Final shopping list. With pictures.

[zjhost]

Shopping list in pictures on page 4
I think shopping lists are very useful so here we go!

1. (local) Prokit 901 48v 1000w http://bit.ly/T8yvQz
2. All things necessary for the battery :
a. 6x Turnigy 5000mAh 4S1P 14.8v 20C hardcase pack http://bit.ly/NYVFGV
b. 1x Turnigy T-20Pro Quality 16A Power Supply 180~240V (220W) http://bit.ly/PrLZGt
c. 1x TURNIGY MEGA 380W Lithium Polymer Battery Charger http://bit.ly/NvgEV6
d. 1x ParaBoard-XH with 4mm Bullet Connectors 40A Version http://bit.ly/KsfuW5
e. 1x Cell-Log 8M Cell Voltage Monitor 2-8S Lipo http://bit.ly/ORo7gF
f. 1x Hobby King Battery Medic System 6S http://bit.ly/NNYRmY (I know it might be strange to have 2 cell monitors but just to be sure and I couldn't pick one)
g. HXT 4mm Gold Connector w/ Protector (10pcs/set) http://bit.ly/N9wBKQ
h. 2x Turnigy Pure-Silicone Wire 10AWG (1mtr) both red and black.
i. 1x JST-XH 4S Wire Extension 20cm (10pcs/bag) ((Just to wire the lipo monitor to the handlebar) and maybe to charge without taking the batteries out of the frame)
3. This controller http://bit.ly/NsQewY

Price

1. +-260 euro 10 euro shipping
2. a. -+ 160 euro 6 euro shipping
b/i -+ 150 euro 25 euro shipping
3. +- 40 euro Free shipping
_______________________________+
610 + 41 euro shipping

Bike 150 euro and I expect about 100 euro for painting and maybe welding for inside the frame. And/or other unexpected problems.

Which brings me to a total of....... 900 euro / 1100 us dollar / 700 brithish pound.

If you have any improvements please DO post them, to help future ebike builders. I already bought most of the parts.

-zjhost

 

[dogman dan]

Faster charger might be nice. The one you picked out will take about 6 hours to charge all 6 batteries.

Power supply for the charger, if it doesn't come with a built in one.

 

[dogman dan]

Ah, it's a charger with a built in power supply. It's fairly bottom of the line, but will do ya for now if funds are tight. A meanwell power supply of 350w and a pair of 150 w chargers is what I settled on. Nice fast recharges are nice with lipo. You have to watch lipo charging you know. No falling asleep while they charge.

 

[zjhost]

6 hours is long indeed. Don't these chargers shut off automatically? I thought if I put them in a fireproof case it would be ok? But appertly not. Guess I'm going to need a more expersive charger.

 

[wesnewell]

Looks good to me. Just one note. You can't make 18s with those batteries. You can make 16, 20, or 24s. If you decide to go higher than 12s, just go to 24s to make full use of your batteries and just don't go as fast. As for the 72V controllers, they are in use by quite a few people here. I've got a couple of them (one spare) and been using mine over a year. There's more than one thread covering them.
Yes, the charger should stop charging once it reaches the set voltage. But the chargers power will stay on til you turn it off.

 

[zjhost]

Good advice, I'm really excited to start my build. I will probably make a serperate topic or youtube series to keep everyone updated

 

[Caliban]

If you get the prokit 901 it would come with a controller. The standard multi voltage GM unit is quite competent but a sloowwww start makes it less than exciting if that is what you want. I see they now offer a new controller 50 amp continuous 100 amp peak which might be a more compatible option - but might not suit the voltage you plan to use.

 

[zjhost]

If you get the prokit 901 it would come with a controller. The standard multi voltage GM unit is quite competent but a sloowwww start makes it less than exciting if that is what you want. I see they now offer a new controller 50 amp continuous 100 amp peak which might be a more compatible option - but might not suit the voltage you plan to use.

If you know where I can get a kit like that I would apreciate that. I will not buy a serperate controller. Because then I would have 2, 48v controllers and one 72v controller. And it seems that the 72v controller is moddable to handle 48v with lvc? I still got to figure that out but there are plenty of topics about that apperntly.

 

[dogman dan]

48v 20 amp controllers are pretty cheap. Start with one of those, that comes in the kit, and then move up to more voltage later with a new controller.

Spares are good, spare controllers, spare throttles, spare connectors, etc.

I plug in lifepo4 to a charger and go to sleep all the time. I do NOT go to sleep with a lico charger running.

 

[zjhost]

I don't know if lipo's are good for me.. I don't want to have to worry about them exploding every time I leave the room. And I do not want to put my house and family in danger of course.
Still they are cheap and if I just fully charge them every weekend and ride approximately 2 to 8 km a day, max. 40 km a week. I should be fine right? I will charge them outside and stay in the area, keep an eye out on the voltages per cell. At night I'll just keep the bike in the garage, install a smoke detector just in case...

