on standard bike frames are not the ideal engineering solution, because of issues with unsprung weight, the need for torque arms to bolster fragile dropouts, and the lack of simple yet good battery mounting options without significant fabrication. Yet they are rightly widely used due to availability, cost, and the practicality of using a "normal bike" as a base.

2) The technology used in Crystalyte-style hub motors and controllers is aeons behind that in the RC world. Sure, it works and is comparatively affordable, but it should be a lot better: cheaper, lighter, much smaller, more powerful, more robust.

3) As Mark_A_W points out through his anecdote different users have different requirements. His chosen route has led him to pick a xc dual-suspension bike, and he wrote in the above thread that he's considering moving to a full-on downhill bike. Both I and recumpence, on the other hand, seem to have come to the conclusion that an unsuspended bike would better suit our needs.

4) Not everyone wants or needs an electric motorcycle. Furthermore, my view is that if one exits the e-bike arena and creates something ostensibly for the roads (no pedals, high power/capability for 30+ mph sustained on flat ground) then it must be a proper motorcycle with sturdy suspension, motorcycle tires, fully enclosed batteries, and DOT-legal lighting and signaling apparatus. I'm talking about a Jozzer setup, or, ideally, something like the Brammo Enertia (http://www.enertiabike.com).

I would NOT ride on the street on some safe-machine type abomination, and an officer of the peace would be correct in pulling me over and citing me if I did so.

5) Similarly, not everyone wants or needs an electric recumbent, streamliner, or what have you even though it may well be considerably more efficient and a more elegant engineering solution.

In my case I am constrained by the dimensions of Seattle's buses' bike racks to a standard-wheelbase bicycle, and I had and still have little desire to deal with the weight, cost, maintenance requirements, and general ugliness of suspension, especially when its action would be hindered by the very substantial unsprung weight of a hub motor. A short wheelbase recumbent with a high rider position might have worked, but at the cost of very strange packaging, small wheel sizes that love to dive into holes in the pavement, and lack of familiarity (with parts and maintenance) on my part.

 

[D-Man]

Dude, you should paint the torque arms! Paint is cheap! After all that work!

 

[Toshi]

Dude, you should paint the torque arms! Paint is cheap! After all that work!

Will surface rust hurt the arms or fork? I'm all for making the bike uglier and more unattractive. It does stay parked outside the hospital for 30+ hours after all...