LightningRods mid drive kit

John Bozi; That is what I did. I disconnected the CA and used the original controller that I ordered from Lyen for his controller. I did what LR told me and disconnected the throttle from the CA and I also updated the firmware to V1.3. This worked and the throttle problem was fixed. But, Now the CA is registering 77V when I hit the throttle and goes back to 48v when I let go. I go to the initial settings in the CA and it shows 48v.

This is confusing. I disconnected the CA and am running straight from the throttle. I ordered a voltmeter/wattmeter from Lunacycle and when it arrives I will use this to gauge my battery. I don't need the fancy readings of the CA. The learning curve for the CA3 is too much for me right now.

I bought a Bafang BBSO2 and installed it on my hybrid bike and it is plug and play. So I have decided to use the Bafang for commuting and the LR for weekends to ride around the city. There are no trails here.

But thank you for your advise and expertise. I hope you find the drivetrain for your bike that will hold up to your style of riding.

Nelson.
 
LightningRods said:
Mammalian04 said:
Machined porn.

Raptor kit almost ready to go? I have 2 days off next week and it's be great to get the Raptor converted to big block or the Motobecane Fatbike big block going.
Click to expand...

The Raptor kit is ready to go. I just have to get more big blocks which I can't currently. I have four big motors slated for the beginning of the Luna build queue. I'm going to get ten more big blocks in the shop as soon as the Alipay payment gateway is back up. They thought Christmas would be a great time to take it off line to rework everything.

I'll get your Motobecane mid drive set up for you. I have all of the parts for that in the shop.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike. Let me know if I need to pay for the Luna BB + Controller if you are about to order motors.
 
I have a Raptor 140 frame here in the shop. Since I ship kits assembled now I can at least put the assembled mid drive onto the Raptor frame to show how it fits. Just as an appeteaser until Jason can get the build on his bike completed.
 
I spent today converting mammalian's regular 100mm big block to a fat bike bike block. It requires a different, wider bottom bracket and smaller BB sprockets. The chain stays on fat bikes leave no room for big chainwheels.

I'll see what I can do about getting a Raptor kit put together. I have all of the parts.
 
Is that holding true for all fat bikes? I previously specified a 100mm BB for my big block but I don't think I separately noted that it was a fat bike frame.
 
The sole difficulty with fitting my mid drives on fat bikes is the width of the chain stays near the bottom bracket. They have to be wide to clear the fat tire. Unfortunately the wide chain stay on the right side interferes with the space needed for the chain wheel. Almost all fat bikes have small front chainwheels and it's not just for low gearing. There isn't room for a larger chain wheel.

The exception is the Sonders Storm. Sonders was clever enough to move the rear wheel, and the accompanying chain stay bulges, back just far enough to allow space for a normal sized chain wheel.

What kind of fat bike do you have, eMTBHunter? We should probably set you up with the fat bike parts.

Here's a shot of the fat bike BB and sprockets on a Surly Moonlander:

Moonlanderkit3.JPG
 
LightningRods said:
The sole difficulty with fitting my mid drives on fat bikes is the width of the chain stays near the bottom bracket. They have to be wide to clear the fat tire. Unfortunately the wide chain stay on the right side interferes with the space needed for the chain wheel. Almost all fat bikes have small front chainwheels and it's not just for low gearing. There isn't room for a larger chain wheel.

The exception is the Sonders Storm. Sonders was clever enough to move the rear wheel, and the accompanying chain stay bulges, back just far enough to allow space for a normal sized chain wheel.

What kind of fat bike do you have, eMTBHunter? We should probably set you up with the fat bike parts.

Here's a shot of the fat bike BB and sprockets on a Surly Moonlander:

Moonlanderkit3.JPG
Click to expand...

I guess you are already doing this but, a smaller outer chainring or smaller sprocket on the reduction shaft is a simple enough solution for those wanting the higher speeds with the 32t pictured above.

Personally I would go for a smaller outer chainring because it should see a bit more ground clearance.

