Downhill project motorcycle transmission

That's a very kind suggestion mate, especially coming from such a high ranking ES official as yourself! Love your work in the fun machine department. Mais je suis content avec mon moto pour maintenent, mon ami. Aussi beaucoup d'argent par avion postage? I'm sure I got that horribly wrong but I did scramble my way through French when I was living in west Africa. Seriously ,I'll keep it in mind and how much?
Frame does look sexy though, run a twin drive Astro set up if you want to flush your system out.
Next on the agenda (after getting my road bike going) is to stretch the swingarm by 100-200mm and add more batteries. They rocked up yesterday, all 32ah of them. I'm running 16ah at the moment and will put another 16ah in the frame( specially made TIG welded housing) and run the rest in a backpack. I'm considering a 'modular' set up. That is being able to 'click' or quick lock further 16ah, housed in aluminium, bricks to the existing 32ah battery housing. This has potential to be disgustingly ugly but again will be an exercise in design and could well look sleek and integrated with some thought and trial run mock ups.
Why the bloody hell, you ask me? A long range tank vs an MX tank. One sporty and whippy light, the other with potential for near hundreds of k's. I really like the light feel of the bike and sometimes will be doing short circuit single track of only 10-20k's and not far from recharge power. Also the appeal of doing a massive long safari is hard to ignore.
 
Ecobogan said:
Next on the agenda (after getting my road bike going) is to stretch the swingarm by 100-200mm and add more batteries. They rocked up yesterday, all 32ah of them. I'm running 16ah at the moment and will put another 16ah in the frame( specially made TIG welded housing) and run the rest in a backpack. I'm considering a 'modular' set up. That is being able to 'click' or quick lock further 16ah, housed in aluminium, bricks to the existing 32ah battery housing. This has potential to be disgustingly ugly but again will be an exercise in design and could well look sleek and integrated with some thought and trial run mock ups.
Why the bloody hell, you ask me? A long range tank vs an MX tank. One sporty and whippy light, the other with potential for near hundreds of k's. I really like the light feel of the bike and sometimes will be doing short circuit single track of only 10-20k's and not far from recharge power. Also the appeal of doing a massive long safari is hard to ignore.
Click to expand...

It is good Ecobogan, what you are doing here, i can help you. -I too have made a bike with moto gears and a two speed, but until now have been afraid to 'come out' mainly just because of the shame it would bring to my family. :)

With the wheelbase thing i had very short machine at first and the monos in your vids remind me of this, when i found out it could make 11 or so KW at the tyre on a moto dyno i got far too excited, lengthened the wheelbase to 1320mm, put the batteries low and forward like people have worked out in this thread, in first gear it then got from 0-50kph in 2 seconds and i ran it for a while as seen here: http://youtu.be/qfJT0Ww3tdc

In the long run found it really hard to ride, and worked out that it was a bit over 300NM at the tyre from 0 to 45kph and a long story short the bike is now far quicker in the forest at more like 200NM continuous and 1240mm wheelbase.

Maby stick an AC clamp type ammeter over a phase wire and we can have a good idea of torque numbers, folks here using a peak power number off the battery pack (like say 25kw) to quote the power figure are mostly just talking rubbish and pretending its going to get to the tyre, especially anytime before 50kph (cos thankfully? most of it would then turn into heat) its really the torque thats the limiting factor and when you sus out the real number it helps work out a good length for the machine etc, also i wish you luck asking for bead locks at a bicycle store. :wink:
 
So what was your set up running? A sensored turnigy if I remember correctly. I saw your bid some time ago and it did spur me on to get mine sorted out.I'm not sure I'd be running much over 10kw if at all and was simply going to experiment with incremental changes using a bracket with a series of holes spaced at 25mm that fixed to the rear of the swingarm. Good to know there's a formula of sorts.
Do you have a link to the build thread now that you've come out? I didn't dare ask until things had smoothed over. I'd be real keen to see how you jigged the gearbox.
So the handling was noticeably more sluggish from 1320 to 1240?
 
No surprise the change of wheelbase made big impact. Steady as a train on the highway. Not really nimble in the woods.
Have you ever ridden them Buell bikes? I remember first time I rode that 100 HP twin HD motor, with wheelbase like a tiny motocross.
That was a true hooligan ride. And they said it was most due to the wheelbase.

I guess stretched frame or swing arm are fine if you do mostly commuting, or ride on paved roads. If you are an addict for dirt roads or twisty curved back roads or narrow trails in the wood then I am sure I not would stretch.

I will say again maybe the best wheelie control in this day an age is really an electronic one. Scatter a few gyro sensors around your bike
and and have automated throttle ease back or cut throttle when front wheel lifts, or if lifting aggressively engage the regen. It will work much in the same way as a automated rear brake/throttle control or a Segway.

