Obiwan007
1 kW
That's what I should do now!. But before; I couldn't even get it in the frame. No, the die grinder is working good. Would have finished it up tonight but it's valentines day so took the SWMBO out on a date.
Electric Jeepster - New(ish)member new build
- Thread starter Obiwan007
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Obiwan007
1 kW
IT ROLLS!! Got back at it today and after quite a bit of grinding the wheel/tires finally fit. All-in-all it is barely perceptible that the rear tire is narrower than it started. It will remain to be seen if the tread removal affects the handling characteristics of these tires. Here is how it currently sits:
Although i cant pedal it yet, i did push it down the road and coast a bit to see how it felt. the steering feels sluggish with the heavy wheel tire in the front. But i'll report later on how it feels at speed. I weighed the bike as it sits (still missing the freewheel, controller, rear rotor, the CA, two more batteries and some wiring ) and it comes to 75.5 lbs. In the end, i estimate it will be in the 85 lbs range. I will probably upgrade the motor at some point too so a few more lbs there. In the end i am not unhappy with the weight. if I recall GCinDCs bike came in at around 95 lbs. So, on to next steps. Still waiting on the arrival of the CA, wiring harness, freewheel (11-32) and the charger. So either work on torque arms or motor wiring upgrade. Since I don't have the materials on hand for the torque arms yet, wiring upgrade it is. Some have suggested that I wait to do the wiring upgrade. But since this motor needs to have the wire-side face plate switched out for a disc style cover anyway, I can't see opening it up twice if I don't need to. So here are the steps I followed ( for future inclusion in the motor install walk-through).
-look at the motor and decide which side you want to remove. It seems like you could open up the wire side and have access to everything (both phase and hall wires) so I recommend removing the wire side first. The following pictures show me removing the free wheel side first however because I did no think far enough ahead. Here are the two side covers side-by-side for comparison (Note the snap ring at the base of the threaded section).
I wondered about the purpose of the snap ring until I threaded on the disc adapter to a side cover without the snap ring. Turns out that the threads do not go all the way up to the face of the cover so the adapter cannot fit tight up against the face. the snap ring act as a spacer and allows you to tighten against a surface rather than just to the end of the threads (seems inherently unstable to me). So I ran out and got a snap ring for the new disc cover. Here is the disc side cover with the disc adapter threaded on:
View attachment 9
-Remove the side cover screws from the side "you want to push out of the hub" ( if you push the wire side out, you still won't have the wire side exposed since the wire side cover will still be attached to the stator). Be extra careful with these screws as you remove them as they are quite small and each has a lock washer that can easily dropped and lost (DAMHIKT).
View attachment 8
- Place the wheel on blocks so that the side you just removed the screws from is down and is high enough so that the axle has plenty of room to be pushed out from below. Arrange the wheel puller in place (these are available inexpensively at Harbor Freight). Although your wheel puller may be long enough, I don't recommend going all the way to the bottom flange. The hooked end of my wheel puller were long enough that if I went to the bottom flange they could have captured the outer edges of the side cover. Then tension on the wheel puller would cause damage. Here is the arrangement I used:
-carefully apply pressure with the wheel puller. What it happening here is that the force of the wheel puller is pushing the axle/stator/ lower side cover as one unit out the bottom of the magnet ring forcing the bottom bearing off the axle. when the bottom side cover finally released from the magnet ring it made some scary noises but everything was fine. After that i was able to screw the wheel puller by hand and push the stator out the bottom. Caution!! be extra careful with the stator once it is out of the magnet ring. the motor wiring is exposed at this point and the magnet wire has very thin insulation. minor bumps and/or scrapes and scratches can easily expose the conductors. Be ready to "catch" the stator when it releases from the invisible grip of the magnet ring.
- At this point you will have the wheel, magnet ring and one side cover still assembled and in one piece. Set them aside.
- Now provide for a safe arrangement for the stator and the remaining side cover. Use a vice or stand of some sort to prevent any of the magnet wire from coming into contact with other objects.
here are some shots of the inside of the motor (wrong side alas). Anyone see anything that should concern me?
There seems to be a minor spot on the outer circumference of the stator where some rubbing has occured. A close look at the hall sensors revealed that one of them has the insulation scraped off (just visible in the third picture) and possibly another one. I'll remove the other side cover tomorrow and look at the other side (where the phase wires connect) to see what may be needed. One possible problem I will run into is that the hall wires thread up through the magnet wire before reappearing at the top rim of the stator to connect to the hall sensors. All of this is then glued in place. I plan to replace these wires with teflon wire. So how to remove and then thread the teflon hal wires without damaging the insulation on the magnet wire. Any advice? I'll know more tomorrow.
