Luke's commuter bicycle. What Non-hub is all about.

[Alan B]

The heavy iron approach to circuit design.

 

[Alan B]

Very very nice ! I love these extreme projects !!
Can you share the specs with us ??

Sure, it's a simple parts list.

Scratch built cro-mo frame

White brothers groove 200 fork, shortened to 3" of travel by my buddy in like 15mins.

Motorcycle brake with floating rotor adapted to a bicycle hub

25S 25Ah of Nano's

This controller:

http://www.electricmotorsport.com/store/ems_ev_parts_controllers_sevcon_gen4_72-80_550.php


This motor fitted with external sine/cosine rotor position encoder:

http://www.goldenmotor.com/HPM-10KW%203D.jpg


Combine these parts with hours of a Sevcon controller tuning experts time on a motorcycle dyno (thank you Ryan), and you're set.


I took it to lunch today, riding with a friend on his motorcycle. A motorcycle cop had somebody pulled over on the side of the road. I slowed down to 25'ish, and made a show of turning the pedals as we passed by. No trouble. For around town, I think it's faster than being on a superbike, and WAY more fun to be able to get in the bike lane or sidewalk whenever you like. I really enjoy it. It's just a nice comfortable, quiet, clean, and reliable machine, that has never left me disappointed in the acceleration department. It's fun to ride up stair cases as well, it's just effortless, you can just torque up them as slow or fast as you want, never worry about stalling or something. Nice to get great parking in bike racks too.

I think it's my favorite 2 wheel'd transportation option right now, and this is coming a guy with 4 motorcycles, including the best possible dirt machine and the meanest superbike.

Luke, what is the rear brake setup on this?

 

[Arlo1]

Regen is lots when you have a good front brake!

 

[Alan B]

Do race rules accept regen in lieu of the rear brake?

 

[Arlo1]

Do race rules accept regen in lieu of the rear brake?

With a good controller you can lock up the rear with regen from what I was told.

 

[Alan B]

Does Luke have regen going on this?

Regen will not generally lock up a wheel. It has to produce power to generate braking, and it must turn to do that. Kind of a built in ABS.

Rear lockup could be done by providing some reverse power. But this all depends on a lot of things working (and not overheated). Generally not wanted for a brake.

Anyway, just curious how it works.

 

[parabellum]

Does Luke have regen going on this?

Regen will not generally lock up a wheel. It has to produce power to generate braking, and it must turn to do that. Kind of a built in ABS.

Rear lockup could be done by providing some reverse power. But this all depends on a lot of things working (and not overheated). Generally not wanted for a brake.

Anyway, just curious how it works.

Look ar Ricki_NZ controller. If you stop (not shut down) the alternating field magnets/stator stops (violent died stop) as well. Those curtis controllers may have some surprises as well.

 

[Alan B]

Sure, but that's not regen. I don't think anything involving the motor qualifies as brakes in racing safety. But I'm no expert on that.

 

[amberwolf]

Regen will not generally lock up a wheel. It has to produce power to generate braking, and it must turn to do that. Kind of a built in ABS.

Correct. It's possible to create a boost circuit that will be able to cause regen currents high enough to break loose the wheel traction, probably, while still at speed, but as you get slower and slower it'll be harder and harder to keep that kind of current going.

It's not that likely you'll need to use regen to actually STOP the vehicle, though, not in a race--usually you just need to slow down a lot and in a real hurry. So regen probably would do most of the braking you'd need, assuming the controller and motor and wiring can all handle it. Oh, and if it's a non-hub, that all the drivetrain components can take the repeated hammering of sudden surges of power much greater than the drive power.

One nearly-surefire way to do it is plug braking, where you are literally shorting out the motor phases to each other. But that is going to heat up the motor a LOT, as well as whatever contactors/etc. you're using to do the shorting with.


FWIW, I wouldn't qualify regen as the sole braking source for a wheel in a race, without a mechanical backup, mostly because the motor itself is gonna get hot enough as it is just pushing the vehicle around, much less if you instantaneously dump even larger amounts of power into it repeatedly just before using it to push the vehicle faster again.

 

[PaulD]

The electric bicycle faster than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS
http://www.eta.co.uk/2012/01/03/electric-bicycle-faster-porsche-911-gt3-rs
Congrats Luke!

 

[Spence /1/]

Im sure this has been asked,but do you have a picture of the frame or a thread on the fabrication process?

I want to make a frame like this.

 

[Thud]

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=32910

 

[chroot]

What? I got a problem with this article. It says it made by Zero motorcycle company. WTF? Luke isnt work for Zero motorcycle company. Correct me if I am wrong.

Here the article. See the bold.

World’s fastest e-bike

Pretty it isn’t, but the electric superbicycle built by Zero motorcycles is blisteringly quick off the lights. The battery engineer at Zero built the custom bicycle from the parts bin at the electric motorcycle factory, with impressive results.

The electric bicycle faster than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS
http://www.eta.co.uk/2012/01/03/electric-bicycle-faster-porsche-911-gt3-rs
Congrats Luke!

 

[Miles]

What? I got a problem with this article. It says it made by Zero motorcycle company. WTF? Luke isnt work for Zero motorcycle company. Correct me if I am wrong.

You're wrong....

 

[parabellum]

Luke isnt work for Zero motorcycle company.

Luke is responsible for new 2012 battery of Zero. 114 miles range per charge and battery life = motorcycle life.

 

[Arlo1]

Wow chroot you are waaaaayyy out of the loop dude!

 

[chroot]

Ah gotcha, forgive me I misunderstood anyways thanks correct me.

 

[liveforphysics]

We are going to make some vids on the deathbike tomorrow.

We've got a handful of motorcycles of various potency to race against.

Suzuki VT-650
GSX-R 600
FZ-R 1000
CBR-1000RR fireblade

And my personal GSX-R 1000 with a wild built engine in it.


It will be interesting to see how it does against the bikes. Obviously past ~80-90mph power to weight stops mattering, and it becomes about HP to aero-drag, which the superbikes will dominate and fly past me. I'm thinking the bicycle will have a pretty handy lead on them getting to ~80mph though.

 

[Arlo1]

We are going to make some vids on the deathbike tomorrow.

We've got a handful of motorcycles of various potency to race against.

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Whiplash]

Awesome! I can't wait to see em!!

 

[chroot]

Awesome, Looking forward see your video action. 8)

 

[parabellum]

Make me trow my fireblade away!!!

 

[Bazaki]

Great great ! Can't wait to see the video.

 

[liveforphysics]

We turned up the power again. It's even more scary to ride now. Amazingly it's mechanically rigid.

Ok, we made 3 videos tonight, but it was getting dark fast, and the GoPro's can't do dark worth a damn. lol


The bicycle slaughters a DRZ-400SM, a KLR-600, and we were extremely surprised to see it hang dead-even with my GSXR1000 up to about 80mph.

 

[Pure]

Holy schnikes that's impressive!