If you solve it like that you can keep original wheelbase and still have an easy to ride yet heavy motored ride. And those gyro sensors can be set to have different parameters. Like no wheelie, a little wheelie,"look at me" alot wheelie or simply 100 % switched off. You are always the commander in charge and your electronic slaves works for you.
 
I haven't made any mods to the wheelbase as yet if that's what you meant.
On the wheelbase handling issue, it really is a case of degrees. To use the short buell as an example, if you had two identical buells, one with a 250mm longer wheelbase the longer one would accelerate faster off the mark due it having an effective lower c of g.
This translates to a short bike with wheelie sensors not having as much pick up as a longer one with the same sensors all else being equal.
Point being that I feel my bike has quick handling to spare and I could for go some of this in order to get more power down AND have improved high speed stability.
I do love a good wheelie machine but not at the ultimate expense of performance which brought me to the plate on the rear of the swing arm with axle holes every 25mm to find a good balance of quick handling and stability. It's biased too far one way(twitchy and short) is what I'm saying.
Keep the discussion coming! This is where it's at,love it and thanks everyone, just in general.
 
The thing is that an e-bike is so much more then a commuter. For many people it is also for dirt roads. For tight wood trails, twisty dirt roads.
In those places longer wheel base might hurt you significant - the bike wheel turn in slower and react totally different with stretched swing arm compared to an original length.

Yeah using sensors is basically like having a very soft and gentle throttle hand. And it will impact your acceleration. But if the alternative is to flip the bike the minute you are not 100% focused in a full throttle twist moment I guess many people will think those sacrifices are to live well with. And you will have the option to turn off the wheelie control. Just like you can silence your traction control in your car if you feel like going wide angle with a tail happy car in turns. So an electronic wheelie control comes with a "regret button". And you can ride hard core any time you like.

A stretch swing arm - well you can always break out the old grinder.........but it takes so much work.

That being said I guess it also depends where you ride the most. If you are a street rider first and foremost and rarely have the need for a short wheel based bike then stretch your heart out man. And for sure you can go full twist out of any light on the way to work. With no wheelies unless you preload......:)
 
Perhaps I should explain myself better. I realize that lengthening the swingarm significantly (200+mm) will have adverse handling effects, that's a given.
The way my axle mount is configured is that it bolts to the rear end of the swingarm itself, check out the photo.
What I'm proposing to do is fabricate a temporary axle bracket that replaces the original (that being the little black bracket with the 3 bolts that holds the axle)
This new temporary bracket will be quite long and will fix to the swingarm in the same way,one on each side, a swinga extension. Stay with me here, instead of having one hole to take the axle the extension will have several(5ish) holes spaced rearward at 25mm intervals. The furthest forward holes will be the stock position, 1100mm. The next holes will give me 1125, the next 1150 and so on. This way I could find a balance between stability and quick steering by gradually moving the swingarm rearward, the handling traits would phase from one to the other. Once happy with the compromise I'd then make a proper gutsy extension with the one correct setting. Or just vleave because I spend 90% of my life building things and sometimes need a bloody break. Hope that makes some more sense. It'll most likely be in the 100-150 range.

I feel that I should also add that it appears that I was thoroughly running amok along that track rather recklessly. I'd scoped that track for a solid year walking the dog and did a recon to ensure no one was about( other than those two toward the end)
I always pedal past people and don't really want the masses to see what this bike is capable of.
No one needs an e bike dickhead. It's hard to behave but I do do it
 
Thx for the detailed explanation of of how you will find the best compromise, well now you can actually test the settings without getting the grinder, welder and what not in between. Good choice. Really a bolt on bolt off solution. Clever. I missed one of your videos, and now that I saw that I actually get a better understand of how prone to wheelie she actually is. Going up that hill by the stairs it seems you can hardly keep the wheel on the ground even though your are not accelerating uphill - seems you are going for a subtle but seedy speed. Still wheel comes off several times. I can just imagine how bad front wheel raises during acceleration even on flat ground.

Well if you for some reason should not find a compromise on the swing arm length you are satisfied with you can always look into an electronic watchdog.
As those sensors are read for feedback so many times a second even micro ease back of the throttle so small and fast you might not even notice and not at all be able to replicate "by hand". Those will help keeping front wheel grounded and you might not even notice much to em in real life.

Look at cars with high power and well tuned traction control (ESC), if you accelerate hard they will allow for more wheel-spin and even some fish tailing.
Yet it keep it all together in such a way if the roads are slippery and really icy you will be hard pressed to accelerate any faster or more efficient by yourself if you turn off the ESC.
 
macribs said:
Yeah using sensors is basically like having a very soft and gentle throttle hand.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you got this from ! this is not always the case as it all depends on how the controller is setup and what type of controller you are using..