Although i cant pedal it yet, i did push it down the road and coast a bit to see how it felt. the steering feels sluggish with the heavy wheel tire in the front. But i'll report later on how it feels at speed. I weighed the bike as it sits (still missing the freewheel, controller, rear rotor, the CA, two more batteries and some wiring ) and it comes to 75.5 lbs. In the end, i estimate it will be in the 85 lbs range. I will probably upgrade the motor at some point too so a few more lbs there. In the end i am not unhappy with the weight. if I recall GCinDCs bike came in at around 95 lbs. So, on to next steps. Still waiting on the arrival of the CA, wiring harness, freewheel (11-32) and the charger. So either work on torque arms or motor wiring upgrade. Since I don't have the materials on hand for the torque arms yet, wiring upgrade it is. Some have suggested that I wait to do the wiring upgrade. But since this motor needs to have the wire-side face plate switched out for a disc style cover anyway, I can't see opening it up twice if I don't need to. So here are the steps I followed ( for future inclusion in the motor install walk-through).
-look at the motor and decide which side you want to remove. It seems like you could open up the wire side and have access to everything (both phase and hall wires) so I recommend removing the wire side first. The following pictures show me removing the free wheel side first however because I did no think far enough ahead. Here are the two side covers side-by-side for comparison (Note the snap ring at the base of the threaded section).
I wondered about the purpose of the snap ring until I threaded on the disc adapter to a side cover without the snap ring. Turns out that the threads do not go all the way up to the face of the cover so the adapter cannot fit tight up against the face. the snap ring act as a spacer and allows you to tighten against a surface rather than just to the end of the threads (seems inherently unstable to me). So I ran out and got a snap ring for the new disc cover. Here is the disc side cover with the disc adapter threaded on:
View attachment 9
-Remove the side cover screws from the side "you want to push out of the hub" ( if you push the wire side out, you still won't have the wire side exposed since the wire side cover will still be attached to the stator). Be extra careful with these screws as you remove them as they are quite small and each has a lock washer that can easily dropped and lost (DAMHIKT).
View attachment 8
- Place the wheel on blocks so that the side you just removed the screws from is down and is high enough so that the axle has plenty of room to be pushed out from below. Arrange the wheel puller in place (these are available inexpensively at Harbor Freight). Although your wheel puller may be long enough, I don't recommend going all the way to the bottom flange. The hooked end of my wheel puller were long enough that if I went to the bottom flange they could have captured the outer edges of the side cover. Then tension on the wheel puller would cause damage. Here is the arrangement I used:
-carefully apply pressure with the wheel puller. What it happening here is that the force of the wheel puller is pushing the axle/stator/ lower side cover as one unit out the bottom of the magnet ring forcing the bottom bearing off the axle. when the bottom side cover finally released from the magnet ring it made some scary noises but everything was fine. After that i was able to screw the wheel puller by hand and push the stator out the bottom. Caution!! be extra careful with the stator once it is out of the magnet ring. the motor wiring is exposed at this point and the magnet wire has very thin insulation. minor bumps and/or scrapes and scratches can easily expose the conductors. Be ready to "catch" the stator when it releases from the invisible grip of the magnet ring.
- At this point you will have the wheel, magnet ring and one side cover still assembled and in one piece. Set them aside.
- Now provide for a safe arrangement for the stator and the remaining side cover. Use a vice or stand of some sort to prevent any of the magnet wire from coming into contact with other objects.
here are some shots of the inside of the motor (wrong side alas). Anyone see anything that should concern me?
There seems to be a minor spot on the outer circumference of the stator where some rubbing has occured. A close look at the hall sensors revealed that one of them has the insulation scraped off (just visible in the third picture) and possibly another one. I'll remove the other side cover tomorrow and look at the other side (where the phase wires connect) to see what may be needed. One possible problem I will run into is that the hall wires thread up through the magnet wire before reappearing at the top rim of the stator to connect to the hall sensors. All of this is then glued in place. I plan to replace these wires with teflon wire. So how to remove and then thread the teflon hal wires without damaging the insulation on the magnet wire. Any advice? I'll know more tomorrow.
Attachments
Obiwan007
1 kW
Got back at this today. First step was to remove the wire-side side cover from the stator. Used the wheel puller again and it only took hand pressure to turn the side cover off being gentle to avoid damage to the wires coming out the slot.
View attachment 7
with the cover removed I got the first look at the phase wire arrangement. A bit different than I have seen in previous pictures. They have mounted a small piece of PCB board between two of the spokes. This piece of board has a hole through which the hall wires pass to the other side to connect to the hall sensors. It also has three solder pads where the phase wires meet up with the phase leads from the coils (all covered in goo). I think this is a pretty good arrangement as it keeps everything secure inside the hub.
