E-Bike XB-502 conversion project

[ElectricGod]

Hi everyone,

This my third build thread on ES. I'm having so much fun with my EV toys I just had to go buy a moped to upgrade. The XB502 is woefully under powered. My kick scooter has a LightningRod big block in it and I rarely find cars on the road that can out accelerate me. My top speed on level ground is 50 MPH. I've been modding and improving it for almost 2 years now and it's pretty much not going to get a lot better than it is now. It's a fun ride and I am so glad I built it.

Well now it's time for a new project. I found this electric moped on craigslist for a good price so once I looked it over and saw its potential, I couldn't help but buy it. Right now according to the xtreme website, it's running at 500 watts. I wouldn't know...I've never had anything with less than 1500 watts under it until now. All I can say for sure is that if this is 500 watts...WOW am I glad I never had anything this pathetic before! The moped takes turns really well. I felt very confident going 25mph (full out) and taking a 90 degree turn from one sidewalk to another and leaning it over at 40-45 degrees. It just took the turns like they were meant to be ridden that way. So from the perspective of handling it's pretty reasonable. The front shocks are pretty soft. Lock up the front wheel and the nose dives and nearly bottoms out the shocks. Same for bumping up a sloped curb. Power and speed wise...well lets just say that "UGGG!" just doesn't express my disgust for it's pathetic power plant. Then again, my kick scooter out runs just about every car on the road so this is no comparison with my daily ride. That will change!

After riding it around for an hour and getting thoroughly bored except when I took tight turns, I finally pulled it into my garage. I was surprised that when I put my hand on the hub motor that it was not even slightly warm and the motor controller was maybe 90F. EH! I was riding the thing full out the whole time!!! My suspicion is the manufacturer has seriously limited the phase current in the controller so that explains why nothing warmed up. I also noticed the phase wires in the controller are 14 awg, but the phase wires going into the motor are 20 awg. Really?! That's crazy small wires! I took the back wheel off and opened up the hub motor and expected to find a really small hub inside there. I was surprised to see what looks like a 1500 watt hub motor. I'll run some 14 awg silicon or 12 awg teflon phase wires in through the axle and take care of that problem. When I was disconnecting the phase wires, I looked at the connectors to the motor controller for the 3 phases. You know those super cheap bullet connectors you can buy at walmart in the automotive department? Well these ones were not that good. Ugg! I guess it comes as no surprise the moped performs so poorly. The frame is pretty nice and there's a section of the back end that makes for a giant platform right at the pivot point on the swing arms. It will hold pretty much any sized motor I want to stick in there after I push the hub motor to the point of self destruction. My big block will fit in there easily. Under the seat is a nice big space for the controller, batteries, pretty much whatever I can think to add to the moped. Then in the floor is a battery box that currently has four 12v 15Ah SLAs in it. I'm pretty sure I can make it 20-30% larger and put 100% of any battery option I might need inside there. The lights are all incandescent bulbs that don't do a very good job lighting things up. I'll change them to high wattage LEDs and add side lights. In the dark, the moped is virtually invisible from the sides.

The moped is in near new condition and has about 100 miles on it.

Now for the eye candy...

First on the list is larger phase wires into the hub. I have some 12 and 14 awg teflon wires. Which ever fits inside the axel is going in the motor. Next is a better motor controller. I have a Kelly 7230 controller that's good for 84 volts and 120 amps. I might use that or just get something more appropriate for this project since a 10kw controller is probably over kill for a 50cc sized moped. Then it needs a much better instrument cluster. It has a really lame speedo and fuel gauge. I know what I want to put there. Then it's time for better lights or use up some spare 18650 cells I have.

 

[ElectricGod]

I've been looking up hub motors this morning to see if I could find this exact unit anywhere. It's probably 500 watts so everything will be over watting it.