Having a closed loop controller is what it says it is, and it and allows much better control of the power delivery, this is something you just don't get with a RC ESC
 
It is possible to achieve good throttle control with an RC esc. It takes some programming prowess and a really good esc.

There is no way around the fact that these ESCs were designed for RC aircraft, not bicycles, though. They are definitely usable, but not perfect.

Matt
 
gwhy! said:
macribs said:
Yeah using sensors is basically like having a very soft and gentle throttle hand.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you got this from ! this is not always the case as it all depends on how the controller is setup and what type of controller you are using..

Having a closed loop controller is what it says it is, and it and allows much better control of the power delivery, this is something you just don't get with a RC ESC
Click to expand...


Sorry I was unclear - using gyro sensors is like having a very soft and gentle throttle hand.
When you hook up gyro sensors you get control over throttle and even regen and apply as needed.

I think you read it as Hall sensors, which might be needed in addition to gyro sensors.
 
macribs said:
gwhy! said:
macribs said:
Yeah using sensors is basically like having a very soft and gentle throttle hand.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you got this from ! this is not always the case as it all depends on how the controller is setup and what type of controller you are using..

Having a closed loop controller is what it says it is, and it and allows much better control of the power delivery, this is something you just don't get with a RC ESC
Click to expand...


Sorry I was unclear - using gyro sensors is like having a very soft and gentle throttle hand.
When you hook up gyro sensors you get control over throttle and even regen and apply as needed.

I think you read it as Hall sensors, which might be needed in addition to gyro sensors.
Click to expand...

:D yes I thought you were talking about a sensored controller setup.

I dont think that gyro sensor linked in to a rc esc will still be enough to totally control this sort of controller along with the massive swings in current that a EV demands I know very little about gyro sensors but do know they can work for various types of setup, but will need to be coupled to the right type of controller to work 100% effectively and I don't think a rc esc on a ev will be that 100% combo.
 
Hm. There is RC firmware to be used with various controllers even sin wave I've seen.

Why are people so attached to RC esc anyway? Do those controllers deliver more burst current? Can they handle higher voltage?
I never understood why so many are hooked on those rc esc, clearly there must be some advantages otherwise people would rather run like Lebowskie's, Adaptto's or other high end controllers rather then rc esc?
 
macribs said:
Why are people so attached to RC esc anyway? Do those controllers deliver more burst current? Can they handle higher voltage?
I never understood why so many are hooked on those rc esc, clearly there must be some advantages otherwise people would rather run like Lebowskie's, Adaptto's or other high end controllers rather then rc esc?
Click to expand...

That is simple. Ease of use.......

The issue is, RC motors are phenomenal. But, the best controllers (Adapto is a good example) are for sensored motors. Nearly all RC motors are sensorless. Adding sensors is possible, but not super easy, especially for the novice. Also, good quality RC ESCs have an extremely high output for their size. They are also very efficient.

In a perfect world all RC motors wold be sensored and all sensored controllers would be capable of the high RPM of these motors.

Matt
 
Thx Matt. I have tried to discover why some people prefer to run sensor less as well. Would that be the same reason, it all comes down to ease of use?
I have seen various kits to make RC's sensored, what would it take before the manufacturer adds hall sensors?
It seems that some RC motors are more likely to be used as EV motors, at least some more then others based on their specs and power alone. I've often thought and wondered about why there is not a special EV edition of those motors. Is it just all down to costs and profit?

So lets assume a few producers of RC motors are actually gonna leave their motors as sensored ones for a special EV edition. You have gotten your fingers on some sweet RC motors for the next couple of builds. You are now totally free to choose any controller you like. Any chance you would choose to run the motor un sensored with RC esc?
 
And they're pint sized too right? I know the bomber, admittedly is 72v, but it's controller is a honking cloddhopping thing. That's very technical Australian lingo.My HV 160 is about 4" long and weighs nothing. I know for sure I'll get stuck up some hill without being able to easily restart but that's life in the unsensored(uncensored?)world.
I'm glad my idea on the wheelbase made some sense to you Macribs. I've delivered the last few posts from my girlfriends phone and sometimes my excellent grasp of the English language and superb vocabulary gets somewhat lost.
Back on planet earth I really have to get busy resetting the controller as per Matt's advice. This,the swingarm extender and of course the batteries will see it usable and fast.
I'm pretty serious about doing a modular set up. A friend of mine is a carbon fiber expert so I'll chop out some designs with him.
 
macribs said:
So lets assume a few producers of RC motors are actually gonna leave their motors as sensored ones for a special EV edition. You have gotten your fingers on some sweet RC motors for the next couple of builds. You are now totally free to choose any controller you like. Any chance you would choose to run the motor un sensored with RC esc?
Click to expand...