I immediately labeled the phase pads for color so i dont loose track later and noted that the phase wires were really small.
Now after reading all the good stuff about upgrading the wire in the motor, i got myself prepared and layed in some supplies weeks ago in preparation. Many had talked about how they got 10 awg wire in the slot along with the hall wires and even a heat probe wire. So of coarse I got me some teflon 10 awg wire and after an incredible amount of searching also found some 26 awg teflon wire. The 26 awg is actually teflon coated, metal braided sheilding inside that, with three 26 awg teflon insulated conductors in side. Me like. However, it was instantly obvious that it was not all going to fit in the wire channel. Ahhhhhh...what to do? Really like the idea of having all teflon inside the motor and I don't have any 12 awg. Would have to wait to get some shipped. Decided to try something else. I used little diamond bit to do this to the wire channel
It was actually pretty easy and now everything fits in there just fine. While I was at it I took all the sharp edges off of everything that could concievably come into contact with the wires. Now to the actual wire upgrade. My big problem was that the hall wires were routed behind the coils and then epoxied in place after being soldered to the hall sensors. This really pisses me off. go to all this trouble to get everything in there converted to teflon and now this. The more I looked at it the more i realized that there was no way to free these wires up from the epoxy without doing some form of damage to the magnet wire. So here is what I decided to do; I figured that the wire that was encased in epoxy was pretty safe from heat. the real problem is the crappy wire insulation that was running right up through the hottest part of the motor between the coils. So I got some really small heat shrink (3/64") from the local shop and, after cutting the hall wires as short as possible, ran some heat shrink up the wires and up into the coils as far as possible until it stopped against the epoxied part. I shrunk the part sticking out and figure the rest will shrink when the motor gets hot. Now I cut my teflon cable in half and stripped the shielding and outer coating off two of the ends to give me a total of six conductors going into the motor (5 halls and one temp probe). The wires in the cable are colored (striped blue, orange and no color) but they are the wrong colors. So after connecting the hall wires I heat shrunk them in the correct colors. I also put some colored heat shrink on the opposite ends of the cable to keep everything straight later.Once everything was wired up I pulled it all through the hole in the PCB board and then ran some clear heat shrink over everything to keep it safe passing through the PCB board. Here is what it looks like passing through the back side:
And here it is on the front side with a zip-tie to hold it down flat to the PCB board:
Tomorrow I'll start dealing with the phase wires and the heat probe.
Got my harness in the mail today thanks to Icecube57. It looks great and I will begin getting the wiring done as soon as the motor upgrade is complete. Also got my charger in the mail so I'll be ready when this thing is ready to roll under power.
View attachment 7
with the cover removed I got the first look at the phase wire arrangement. A bit different than I have seen in previous pictures. They have mounted a small piece of PCB board between two of the spokes. This piece of board has a hole through which the hall wires pass to the other side to connect to the hall sensors. It also has three solder pads where the phase wires meet up with the phase leads from the coils (all covered in goo). I think this is a pretty good arrangement as it keeps everything secure inside the hub.
I immediately labeled the phase pads for color so i dont loose track later and noted that the phase wires were really small.
Now after reading all the good stuff about upgrading the wire in the motor, i got myself prepared and layed in some supplies weeks ago in preparation. Many had talked about how they got 10 awg wire in the slot along with the hall wires and even a heat probe wire. So of coarse I got me some teflon 10 awg wire and after an incredible amount of searching also found some 26 awg teflon wire. The 26 awg is actually teflon coated, metal braided sheilding inside that, with three 26 awg teflon insulated conductors in side. Me like. However, it was instantly obvious that it was not all going to fit in the wire channel. Ahhhhhh...what to do? Really like the idea of having all teflon inside the motor and I don't have any 12 awg. Would have to wait to get some shipped. Decided to try something else. I used little diamond bit to do this to the wire channel
It was actually pretty easy and now everything fits in there just fine. While I was at it I took all the sharp edges off of everything that could concievably come into contact with the wires. Now to the actual wire upgrade. My big problem was that the hall wires were routed behind the coils and then epoxied in place after being soldered to the hall sensors. This really pisses me off. go to all this trouble to get everything in there converted to teflon and now this. The more I looked at it the more i realized that there was no way to free these wires up from the epoxy without doing some form of damage to the magnet wire. So here is what I decided to do; I figured that the wire that was encased in epoxy was pretty safe from heat. the real problem is the crappy wire insulation that was running right up through the hottest part of the motor between the coils. So I got some really small heat shrink (3/64") from the local shop and, after cutting the hall wires as short as possible, ran some heat shrink up the wires and up into the coils as far as possible until it stopped against the epoxied part. I shrunk the part sticking out and figure the rest will shrink when the motor gets hot. Now I cut my teflon cable in half and stripped the shielding and outer coating off two of the ends to give me a total of six conductors going into the motor (5 halls and one temp probe). The wires in the cable are colored (striped blue, orange and no color) but they are the wrong colors. So after connecting the hall wires I heat shrunk them in the correct colors. I also put some colored heat shrink on the opposite ends of the cable to keep everything straight later.Once everything was wired up I pulled it all through the hole in the PCB board and then ran some clear heat shrink over everything to keep it safe passing through the PCB board. Here is what it looks like passing through the back side:
And here it is on the front side with a zip-tie to hold it down flat to the PCB board:
Tomorrow I'll start dealing with the phase wires and the heat probe.