 

[Ianhill]

Be a shame to see them Astros sit on a shelf, New back wheel from a petrol scooter and a bit of frame wizardry to mount the motor and it would be a 6kw constant monster, if any frame will take the torque it be this thing don't be sucked in and go the hub way it will never be as good without major cash u got the bits to make this a 60mph machine and a bigger battery tray to play with

 

[ElectricGod]

Be a shame to see them Astros sit on a shelf, New back wheel from a petrol scooter and a bit of frame wizardry to mount the motor and it would be a 6kw constant monster, if any frame will take the torque it be this thing don't be sucked in and go the hub way it will never be as good without major cash u got the bits to make this a 60mph machine and a bigger battery tray to play with

I don't want all that unsprung weight back there to be sure, but it would need a new back wheel to make an inrunner work. I'm obviously not afraid of doing the work or spending the $$, but at the moment...I'll see what I can get out of the hub. It would be cool if I could do a solid 40 on the hub. I intend to go straight to 20S on this thing. There will be no fiddling around with 48 volts...like it runs now. I will be using all those 18650's in there that will fit. I might just throw a few lipo bricks at it too....but I'll need to buy them...if I don't have enough 18650's.

 

[Ianhill]

I imagine you get 40/45 ish out of that hub before there's a melt down specially as you be upping the volts drastically proberly be fairly efficient on 20s at a fairly low current,
Have fun with it getting your electrics and controller in etc the stand up section will be missing you haha.

 

[ElectricGod]

I rewired the hub motor with larger phase wires and also rewired for a better motor controller. I have a couple of cheap Chinese controllers that were used in my blue scooter. I put one in the moped. They are good for 40 amps and 48 volts. Once I had it all wired up, I went our for a test ride. The SLA batteries were fine with the old controller, but with the new controller, they sagged badly. They just couldn't deliver the current needed. As a result I pulled out a couple of 6S 20Ah LIPO packs I have and ran them in series to get to 48 volts. That did the trick! I had enough current delivery to run the new motor controller with no sagging. I then went out for a longer ride. The motor did better than before, however, it's an overly weak hub motor...probably 500 watts. Even though I can deliver 1500+ watts with the new controller, the hub just was not up to it. I got a little more top speed and acceleration out of it, but it was still not stellar. It topped out at 24mph before and this got me to 27mph...yawn! Anyway, I'm obviously not going to use the hub motor...it's just too wimpy. It also ran pretty warm. Oh by the way, I had a bad hall in the hub so I replaced all 3 of them before I could even test it out. The hall sensor lead wires had not been secured inside the motor and so vibration had been stressing them until one broke off at the base of the hall sensor. Fortunately I had several spares. In the first pic you can see exactly how I found the hall wires. They vibrated from bumps and motor rotation and all 3 were on the verge of breaking. I terminated the new phase wires with 6mm bullet connectors.

Just in case the hub motor was going to get too hot, I drilled holes in the side covers to let air in.

 

[ElectricGod]

dead post

 

[Ianhill]

The Astros windings look exquisite bit of a steep gearing needed and a long chain length/weight but it will kick arse over the hub, Nice bonus too that the back wheel can be still used.

 

[ElectricGod]

The Astros windings look exquisite bit of a steep gearing needed and a long chain length/weight but it will kick arse over the hub, Nice bonus too that the back wheel can be still used.

I haven't calculated gearing yet, but at 24S that's about 11,000 RPM at the motor which has 6 winds and 113Kv. I'll be using 219 sprockets and chain since these are very easily and cheaply purchased and will handle whatever amount of torque I throw at it. And, while motor sprockets only come in a few sizes (12 to 18T), wheel sprockets come in sizes from 40T to 200T. That ought to do what I need. Basically I will need to gear about twice as tall as I do on my blue scooter. It's motor has 62Kv and the 3220 has 113 Kv so if I gear at 3.33:1 on the big block, that means something like 6.66:1 on the moped and the 3220. If I use a 12T driver, that means an 80 tooth wheel sprocket. I have an 88 tooth sprocket and it's much smaller than the wheel. IE: A single stage of gearing will be very doable.

