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

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Early in the thread you provide a spec of parts and talk about the complicated controller setup.
How complicated is it really? Possible to manage by reading manuals and having basic electric and engineering knowledge or does it require some hardcore electronics knowledge?

Are you referring to this:

If you were going to make a mass production EV, I could see using a Sevcon, the hardware is fantastic. For little 1-off projects, it's gotta be the most PITA firmware to setup on the planet. We built the hubmotor bike, put a Methods controller on it, and BAM! 5 minutes later, we are ripping around on the bike (until I smoked the motor on the dyno lol). Methods controller never had any faults, never cared about anything, it just worked, and worked killer. The stupid Sevcon has like 40 pages of settings to go through before it will even TRY to make a motor turn... and then it's going to fault for the next 2000 times you try to use it, until every little useless detail is adjusted to be perfect... It's just a retarded controller, I hate it, but it's what I've got, and it will do a good job once it's all setup right (hopefully).

Performance wise it seems to be a good controller for an amateur built electric motorbike.

You don't need to worry yourself a bit about blowing up a sevcon. They have fault detection for everything under the sun that you can possibly imagine a controller can fault for an protect itself.

The trick to tuning and setting up a sevcon is getting it NOT to fault for all the riding situations you want to do. With a huge amount of work, this can be done for reasonable motors (it's not going to be able to run a colossus or something).

Having the ability to program them is absolutely critical.

It's a Sevcon gen4 controller with over $100,000 in development labor coming up with the programming for it to match our motors and bikes in a flawless way with no faults or interrupts or hic-ups. You can inch forward just 1mm at a time if you want with no difficulty, or blast forward if you pin it.

At $200 per hour thats 500 hours for an expert!

Yes, that would be a blessing if somebody made a sevcon / motor firmware settings collection page. Yet, get this, they change the firmware pretty regularly, and then all your previous files can't load onto them... And you can't roll-back firmware versions...

 

[Wheazel]

Yes, thats more or less what I am looking for. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.
I do however remember I red in the provided instruction PDF for the controller that it had some easy setup features.
Copy pasted from the pdf:
(http://www.electricmotorsport.com/store/pdf-downloads/sev_gen4.pdf)

Self-characterization
Sevcon’s unique Self Characterization enables a Gen4 controller
to automatically define and optimize parameters for Induction
AC motors. This feature provides quick set-up and allows
customers to select motor suppliers of their choice without
worrying about compatibility between controller and motor.

What about this?

 

[Arlo1]

Yes, thats more or less what I am looking for. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.
I do however remember I red in the provided instruction PDF for the controller that it had some easy setup features.
Copy pasted from the pdf:
(http://www.electricmotorsport.com/store/pdf-downloads/sev_gen4.pdf)

Self-characterization
Sevcon’s unique Self Characterization enables a Gen4 controller
to automatically define and optimize parameters for Induction
AC motors. This feature provides quick set-up and allows
customers to select motor suppliers of their choice without
worrying about compatibility between controller and motor.

What about this?

Big difference in an AC induction motor and a bldc motor!

 

[Alan B]

Advanced controllers often have autotuning software. It is a starting point, not the end of adjusting. The controllers we use (not Sevcon) not only have a large number of parameters to set, they are programmable so the software can be customized to change the parameters as needed and do different kinds of control under different conditions.

To get a motor to run is not too hard. To optimize so it runs perfectly can take quite awhile .

 

[John in CR]

It's pretty intense. If you've got full leathers, you're welcome to come take it for a spin and rate it for yourself. It might not leave you with as much skin as you started your ride with, but it won't leave you disappointed.

I hope the leathers requirement is just for the kiddies and doesn't go for me too. It's my skin. 8)

 

[Cowardlyduck]

Nice write up on Luke's bike here.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news...ineers-bicycle-is-quicker-than-porsche-gt3-rs

So does that mean you got the official slips for a run Luke? Or are they just guessing the acceleration here?

Cheers,

 

[Miles]

Nice write up on Luke's bike here....

Luke (no last name given)

Luke, you need a "nom de course".......

 

[Alan B]

Luke Vader?

 

[amberwolf]

luke roadrunner.

kinda like skywalker but more down-to-earth.

 

[John in CR]

Why are you guys trying to change the great name he already has, Liveforphysics?

 

[Arlo1]

It's O'Conner.

 

[liveforphysics]

I upgraded it.

It didnt need to be done.

No sane person would have done it.

It has 30s 45c nanos now.

I got new special firmware that allows 120v. I can only charge to 4v, so im down on capacity.

The current is now maxed with max boost current. 660 phase amps from 0tpm to very high speed.

This is wringing every possible watt out of the biggest non-igbt sevcon.

It feels so good. Its unexplainable in words. Massive rush that makes a literbike feel dull.

It is my favorite and most treasured possesion.

 

[Arlo1]

So.....1/4 mile??? Video???

You can set up a charger and hold the batteries at 4.0 volts for like a hour to make sure they are at there best capacity.

 

[liveforphysics]

So.....1/4 mile??? Video???