Out of interest Mike, have the stock 219 sprocket / chainrings at the BB had holes drilled in them by you or are do they come with that hole pattern already. In simpler words, if I needed to buy another 219 sprocket would I have to drill in the holes for those connecting bolts?

cheers

ps I like the reversed nuts
 
LightningRods said:
What kind of fat bike do you have, eMTBHunter? We should probably set you up with the fat bike parts.
Click to expand...

Mine is a Gravity Bullseye 29plus, which as I understand it is just the Bullseye Monster fat bike frame with a 29+ wheel set (I'm changing the rear to a 27.5+ built by timberline).

Outer chainring in the photos is a 42T. The 32T chainring currently has about an inch of clearance to the chainstay.

55eb57b4007faa0a027a1ebae3025626.jpg
9f87ec1a031ed2331a95f78add2cbeda.jpg
 
John Bozi said:
Out of interest Mike, have the stock 219 sprocket / chainrings at the BB had holes drilled in them by you or are do they come with that hole pattern already. In simpler words, if I needed to buy another 219 sprocket would I have to drill in the holes for those connecting bolts
ps I like the reversed nuts
Click to expand...

The 219 sprockets come with this bolt pattern predrilled. It seems to be the karting standard. I believe it's 5.25". You should be able to buy a kart sprocket online and have it fit.

The sprocket bolts are reversed because otherwise the nuts would hit the 1/2" chain on the chainring.
 
This forum so often seems like my complaint department. It can get pretty negative at times. I want to share a customer letter that I received this morning. It made my day.

"Mike,

I know you had to talk my LBS guy through replacing the gear. Thanks for your help. Yesterday I was able to have my first ride after all the techs in the shop had a turn. They were very curious to see how well it performed. I can say they were VERY impressed. They each had quite a grin on their faces when they came back. They loved passing the cars in the parking area. If you aren't careful it will do a wheelie from a standing start. I can't imagine what the more powerful one can do.

I live on top of a hill with a long steep driveway. My goal was that I wanted a bike that could go up that hill. On my first try I approached the steepest part at speed but it was totally unnecessary. The bike went up the hill with absolutely no strain at all. My Tidal Force couldn't get up the hill.

So just a note of thanks for a job well done and holding my hand until I could get things going.

Thanks again for your help!

Ron"

:D
 
It looks like the new frame is 4 or 5 lbs lighter than the old 140 frame. As long as it's not weaker there is nothing wrong with shedding weight.

If the bottom bracket width is still 83mm my current design should fit no problem. If it's a different width it will be simple enough to adapt to the new width.
 
Qulbix emailed me the BB is 83mm. I am a BIG fan of the Q76R Raptor. It has all the good stuff, and the hard parts of the frame are just narrow enough for a battery pack made from a single-column of 18650 cells on their sides (236 of them), and...if you want a wider/bigger battery pack, that can be accomplished by having wider side-panels.

If you are happy with the best possible mid drive (LR big block) on the lightest possible frame, you can get:

74V 20S/11P,
25R_____27.5-Ah, 220A,
Pana-B__37.4-Ah, 110A,
PF_____31.9-Ah, 110A

88V 24S/9P,
25R____22.5-Ah, 180A,
Pana-B__30.6-Ah, 90A,
PF______26.1-Ah, 90A
 
So the existing big block kit should fit the new lightweight frame. I have the mounts in the shop now. I just need to get the motor pipeline flowing again.
 
Hi Mike

I just looked at your facebook page and saw the info on the luna drive improvements, wow it's just looking better all the time and the fact it's a bolt on unit for this frame will be great for mid level putterers like me, thanks for all the hard work you put in we do appreciate it.

I copied the facebook post and hope you don't mind me pasting it here as I hadn't seen it before.

cheers, Todd

here's Mikes update.

I'm in the final stages of creating the first production run of my mid bike drives for the Luna Cycle. I hoped to be doing this several months ago but I saw that I had more work to do. Here's what's happened since I thought I was "finished".

