LightningRods mid drive kit

btw folks this is what i was talking about earlier, people (like me) might find these videos, and be like "wow 3000 watts and 70kph and after all the improvements L-R it's bound to be faster/stronger" not knowing that this is NOT the recommended usage load for this kit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v374kaHFdA4
 
Yes you can clearly hear what sounds like chain jumping on the tiny cog he is using at top speed. It is like my friend that purchased the exotic sports car, and complained he only got a few thousand miles on his super expensive z rated (30,000 mile) tires after repeatedly showing everyone how fast the thing sprinted. I laughed at him, and told him, if you want them to last, drive like you want them to last.

If you really want to go these speeds, 75V minimum and would consider closer to 100 volts so you have some revs up front and do not have to try and drive 11 or 12 tooth cogs for speed. I don't think the cops are going to let you get away with it for long and you may end up in jail if you hit someone.
 


I finally got everything together for a test ride. One thing about the LR kit, it is MUCH QUIETER than the original GNG. That alone is a huge benefit.

Thanks Mike!
 
Rotems said:
Hello,
I did assemble the motor and it working perfect, the slip on pulley is not perfectly centralized but not something critical.

The problem now is the secondary chain torque force witch I think is greater in 83mm BB.
It seems like that the lower adjustable sheets are not locked and the torque force causes the motor to slide and therefore it’s impossible to get the chain tension.
What is the best way to solve this issue?

Thank you
Rotem
Click to expand...

I have exactly the same problem. the advice given to me was to build some kind of custom clamp or even weld the upper sheets to the down tube. I am currently limiting my motor to 1kW so as not to exacerbate this problem.
 
jimnasium said:
I finally got everything together for a test ride. One thing about the LR kit, it is MUCH QUIETER than the original GNG. That alone is a huge benefit.

Thanks Mike!
Click to expand...

Awesome, awesome, AWESOME! I am getting pumped again. It's so exciting to see my kits finding their way onto these great bikes. I got pretty down for a while when I was buried in production issues. I lost the fun of doing this for a while.

The damaged kit that I'm going to rehab for my own build arrived yesterday. It has really light cosmetic damage and could easily be refinished and sent out in a day. With all apologies to the customers in the queue it's time that I had my own operating bike to make assembly tutorials and riding videos with. I also need to actually flog the snot out of the kit myself so I know what works in the real world and what doesn't.

Compared to the bone stock GNG my kit eliminates two squeaky rattly tensioners, provides a much better belt angle on the pulleys, and uses a higher quality and smaller pitch secondary chain that makes less noise. It's quieter and a lot of the noise that's eliminated is irritating high frequency noise. We're down to sound of the motor running.
 
Rotems said:
The problem now is the secondary chain torque force witch I think is greater in 83mm BB.
It seems like that the lower adjustable sheets are not locked and the torque force causes the motor to slide and therefore it’s impossible to get the chain tension.
Click to expand...

Are you guys using the internal screw adjuster with the plastic block and lock nut? It's essential to holding adjustment. If you're not using it, or not using it properly the slide adjuster will slip. If you are using it there should be no physical way the adjustment can slip.

73mmBB_profile.jpg
 
LightningRods said:
Are you guys using the internal screw adjuster with the plastic block and lock nut? It's essential to holding adjustment. If you're not using it, or not using it properly the slide adjuster will slip. If you are using it there should be no physical way the adjustment can slip.
Click to expand...

Mike, yes I am. But as I reported previously, I think the problem is that you have only one screw, which is centrally located. Contrast this to the 2 bolts on the upper sheets.

The 1 bolt allows for the lower sheet to pull out of square, basically due to the force of the drive chain. Perhaps 2 bolts pushing against the motor near the outside of the bracket will help.
 
jimnasium said:
Mike, yes I am. But as I reported previously, I think the problem is that you have only one screw, which is centrally located. Contrast this to the 2 bolts on the upper sheets.

The 1 bolt allows for the lower sheet to pull out of square, basically due to the force of the drive chain. Perhaps 2 bolts pushing against the motor near the outside of the bracket will help.
Click to expand...

I can see that as the brackets get wider and wider that one central adjuster screw may not be enough. I will take a look at adding a second screw. My main reluctance in doing so was that it makes adjustment that much more 'fiddly'. It's no problem to do from my end.
 
speedmd said:
Yes you can clearly hear what sounds like chain jumping on the tiny cog he is using at top speed. It is like my friend that purchased the exotic sports car, and complained he only got a few thousand miles on his super expensive z rated (30,000 mile) tires after repeatedly showing everyone how fast the thing sprinted. I laughed at him, and told him, if you want them to last, drive like you want them to last.

If you really want to go these speeds, 75V minimum and would consider closer to 100 volts so you have some revs up front and do not have to try and drive 11 or 12 tooth cogs for speed. I don't think the cops are going to let you get away with it for long and you may end up in jail if you hit someone.
Click to expand...

i wasn't able to hear any chain jumping, which is kind my point in the first place, showing this as an example of why someone would wanna buy this kit just hit to those speeds and think there isn't going to be a problem with it.

i would be happy with just hitting 60 kph or 57 kph as current my bike does. like i said , 60 kph is a speed limit at some roads i'm driving. i just don't know of if i can reach it with my current setup.

and you can hit someone at 30 kph and still do major damage, which is why i wanna avoid as much as i can riding on the sidewalk in the first place.
 
