LightningRods mid drive kit

[LightningRods]

This is definitely for real. The motors have cleared Customs in LA and are supposed to be headed for Portland via truck or rail. I've been holding up a large order of laser cut sheet metal to get the new chain and belt guards into the order and also several custom bracket sets that customers have ordered. I'm going to be under a lot of pressure trying to pull all of this together. I will be taking pictures of the process and posting them to share the experience as well as to help keep eager customers from freaking out. Correspondence is a big chunk of my day.

There will be some picayune little part that holds things up. There always is. I've just recently redesigned several components to make them stronger, straighter, truer, better finished and more efficient to make. This process will continue. Every time there is a problem, every time I hear of an opportunity to make the kit better I'll be on it. I make these kits in batches of 20, not by the shipping container. I don't have model years. I have model months.

You guys can still buy any part you want from me. If you just want a motor to scratch build your own project I'll be happy to sell you one. If you want help with design and laser cutting on mounts and other brackets I'll do that for you. I want my shop to be a place where people can find the parts and information they need. When I was a dirt biker as a kid and then a hot rodder in my 20s I always loved the shops in So Cal that were like candy stores for big kids. I want to be that shop for e-bikes.

I asked Lyen about Kelly controllers and he made loud scoffing sounds. I'll take the liberty of reprinting his response here:

"The current limit for the Kelly controller is a misleading "marketing promoted output" since they rated the maximum current by a few seconds. See how they rated their specification below:
http://www.cloudelectric.com/product-p/co-kdh12120d.htm

There are also interesting posts to read:
http://www.electricforum.com/cars/c...new-kelly-high-voltage-regen-controllers.html
http://visforvoltage.org/forum/4066...no-refund-or-replacement-will-be-given?page=1

Here is one commentary from FalconEV:
"I want to sell this Kelly controller ( you want ? , u know anyone that wants ? )
and replace w one of your controllers."

From an international customer "I have more controller for repair of Kelly, you can repair this?"

Customer from Germany "I already checked out a kelly 72v controller with 3000watt. Yours is much better. "

I have many customers who purchased controllers from me after they learned their lessons from other brands."

 

[LightningRods]

My first controller order is on it's way to me from Lyen. If you contact him and say that you want his controller for the LightningRods kit he will set you up. All of the connections are sorted, including the plug for the Cycle Analyst 3. http://www.lyen.com If you are an international customer and want Lyen's controller included with my kit to save on shipping I can arrange that for you.

 

[tomjasz]

My wife has a Townie. It's powder blue and decidedly "un-LightningRods" but I will probably end up electrifying it for her. Slightly slower than mine of course.

After all my reading, I'd like to fit your rig on top of the bottom bracket. Sound doable? I'd throw the BBS01 on another ride. I've just about made up my mind to give up on scooters altogether. Off to look closer at your cool adaptation.

 

[LightningRods]

After all my reading, I'd like to fit your rig on top of the bottom bracket. Sound doable?

It's completely doable. I've played around with a few 'in the triangle' designs. I don't think that the stock brackets can just be flipped over, at least not on most bikes. Now that I have a few motors to work with I'm going to see what kind of creative solutions I can come up with.

I'm going after the motors this Friday. I just rec'd the bad news from my customs agent today: $772 to the assorted bureaucracies and henchmen. I know it could be worse. So 100 motors in the shop by Friday night! Let the madness begin!

 

[windtrader]

It's completely doable. I've played around with a few 'in the triangle' designs. I don't think that the stock brackets can just be flipped over, at least not on most bikes. Now that I have a few motors to work with I'm going to see what kind of creative solutions I can come up with

This rings the siren for me as the plan is to mount the drive in a different orientation. I would say "in frame" but generally that implies inside the main triangle. I'm looking at some frames that are mildly extended where it seems batteries at least can be stored between the wheel and the seat tube. Maybe the motor could squeeze in there especially if being used in a left side drive config.

Even though the motors don't cost much by the time you add it all up time and all, I am still sitting on the fence if the motor can do 80V @ 30amps for long grades. May feel it has been "proven" but I need more for some reason. One of those if it seems to be true it ....
Not to take a cent away from what LR is offering. It is a no brainer for applications the kit is designed to server. pull the cc out!