And so with that we got the first half of the perfect world, and sure the easier half to get.....
recumpence said:
In a perfect world all RC motors wold be sensored and all sensored controllers would be capable of the high RPM of these motors.
Click to expand...

Anyway for me, form factor, lightweight, and last but not least, the PROVEN RELIABILITY at certain conditions (right motor/controller/wire lenght/ wire section/gearing/battery) are the first reasons.....would not even know where to put a 1Kg and 5x the volume controller (a sensored one that could manage >100A continuously would not be far from that) compared to an HV160 esc, on my bike.
My Astro is yet sensored with Burtie's optical encoder, it works fine and it's not so hard to be installed, but I'm still running it sensorless.....
 
All valid points... But :D a 6fet e-bike controller is not that to different in size or weight, it can not do 100A cont but can do 80A ( but i very much doubt that a hv160 can do 100A cont in a ev setup ) Im sure if sensorless e-bike controllers could run up 10krpm then there would be no reason not to use a ebike controller on rc motors as e-bike controllers can be very cheap and more 'predictable' , but as it is there are 3 options... run a rc motor with a sensorless ebike controller less than 3-4krpm, fit position sensors and run sensored using a ebike controller at anything over 3-4krpm or use a rc esc sensorless for full rpm range of a rc motor but each of these options have there own set of challenges.
 
All good points.

I have one 20 inch wheeled bike that I would never want sensored. It needs the tiny size of the RC-ESC However, I would love my Motoped to be sensored.

We are working on a sensored system right now. It will not be perfect for every application. But, neither are the little CC controllers.

Matt
 
Gwhy, are you saying one could run both controllers for one motor? To have the advantages from both controllers?

So at low RPM I use them hall sensors and a regular controller - that take care of all stand still launch issues and let you launch by throttle from dead stop.

Then as speed and RPM rises the "launch" controller falls back and the RC esc takes of and now run the motor without any care for the hall sensors.


This would actually solve many problems. It would be easier to use gyro sensors to control acceleration and avoid wheeling. The sensored controller would work far from it's limits because it would not be used to push max current etc as it only needs to work trough part of the motors band width. It might even let you use a lower cost or smaller foot print controller as the rc esc takes over anyway. That could meanie you might get away with the adaptto mini rather then the double sized and double prized maxi. So now you can use the smaller and cheaper of the two adaptto's.

I think the Achilles heel would be a seamless fallback/takeover. But that should be solvable. It might be so easy as to use a relè and when a certain RPM is reached power up rc esc and power off the sensored controller.


Matt, for your 20" inch wheel you will stick to RC esc and sensor less operation purely due to the tiny size of the rc esc controller is that correct?

@Ecobagan yeah those language barriers can sometimes be a biatch. Many of us in here are not native English speakers, and by nature we tend to translate to much "to the point and letter" then reading things the way they where meant. Ie a double-meaning punchline might very well get lost in translation, but sometimes even plain simple English does. So sometimes we really need to be spoon fed to get it right.
 
Yes, I got one of those to try, as per your previous advice some months ago. (thanks again)
It has been perfect to test burtie's board, but the feeling (not so deeply investigated though) has been that is far from the performances I'm used with the CC ESC. It is anyway at least twice or 3x the Castle factors....

I'm pretty sure that if An affordable/reliable sensored controller that could run 10Krpm and manage >100Amp in the same way an HV160 does (well not properly continuous, but I mean whenever I need them during a full-charge run) would appear, we will all go for it, that's the point, I agree....I'm ready :wink:

Edit:

That's cool, Matt....and agree that with your motoped as for a production FS E-bike the sensored way is the right one....but agree even that It's hard to think to leave the actual setup on existing bikes that are yet awesome, that have not so big issues because of the sensorless control for the balance achieved and the kind of use, and have K-miles on their wheels....
 
I've mentioned that before in the last 3 months, using the CA in AMp mode instead of a traditional RC based throttle interface or pass thru, makes the system smoother but gives delay and surge problems, but, managing to leave a bit of throttle signal with the CA to get a motor idle to just cover the parasitic torque while pedaling (minimizing drag and noise) makes everything quite perfect (for me) except for the very 1 meter from a dead stop, and Mostly helps a lot to avoid delay and surges...

Were in the situation to have more time and the wish for something "more" to justify more buks spent for a bike that works amazingly, I would have certainly explored some possible options like the Alien sensored/sensorless (not on the fly... :( ) or others....

I have this beast flying around my workshop....It is a 48v controller from an Oxygen Big cargo e-scooter....something to try, I guess, having enough time and skills :wink:DSCF9042.JPG
 
If you had a working clutch , you could use it to launch the bike with high revs and negate the need for a sensored controller for low rpm ?? :D
 
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