So that brings me to the next thing. I have been messing with batteries and how I'm going to lay them out in the battery compartment. After a few hours of fiddling around and trying to get 20S in the battery bay, I finally gave up and went for 24S instead because either I can do 12S or 24S, but 20S wastes a lot of battery bay space. I wanted to reuse my existing 82 volt charger and use the KLS7230 controller I already have. Ah well...not to be. 24S is simply the most efficient use of the battery bay. Since I will be using used laptop cells, I want to use them in 18650 battery holders so if I have any cells crap out on me, I can pop out the bad cell and replace them easily. I also want to have each pack to be completely self contained so I can pull each one out independent of the other 3. I'll have balance connectors coming out the top of each pack like on my 20S2P packs, but they will be 6S each. I'll also need to make a new deck for the floor since the existing one is crap and doesn't cover anything very well or keep water out. I have a really nice 20S 80 amp BMS that I was saving for a project like this. LOL! Now I need a 24S BMS.

This is the battery layout in the bay or 192 cells. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to wire it all yet since I don't have the battery holders yet, but you get the idea. I played with the few battery holders I have and the battery bay and this is the most efficient use of the space. There is very little wasted space in the bay with this layout. The cells in each battery holder pack will be 2P by 24 cells. I'll build 4 of them. If my cells are 2600 mah, then that's about 20 amps at 1C discharge. 24S will get me 98.4 volts at full charge. The batteries I have are all 2C so realistically that's 40 amps max.

I'll need to buy a load of 18650 battery holders or 32 4S and 32 2S battery holders. I just wish the holders came in 6S so I wouldn't need to join them together so much.

 

[ElectricGod]

I've learned a lot since I started my kick scooter project. As a result there's some things I am doing right the first time that took a few tries to get taken care of before. One of them is a power distribution block, large power wires and a 200 amp shunt. The kick scooter started out with 14 awg power wires, then went to 10 awg and finally 6 awg. I'm going straight to 6 awg wires. Same for the shunt. I started with a 50 amp shunt, then upgraded to a 100 amp and finally a 200 amp. And it has 6 awg wires on it too. Originally I had used a few wire nuts to tie things to batt+ or batt- or whatever. Much later, I created a distribution block like this instread. It's all wired with 14 awg wire so anything like lights or a horn or tons of other small stuff can all connect to here. Anyway, It's surprising how much time it takes to do this stuff right, but still much less than redoing things several times! The shunt had 2 tabs on it for bolts for securing the power wires. The 200 amp shunt in my kick scooter used to bolt down the power wires and I eliminated the bolts here too. I cut off the tabs for the bolts and then drilled a hole in either end of the brass ends of the shunt. I drilled a 7.5mm hole just large enough to take the 6 awg battery wire and then drilled and tapped 2 more holes on either side of the brass ends to secure the battery wire in the first hole. It has worked very reliably in my kick scooter and makes for a compact shunt. I used stainless set screws. Before I secure the wire in the hole, I tin the end of it so it's basically a solid mass of wire and solder. Then when I run in the two set screws which compress the wire from either side, it spreads the wire into the hole and also holds the wire is held in place via the set screws. If you loosen the set screws, the wire is so tight in the hole that you have to pull it out with pliers. Of course I leave the set screws in place too. I want maximum contact between the wire and the shunt. I am terminating everything in long 8mm bullet connectors. They cost more, but they also have about 1/2" of length to make up with the other side of the connector. They ought to be able to handle 200 amps no problem.

