E-S Stealth Electric Bike Owners

[stevebills]

Hi does anybody know what the 4 tabs on the frame of some Bomber's are fore ? You can see them in this video at 3.20 min

[youtube]Nw5HcUYKLC8[/youtube]

I thought it was for hanging baskets in the summer

 

[Emmett]

You guys confuse me with this controller talk. So ... If I keep my Fighter's rear hub setup, what are my best hot-up options?

If you want to keep your existing motor I would think a mini-e would be the way to go - sinewave smoothness, OVS for more speed if you want it and around 6kw peak.

... If you want more range then you need more AH from the battery. If you want more efficiency you need to keep the speed down, so using the OVS features on the controller would probably be something you'd want to avoid. If you want more range and your stock battery is tired you can get a fair bit of capacity with a replacement 18650 pack. With the new 3.5ah cells that are available now you could ride until the cows come home and still get decent performance because even with the lower C rate you've got a much bigger AH capacity to multiply out. Eg if you can fit in 30ah 3C is 90A

I reckon you could just about get away with fitting a mini along side the stock battery. I like to internal mount my controllers when ever possible but as Rod said they will get hotter with no air flow - especially the mini, which is around half the size of the stock controller. Heatsinking to the frame would be the way to go, or modding with fans, but in a stock fighter there's no room. Maybe oil filling the controller would help too!

I don't have a fighter any more but you're welcome to swing by my joint one day if you want to dummy fit some stuff. It'd be a good excuse to show you my local trails too :wink:

Thanks for the advice Jay. This Oct, if/when it works for you, I'll take you up on that offer to come over and see what's what with upgrades and go riding together. You can blow my mind with power mods, and hopefully you'll be impressed with how my bike handles the rough stuff at decent speed.

An Adapto mini-E setup for good efficiency and feeding up to 5KW to my motor would be excellent. Ideally internally mounted in my Fighter and heatsinking to the frame. But external would also be fine. I'd just have to keep it water tight because I cannot avoid water and some mud crossings.

Today the BMS in my stock battery will shutdown if I ask it for too much power when it's only got 10% or less remaining. So I take it easy in the end. But with a mini-E controller I assume my stock battery would still say bye bye if i ask too much of it. Is that correct?

 

[Emmett]

Rix, I finally had a ride with shorter cranks on my Fighter.

Went for 160mm. 10mm less than stock 170 makes a big difference.

Bad news:

• 
  1. 10mm less means a lot less leg/human torque when pedalling. Crazy, but it seems like the loss is not proportional to the reduced crank length. Anyway it is what it is.
  2. I damaged the shclumpf shaft shift rod. So I had to clip about 7mm off, and now it's not long enough to shift gears. No big deal since I always use high gear, and I've never had to push/pedal home since installing my puncture proof rear tire setup and knowing the limits of my battery. Actually, I'm considering removing the schumpf gear shift system completely, and going simple fixed speed, because I can feel that it's wearing out inside, and the front sprocket is just about dead too.

Oh how much I like the hub drive, and know I'd hate a high maintenance mid-drive setup!

Good news:

• 
  1. When riding tight twisty "switch back" trails which often needs the inside leg out front to turn the bike, having my feet 20mm closer together means it's so much easier to re-find the inside pedal, change crank phase, and keep my body weight in the right position. Also with a horizontal crank poise, I feel more in control. Loving it.
  2. The way the crank small ends are shaped, I get about 15mm more ground clearance which is great.
  3. When pedalling to look like I'm pedalling, it's a lot less effort and more comfortable. I wear knee/shim guards, moto pants and lightish trail walking boots that protect my toes and ankles.
  4. The new cranks are marked as being forged. They look it too. So they should cope with a decent crash like when I fall on the low side and wash out and bounce bike and maybe body a few times. The stockers look cast, and the stock cranks bent easily a few times in the past.

I also bought and used that Duro Leopard tire you recommended. Excellent for any dirt medium or softer, and acceptable on the real hard. I can flat out hammer around some soft high speed corners now. Lovin it.

 

[stritzky]

I have a new b52 bomber and took it for a ride in to town and only got 16 miles and battery was empty so is this a duff battery as I can't get close to 50 miles like the website tell you?

Thx
Steve

Hi

Well that depends on how you drive it. 16 miles is about 26 km. I have no problems emptying my battery at 30 - 35 Km. And i have an almost new battery, i have only 31 cycles on my battery. On my 2012 Bomber. But then i need to drive it close to max power for most of that ride. On average i can get 35 - 45 km on one charge. And use about 15 Ah. I NEVER run the battery competently flat. But efficiency also depends how aggressively you accelerate. And on the tires, and tire pressure, rolling resistance and riders weight. I weigh in at about 74 Kg.

