Hi All,
Hot Damn!!!!! What an amazing difference a few tweaks can make!!!!
I adjusted the PWM back down to 13Khz and also turned the motor braking off, then thought meh lets give the throttle box a tweak and turned it up as well, I had probably half a turn left to max so I turned it a quarter and went out for a ride, sheeeeeet that little motor pulls like a champ and I mean PULLS!!!
Initially after the first ride I had i was getting the esc up to 78c and pretty damn quickly too, say just half a minute of riding had the esc sweating and the motor not far behind.
On the new settings – OMG – continual bursts of use of the motor is only seeing the esc just above 60c and the motor maybe 55c – simply frikkin awesome!! I must put the PWM down to 8Khz and see if that keeps it all around 50c – you never know I might even be able to tweak Richards box to max then BUT even at this setting i'm hitting 95a!!
I took it for a ride on Friday and the torque is great, 1st 2nd 3rd gears all pull very very well with respective speeds of around 17,23,28mph - plenty fast enough for the trail and gobs of acceleration, not like matts ripper you understand but if your sitting you feel the front get very light, amazing.
I must say im uber impressed with the little 3210’s power, its better than my puma for acceleration and so light, quite an impressive piece of kit I must say, shit the 3220 must be a monster, next time eh? LOL
Anyway – running through the gears has advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages are obviously that you can select which gear to use for which hill and im not through them as quick as I thought I’d be, remember I just wanted 3 speed but because of trouble lining them up properly Bob put me to 8spd fw cassette and matching shifter and chain, weird thing is I actually have my three speed by just using first/second/third of the 8 speed cassette and it works just fine, on a flat road the speed of changing is fine, it kinda runs like a small electric crosser, hard acceleration change hard acceleration change etc I can even change under power though I try not to – at my current settings 1st/2nd/3rd is all I need, top end is just under 30 but it gets there fast and I really don’t need any more, stoked with my gearing
Disadvantages of my system are the inability to assist much, because the bike just takes off with throttle pedalling is only usable from a standing start or at the start of each gear uphill, at first this was a little disappointing as I do like to assist but I’m getting used to it now, when blazing under power if I happen across some peds and need stealth I simply stop throttling and drop 2 further gears and that puts me back to being able to pedal at the speed the motor left me at, however the speed quickly drops as the drag is very significant from the 219 chain even though im not backdriving the motor due to Matts cunning freewheel in the large pulley.
I’m not sure if this sole problem will bug me to the point that I change drive system again but for now I can deal with it as its not causing me too much of a problem as im pedalling far fless LOL - must say this system is way more efficient too, although now i'm kicking 95a its about even with the puma
One other problem I’m having is the bicycle chain, it’s holding up just fine to the 2.8kw i'm putting through it at the moment but it keeps jumping off the front ring when the trail gets bumpy, irritating as I normally like to be standing but the problem doesn’t occur as much if I remain seated.I think I will buy a dh chain guide, the type that bolts to the frame swingarm and keeps the chain on the front ring,both above and below, certainly worth a go I think.
Anyway to summarise I am stoked with how the bike is performing, the main goal for losing my hub has been achieved in that I can hit jumps no problems and with no weight in the rear wheel it really does feel sweet when both wheels leave the ground only to softly cushion back down again, simply sweet, once I get this damn chain issue sorted I really feel like I’ll be able to give it some beans and see what it can really do but for now im happy sitting and just blazing down the trails on it, a quite simply lovely ride.
I’ve popped some pics up for you guys to see how she is coming along, I do have some vids but they are very large and are only of me testing in my garage and a quick walkaround so i've converted them to phone format (shit) but at least i can upload them for you to see, im only usng a broadband dongle at the mo.
I’ll post up more soon – in fact I’ll take the small shitty camera out with me tomorrow and see if I can get some 3rd person footage by leaving it on the floor somewhere, the quality isn’t great on that cam but it is easy to post up on youtube as its quite small in comparison to the vids I shot.
So all in all im very happy, the bike is running well and once I get these minor niggles sorted it’ll be ass kickingly good!!!!!
Thanks to all you guys who’ve helped steer me down the rc route, this gear is something else!!!!!
Cheers,
D