Anyway I made a design this morning: (first time uploading a pic don't know how it works out)

The black stripes are future alluminium bars for the battery's to sit on



An other design of cardboard: *edit: the large black thing on the right is the size of the 72v controller



The battery's are 45 mm thick the frame diameter is 40 mm thick so it should stickout about 2.5 mm on each side.



*Edit: Yes it works

 

[motomech]

It would be better if you knew what kind of speed you desired and build one Voltage to match. making 'convertable" systems can end up wasting materials.
Staying below 12S or 14S makes building the system much easier.
14S with that kit should put you around 40 Kph. Above that and you had better have a very good bike w/ hyd. disc.s and suspension and you will want to install a larger chain ring if you want to keep pedaling.

All things necessary for the battery :
a. 6x Turnigy 5000mAh 4S1P 14.8v 20C hardcase pack http://bit.ly/NYVFGV

Going with 6S or 7S bricks will simplify wiring and charging.
Turnigy 6S 5Ah 20C's are a very good bargin.

b. 1x Just Another Charger 80W 6A 2~6S Balance Charger w/PSU http://bit.ly/PSbOfd (is this a good charger?)
c. 1x Parallel charging Board for 6 packs 2~6S (EC3) http://bit.ly/MFi9es
d. 1x Cell-Log 8M Cell Voltage Monitor 2-8S Lipo http://bit.ly/ORo7gF
e. 6x Battery Monitor 2-6S (to keep an eye on the battery's while riding)

You don't need most of that stuff and you certainly won't be looking at battery monitors while riding.
Go with a Hyperion 1420i to use as both a bulk and balance charger, it will go up to 14S.
If you stayed with 12S, you could use the budget[over here anyway]Thunder 1220.
All you need in addition to one of these chargers and it's power supply is one or two Cellogs and Battery Medics

f. (Also Hobbyking) Variety of connections and wires to connect the battery's either 12s2p or 18s?p or if I want to die 24s1p (good advice dogman) The wires are 14 AWG is that good? enough? more than enough?

I love this balance extension/adapter sold by EP Buddy;





It's for charging, not discharging, but with it's 12 AWG common wire, it's heavy enough up to 14S to use to discharge.
On a 12S system, you pair two 6s's in series as your basic building blocks giving you 12S/5Ah. Then using that cable to parallel to 12S/10Ah, 15Ah, etc.
Very simple and you will still have an empty pair of connectors to bulk charge.
If you decide to use more than 14S, it would be better to parallel the 6S bricks first, then series. No 14 AWG anywhere[at least 12AWG] and that stuff you would need to make from scratch.

 

[ebent]

Get fuses. One for the battery!

 

[zjhost]

@motomech , I do have hydrolic disc brakes and front suspension. Alu frame.
I guess the 6s packs would be easier to setup and your charging method is better than my idea, I think. I normally ride at speeds like 40 kmh but on those long empty roads I like to ride 50 maybe 55.

If I do the 24s at 72v and just ride 40kmh. That would be the same as riding 48v 40kmh, regarding the use of Ah, right?

 

[999zip999]

You can look at cellman A123 lifepo4 51v. 11ah. triangle battery pack with that frame. A true plug and play battery and you could walk away. Maybe upgrade the bms to 60amp. Plus you can get the hub kit if you like a geared mac and choice of windings. Torque arm for motor. A controller you can plug a cycle analst into. I don't know about customs ? One guy one shipping charge. All the eggs in one box. Good and bad.

 

[wesnewell]

Well, I'm just a cheap sob. That's why I went with the 4s packs. It's the cheapest way to go for 12s-24s. They can also be configured to more configs (4,8,12,16,20,24) than 6s packs (6,12,18,24) so they're more versitile. Going to 14s presents major problems. I know because that's what I started with. That's why I bought the Hyperion 1420i, which I don't regret. But finding 7s packs with a single 7s balance lead for under $1 per Wh is next to impossible. All the 7s packs on HK are really just 4s and 3s packs packaged together with a 4s and 3s balance lead for each pack, so you can't charge 14s unless you rewire the balance leads into a 7s single balance plug. As a first time lipo buyer I went with 5s-4s-5s config and made adapters to turn the 3 into 2 7s plugs and it worked pretty good. Problem was I was limited to 14s and I wanted more speed than I could get with 14s. So that was just a waste of time for me. It's really too bad they don't make a charger that will do 24s, but there are ways you can balance charge 24s using a bulk charger and separate balancers like battery medics. I just decided not to mess with them since I can parallel balance charge the 12 4s packs without having to buy more equipment and it only takes about 1 minute to set it up for charge.
As for the hazards of rc lipo. There are hazards with ALL battery chemistries, even sla. Look in the battery forum and you'll see lifepo4 packs that have caught on fire too. But 99.9% of all these fires were caused by the user. Properly handled both are fairly safe. Abused, and all can be dangerous and burn your house down, not just rc lipo. Out of the 4 packs I built, I've not had a single cell even puff up yet in the 1.5 years I've been using rc lipo. But I don't over charge or over discharge either. Treat it right and you shouldn't have a problem. If you are storing it, inspect it at least once a week, and check its charge level at least once a month.

