E-S Stealth Electric Bike Owners

[morati]

I bought a set of fox 40s forks for my Stealth Electric "Bomber" bike after being told that they should work by both Stealth and others who have them already.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271177006327?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Not to mention Ronnie Renner *RED Bull Winner" and Stealth spokesman is running a pair on his bomber here - (1st and 2nd video)) http://www.stealthelectricbikesusa.com/videos.html

My young inexperienced mechanic says that the Center Tube is to short to reach the head to be clamped on to. So my question is - are there other longer center tubes available? Was 2013 Tube length different than 2012 that might be on Ronnie Renner's bike? Are spacers or other tubes available to make this longer and work? Please let me now ASAP. I need my bomber back.

The manufacturers always make the steerer tubes long on purpose. Yours may have come off a brand new bike that was stripped down and had all of its parts sold separately. I'm not 100% positive on this but I think the lower triple clamp and steerer can be purchased as a unit as well as the upper clamp assembly (aftermarket manufacturers make direct mount upper triple clamps which are kinda cool). Here's an aftermarket lower assembly with steerer.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Risse-Racing-Fox-40-flat-triple-clamp-lower-with-1-1-8-steerer-tube-/150942903919?pt=US_Forks&hash=item2324e5ee6f

 

[full-throttle]

My young inexperienced mechanic says that the Center Tube is to short to reach the head to be clamped on to. So my question is - are there other longer center tubes available? Was 2013 Tube length different than 2012 that might be on Ronnie Renner's bike? Are spacers or other tubes available to make this longer and work? Please let me now ASAP. I need my bomber back.

First of all it's called steerer tube, and by 'head' does he mean headset or (head) stem?
The steerer has to be 210-220mm if you're using stock stem. Alternatively, you can get a direct mount stem. By doing so you will get away with a 170mm steerer.

 

[morati]

Example of a direct mount stem...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hope-Top-Crown-Integrated-Stem-For-Fox-40-Mountain-Bike-MTB-Fork-/150487656765?pt=US_Forks&hash=item2309c3693d

 

[Paul_G]

I bought a set of fox 40s forks for my Stealth Electric "Bomber" bike after being told that they should work by both Stealth and others who have them already.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271177006327?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Not to mention Ronnie Renner *RED Bull Winner" and Stealth spokesman is running a pair on his bomber here - (1st and 2nd video)) http://www.stealthelectricbikesusa.com/videos.html

My young inexperienced mechanic says that the Center Tube is to short to reach the head to be clamped on to. So my question is - are there other longer center tubes available? Was 2013 Tube length different than 2012 that might be on Ronnie Renner's bike? Are spacers or other tubes available to make this longer and work? Please let me now ASAP. I need my bomber back.

I'll bet it was a used set? And it was cut down.

My Fox 40's were 3-4" to long so there was no need for an extension that I like to run.

If its new it comes in a box with 2 extra springs

 

[Rodney64]

I bought a set of fox 40s forks for my Stealth Electric "Bomber" bike after being told that they should work by both Stealth and others who have them already.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271177006327?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Not to mention Ronnie Renner *RED Bull Winner" and Stealth spokesman is running a pair on his bomber here - (1st and 2nd video)) http://www.stealthelectricbikesusa.com/videos.html

My young inexperienced mechanic says that the Center Tube is to short to reach the head to be clamped on to. So my question is - are there other longer center tubes available? Was 2013 Tube length different than 2012 that might be on Ronnie Renner's bike? Are spacers or other tubes available to make this longer and work? Please let me now ASAP. I need my bomber back.

Ask the seller if he has a longer steer tube. If it was new it would have been at least 265mm. Being sold as new with anything shorter than this should have been explained by the seller. I would contact the seller and either ask for a the $150 refund or a replacement steer tube. You paid top dollar and the seller should either pay you the refund for the complete fork or the equivalent for the new steer tube. Other option is to give negative feed back but give the seller the opportunity to right his wrong.
I've purchased 2 sets of forks from chain reaction cycles so at least you know they're new and haven't been stripped from a new bike.

 

[remf]

Post regarding Stealth Fighter battery pack. Some odd numbers.

My first Fighter battery pack, from Fighter #117, manufactured in January 2013, weighed 18.2 lbs / 8.24 Kg and measured 108mm x 123mm x 355mm. It was covered in blue plastic and had "18 AH" printed on the side. I never saw more than 14.8Ah from it though before it would die. And it would die instantly, at around 47-48v. I assume the BMS was killing it, as the CA was set to trigger at 43v, but it would never get there. Note: I would charge it with the stock charger which would bring it to 58.4v and hold there for it to balance. When taken off the charger, it would fall to around 53-54v within an hour.