Got my harness in the mail today thanks to Icecube57. It looks great and I will begin getting the wiring done as soon as the motor upgrade is complete. Also got my charger in the mail so I'll be ready when this thing is ready to roll under power.
nice work !!
If you keep the stock bearings, or get brand name one's, i've found some of the motor covers have a very loose fit, some dont... if it is a loose fit i'd suggest a very small smear of epoxy on the outer race/motor cover side to keep the bearing tightly in place..
the 2 screws that hold the pcb to the stator, i've had one come loose before and destroy the windings, might want to loc-tite them in or epoxy to make sure they never come out..
8)
If you keep the stock bearings, or get brand name one's, i've found some of the motor covers have a very loose fit, some dont... if it is a loose fit i'd suggest a very small smear of epoxy on the outer race/motor cover side to keep the bearing tightly in place..
the 2 screws that hold the pcb to the stator, i've had one come loose before and destroy the windings, might want to loc-tite them in or epoxy to make sure they never come out..
8)
Obiwan007
1 kW
Thanks for the tips Gaston. I have thought about replacing the bearings while I have it open. There is actually a place near me where I can buy them off the shelf (most sizes). Does anybody know, are the replacement bearings from Grin cyclery factory replacements or quality aftermarket? And I am really going to lock tight those screws now. So, Gaston, the pads in the PCB that the phase wires connect to; Are those holes? I'm a bit concerned that the phase wires along with the magnet wire won't fit into those holes for soldering. In the pictures it looks like it has a metal rim around the holes so I would not be able to drill it any bigger. If it turns out that the holes are too small, I can just solder the wires directly together...right?
pendragon8000
100 kW
Hi Obiwan007, great looking bike so far. I'm about to open my ht3525 to vent the side covers , install thermostat,and thermistor. I'm going to put vents near edge as you said. But my issue is getting it open... I don't have a gear puller but might make a 2 jaw 1 from a scissor jack. I'm going to attempt using a thin milling bit on my dremel to make slot vents 4mm x 25 mm 36 slots per side I think at this stage. What do you plan on for vents? You might want to thermostat the hall sensors to. (100°c normally closed)
Peace
Peace
Obiwan007
1 kW
Thanks pendragon8000. It has sure been fun so far. I don,t know how good of a method it is but I recall seeing some videos where you just turn the motor over and push down on the wheel with your hands this forces the axel up and out. Up to you if you think this is safe. I have decided to wait on venting this hub I have a thermometer in the winding and will be able to monitor it. If I have trouble I'll vent it later. If needed I have a few ideas that I have not read on the sphere like ducting the holes. For instance if the motor is turning perpendicular to the flow of air then there is little to cause a pressure differential to move air except the centrifugal force of the motor. It seems to me that causing air movement in this manner (holes near the axel and others near the perimeter) will produce mild, gentle air movement. However little scoops placed behind the holes near the axel would produce quite a bit more pressure at the center and increase the overall air movement through the hub. These don't need to be too aggressive to result in big gains. There would be some corresponding drag associated but it seems like it would be minimal especially at the slower SFM near the center of the hub. Just my random thoughts.
Obiwan007
1 kW
Got this mostly finished today. Phase wires soldered in place. Temp probe fitted and epoxied into the coils. Bearing switched out to disc cover (it fit nice and snug Ypedal). The whole mess run out the axel slot. THAT was harder than I thought it would be. But all seems well now. The disc is likely to be too close to the side cover for the caliper but I have a disc shim on its way from Grin so we'll see how that goes. Sorry no pictures today, wife took the camera on a trip. My only real concern is the small gap for the wires to exit the hub. We'll have to see how that goes when I mount it.
pendragon8000
100 kW
Sounds like your making good progress. Did you run a phase through a thermostat, or a hall sensor? Hyena runs a common wire for the halls through a thermostat, as on the kit I got from him and I'll do the same for my current build.