But the batteries do get better after a while. They don't get there full potential until you have recharged them some times.

 

[Allex]

Yeah Emmet you need a better battery or take it easy so the Low voltage cut does not ruin your ride.
Good thing about adaptto is when you hit that low cut you can still get home on electric power taking it really easy. Not the case with stock BMS - when it shuts down, it is 100% pedal time.

 

[Emmett]

Yeah Emmet you need a better battery or take it easy so the Low voltage cut does not ruin your ride.
Good thing about adaptto is when you hit that low cut you can still get home on electric power taking it really easy. Not the case with stock BMS - when it shuts down, it is 100% pedal time.

Allex,

Thanks. For sure I'll need a better battery at some stage. 150 or 200% range would be bliss. Meanwhile I enjoy learning about this stuff.

I assume that the BMS has it's own logic, independent of the controller. So when it decides to protect the battery and shutdown, then the controller cannot detect it. Once my BMS cuts off, I must remove a side panel and unplug and replug the main battery lead. I very rarely need to do that now because I am aware of when to protect it using the throttle and my ride loops use about 85% of my full range. When I do a BMS reset on the side of a trail, my battery will have very little power left, but it's still worth trying to get a little more power, since I don't enjoy pure pedal driving the H4065 hub for long. Massive back-EMF or something.

I also assume that the controller could potentially try to protect the battery (from aggressive depletion) in a smartery way (slow mode) before the BMS cuts off. Does the mini-E do that? My stock DC-1 display has a low voltage mode, but it rarely kicks in. Actually by the time the 'V' mode triggers, it's usually too late. I can be very gentle but the battery has nothing left over.

 

[Emmett]

I have a new b52 bomber and took it for a ride in to town and only got 16 miles and battery was empty so is this a duff battery as I can't get close to 50 miles like the website tell you?

Steve, I have a 2014 Fighter, and no doubt the stock battery pumps amps harder and for longer if it is being used frequently enough. So give your new battery a few cycles (at around 75% drain) and you might be pleasantly surprised.

If my battery is pumping hard, then a 75% drain and recharge just once a week will keep it there. But 2 weeks without use and the volts will be the same, but the slightly sluggish pickup is noticeable. I know the km range will be less too, but I wont push my range so far when I feel the battery is weak. 3+ weeks and the volts is still the same (59 down to 49V) but the power and range is less. For my battery it seems that for X weeks downtime, it will take X-1 recharge cycles ot recover to full power and range.

In addition to what stritzky wrote, check that your brakes are not dragging.

 

[Allex]

Yeah BMS has its own brain. So does the controller.
On the stock bikes you cannot program BMS nor the controller.
I dont know if you can do this on DC1 but on Cycle Analyst - the computer that was installed on earlier models, you can program low voltage cut. So when we know that BMS trips at say 65V you can set Cycle Analyst to cut voltage at 67V. This way you get a warning that battery is almost empty Without getting that annoying BMS shutdown.

With Adaptto you can program both BMS and controller. When and how you want to be warned. But unlike the above system, it will never shut down the whole bike for ya.

 

[Emmett]

Yeah BMS has its own brain. So does the controller.
...
With Adaptto you can program both BMS and controller. When and how you want to be warned. But unlike the above system, it will never shut down the whole bike for ya.

Program the BMS? Are you saying that the Adapto controller is actually a kit with controller + BMS? Sounds like some kind of logic link from controller back to the BMS.

 

[Cowardlyduck]

Once my BMS cuts off, I must remove a side panel and unplug and replug the main battery lead.

You actually don't need to do that.
If you get up enough speed (35kph+) you can hit regen and it will kick the BMS back over as it thinks it's charging. Works well and a trick I've used since 2012 now.
My battery is now over 500 cycles and also trips the BMS easily towards the end of a ride if I go WOT or up a hill. I just take it easy after that first trip and I can usually make it home ok.

Cheers

 

[Cowardlyduck]

on Cycle Analyst - the computer that was installed on earlier models, you can program low voltage cut. So when we know that BMS trips at say 65V you can set Cycle Analyst to cut voltage at 67V. This way you get a warning that battery is almost empty Without getting that annoying BMS shutdown.

With Adaptto you can program both BMS and controller. When and how you want to be warned. But unlike the above system, it will never shut down the whole bike for ya.