Stealth was kind enough to send me a replacement battery last week. I've been afraid to run it for more than 12Ah so far because I heard it might help to be gentle to them for the first dozen cycles, and that it was bad to run the to 100% discharge, so I don't know yet at what voltage and total Ah this one cuts out at.

BUT, oddly, the replacement battery only weighs 16.8 lbs / 7.6 Kg, and measures 100mm x 115mm x 355mm. The original battery fit perfectly in the Fighter battery bay. This one slides around some. It's 8% lighter in weight and 13% small in volume. It also doesn't say 18Ah on the side. Is it possible for a LiFEPO4 pack to be that much small and lighter and be the same capacity?

Stealth lists the battery capacity of the Fighter at 1kWh on its website.
An 18Ah pack, 16s, at 3.3v/cell, would be 950Wh. And is it even accurate to use 3.3v/cell? Shouldn't it be calculated at around 3v, which would be 864Wh. Ultimately 3.3v/cell isn't the average effective voltage, so the pack is well under 950Wh, correct?

The main question is, is it possible for a 16.8 lb / 7.6 Kg LiFePO4 battery pack to be rated at 1kWh?

I understood the energy density of LiFePO4 was realistically around 100w/kg. So wouldn't a true 1kWh battery be around 22 lbs?

And therefore this 16.8 lb battery is probably around 764Wh?

Hi Rusty, the specific energy of LiFePO4 cylindrical cells is around the 100 wh/kg mark that you mention. Stealth have used LiFePO4 prismatic or pouch cells for some years now and they have specific energy of somewhere around the 130 wh/kg mark. So for 7.6 kg, 130 wh/kg will give you the 1 kWh capacity. Bear in mind also that the pouches require less hardware like busbars, spacers, nuts & bolts, so that the new generation packs are considerably lighter than the old Headway cell type packs of the same capacity which were in use previously.

 

[Cowardlyduck]

I got tired of using LiPo buzzers to monitor my LiPo setup. They might let you know if a parallel cell group hits LVC, but they do so by alerting everyone around you as well. A couple of times now I've hit LVC on a cell group whilst accelerating hard, only to have bystanders look not because of the awesome piece of kit I'm riding, but because I'm beeping down the road. :lol: :lol:

So today I setup an alternate approach with these.

A few of the LED lines are a bit out voltage wise, but since I know this, I can just compensate.

It also makes it easier to balance charge...now I don't need to remove the side covers if I only do one parallel group at once.

Cheers

 

[remf]

OK CD I'm confused. Now that kinda defeats any remaining 'Stealth' aspect doesn't it? LOL

Nice work with that & your vid BTW

 

[Cowardlyduck]

OK CD I'm confused. Now that kinda defeats any remaining 'Stealth' aspect doesn't it? LOL

Nice work with that & your vid BTW

Thanks Remf. Which bit defeats the Stealth aspect, the LED's or the Buzzers? If anything I would think a loud buzzer going off would be less Stealthy than a string of LEDs only the rider can normally see. It's not obvious, but in direct sunlight, they really aren't that bright...still bright enough to see though. Yes at night, from behind, it may look a bit like a Christmas tree, but I seriously doubt anyone will be coming up on me from behind.
I've upped my controllers max amps to 85, so now pushing over 5.5KW Albeit only for a split second from standstill at WOT.

On another note, does anyone know if Stealth are installing thermistors in their motors now? My new HS4060 has an intermittent issue that feels like a hall sensor going bad. It only tends to occur on lengthy or steep uphill sections, or after lots of heavy stop start. After a few min of rest it goes away every time.
Thing is though, none of my temp stickers are usually going above 45C when it happens, even after resting. I guess cover temps are not the best indication of winding temps, but I would still think I should see a rise at the covers after resting.

Cheers

 

[Hyena]

I got tired of using LiPo buzzers to monitor my LiPo setup. They might let you know if a parallel cell group hits LVC, but they do so by alerting everyone around you as well.