Regarding air flow, the venturi effect is at work pulling air out of the hub where air blows over the holes.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect
The top of the hub is traveling faster than the bike to.
A few have mentioned scoops and such. Haven't seen any photos though. Ppl do put fans in there hubs though.
Regarding air flow, the venturi effect is at work pulling air out of the hub where air blows over the holes.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect
The top of the hub is traveling faster than the bike to.
A few have mentioned scoops and such. Haven't seen any photos though. Ppl do put fans in there hubs though.
unless you run this motor way over 48v and 40amps, no need for venting, keep it sealed up imo.
edit , about the phase wires and pcb\
http://www.ypedal.com/Chaos/Chaos6.htm
just metal eyelets, hot iron, fresh solder, the windings and teflon wires will fit in there nicely.
edit , about the phase wires and pcb\
http://www.ypedal.com/Chaos/Chaos6.htm
just metal eyelets, hot iron, fresh solder, the windings and teflon wires will fit in there nicely.
Obiwan007
1 kW
Sorry that I have not posted in a while but wow has life intruded. Also made some progress that I could not document with photos cause the wife left town with the camera. But all is back as it should be now and here are some progress reports. While I was waiting for parts to arrive, I did a little upgrade on the 320W MeanWell that I got off of Ebay. I wanted to add a power cord socket to it so I opened it up and found there was no room for one. Also, I did not feel comfortable wiring it directly to the board. So what I did was to move the fan to the exterior with a grommeted hole for the wire. Then I cut the socket into the side and simply ran wires internally to the power input screws on the terminal block. A little creative bending of the blade connectors got them to fit under the housing and shrink tubing insulates them from the box. Tested it after and it seems to be functioning properly. Here are pics:
View attachment 18
View attachment 17
Does this look Kosher to you guys? Let me know if there are problems with doing it this way.
Also got some work done on the custom T/As. Got a big thick hunk of aluminum and shaped it to some templates I made. Then I milled everything down except some brace legs that reach out and bear on the frame in two directions. This should allow the T/A to wedge tightly against the solid frame section of the of the drop out and take torque in either direction. Here is what they look like:
I cut out the axle holes close to size and then feathered them in with hand files for a nice tight fit. After looking at them I think that I am going to split the ends and add a pinch bolt to the design ( taking GCinDCs advice). The one on the freewheel side will be haeld in place only by the axle bolt but it would have to come way out to allow any rotation. The one on the brake side will also be held in place via the brake bosses with slightly longer brake bolts. Anyway, the way I see it is that I will now have torque arms on both sides; each of which will take torque in either direction and transfer that load to larger frame members via the bearing blocks. What are the groups thoughts? The last thing I want to do is spin these axles.
Then I got back to work on the motor. I had the side plate on once before but I had to take it apart to varnish the stator.
Then I did some modifications to the wire path. With the brake disc adapter on the escapement is really tight so here is what I did. First I removed the snap ring from the back edge of the disc cover and beveled the inside of the aluminum disc adapter so that it would thread all the way down and bear on the machined surface of the cover. This gave me about 2mm of extra clearance for the disc and disc bolts. Next I rounded and polished the exit hole of the cover so that if it ever does rub it wont cut. Like this:
Then I drilled moisture escape holes in the side covers. Here's how I did that. First I marked the inside up with a sharpie between each of the mounting holes.
Then used dividers set to cross between the mounting holes and drew X's for the exact center.
Punched the X's with a center punch and then drilled at an angle to get the holes really close to the perimeter.
My hope is that these will provide some centrifical moisture escape and also some evaporative ventilation. If I run into heat problems later, I will vent with larger holes nearer the center for air movement. So, with those all prepped I slid the brake side covers back over the wires:
Still pretty tight so I modified one of the spacer washers I got from Grin to provide a nice polished escapement with an additional 3mm of smooth exit.
View attachment 18
View attachment 17
Does this look Kosher to you guys? Let me know if there are problems with doing it this way.
Also got some work done on the custom T/As. Got a big thick hunk of aluminum and shaped it to some templates I made. Then I milled everything down except some brace legs that reach out and bear on the frame in two directions. This should allow the T/A to wedge tightly against the solid frame section of the of the drop out and take torque in either direction. Here is what they look like:
I cut out the axle holes close to size and then feathered them in with hand files for a nice tight fit. After looking at them I think that I am going to split the ends and add a pinch bolt to the design ( taking GCinDCs advice). The one on the freewheel side will be haeld in place only by the axle bolt but it would have to come way out to allow any rotation. The one on the brake side will also be held in place via the brake bosses with slightly longer brake bolts. Anyway, the way I see it is that I will now have torque arms on both sides; each of which will take torque in either direction and transfer that load to larger frame members via the bearing blocks. What are the groups thoughts? The last thing I want to do is spin these axles.