Even though the moped only has a 1000 watt motor in it right now, the next step is upgrading power, controller and motor for much more current and voltage. These parts are a step in that direction. One refreshing thing about the moped is that it's wiring for lights and whatnot is actually pretty decent quality. In my kick scooter, all the wiring was complete garbage and I stripped it all out and replaced it. Also, the wiring was a total cludge. There was no color code used and one switch might be wired to switch off via the ground wire and something else via the batt+ wire. I spent a considerable amount of time just getting the wiring right. The moped has none of those issues. It was wired correctly at the factory. I'm still replacing a few wires, just because they are low power. The factory battery wires are 16 awg which is waaaay too small for anything practical and they soldered them to the rest of the electrical system and then wrapped the whole mess in electrical tape. That distribution block via the XT60 connector will connect to the battery supply and then all the power wires that are currently soldered together will screw down to the terminal block. Battery power will be separate from the terminal block via a fuse block good for 200 amps. I have one just like it in my kick scooter and it has never given me a moments worth of problems. The fuse block has 4 fuse holders in it that can take anything from a 20 to 60 amp fuse.

As is typical for a lot of electric scooters and mopeds, the lights and other things are meant to run directly off of battery voltage. Well that's fine I suppose, but getting stuff that runs at 98 volts is pretty difficult. However, 12 volt lights, horns and whatever are uber common and cheap since every car, gas moped or motor cycle uses them. As a result, like the kick scooter, I am adding a DC-DC converter, but this one will be good for 20 amps rather than 10 amps. The converter in my kick scooter just barely has the capacity to run everything powered by it with no extra capacity. 20 amps will give me plenty of extra capacity to run a couple of really bright headlights plus lots more. The DC-DC converter I have ordered is good for 110 volts DC down converted to 12 volts at 20 amps.

 

[Ianhill]

The DC DC converter was a pain in butt for me i only wanted 5v and 15w so i managed to get a industrial dc dc converter 5v-75w with a wide input range so I can use 12s to 18s without changing anything and have plenty power spare if needed I only need to rotate the voltage selection switch on the controller, What's the saying you can't bake a cake without cracking some eggs along the way we only mature with age my mk1 razor was a joke know I look back just switch and relay no controller but it was fused maun thing was it used to do 12 miles before a charge just what I needed.

 

[ElectricGod]

The DC DC converter was a pain in butt for me i only wanted 5v and 15w so i managed to get a industrial dc dc converter 5v-75w with a wide input range so I can use 12s to 18s without changing anything and have plenty power spare if needed I only need to rotate the voltage selection switch on the controller, What's the saying you can't bake a cake without cracking some eggs along the way we only mature with age my mk1 razor was a joke know I look back just switch and relay no controller but it was fused maun thing was it used to do 12 miles before a charge just what I needed.

Why did you want 5 volts? do you have a USB port on your ride? That's not a bad idea by the way. I have several small DC-DC converters that take 12 -30 volts in and output whatever you want. I think I have one that is 12 volts in and has 2 USB ports on it.

All you need is a brushed motor and battery to get around right? You should have just ran the - battery wire up to the handle bars and then screwed down the - wire off the motor to the frame. Touch that wire to the handle bars and away you go!

 

[Ianhill]

Don't get me started or I'll be convinced I'll be better off resistance wise grounding my 5v through the frame for my lights .
I do have one usb, the shunts display runs from one but its provided by the shunt itself so give the shunt between 10-120v, 300amp to measure and it will power itself and a USB out gives the option of wired or wireless but the measurement is done direct on the shunt so the USB can be 3m or even longer it doesn't affect calibration.
I'll be using 4.1v 3w leds for my lighting because I want to keep my power usage low as i can still get a fair bit of light off them and my bike speedo is 4.1 v too I plan on using mostly mountain bike stuff as I'm mostly off road with this thing.

 

[ElectricGod]

Don't get me started or I'll be convinced I'll be better off resistance wise grounding my 5v through the frame for my lights .
I do have one usb, the shunts display runs from one but its provided by the shunt itself so give the shunt between 10-120v, 300amp to measure and it will power itself and a USB out gives the option of wired or wireless but the measurement is done direct on the shunt so the USB can be 3m or even longer it doesn't affect calibration.
I'll be using 4.1v 3w leds for my lighting because I want to keep my power usage low as i can still get a fair bit of light off them and my bike speedo is 4.1 v too I plan on using mostly mountain bike stuff as I'm mostly off road with this thing.