Be sure to wear one of these shirts while riding too. :lol:

What voltage do you have the buzzers set to ? And your CA LVC ? I set mine to 63v which is 3.5v/cell average. Once you hit that you're almost flat and it's as far as you should discharge lipo regularly if you want to maximise pack life. The CA will roll back the current so you can still ride but it doesnt savagely sag when you gun it and thus your beepers should rarely go off. But if you're worried set them to say 2.8v - this will allow them to to dip down to 3v or so under heavy load without tripping your beepers. But really, once you're dipping down that low it's really home time - unless your lipo is really old and saggy. On my first lipo powered ebike about 5 years ago the lipo was so shit in those days it'd sag to close to ~3.3v/cell under a 3C load (supposedy 10C cells) fresh off the charge and 5 minutes into the ride it was sitting just above 3v/cell average under load. They still delivered full capacity (or the 80% odd I used to get to work) without the resting voltage getting too low, they just sagged like an old pair of tits. My beepers would go off when I gunned it out of the intersection at the end of my street in winter so I stopped using them :lol:

BTW here's a vid of my fighter from last weekend zooming around and playing with some slomo shots (posted in my build thread but not here)

[youtube]zUKqONKNLvo[/youtube]

 

[Cowardlyduck]

What voltage do you have the buzzers set to ? And your CA LVC ?

Buzzers were 3.5 and my CA is actually set to 65V LVC usually. I then manually drop it to 64 if I need to get home still and run out at 65V. I've also got the controller LVC set to 63.4V but I could probably drop that a bit.
I might still run the beepers as well anyway. It'll just be a matter of splitting off additional parallel leads from the harnesses. That being said, one of the things I like about using just the LED's is I can easily unplug them and not worry about them slowly draining the pack like beepers can if left inside the frame.
Winter here in Canberra is in the low single digits most mornings. The other morning it was still -3 when I left for work. The stock battery didn't seem to mind that too much. Only lost about 1Ah total. We'll see how RC LiPo likes it long term. So far it hasn't made much difference, although I haven't got a summers worth of using it to compare to...yet.

Jay do you know anything about thermistors in the Stealth HS40xx motors?

Cheers

 

[ezza]

Awesome video Jay! Shows just how fun these bikes are.

Eric

 

[MAFIA]

Awesome video Jay! Shows just how fun these bikes are.

Eric

yeah nice video hope to get mine running soon

 

[powerfloe]

Thanks everyone. Yes - I had 2 springs in a new box - so I think it is new. Also looking at these photos, it seems a pro mechanic could make this work. I'm not sure what the issue is now as it has 3-4 inches like you guys said it should. I have a 4 riser from Thompson is the only change and it has worked fine. Worse case, I can go with the Reise steering tube for $200 (that you guys recommended) be fore.

 

[morati]

Powerfloe, not sure I understand the problem here. Loosen the lower clamp pinch bolts (2 on each side ofnthe lower tree) and the upper clamp pinch bolts (one on each side) slide the stanchion tubes UP by 10mm (1/2") or so and you're good to go. Cut the steerer tube to your desired length.

 

[powerfloe]

Powerfloe, not sure I understand the problem here. Loosen the lower clamp pinch bolts (2 on each side ofnthe lower tree) and the upper clamp pinch bolts (one on each side) slide the stanchion tubes UP by 10mm (1/2") or so and you're good to go. Cut the steerer tube to your desired length.

That's what I thought looking at the pictures! Thanks again everyone.

 

[DunkenKBliths]

OK straightened the peddle crank by using a Vice...No heavy handed hammering..
Didn't even need to remove the crank off the bike, just put the vice on a platform jack..

Crank now straight and not hitting the back strut....looks nearly new...appart from a few scratches...

Ok...anyone know where I can get a new handlebar end
the bit that attaches right to the end of the handlebar, with an allan key..
mine took the brunt of the scrape with the floor...

 

[powerfloe]

I got tired of using LiPo buzzers to monitor my LiPo setup. They might let you know if a parallel cell group hits LVC, but they do so by alerting everyone around you as well. A couple of times now I've hit LVC on a cell group whilst accelerating hard, only to have bystanders look not because of the awesome piece of kit I'm riding, but because I'm beeping down the road. :lol: :lol:

So today I setup an alternate approach with these.

A few of the LED lines are a bit out voltage wise, but since I know this, I can just compensate.

It also makes it easier to balance charge...now I don't need to remove the side covers if I only do one parallel group at once.

Cheers

I think you have a new "Kit" or "Seri" for a new TV series here. Now who would you cast as the Stealth "KIT" RIDER with Seri as co-star - that assumes you can't get "the HOFF."

 

[Justtoby]

It is a shame that lipo is such a pain in terms of charging and care compared to lifepo, I would like to go nearer 100v with lipo but want the plug and play aspect more.

 

[Rodney64]

It is a shame that lipo is such a pain in terms of charging and care compared to lifepo, I would like to go nearer 100v with lipo but want the plug and play aspect more.

Its not such a big pain in the arse that cowardlyducks making out. You don't need those lipo buzzers.

Provided your packs ballanced which if you rode it each day at the start you may check it after every second day or so then once you get to understand it less ofern.