Then I got back to work on the motor. I had the side plate on once before but I had to take it apart to varnish the stator.
Then I did some modifications to the wire path. With the brake disc adapter on the escapement is really tight so here is what I did. First I removed the snap ring from the back edge of the disc cover and beveled the inside of the aluminum disc adapter so that it would thread all the way down and bear on the machined surface of the cover. This gave me about 2mm of extra clearance for the disc and disc bolts. Next I rounded and polished the exit hole of the cover so that if it ever does rub it wont cut. Like this:
Then I drilled moisture escape holes in the side covers. Here's how I did that. First I marked the inside up with a sharpie between each of the mounting holes.
Then used dividers set to cross between the mounting holes and drew X's for the exact center.
Punched the X's with a center punch and then drilled at an angle to get the holes really close to the perimeter.
My hope is that these will provide some centrifical moisture escape and also some evaporative ventilation. If I run into heat problems later, I will vent with larger holes nearer the center for air movement. So, with those all prepped I slid the brake side covers back over the wires:
Still pretty tight so I modified one of the spacer washers I got from Grin to provide a nice polished escapement with an additional 3mm of smooth exit.
Obiwan007
1 kW
After that It was just a matter of putting the stator back into the hub (also drilled the other side cover vent holes first), and torquing all the blots back in place. Also had to punch another little registration mark on the new side cover to match up with magnet ring for future re-alignment if necessary. Here is the completed motor with all teflon wiring inside, 10awg teflon phase wires and a heat probe (BBQ style).
Back to work tomorrow for a couple of day but then I can start on the wiring and mounting the controller. The end is beginning to come into sight.....off in the distance, but visible. I can't wait!
Back to work tomorrow for a couple of day but then I can start on the wiring and mounting the controller. The end is beginning to come into sight.....off in the distance, but visible. I can't wait!
pendragon8000
100 kW
All looks amazing to me. Nice work with the centre punch THEN drill , my vents first attempt are shocking,dremel next time. You really gave it a serve of lamination hey? Any pointers on your experience there? Also air hole near axle?
Obiwan007
1 kW
I'm not sure what you mean by "serve of lamination". As for the air holes near the axle, I will likely wait at least until I get two mor batteries and run this at 66V.
pendragon8000
100 kW
"Then I got back to work on the motor. I had the side plate on once before but I had to take it apart to varnish the stator."Obiwan007 said:
that.. copeous amounts of paint/goo
Obiwan007
1 kW
Oh, I get it. The paint on the stator is insulating varnish. I initially ordered some of this from Graingers (SprayOn brand). They sent me the wrong stuff (electrical degreaser?) and then I found some locally but a different brand. Sprayed that on yesterday, mostly as a corrosion protectant. I was initially going to spray the inside of the magnet ring too but found that the factory had smeared a thin coat of some sort of rubbery stuff that seemed pretty impregnable so I left it as-is. The varnish is apparently good up to 160C for heat and the the voltage rating was something in the 160V range according to the guy at the motor shop where I got it. The red color seems to be pretty common, although SprayOn brand had both green and clear too.
Obiwan007
1 kW
Sorry to all for the delay in posts, was down with the flu for several days and then there is the pesky job that gets in the way, but through it all I have been making forward progress. So here is a report. finished up the T/As and decided to use them with out the pinching upgrade for now. At 44V I don't think I'm going to need that much protection right now. Went to install the motor onto the frame and found several problems that needed dealing with. First, with the spacers necessary to allow my fat tires to fit in the frame the axel was not long enough to get washer/lock washer/axel nut onto the axel far enough. So I started playing around with a bunch of different combinations of spring washers, nylock nuts, spacer configurations, etc. Eventually, I went with a combo of counter-boring the T/As slightly and using a slightly ground-down nylock nut on one side and a spring washer and nylock nut on the other side. I think this will be OK but I will keep an eye on it and check the torque on the nuts often. As for the brakes well...that was a bigger issue. In the end I had to go to 180mm disc (203mm would hit the frame) and insert a disc spacer behind the disc. A little more frame grinding here and there and now it just barely works. All of this added to the axel length problem to create a very frustrating couple of days. But I got er done in the end. So now it pedels, hooray! Figured it was time to make sure everything would fit on the bars properly. Got everything attached and found that the half-twist throttle prevented the paddle shifter for the rear from working. The thumb paddle worked fine but the finger paddle was blocked by the throttle. Part of the problem is the bars. This bike came with bars with an actual cross bar. I'll have to change this out but I really want some high-rise bars for a more upright posture. Anyone have any suggestions? Also the bars have been shortened a lot so there is a decided lack of real estate for controls. So decided to turn the throttle around for now and put it on the end of the grip just to get it up and running. Some investigation revealed that SRAM X.3 deraileur (7 speed) will work OK with the half-twist throttle allowing for a conventional arrangement. When I get it and replace it it will probably work better than my current 9 speed one anyway. Next episode, controller mounting. Pictures, I promise.