Ha! I bet resistance through the bearings and up the strearing tube and then finally to a button on your handle bars would add a good bit of resistance. At 12 volts for a car (big metal box), having the car be the return path is not a big deal, but for a bike or moped or scooter, dedicated wiring is the only way to go.

I'll have to find them again, but I came across some nice LED lights that run off of anything from 9 volts to 90 volts and put out about 1000 lumens. I have one on my blue scooter. It has worked reliably. I'll probably put a couple of them in the moped in both of the headlight spots.

 

[Ianhill]

I was liking the 10w led floodlight 12v forward voltage and they are real bright for what it is ill just use a small DC converter on the 5v converter to run it so I'll have 5v +12v then if I want to add a blower etc too.
I suppose a battery in boot conversion could be a pain for a starter motor the amount of resistance increase would call for a additional strap to the front to get it to crank
Most cheap car amp wiring kits are setup with the body as neutral lovely way to introduce interference and voltage drop.

 

[ElectricGod]

Hre's that LED lamp I have on my kick scooter. Except mine has the power conversion board built into the lamp. All that comes out of the lamp is two wires. I tried to find it, but must have missed the listing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Pair-Super-Bright-PMMA-Lens-Led-Head-Light-Fr-Motorcycle-Motor-Car-12W-12-90V-/141524229525?hash=item20f3805d95:g:uz4AAOSw7ThUdDEn&vxp=mtr

I think if I cut out a round hole in the back side of the headlight reflectors, that I can fit a couple of these inside the plastic lense so they look like they were meant to be there. Right now all the lighting is incandescent bulbs and the headlights are not even focused beam lights. The reflector is 100% of the light focus so it's not very good. You get two random hot spots right in front of the moped, but 10 feet away, you might as well just use the street lights if you need to see. To oncoming traffic, they are pretty visible, but as headlights so you can see what you are doing at night...not so much.

I just found this...it's pretty close to what I have already. I like the inverter being built in rather than as an external box/board.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CREE-4-LED-Headlights-Spotlights-Modding-Motorcycle-Bicycles-Bike-Car-Boat-/222246439664?hash=item33beeb8af0:g:9LgAAOSwV0RXqEvX&vxp=mtr

 

[ElectricGod]

Gotta love China and there ridiculous prices for stuff!

I have been hunting around on ebay for things to add to this moped and so I have a DC-DC converter, power distribution block, headlights and side lights on their way. I'm going to reuse the lamp fixtures already in place for everything else, but need to find out what socket those bulbs use first so I can replace them with LED versions. I also found 18650 battery holders, but not on ebay. I'll need 64 of them, but ordered a few extras just in case.

 

[Ianhill]

Those led units look decent, I had something similar with the scooter I imaging u had one on your stock kickscooter,much smaller leds about 9 I think and it runs on 48v but my 1w led was brighter so I was gonna tare it apart chuck a heatsink on the back and put a 10w led and lens in there then I thought maybe use 3w leds so I'm a bit torn between 5v led more of them no converter or one large led and 12v converter, I have quite a few spare 18650s so I was going to make a 100w led torch and Mount that on the front but so much going on things get put on the shelf.
I'll have a think over weekend.

 

[ElectricGod]

Those led units look decent, I had something similar with the scooter I imaging u had one on your stock kickscooter,much smaller leds about 9 I think and it runs on 48v but my 1w led was brighter so I was gonna tare it apart chuck a heatsink on the back and put a 10w led and lens in there then I thought maybe use 3w leds so I'm a bit torn between 5v led more of them no converter or one large led and 12v converter, I have quite a few spare 18650s so I was going to make a 100w led torch and Mount that on the front but so much going on things get put on the shelf.
I'll have a think over weekend.