 

[notger]

hi

who actually made up the 40 Amp rule i often read here ?? is it in the datasheet of the motor or experiences with test runs?

i run my gng with 8s (33Volts) and peaks up to 75 Amps (thats what my wattmeter tells me, and my controller is programmed) and have no excessive or even hot motortemperatures.
Just the standard motor wires can not handle that and already started melting, so i changed them.

might be good to use a logger once to find out what's the average amp's im using??!??

Is it about the overall Wattage V*A or just about the Current??

my controller has a over-temperature-protection and i built a thermistor in the motor, what temperature might be good to set as maximum?? (do lyen's controller also have this feature?) right now i set 90°C and it never shut-down.

According to the kelly-controller topic I use two of the KBS -series onis the X-reinforced version, and I'm quite happy with them.
Easy to programm, a lot of nice features, and very very small for 120A Controllers (actually they really spit out 120Amps, I measured it)
Luckylie I never had to use their support, I heard bad things about that, but the nice thing on their secretary is that she give quite some discounts

any experiences or comments on that?


greets
gernot

 

[windtrader]

The amp number mentioned recently is the number of apps this motor can operate on a continuous duty basis. Scan back a bit and you will see a post with a graph. This shows the elevation and distance of the journey between home and work, one way. There is a section of 10%+ grade that lasts 5-10 minutes. It is is about 10 miles so about 400 miles and 40000 feet of climbing (1000*40) each month. Wow. This is grueling for any ebike powertrain. One has to view this as an extreme edge case and certainly rare.

The answer 40 or 30 is to the question will the motor survive? The more research I put in, the more I wonder if any ebike could endure this much daily 'abuse' .

Maybe this the right time to move the discussion back to things more useful to the majority of readers. I think it was useful nonetheless.

 

[Wishes]

hi

who actually made up the 40 Amp rule i often read here ?? is it in the datasheet of the motor or experiences with test runs?

i run my gng with 8s (33Volts) and peaks up to 75 Amps (thats what my wattmeter tells me, and my controller is programmed) and have no excessive or even hot motortemperatures.
Just the standard motor wires can not handle that and already started melting, so i changed them.

might be good to use a logger once to find out what's the average amp's im using??!??

Is it about the overall Wattage V*A or just about the Current??

my controller has a over-temperature-protection and i built a thermistor in the motor, what temperature might be good to set as maximum?? (do lyen's controller also have this feature?) right now i set 90°C and it never shut-down.

According to the kelly-controller topic I use two of the KBS -series onis the X-reinforced version, and I'm quite happy with them.
Easy to programm, a lot of nice features, and very very small for 120A Controllers (actually they really spit out 120Amps, I measured it)
Luckylie I never had to use their support, I heard bad things about that, but the nice thing on their secretary is that she give quite some discounts

any experiences or comments on that?

greets
gernot

The 40 amp limit is mostly determined by the gauge of the stock phase wires. 14 gauge wire is designed to handle 30 amps sustained. They will hold fine under 40-45 amps, but will get warm. I'm not surprised they started to melt at 75 amps. And you must have a special motor if it doesn't heat up at all at 72-75 amps. Cause everyone else reports heat buildup as soon as you pass the 30 amp mark. I'm not saying it over heats, but it definitely heats up.

But these motors have been used and abused and nobody has burned one out yet. Windtrader, stop over thinking it, just build it

Wishes

 

[r3volved]

The 40 amp limit is mostly determined by the gauge of the stock phase wires. 14 gauge wire is designed to handle 30 amps sustained. They will hold fine under 40-45 amps, but will get warm. I'm not surprised they started to melt at 75 amps. And you must have a special motor if it doesn't heat up at all at 72-75 amps. Cause everyone else reports heat buildup as soon as you pass the 30 amp mark. I'm not saying it over heats, but it definitely heats up.

But these motors have been used and abused and nobody has burned one out yet. Windtrader, stop over thinking it, just build it

Wishes

I'm averaging 30a through stock gng motor with zero heat issues. Casing is still cool to the touch...however (disclaimer) there's only been one good day so far that I've been out in >15 deg Celsius. (maybe because I'm still only at 48v?)

 

[Wishes]

The 40 amp limit is mostly determined by the gauge of the stock phase wires. 14 gauge wire is designed to handle 30 amps sustained. They will hold fine under 40-45 amps, but will get warm. I'm not surprised they started to melt at 75 amps. And you must have a special motor if it doesn't heat up at all at 72-75 amps. Cause everyone else reports heat buildup as soon as you pass the 30 amp mark. I'm not saying it over heats, but it definitely heats up.