- Wider secondary driven hub with twice the keyway width. The big block blew the first hub design wide open.
- Design and laser cut 40T 219 secondary driven sprocket to reduce motor reduction from 12.5:1 to an ideal 8:1.
- Switch from T303 stainless steel to 4140 hardened chrome moly on both upper and lower jackshaft axles.
- Change design of jackshaft axles to eliminate internal tapped hole for hub retention. Hubs now retained by end circlips.
- Increase diameter of lower jackshaft axle from 12mm to 15mm.
- Upgrade secondary driven hub from aluminum to stainless steel.
- Upgrade motor freewheel from ACS to White Industries HD.
- Side mount plates modified so that the drive can be installed and removed without disassembly. These drives will ship 100% assembled and will install with 6 bolts. The bike's bottom bracket and chainwheel are untouched.

I'll have all of the US made components for this first run of drives finished this month. I don't have as many imported motors as I need for all of them. The winter gift giving holidays are wreaking havoc with international shipping.

Pictures of the drives being assembled coming soon.
 
Hi Mike, a few pages back you showed a beautiful pic of the bracket set you built for the 1800-3000w cyclone motor from Paco. I happen to have the cyclone 1920-3000w motor that looks identical to the one in your pic. Will you be selling that bracket kit separately? As you mention in your post, the stock brackets are absolutely abysmal and I can get them to bend more than 1/2 inch under acceleration. Chain pop city. Thanks!
 
Nice!

Does it seem that most of the noise is coming from the motor or the drivetrain?
It sounds like motor so I am hopeful that we can get it quieted down if someone can figure out a sine wave controller. Adaptto doesn't seem interested so maybe someone else? Especially since most of us will already have the Cycle Analyst from the Lyen Kit.

What are the other sine wave controllers we like here on ES? Maybe Grin has a recommendation mm ended one? Justin has such good testing procedures, I wouldn't mind covering the cost for Mike to send a motor to Justin to test with a sine wave controller and then run it through his gauntlet to test the limits until it melts down. Lots of useful information comes out of his testing and the data gets added to his simulator (if he has the time and is interested). Anyone work with Justin (or team) on this before?

Any other sine wave controllers to test?

Waste of time?
 
Mammalian04 said:
Nice!

Does it seem that most of the noise is coming from the motor or the drivetrain?
Click to expand...

Primary chain, but I have never taken it off to test and won't unless something needs changing.

Mike's vid:

[youtube]DVNDhDPy2UU[/youtube]
 
dekes1 said:
Hi Mike, a few pages back you showed a beautiful pic of the bracket set you built for the 1800-3000w cyclone motor from Paco. I happen to have the cyclone 1920-3000w motor that looks identical to the one in your pic. Will you be selling that bracket kit separately? As you mention in your post, the stock brackets are absolutely abysmal and I can get them to bend more than 1/2 inch under acceleration. Chain pop city. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I like Paco a lot. Many of his products are very good quality, especially for the price. The brackets on the 1800-3000 kit are simply terrible. I could tell by looking at them that they wouldn't work.

I've had a run of 20 sets of my upgraded brackets made. I am also going to offer other upgrade parts. I'm sure that there will be a lot of people playing with this motor. It's so much more powerful and much quieter than the original Cyclone planetary motor.

CycloneL.jpg



CycloneR.jpg


I have some finishing and countersinking to do and then this run of brackets is off to the plating shop to be hard black anodized.
 
Mammalian04 said:
Nice!

Does it seem that most of the noise is coming from the motor or the drivetrain?
Click to expand...

Most of the noise is coming from the primary chain. I've been on record for more than four years saying that I prefer a belt primary drive to any other option. The belt is solid up to 50 amps or so and then starts to suffer. For racing or extremely high amperage applications the 219 primary is a noisier, but bulletproof alternative.

Belts are quiet at high speed. A quality roller chain is very strong and narrow for high torque applications in tight spaces (like a chainwheel). My personal preference is still a belt primary and chain secondary.

My mid bike drives need less reduction and so have a huge 25T drive pulley on the motor. That increases the amp/torque capacity by 50%. The Luna drive has the 25T driver.
 
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