Yep, I also did this (before I put my CA on my other bike). For the Fighter I set the LVC to 44V as I found setting to 43 or 42V would still cause the BMS to trip under heavy acceleration.
However the CA LVC doesn't cut power, it just limits power to prevent the voltage dropping below the LVC. So in a way, it is exactly what Emmet is after...a slow let down to get home.
Emmet, try setting your LVC to 44 or 45V and let us know how you find it.

Cheers

 

[Rix]

Rix, I finally had a ride with shorter cranks on my Fighter.

Went for 160mm. 10mm less than stock 170 makes a big difference.

Bad news:

• 
  1. 10mm less means a lot less leg/human torque when pedalling. Crazy, but it seems like the loss is not proportional to the reduced crank length. Anyway it is what it is.
  2. I damaged the shclumpf shaft shift rod. So I had to clip about 7mm off, and now it's not long enough to shift gears. No big deal since I always use high gear, and I've never had to push/pedal home since installing my puncture proof rear tire setup and knowing the limits of my battery. Actually, I'm considering removing the schumpf gear shift system completely, and going simple fixed speed, because I can feel that it's wearing out inside, and the front sprocket is just about dead too.

Oh how much I like the hub drive, and know I'd hate a high maintenance mid-drive setup!

Good news:

• 
  1. When riding tight twisty "switch back" trails which often needs the inside leg out front to turn the bike, having my feet 20mm closer together means it's so much easier to re-find the inside pedal, change crank phase, and keep my body weight in the right position. Also with a horizontal crank poise, I feel more in control. Loving it.
  2. The way the crank small ends are shaped, I get about 15mm more ground clearance which is great.
  3. When pedalling to look like I'm pedalling, it's a lot less effort and more comfortable. I wear knee/shim guards, moto pants and boots that protect my toes and ankles.
  4. The new cranks are marked as being forged. They look it too. So they should cope with a decent crash like when I fall on the low side and wash out and bounce bike and maybe body a few times. The stockers look cast, and the stock cranks bent easily a few times in the past.

I also bought and used that Duro Leopard tire you recommended. Excellent for any dirt medium or softer, and acceptable on the real hard. I can flat out hammer around some soft high speed corners now. Lovin it.

I knew you would like that tire, and being on the front, even though slightly softer compound, will last. I know exactly how you damaged your schlumpf shift post. You didn't use a barrel adapter when you pulled you cranks off with the crank puller. See picture. That adapter goes over the shift shaft, then you screw your puller on and remove the crank. I should have mentioned that. Sorry. as far as the short crank arms go, you can't judge the pedal loss by being stuck in the over drive mode with the 160mm. I could barely pedal my fighter with 170mm cranks under human power at best in overdrive and the 160s don't do me any favors that for sure. And if you think the 10mm is bad, you should have tried 145mm, I had those on for about 5 minutes and realized they handled good, but sucked worse than bucket full of dicks for assist. Back to the 160mm arms, In low gear direct drive, I didn't notice much difference between the 160mm and 170mm. With the 160mm I can still pedal hard enough to get my freewheel to skip and stretch the chain. My legs just burn a little faster. Glad you are going to show Jay how important suspension set up on these machines. When he rode my Bomber in Yosemite, I don't think he could appreciate my set up as I weigh 40kg more than he does. No matter how you slice it, the best suspension set up in the world will not accommodate an 80+ pound weight range, especially when I always like my set up on the firm side for my weight.

 

[Rix]

Thanks for the advice Jay. This Oct, if/when it works for you, I'll take you up on that offer to come over and see what's what with upgrades and go riding together. You can blow my mind with power mods, and hopefully you'll be impressed with how my bike handles the rough stuff at decent speed.

Jay, having your suspension custom valved and set up for your ability and rider weight would be the biggest insurance for preventing crashes and breaking bones. Send Emmett home with your fork and shock .

 

[ridethelightning]

Hi guys
just wondering if anyone here is running a 5404 with a max-e?

im trying to get the settings tuned in but although its running smooth, its getting hot much too fast.