Buy an LED light bulb with a bunch of 3w LEDS in it...like this. It has a nice heat sink and the LEDs are already mounted in a compact form factor complete with a reflector and lense...all for less than $3. Each LED needs 3 volts so get one with 4 LEDs in it and you don't need to do anything to run 4 of them in series on 12 volts which is how it's already wired. If you want 5 volts, well that's going to require running them all in parallel and a 5 or 10 watt resistor to limit current. Still...a super bright LED lamp (12 watts) for less that $5 is pretty awesome.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Spotlight-Bulb-9W-12W-15W-E26-GU10-MR16-Dimmable-Non-Dimmable-Ultra-Bright-/401096399681?var=&hash=item5d63355b41:m:mu7o3o4iMqo90RgZryXsDTw

 

[ElectricGod]

The battery holders are on their way and the motor to 219 sprocket adapter is getting made. Things are coming along nicely. I rode the moped to the bank and Home Depot today. Even with the better motor controller the moped can't get out of it's own way. I was sitting at a stop light and realized I had to push off several times just to get started rolling. I need lots more power! SLA batteries pretty much suck too. Even with much bigger SLAs, the batteries sag badly under load.

I need to make a bracket for the motor. There's 4 screw holes on the shaft end of the motor face, but nothing on the other end where the fan is. It's completely cut out on the back end for air flow. I'll have to make some kind of bracket that holds around the circumference of the motor or support it from both ends. Here's the 3220 motor. I might be able to run an auxiliary shaft out the back of the motor so I can support it with a bearing. There's not much extra shaft behind the blower for putting a bearing on the shaft. Maybe if I remove some material from the center of the blower, I can get a bearing on there. Probably the front face bolt holes will be enough to halt any twisting forces if I enlarge them a little to like 6mm.

 

[Ianhill]

I know you like 18650's but I also know you like to reclaim a thing or two, have you ever thought about Nissan leaf cells there seems to be a lot in your area, They are a 2s2p module so 5 modules would break down into 20s 32ah cells with 120amp continuous and 2.6kw capacity the pack be fairly light compact and been 20s1p fairly quick balance times and could be charged upto 20 amp.
The leaf uses 96s and 192 cells the pack could dump 95kw and not even sweat, these cars are prime time awaiting a taredown for ev projects.

 

[ElectricGod]

I know you like 18650's but I also know you like to reclaim a thing or two, have you ever thought about Nissan leaf cells there seems to be a lot in your area, They are a 2s2p module so 5 modules would break down into 20s 32ah cells with 120amp continuous and 2.6kw capacity the pack be fairly light compact and been 20s1p fairly quick balance times and could be charged upto 20 amp.
The leaf uses 96s and 192 cells the pack could dump 95kw and not even sweat, these cars are prime time awaiting a taredown for ev projects.

I have actually looked into leaf and prius and volt cells. I've found the cells online, but nothing local which I would prefer. I don't even care if part of the pack is bad, as long as enough of it is still good to get me going. Looking on ebay and Leaf cells are $100 each. OUCH! BTW...one of the things I like about 18650's is they are free.

 

[ElectricGod]

I don't know if I have them placed correctly or not, but they are 60 degrees apart. I have added halls to one of the 3220's

I bought a motor tester that Lyen uses. He sells them for $30 each and I found it on ebay for $12. Take a wild guess who I didn't buy it from? This is the unit. It can test halls and windings together so that you can determine which hall belongs to which winding. On the hub motor, I replaced the halls one at a time so there was no way I could get my wires mixed up, but never the less the blue and green halls were reversed. I replaced the hall connector on the motor with a 6 pin water proof connector like I use on my kick scooter. The wires coming out of the motor are all 6" long and then I run extensions back to the controller. That way, whatever motor I run can just plug in to the connector ends without having to rerun the motor wires back to the controller. Anyway, the motor tester would have told me the halls were wrong in the hub motor.