You can set up a charger and hold the batteries at 4.0 volts for like a hour to make sure they are at there best capacity.

To charge, I plug into a 60amp power supply set to119.9v, because the damn sevcon trips an alarm if i charge to the full 120v.

Just your basic 7200watt charge setup. Nothing fancy like the 100amp, 125amp and 180amp charge setups that Ive also got, but are bulky to take places.

 

[liveforphysics]

We had rain storms last weekend... no 1/4mile videos yet... maybe sunday.. fingers crossed.

 

[Bazaki]

Looking forward to hear the results !! Good luck !

 

[grindz145]

Rediculous... Would like to see what you end up with top speed now... That chassis is UNSAFE

 

[Wheazel]

Is the Sevcon behaving as well on the limit as on the "lower" powerlevels?

 

[liveforphysics]

Is the Sevcon behaving as well on the limit as on the "lower" powerlevels?

100% Thanks to my Godly tuner Ryan, yes. No glitches. Buttery smooth perfect control.

I had to fix a bad cell in the pack today. A lot of time, but easy to do.


She is 100% again.

 

[Doctorbass]

Good luck Luke!.. we wait for any impressive result for your next ride :wink:

Just dont kill yourself with that devil on two wheel ! we preffer you staying in one piece :wink: :lol:

Doc

 

[HumboldtRc]

Is the Sevcon behaving as well on the limit as on the "lower" powerlevels?

100% Thanks to my Godly tuner Ryan, yes. No glitches. Buttery smooth perfect control.

I had to fix a bad cell in the pack today. A lot of time, but easy to do.


She is 100% again.

What happened to your pack?

How is the golden motor handling those power levels? I read you have a water cooled version on the self. So how much power can the 10kw golden motor handle? Constant? And peek bust power? 600 amps at 110 volts is alot of power... Can the 10kw motor real handle 66kw burst power...???

 

[liveforphysics]

How is the golden motor handling those power levels? I read you have a water cooled version on the self. So how much power can the 10kw golden motor handle? Constant? And peek bust power? 600 amps at 110 volts is alot of power... Can the 10kw motor real handle 66kw burst power...???

Yes, it really can and does handle 110v at 660phase amps. It's actually not 66kw of burst power, because it's 3phase at 660amps RMS per phase leg. For 3phase, it's Amps*Volts*1.73. This is why we see over >800 battery amps when it's at high speeds. At very low speeds, the 660amps of phase current only requires drawing ~50amps from the battery, at high speeds, >800amps off the battery, and that was before turning it up to maximum like it is now.

The pack doesn't enjoy it much, it's getting hit with >50C quite a bit, and it holds its voltage decently, which is all I can ask of it, but I think this single cell failure I found is indicative of how it's going to fair in the long run. But that's fine, this isn't a long-run toy, it's a blast-around and get your adrenaline fix machine, so I'm not going to be upset even if the whole pack just suddenly burned to soot.


And yes, the motor handles it for the tiny time interval it gets this crazy power fed into it. In a heavier chassis, this motor would just turn to melted goo in no time at these power levels. In a car or full sized motorcycle it would be a soggy POS, and then end in plasma. This system ONLY works because the bicycle doesn't allow the motor to get loaded for more than a handful of seconds at a time, because the chassis is all ready at triple digit speeds by that point, and you're generally both terrified and out of straight road, so you let off throttle and the motor gets time to transfer that heat from the coils to the stator and eventually the case where it can go into warming the air passing over it while you're off throttle.

In road racing, this motor isn't even good for a constant 10kw, and road racing is maybe only 50% duty cycle. On the dyno it will melt down at under 10hp output if you try to do it continuously. It is not a magic motor, it's not even a very good motor, it's just big and stupid, and that lets it handle insane bursts for a few seconds at a time, which happens to be all this bicycle needs for having fun.

 

[Alan B]

Excellent analysis. Great engineering compromises.

 

[Zak650]

Hi Luke,
Great thread and discussion. When you guys are programming the Gen4 are you using Sevcon's software or something else? Have you tried any disc type rear wheels to deal with all the torque you are generating?

Zak

 

[liveforphysics]

Hi Luke,
Great thread and discussion. When you guys are programming the Gen4 are you using Sevcon's software or something else? Have you tried any disc type rear wheels to deal with all the torque you are generating?

Zak

We are using Sevcon's software, and a little ebay $99 USB to CAN adapter, which is all I've personally ever seen used for tuning or programming a sevcon, even when Sevcon sends tech's out to our site who's sole job is to do nothing but tune Sevcon controllers, they just use the same little $99 USB to CAN adapter and the Sevcon tuning software.

If I end up with enough torque that I can't hold a hub in this very strong custom made wheel, I might try a disk wheel or something, but this wheel my friend Jamie made from good parts seems to handle it like a champ. Thin little spokes FTMFW. They are 14 or 15gauge IIRC, and that lets them deform enough to effectively share the torque loads over a wide area of the rim, which larger spokes can't do effectively (unless they are in a motorcycle wheel where they can actually be properly torqued without collapsing the rim).