But these motors have been used and abused and nobody has burned one out yet. Windtrader, stop over thinking it, just build it

Wishes

I'm averaging 30a through stock gng motor with zero heat issues. Casing is still cool to the touch...however (disclaimer) there's only been one good day so far that I've been out in >15 deg Celsius. (maybe because I'm still only at 48v?)

If I remember, at 48 volts, anywhere below 40 amps, only the wires used to get warm. That little motor can take quite a bit. But when I was running at 18s, 75 volts on a full charge, 40 amps, the motor would get warm.

But that is all relative to how much amps you are drawing from it and for how long. You can have 75 volts at 75 amps, if you are riding and drawing 20 amps on average, it won't get warm. With both my motors, riding at WOT pulling around 35 amps constant for 5-10 minute runs back to back, the motor would definitely warm up.



Wishes

 

[oatnet]

I asked Lyen about Kelly controllers and he made loud scoffing sounds. I'll take the liberty of reprinting his response here:

"The current limit for the Kelly controller is a misleading "marketing promoted output" since they rated the maximum current by a few seconds. See how they rated their specification below:
http://www.cloudelectric.com/product-p/co-kdh12120d.htm

There are also interesting posts to read:
http://www.electricforum.com/cars/c...new-kelly-high-voltage-regen-controllers.html
http://visforvoltage.org/forum/4066...no-refund-or-replacement-will-be-given?page=1

Here is one commentary from FalconEV:
"I want to sell this Kelly controller ( you want ? , u know anyone that wants ? )
and replace w one of your controllers."

I have used dozens of brushed and brushless Kelly controllers, and found them to be much more reliable than the generic chinese controllers most of us use. I blew up a brushless kelly controller on my x5tracycle and they overnighted me a replacement from US stock, and the replacement has worked fine ever since, including a year and a half of daily commuting, never had a problem with any of the others. There are many more controller options today than there were in 2006, so Kelly has to work harder to remain competitive, but for many years they offered sturdy controllers at a cheap price.

It is unfortunate that they hype their products by advertising the peak amps instead of continious, but that is par for the course on any EV product I've bought from China. Frankly, if the people in the links above buy a controller from the advertisemen's title, without doing the due diligence of researching the actual specs and verifying that they meet their design criteria, they are either Lazy, or Ignorant of the engineering requirements of an EV and making wild trial-and-error design choices. In both cases, I lay the blame at the feet of the user, not Kelly.

-JD

 

[LightningRods]

I drove 130 miles to the freight depot in Portland today to pick up the shipment of motors. The boxes were somewhat the worse for wear, having been unloaded and reloaded several times during their journey, one time of which was for Homeland Security to paw through them. Fortunately the motors inside were both bubble wrapped and packed between sheets of styrofoam. I examined the motors in the most severely damaged box and all of them looked fine. With luck I will have no loss due to damage on this shipment.

This has been quite an adventure. It took all of my courage to step up and order these 100 motors. The last two nights I've popped awake in the middle of the night having nightmares that I'd been sent the wrong motors. But the factory did their job. The motors are just what we need and now they are right here in the US. Now comes the fun part.

 

[Wishes]

Congrats on finally getting them and everything looking good so far. I know how much that was weighing on you. Must be a big relief and weight off your shoulders. Just in time to take on new weights, now you gotta get those puppies up and ready.

You already mentioned you can offer shafts to custom needs, within a range. But now that you have them and will be able to open a few up, I'm anxious to find out if you are going to be able to offer the temp sensor installation after all? Oh and a phase wire upgrade option would also be nice....just throwing it out there



Wishes

 

[kfong]

Woohoo!

 

[Skippic]

offer the temp sensor installation after all? Oh and a phase wire upgrade option would also be nice....

+1

 

[windtrader]

Congrats! Glad they are in your hands and the right parts. Now you can get going getting these kits out the door! I could hear that big sigh all the way down here.

 

[LightningRods]

Offering the larger phase wires and a temp sender seem like obvious options. Although I'm a bit concerned about what Wishes is going to do if he has more power capacity. SpinningMagnets has a good source for the thermistor sending units and I've been told that Hobby King has good silicone high temp wire. Are we thinking 10 ga?

I'm going to be very busy for the next few weeks but I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Wishes]

Offering the larger phase wires and a temp sender seem like obvious options. Although I'm a bit concerned about what Wishes is going to do if he has more power capacity. SpinningMagnets has a good source for the thermistor sending units and I've been told that Hobby King has good silicone high temp wire. Are we thinking 10 ga?