 

[999zip999]

Lipo you're married, lifepo4 you can still spleep around. Cheaper batteries, but more for good charging stuff and ect's.

 

[wesnewell]

There's no difference charging rc lipo and lifepo4 packs. Both have a bms while charging. If you sleep while charging lifepo4 you might as well sleep while charging rc lipo. But it's not something I'd recommend with either unless both are in a safe place. There are many many more houses burned down by other causes. Lots of houses exploded from gas leaks. One reason I've4 never bought a house that wasn't all electric.

 

[zjhost]

Thanks for all the ideas,

You can look at cellman A123 lifepo4 51v. 11ah. triangle battery pack with that frame. A true plug and play battery and you could walk away. Maybe upgrade the bms to 60amp. Plus you can get the hub kit if you like a geared mac and choice of windings. Torque arm for motor. A controller you can plug a cycle analst into. I don't know about customs ? One guy one shipping charge. All the eggs in one box. Good and bad.

I've seen it before, pretty nice. However they are expensive in comparison to the lipo's. And I send them an email about 3 days ago and still received nothing back. Shipping will be expensive too since total package will weigh about 8kg DHL shipping must be over 150 dollar.

@wesnewell The Hyperion 1420i is a bit too expensive for me and the "Just another charger" charger is too slow. I am looking for a charger that can do my 6x 4s with the parallel charging board in about 2 to 4 hours. When I charge them I just take them all out of the bike and put them on the board outside. I really dont mind the 15 minutes of work.

@anyone who knows this
If I just wire them all is series 24s1p, and don't go full power/wot I will use the same amount of Ah as riding wot with 12s2p, Is this true??
And about the 14awg wire, I don't really understand it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge What size awg do I need when riding 24s1p ? If it is different from 14awg the connectors from HK are useless, right? It all started out so simple.... :/

 

[dogman dan]

24s, you'd be wanting 10 guage wire, but you could get by with 12 guage. Assuming you are using 40 amps.

I don't want to frighten you off about lipo, but when Wes says charging lico (RC lipo) and charging lifepo4 is the same he's just plain wrong. IF a charger malfunctions, which is not all that likely, lifepo4 will stink up the room. But lico could easily set the room on fire if the charger malfunctions.

Furthermore, RC lipo packs don't have a bms. So you could easily overdischarge cells, ruining them. Then when you try to recharge them they really are dangerous, and could burst into flames even when connected to a very high quality RC charger.

However, the single most likely cause of a fire is a short circuit, usually in the wiring, or from riding with not enough protection around the battery and puncturing the cells. In that case, either type can start nearby flamable materials on fire.

 

[Punx0r]

There is a Hobbyking warehouse in Germany. Some items are not available, and most are a little more expensive (due to VAT I suspect) but postage is much cheaper and faster, so you might save money overall - I did when buying batteries.

 

[wesnewell]

@wesnewell The Hyperion 1420i is a bit too expensive for me and the "Just another charger" charger is too slow. I am looking for a charger that can do my 6x 4s with the parallel charging board in about 2 to 4 hours. When I charge them I just take them all out of the bike and put them on the board outside. I really dont mind the 15 minutes of work.

@anyone who knows this
If I just wire them all is series 24s1p, and don't go full power/wot I will use the same amount of Ah as riding wot with 12s2p, Is this true??
And about the 14awg wire, I don't really understand it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge What size awg do I need when riding 24s1p ? If it is different from 14awg the connectors from HK are useless, right? It all started out so simple.... :/

6x74=444Wh, so a 150W 6s charger will charge them in about 3 hours. 250W in about 2 hours, etc.

Wire size depends on how many amps you pull. Of course there's a little more voltage loss with smaller wire but 14awg will work fine. However, I'd go to 12 or 10awg for the battery cable to reduce loss. I use 10, however, just as a test some time back, I actually spliced in a 6" piece of 24awg telco and put 30A through it and it still worked. Got hot enough to melt the cheap plastic coating though.

 

[motomech]

Thanks for all the ideas,

@wesnewell The Hyperion 1420i is a bit too expensive for me and the "Just another charger" charger is too slow. I am looking for a charger that can do my 6x 4s with the parallel charging board in about 2 to 4 hours. When I charge them I just take them all out of the bike and put them on the board outside. I really dont mind the 15 minutes of work.