I'll post up how well this thing works later. This thing is straight up Chinese tech. No American would build something like this for $12.

 

[Ianhill]

Free 18650's lucky man ive inquired about leaf cells but none in UK only full packs at £3000 and modules from US after postage and import tax is crazy money theres only single cells in Prius NiMH in uk .
I just educated myself on the hall sensors I thought they had to be apart 120° electrically, And the boma with 6 magnets 3 pole pairs confused me cuz it looks that way been 120° apart so I thought they were chasing the ac signal not the magnets on the rotor so yeah 60° is correct for a 6pole pair 12 magnet motor.
I'm still undecided on my lighting I'm like a woman in a shoe shop.

Edit looking at the boma the coils are 40° apart same as the halls and the magnets are 60° apart so in the the boma it must be chasing the stators magnetic field not the rotor I'm confused even worse.

 

[ElectricGod]

Free 18650's lucky man ive inquired about leaf cells but none in UK only full packs at £3000 and modules from US after postage and import tax is crazy money theres only single cells in Prius NiMH in uk .
I just educated myself on the hall sensors I thought they had to be apart 120° electrically, And the boma with 6 magnets 3 pole pairs confused me cuz it looks that way been 120° apart so I thought they were chasing the ac signal not the magnets on the rotor so yeah 60° is correct for a 6pole pair 12 magnet motor.
I'm still undecided on my lighting I'm like a woman in a shoe shop.

Edit looking at the boma the coils are 40° apart same as the halls and the magnets are 60° apart so in the the boma it must be chasing the stators magnetic field not the rotor I'm confused even worse.

I forget how many teeth are in the 3220, but I think it's 24. That means every 4th tooth is 60 degrees. If I arbitrarily pick any tooth and then count over 4 more teeth, then that's another 60 degrees and so on. Anyway, that's what I did. I'm waiting on that motor tester and then I can see if my hall placement even works. Worst case, I remove them and put them elsewhere or just leave them where they are and place new ones. Halls are uber cheap. I just bought 20 41F halls for $2. Right now I have super glued them in place, but if they work as placed, then I'll use JB weld on them to make them permanent. I guess I could test them now by spinning the motor at low RPMs and see what field bumps with which hall. I have 2 oscilloscopes that I could use to see what is happening. Most controllers support 60 or 120 degree halls. My assumption may be wrong about where I placed the halls because electrically 60 degrees may be different from physical 60 degrees...depending on how the motor was wired. I've pulled apart several motors now (1500 watt/2000 watt BOMAs and big block) and in all of them, the halls were 120 degrees, but physically they were just a tooth apart. On the BOMAs and big block motors the halls are on adjacent teeth so maybe I did it wrong? I thought you always chased the rotor. The controller "knows" what feilds it is energizing so that's a known quantity. What it doesn't know is the position of the armature so the halls tell it that info. In all my motors the halls are dead center in a tooth, but I have looked at peoples custom hall placements and they are often times in between the teeth. So I have no idea which is the best place. IMHO, placing the halls between the teeth is like advancing or delaying the spark in a distributor for a car. You end up firing either ahead or behind top dead center. As a result I put my halls at top dead center.

Regarding your lights...run wires...that's the only way to go and run them off the main battery pack with a DC-DC converter. It's simple and works reliably. You have 2 separate power supplies in your scooter. One is enough. It also means you can turn everything on with a single switch. My key switch does it all for me. The controller is directly turned on via a 5 volt signal that it produces that goes through my key switch. Once the controller is active it outputs another 5 volt signal that activates my mosfet switch that then delivers current to my DC-DC converter. Regardless, it all runs off the same 82 volts from the batteries. This set up has never gone down or not worked. AND...12 volts lights are uber common and cheap which is what the DC-DC converter puts out.