pendragon8000
100 kW
Nice progress. ... my shifter was the same but I found the finger one could be pushed by thumb also and that was great for twisting throttle and switching up gear at the same time, maby yours does to.?
Obiwan007
1 kW
Nope, the Shimano Deore 9 speed I have now does not work that way. Would have been nice though. New one is on the way though so that should be an easy fix.
pendragon8000
100 kW
Cool. Hope its plug and play. I just had to get my new bike gear lever and brake and throttle to work together. I had to file and bend the finger trigger. ended up going gear,brake,throttle.
Obiwan007
1 kW
OK, so, controller. As much as I wanted to put the controller up on the head tube, I don't think it is the best mounting solution unless I change over to dual crown forks. I will probably ride this bike for a while before springing for new forks. So among the remaining options, I chose below the down tube for the controller location. It has a couple of advantages as I see it. First there are the water bottle bosses for a no-frame-modification mount. Second, it is pretty protected within the circumference of the front sproket and the rotation of the pedals. Dirt and moisture may be a problem but it is sealed pretty good and I will likely make a guard for it. Third, it also keeps the center of gravity low. i know that it doesn,t weigh much but every little bit help especially since i am definately adding at least two more batteries. i may wish i had this space for those batteries later but maybe that will goad me into new forks and i'll move everything at that time. So here is how I proceeded.
Mde a aluminum bracket that fit over the water bottle bosses.
Made square holes for mounting the controller onto the bracket with carriage bolts and then used thick washers as off-sets so the water bottle bolts don't rest on the bottom of the controller.
Mounted the controller onto the bracket with spring washers and whizz nuts.
Turns out to be a nice solid mounting solution. The only problem is that it really takes away from the stealthy aspects with all the wires exposed. After hooking up all of the controls and such I was able to rout all of the wires up into the side covers and hide all of the connectors. Once everything is together I will probably use one of the stretchy cloth covers for the wire comming out of the controller. I may eventually paint the controller too. But that will be down the road from here a bit. Right now I am focusing on fixing my electrical problems. Next installment, "Kentucky Fried Connectors"
Mde a aluminum bracket that fit over the water bottle bosses.
Made square holes for mounting the controller onto the bracket with carriage bolts and then used thick washers as off-sets so the water bottle bolts don't rest on the bottom of the controller.
Mounted the controller onto the bracket with spring washers and whizz nuts.
Turns out to be a nice solid mounting solution. The only problem is that it really takes away from the stealthy aspects with all the wires exposed. After hooking up all of the controls and such I was able to rout all of the wires up into the side covers and hide all of the connectors. Once everything is together I will probably use one of the stretchy cloth covers for the wire comming out of the controller. I may eventually paint the controller too. But that will be down the road from here a bit. Right now I am focusing on fixing my electrical problems. Next installment, "Kentucky Fried Connectors"
Obiwan007
1 kW
So the next step for me was to get all the main wiring set up correctly. I did not worry too much about getting everything in the perfec place but mainly getting all of the harnesses made up properly. My plan was to wire it up and drive the thing so that I could identify any problems befor doing the final fit and finish steps. Frankly I had been looking forward to this pert after all my reading I was excited to get the soldering iron out and to finally install a few Anderson's. ALERT! ALERT! The following is my own fault . What came next is no reflection to the harnesses that I had made for me by icecube57. His harnesses are pure quality in every way. The problem did not even turn out to be harness wiring related. So, icecube57 agreed to make up harnesses for me the left the terminations to me. Mainly he got me squared away with a fuse and a pre-charge resistor and all of the large crimp connections. But I really wanted to get my feet wet with at least some of the wiring and such so he sent harnesses to my specifications that needed some finishing. So first I made up the battery harness that paralleled two batteries each and then joined up into a four block of Anderson's. Next, I made up the charging harness that simply continued the parallel arrangement on to the charger. All was well to this point. Now for the series harness that goes to the controller. This is a mating fur-block of Anderson's with a cross wire that reconfigures the batteries into a 12s2p arrangement. The details of this method can be found in dogmas excellent review of this harness arrangement here: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=32096. So I made up the end of the harness that does series business and it looked good and I figured I better make sure it fit properly with the battery harness so I plugged them together. This is where it got exciting...BIG flash, bunch of smoke, etc. it was pretty dramatic for a momentary touch. I got them apart right away but one of