@anyone who knows this
If I just wire them all is series 24s1p, and don't go full power/wot I will use the same amount of Ah as riding wot with 12s2p, Is this true??
And about the 14awg wire, I don't really understand it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge What size awg do I need when riding 24s1p ? If it is different from 14awg the connectors from HK are useless, right? It all started out so simple.... :/

Thanks for all the ideas,

But you don't seem to be getting what we are telling you.

I am looking for a charger that can do my 6x 4s with the parallel charging board in about 2 to 4 hours. When I charge them I just take them all out of the bike and put them on the board outside. I really dont mind the 15 minutes of work.

No, no, no. You don't mind "spending the time" to break your packs, remove them from the bike, lay them out and futz around with a bunch of balance connectors to be able to charge your pack in 4 hr.s, while you are sitting there on your computer, but if you actually end up riding your Ebike on a regular basis, you will get to hate it real quick. Plugging those connectors in and out of a paraboard is a PITA

The Hyperion 1420i is a bit too expensive for me

Then you should not even be thinking about 24S. The very first rule of Lipo is, don't cheap out on your charging set-up. By the time you buy a charger designed for model airplanes, a paraboard[better get two], and a bunch of balance extensions, you could have bought a quality 12 or 14S charger. You are trying to cheap-out without realizing of what you are getting into and in the long run, you will end up spending more than if you did it right the first time.
You are making a lot of work to charge, which equates to lot's of chances to mess up and kill a brick or even a whole pack.
At the very least, buy a dumb bulk charger and monitor the bricks with the Cellog and get a genaric 150Watt charger for those times you need to balance charge.

If I just wire them all is series 24s1p...

This would be a ridiculous pack, suitable for drag racing only. What would you do with it? Race down to the store to a 6-pack of Cokes, then have to come straight home to break-down the pack to charge for a couple of hr.s, so you could do it again?

The fact is, 24S is too fast for a hardtail unless your road is perfectly smooth.

 

[999zip999]

Save your town's people a phone call and start out a little easier on your self. Get a model plane and try out lipo, with charger and power supply plus battery monitoring devise ect. A barbaque thing for charging or old brick oven. Ect. Start small... Please. But more A.H.

 

[wesnewell]

@anyone who knows this
If I just wire them all is series 24s1p, and don't go full power/wot I will use the same amount of Ah as riding wot with 12s2p, Is this true??

Oops. missed this part. Yes, that's true enough, but you'll need a controller capable of 24s. Don't try it with the controller that comes with the kit.
Here's a charger that would work good. At 20A, should charge your 6 packs in under 2 hours.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11340__TURNIGY_MEGA_380W_Lithium_Polymer_Battery_Charger.html

 

[zjhost]

But you don't seem to be getting what we are telling you.

I do get it but I like the 4s packs because of the hard case and there only 44mm thick.

No, no, no. You don't mind "spending the time" to break your packs, remove them from the bike, lay them out and futz around with a bunch of balance connectors to be able to charge your pack in 4 hr.s, while you are sitting there on your computer, but if you actually end up riding your Ebike on a regular basis, you will get to hate it real quick. Plugging those connectors in and out of a paraboard is a PITA

I imagine myself charging the battery's once a week.

Then you should not even be thinking about 24S. The very first rule of Lipo is, don't cheap out on your charging set-up. By the time you buy a charger designed for model airplanes, a paraboard[better get two], and a bunch of balance extensions, you could have bought a quality 12 or 14S charger. You are trying to cheap-out without realizing of what you are getting into and in the long run, you will end up spending more than if you did it right the first time.
You are making a lot of work to charge, which equates to lot's of chances to mess up and kill a brick or even a whole pack.
At the very least, buy a dumb bulk charger and monitor the bricks with the Cellog and get a genaric 150Watt charger for those times you need to balance charge.

You're right, I shouldn't cheap out on charging but my first impression was that; It was weird for me to buy a 200 euro charger on a 150 euro battery pack. Maybe Im wrong...

This would be a ridiculous pack, suitable for drag racing only. What would you do with it? Race down to the store to a 6-pack of Cokes, then have to come straight home to break-down the pack to charge for a couple of hr.s, so you could do it again?

The fact is, 24S is too fast for a hardtail unless your road is perfectly smooth.

Not my intention at all, As I look at wensewell's signature it says: NEXT 26" MTB bike $59, yescomusa.com 48V 1000W rear hub kit $276, Hua Tong 72V 40A controller $35, 24s lipo=40+mph, range=45 miles @20mph
simular setup as mine, Of course I won't be riding 40 mph to the supermarket, I won't be riding that at all but I thought wiring the pack 24s would be easier. 45miles @20mph. I will be riding 40km max. a week. average 32km h. charge once a week.