 

[Jimboyr6]

Im sure allex can advise on that one

On another note iv got to the big 100 cycles not bad for a battery that was abused before i got it,i brought it back to 90% capacity, with help from tench on here,i dont run BMS bulk charge balance etc with batt medics,lvc in ca tells me all i need
Happy days but iv got one eye on allex batterys

 

[Allex]

Emmet, Adaptto can actually be Controller+BMS+charging so basically it takes care of everything on the bike. So you can see individual cell status on the screen or charge status - how much minutes untill fully charged state and how much you can travel in miles on a given charge state. So kind like having a Tesla with its big information screen
RTL, 5404-5403 will work but will work very badly performance wise on newer firmwares. I recommend you flashing back to 7b
When I tried that motor on new firmware it felt like going from 10kW bike to a slow 5kW bike

As for settings, see 0:20 here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmuKBPBY67w
Try with those and then tune back and forth for best results

 

[ridethelightning]

thanks for that allex. so that explains why it felt like I had just got a downgrade!

I had a mini-e on older firmware before. it was running the 5404 just nicely, then this.

good ol rc7b it is then..

 

[SUNDRIVE]

This is the guts of an email I sent to Stealth recently, while waiting for their tech response I would also appreciate any advice from the Stealth owner's forum, thanks.

Hello Joe,

I have some follow up questions on a recent Stealth Fighter repair you did for me. It was Stealth Fighter build #139, I sent the rear wheel to you and two of the Hall sensors were replaced (Ibelieve).

Firstly thanks for the repair work, very fortunate to have Stealth HQ so close to home.

The bike runs well now, just as it used to, but there appears to be some hunting around, or surging noticeable when cruising flat gravel road at about 25kmh, about 2/3 to ¾ throttle with no pedal assistance. I believe it used to run smoothly in these conditions, now it surges slightly, then backs off, then surges, backs off, only slightly, but noticeable. I think I had only used about 7Ah from the battery when I noticed it for the first time, and I weigh about 74kg. Any idea what is causing this, or what it might indicate ?

Second question, I love the regen for initial control of speed on a descent. But if I have been taxing the motor /controller on the previous ascent, will the benefit of using regen for the battery be off-set by increased thermal loading on the motor/controller ? Or is the thermal load from regen negligible ?

Third question, the ATS shifter makes a horrible clattering and seems to catch and slip if I am pushing hard-ish on the pedals, but crank speed is well below rear wheel speed (ie it is free wheeling) either as a result of motor power or gravity. This is observed both in 1:1 and overdrive. Chain is good ‘n tight and not badly worn at all so I think the carry on is coming from inside the shifter. If just pedalling lightly and not letting wheel speed get ahead of crank speed it all seems nice and smooth. Is this normal, I did not notice it previously, seems to have developed ?

Regards

 

[Allex]

Yes regen will add a few degrees to your motor temp. same goes for the controller.

 

[SUNDRIVE]

Thanks Allex, good to know, I will keep that in mind when using the little red button.

 

[Jimboyr6]

SUNDRIVE wrote
The bike runs well now, just as it used to, but there appears to be some hunting around, or surging noticeable when cruising flat gravel road at about 25kmh, about 2/3 to ¾ throttle with no pedal assistance. I believe it used to run smoothly in these conditions, now it surges slightly, then backs off, then surges, backs off, only slightly, but noticeable. I think I had only used about 7Ah from the battery when I noticed it for the first time, and I weigh about 74kg. Any idea what is causing this, or what it might indicate ? ...

I could be wrong have u a bad cell, whats ur lvc set at in your CA?
Has bike got wet lately?

 

[SUNDRIVE]

Thanks Jimboyr6,

It is not a severe cut-out, just a minor surge, almost pulsing, but slower period. CA is set to factory spec, have not changed it, will the display indicate a LVC if this is occuring? What would be the easiest way to detect a dodgy cell if that was causing the problem? The bike has not recently been wet, and I recently attended to the connections under the bike.

JB

 

[Cowardlyduck]

SUNDRIVE that sounds to me like a hall sensor on the fritz.
Could be a dodgy connection or the sensor itself. It's not uncommon.

Cheers

 

[DunkenKBliths]

It does seem hall sensor plug could be the cause of a lot of issues..

I had a really crazy one - After getting caught in a downpour (heavy)

My bike suddenly accelerated to full speed, and had to switch off at "key" ... turned back on and bike dead...then suddenly started working again...followed by "FULL ON"

"that was one crazy trip home...especially coming up to a road junction, and the power suddenly coming on full"

... since drying the plug out and spraying up the wire sleeving "Boeshield T9" ...not had an issue

those HALL sensors can play havoc !!!

 

[Cowardlyduck]

Yeah cause the throttle also uses hall sensors it can cause WOT if it gets wet. A pot throttle partially solves that.

I don't like them in the motor, but without hall sensors these motor's would have to run sensorless which sucks for smooth operation and efficiency.

Cheers