the Anderson's was pretty well cooked. So I went back and re-evaluated how everything had been done and could not find anything out of sorts. Problem is, there is obviously a problem and if I don't figure it out and at least come up with a plan, how can I just plug it back in for a second test. Well after pulling my hair out for a couple of days I got my electronics professional friend to look at it and we eventually figured it out. I had used two JST wyes to join the two balance plugs for the batteries on each side and then a third to join these two so that all four of the batteries were paralleled together. This, I thought was a clever method so that I could make just one balance lead connection when it came time to charge the batts. Well you all probably see the problem by now. What I had done was to connect all the batteries in parallel via the balance plugs and then connected them in series with the discharge cable. In case you didn't know before (I didn't) this is bad juju, it lets the smoke out! Fortunately, the extent of the damage was two Anderson's and one balance wye. Dogman has since given me some really good reasons to consider keeping the balance leads separated. For occasional single battery balance charging this is likely the way I will go. For everyday charging I will likely get some straight extensions and use a para-board for the balance leads. Anyway the good news is that everything connected properly and the motor ran....backward. Did some research and got the phase and halls lined out and got it going the right way. Then I got to take it out for my first ride. AWSOME fun! Even though I kept it short since the batteries needed topping off and I wanted to make some configuration changes almost immediately. I did find out that there just was not as much room for hiding wiring as I had hoped in the top and bottom of the side covers. Wow there are sure a lot of wires comming out of that controller. Well Now for getting thing prettied up and ready for everyday riding. Next episode; "The tunnel of Love" pictures I promise.
pendragon8000
100 kW
Bummer about short circuit. You could have put up photos and questions and someone would have helped you out. But anyway that's awesome you got it going 
nice one.
nice one.
Obiwan007
1 kW
Got my new rear deraileur in the mail along with the mating shifter. This is a sram ESP 7 speed. It kind of seems like too much plastic in the deraileur feels a bit cheap. But it bolted right up. Put a new chain on while I was at it since the old chain was the nine speed size. Then installed the shifter along with the e-brake levers. Everything worked! I did have to do a little shape modification on the front thumb lever for the shifter but it works great and everything fits. Here it is:
And the deraileur:
Then I moved on to taking care of the copious wiring issue. While there was not room in the edges of the side covers, I figured I could hide it with a semi-flexible cap to the top tube. So in keeping with the whole termo-plastic heat bending theme I made a simple mold out of wood and a piece of cardboard tube to make this:
It's made out of thin LDPE in black and is flexible enough to squeeze together and slip in next to the edges of the side covers like this:
Here is how it looks on the bike:
I'm pretty happy with how this looks and it's really easy to pop,it off and on for charging.
I still have to find a good place to mount the BBQ heat sensor but I have it mounted under the seat with zip ties for now so I can start getting out and testing. My batteries jumped up on HK again last night and I finally got two more ordered. Now I have to figure out where I'm going to mount them. Anyway, here are some pics of the mostly finalized bike:
I'm thinking about taking Justin up on his offer and taking it to the SF makerfair. It only about an hour from so it would be a shame to miss it. might finally meet up with some other EV bike folk. Hope it's all tidied up by then. Next episode: Charging Circus.
And the deraileur:
Then I moved on to taking care of the copious wiring issue. While there was not room in the edges of the side covers, I figured I could hide it with a semi-flexible cap to the top tube. So in keeping with the whole termo-plastic heat bending theme I made a simple mold out of wood and a piece of cardboard tube to make this:
It's made out of thin LDPE in black and is flexible enough to squeeze together and slip in next to the edges of the side covers like this:
Here is how it looks on the bike:
I'm pretty happy with how this looks and it's really easy to pop,it off and on for charging.
I still have to find a good place to mount the BBQ heat sensor but I have it mounted under the seat with zip ties for now so I can start getting out and testing. My batteries jumped up on HK again last night and I finally got two more ordered. Now I have to figure out where I'm going to mount them. Anyway, here are some pics of the mostly finalized bike:
I'm thinking about taking Justin up on his offer and taking it to the SF makerfair. It only about an hour from so it would be a shame to miss it. might finally meet up with some other EV bike folk. Hope it's all tidied up by then. Next episode: Charging Circus.
pendragon8000
100 kW
it's looking real tuff
Can you tell us how you did that top tube plastic heat thing? It looks prety good.
charging circus.. indeed LOL
Can you tell us how you did that top tube plastic heat thing? It looks prety good.
charging circus.. indeed LOL