LightningRods said:
jimnasium said:
I finally got everything together for a test ride. One thing about the LR kit, it is MUCH QUIETER than the original GNG. That alone is a huge benefit.

Thanks Mike!
Click to expand...

Awesome, awesome, AWESOME! I am getting pumped again. It's so exciting to see my kits finding their way onto these great bikes. I got pretty down for a while when I was buried in production issues. I lost the fun of doing this for a while.

The damaged kit that I'm going to rehab for my own build arrived yesterday. It has really light cosmetic damage and could easily be refinished and sent out in a day. With all apologies to the customers in the queue it's time that I had my own operating bike to make assembly tutorials and riding videos with. I also need to actually flog the snot out of the kit myself so I know what works in the real world and what doesn't.

Compared to the bone stock GNG my kit eliminates two squeaky rattly tensioners, provides a much better belt angle on the pulleys, and uses a higher quality and smaller pitch secondary chain that makes less noise. It's quieter and a lot of the noise that's eliminated is irritating high frequency noise. We're down to sound of the motor running.
Click to expand...

cool, take your time, and i'll be happier if you could reproduce the 2 recent problems reported here, and figure them out before you send my kit
 
Lightning Rods Honor Roll- 8/16/2014

"X" denotes kit currently in production.

Completed- Ron R- US
Completed- Eric- US
Completed- Ken F- Canada
Completed- Dennis P- Canada
Completed- David B- UK
Completed- Leif D- US
Completed- Herman L- US
Completed- Dawson J- Canada
Completed- James D- Canada
Completed- Bryan K- US
1- Elhanan M- Israel X
2- Vincent D- Canada X
3- Brian M- US X
4- Jeremy L- US X
5- Andrew F- UK X
6- Tom F- US X
7- Stephen F- Switz X
8- Paul D- US X
9- Richard K- US X
10- Zach J- US X
11- Dean M- US X
12- Derek M- Canada
13- Tom E- Australia
14- Nathan B- Canada
15- Fabrice V- France
16- John B- Florida, US
17- Steven H- CA, US
18- Nathan B- Canada
19- Jason S- TX, US
20- Sid A- Australia
21- Wayne S- UK
 
Hi Mike,

I can see that as the brackets get wider and wider that one central adjuster screw may not be enough. I will take a look at adding a second screw. My main reluctance in doing so was that it makes adjustment that much more 'fiddly'. It's no problem to do from my end.
Click to expand...
Maybe one bolt, that pushes on multiple pins?
 
emaayan said:
btw folks this is what i was talking about earlier, people (like me) might find these videos, and be like "wow 3000 watts and 70kph and after all the improvements L-R it's bound to be faster/stronger" not knowing that this is NOT the recommended usage load for this kit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v374kaHFdA4
Click to expand...

WOW, i just realized this guy is from israel too! :shock:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=788180644574419&set=o.212400945634495&type=3&theater

he said he knows Mike and talked to him a couple of times, small world :eek:

i had a quick call (at midnight) and asked him a few things, yes, the chain does skip on the cassette and yes, 20km CONTINUOUS ride at 3k watts will cook the motor , but as i said i don't plan on riding this way either, in fact i have no reason to believe my current setup will fare better after 20 or even 10 continuous ride.
 
I can see that as the brackets get wider and wider that one central adjuster screw may not be enough. I will take a look at adding a second screw. My main reluctance in doing so was that it makes adjustment that much more 'fiddly'. It's no problem to do from my end.
Click to expand...

I'll bet that the 100mm bottom bracket kits are going to be problematic in this respect. Two adjustment screws is a cheap price for stability. LR - Do you have torquing specs for your kit? Two screws and a plate, plus care in torquing the adjustment might be required for the wider bottoms. (They are called fat bikes for a reason.)
 
bsheet2.jpg
This might help to understand the issue. The pink shows where the 2 pusher bolts might be located.

I found that splitting the carriage bolts helps me to better clamp the left side (as seen in this picture) of the lower sheet. So far, I've only done this to the lowest most bolt, which happens to be the most accessible.
 
It would make the part more labor intensive and more expensive, but it would be nice to have welded captive nuts on the inside of the adjuster bracket for the side bolts to thread into. Fiddling with loose nuts up inside of the lower sheets would be extremely frustrating.

You're getting a little glimpse into what a fun balancing act producing parts in numbers is. If I don't produce parts in sufficient numbers I can't keep up with demand and everything comes to a standstill. If I make huge numbers of parts I can't really implement changes and improvements until I've used up my current inventory.
 
A future mod to consider might be "Riv Nuts" also called "nutserts". I didn't use them for their proper design, I drilled a hole in aluminum, then just epoxied a compressed STEEL Riv Nut into the hole from the back side (pre-compressed to make the lip stronger). Snug up the bolt into it, and then...the epoxy dries with the nut in perfect alignment. A split lockwasher can be put under the head of the bolt if desired.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=26617#p387481
file.php
 
Arakasy said:
Looks like your doing a great job. Keep up the great work !!

Do these things come in a tiny 250 w ? (Legality issues)
Click to expand...

I can make a "250 watt" sticker for you if you like. :wink:

If you really planned to only run 250 watts this probably isn't the right kit for you. I've overbuilt everything to try to make it strong enough to handle a lot of power. At 250 watts all of that unneeded strength becomes dead weight.

I do appreciate your encouragement. Maybe you want an off road toy?
 
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