I'm going to be very busy for the next few weeks but I'm looking forward to it.

lol, who me.?.?. I just don't like the wires getting hot..... 10 gauge wire should be more than enough.

Wishes

 

[spinningmagnets]

The multi-strand wire from Hobby King is very flexible, and in order to have insulation that is flexible and high-temp, they use silicone. However the silicone is somewhat soft and easily cut/scraped (not an issue inside an RC model), so in order to make up for the softness of the insulation, they make it fairly thick.

Thick insulation on the phase wires isn't a huge issue with a non hub motor, however, if anyone wants THIN and tough insulation that can survive very high heat...the "go to" insulation seems to be teflon (PTFE). Small 24-Ga is adequate for hall sensors and temp sensors (bigger doesn't hurt, but it isn't better). Phase wires can get warm thousands of times, they should be thick enough that they don't reach 200F/93C with the amps you are applying.

I Googled ES and here's some past suggestions for sources to get teflon insulated wire:

http://www.powerwerx.com/wire-cable/
http://www.surplussales.com/wire-cable/Wire4.html
http://www.bulkwire.com/wire-cable/ptfe-high-temperature-stranded-wire.html
http://www.amidon.de/contents/de/d383_01.html [Germany]

Silicone insulation on the left with over one thousand strands/maximum flexibility, Teflon with 19 strands on the right/medium flexibility (pic thanks to TMaster):

 

[windtrader]

Temperature is a huge factor. Without a sensor we are running partially blind. With a CA we can measure what is fed but not how the responds (I.e.heat. ).Have you considered some sort of heat fuse to trip at some temp? It would protect the motor and keep your headaches down with reports of motor issues.if the trip was easily serviceable and an easy mod it might make sense. Just a thought.

 

[Wishes]

Temperature is a huge factor. Without a sensor we are running partially blind. With a CA we can measure what is fed but not how the responds (I.e.heat. ).Have you considered some sort of heat fuse to trip at some temp? It would protect the motor and keep your headaches down with reports of motor issues.if the trip was easily serviceable and an easy mod it might make sense. Just a thought.

The temp sensor is mostly a nice to have, not a must have. You will not overheat this motor. It is not a hub motor. You will melt wires before the actual motor over heats. You need to pump in some massive AMPs to really heat it up. Much more than most people run on this setup.

Wishes

 

[windtrader]

The temp sensor is mostly a nice to have, not a must have. You will not overheat this motor. It is not a hub motor. You will melt wires before the actual motor over heats. You need to pump in some massive AMPs to really heat it up. Much more than most people run on this setup.

Thanks for the clarification. It is good info as my experience has been hub motors and their temperature handling and heat/cool characteristics are sufficiently different than this sort of motor. Thanks

 

[LightningRods]

Temperature is a huge factor. Without a sensor we are running partially blind. With a CA we can measure what is fed but not how the responds (I.e.heat. ).Have you considered some sort of heat fuse to trip at some temp? It would protect the motor and keep your headaches down with reports of motor issues.if the trip was easily serviceable and an easy mod it might make sense. Just a thought.

I believe that CA 3 has a 'roll back' feature where power is automatically reduced at a preset temperature. Much better than an outright trip that would have to be reset. I'm looking forward to running Lyen's controller with CA 3 to see how all of the features work together in the real world.

 

[windtrader]

The CA3 is temp sensor capable. I was thinking as a manufacturer if there is some point you know the motor is going to fail you can set this trip as a last resort. Shipping the motor with the temp sensor does not ensure it will be connected and managed by a CA3 whether the bike has one or not.

 

[turbo1889]

I've seen large AC power tools (think air-compressor with big AC motor) that have overheat trip sensors that are just a simple metal box with two wires and a reset button that bolt onto the outer casing of the motor. I wonder if one of those would work if you just bolted it to the side of the GNG small block motor.

I have no idea if it would or not but if you could pick up one of those thermal "pop" switches that just bolt to the outer casing of those big AC power tool motors for a decent price as a generic replacement part and bolt it to the side of the GNG small block and hook it up in series with the main battery lead to the controller. Well it might work, if its just a simple switch inside that's thermally activated it might work. Would have to try it to know, just a random thought that comes to my mind as a possibility for those desirous of having such a feature.