For a 24s pack charge to 100 volt and monitor it and provided it doesn't go below 84v. I set my CA cutoff for 83. This allows for sag.

After checking the cells on arrival home the packs still around 3.6.

But yes sometimes I'd love a bomber for the plug and play aspect and stealth backup. I've proberly spend enough on my 2 bikes to buy 2 bombers outright but it all depends on what you want.

 

[Cowardlyduck]

Its not such a big pain in the arse that cowardlyducks making out. You don't need those lipo buzzers.

Provided your packs ballanced which if you rode it each day at the start you may check it after every second day or so then once you get to understand it less ofern.

For a 24s pack charge to 100 volt and monitor it and provided it doesn't go below 84v. I set my CA cutoff for 83. This allows for sag.

After checking the cells on arrival home the packs still around 3.6.

Never intended to make it seem difficult to go LiPo. In fact prior to this setup I hadn't dealt with RC LiPo in my life, and would still call myself a total LiPo noob even now.
I simply did a lot of reading here on ES about the best approaches, listened to most of it, and threw in some of my own ideas along the way.

Today I went for a very hilly 36km ride and some of the cells hit 3.42V by the time I got home. Were it not for my LED's I would have just had an ear full of buzzer for the last 5km.

On the whole LiPo seems to work well for me, although I'm not getting as much capacity as I'd expected out of these cells. I'm hitting ~3.5V per cell at around 3AH used. These are meant to be 3.7AH packs.
Good thing I've got another 3 packs on the way to make this setup 18S5P. That will give me 18.5AH theoretical, but based on current findings I'll only see 15AH of that. That should do me for now anyway.

Cheers

 

[Rodney64]

Its not such a big pain in the arse that cowardlyducks making out. You don't need those lipo buzzers.

Provided your packs ballanced which if you rode it each day at the start you may check it after every second day or so then once you get to understand it less ofern.

For a 24s pack charge to 100 volt and monitor it and provided it doesn't go below 84v. I set my CA cutoff for 83. This allows for sag.

After checking the cells on arrival home the packs still around 3.6.

Never intended to make it seem difficult to go LiPo. In fact prior to this setup I hadn't dealt with RC LiPo in my life, and would still call myself a total LiPo noob even now.
I simply did a lot of reading here on ES about the best approaches, listened to most of it, and threw in some of my own ideas along the way.

Today I went for a very hilly 36km ride and some of the cells hit 3.42V by the time I got home. Were it not for my LED's I would have just had an ear full of buzzer for the last 5km.

On the whole LiPo seems to work well for me, although I'm not getting as much capacity as I'd expected out of these cells. I'm hitting ~3.5V per cell at around 3AH used. These are meant to be 3.7AH packs.
Good thing I've got another 3 packs on the way to make this setup 18S5P. That will give me 18.5AH theoretical, but based on current findings I'll only see 15AH of that. That should do me for now anyway.

Cheers

Thanks for clarifying Cowardlyduck and yes you don't get the full capacity of the pack.

 

[litespeed]

I've been using R/C lipo, a123 and the old Milwaukee v28 cells for years now and I can tell you for a fact that the slower you drain a lipo or liFe cell the less capacity you will see. I started out using the e-moli (v28) on my helicopters because of their cheap price and safety but on low amp draw i was always shorted on the 80% rule as far as capacity goes. Same with the a123 until I started over gearing to raise the draw on the amperage. I've flown for 6 mins sport and used 55-60% capacity and then flown aggressive sport/3D for 5 mins and got 80% of rated capacity. With lipo I can fly a sport flight vs a 3D flight and end up very close to the same voltage using much less capacity. I realized that finding just the right amp draw always netted higher capacity. The a123's was in the 20 to 30C range. You will find that no matter what the chemistry there is a certain sweet spot that batteries perform better and give up higher capacity. Low amp draw is not always the way but for obvious reasons it works to extend range but I think mostly because losses are so much lower comparably speaking. Helicopters made the amp draw easy to find because we pull average constant amperage running governor modes save the super aggressive 3D maneuvers which peak the amps up.

Tom

 

[QuestionMan]

Hello,

Tried to do searches but can not seem to find the information.

Can anyone tell me roughly how many 6s 5000MAH packs, or 50x50x150mm packs the stealth bomber and the stealth fighter can fit if the controller is mounted externally.

 

[morati]

Hello,

Tried to do searches but can not seem to find the information.

Can anyone tell me roughly how many 6s 5000MAH packs, or 50x50x150mm packs the stealth bomber and the stealth fighter can fit if the controller is mounted externally.

Stock Bombers battery measures approx. 360x154x115mm so you can do the math.