Metallover's Novara Buzz Build

[Metallover]

Yeah it is! And I couldn't have done it without your post on RCM about the power supplies!! Without you I'd be stuck with a crappy charge rate with a sub-par charging system! I really appreciate that your posts and I can't thank you enough!

Charging to 95% without balancing, all packs are within .01V except for one which has cells about .03V off. I'm not too worried,, Actually I'm very impressed as I replaced a weak cell in two different packs and they are in perfect balance now! I couldn't even tell which packs had a cell replaced!

 

[grindz145]

Solid build. How well did the 9C disk brake mounts line up for you?

 

[Metallover]

I have an old version of the motor, with just the threads. I stripped the threads and had to epoxy my disc brake adapter onto the motor. I would have had to spread the frame quite a bit but that was just because my adapter was too wide..

Rode 11 miles yesterday and at the end something fudged up. Any throttle sends the motor screeching/stuttering. Must be a hall problem. Off to solve it!

edit- Tested the halls and two of them show 5V at all times; only one has changing voltage when I turn the motor. Dang. Now I'll order some halls! And some other parts!

 

[Metallover]

I tore down the motor to identify the halls. They had "41F 840" on them. I couldn't find any info on it, but a short search of ES put me on the right path. I ordered ten Honeywell SS41 halls from digikey, along with a couple pre-charge resistors.

The culprit! You can see where the middle hall shorted out. The wire on the left was loose. I will assume moisture shorted the hall, as last night was a really cold, damp, humid night.

And yes! that's a hair; gross lol

I WILL seal up these halls after I install them. I said I would before, but I didn't,, and I learned from it.

 

[El_Steak]

I WILL seal up these halls after I install them. I said I would before, but I didn't,, and I learned from it.

Nice Build!

How do you "seal" up the halls?

 

[Metallover]

Thanks Steak!

I'm planning on using either silicone or liquid electrical tape over the halls. I'm not too sure if either will cause a problem.. But hopefully it adds some life and a little moisture-resistance to my halls! If there is a better way to go about sealing up halls please let me know,, I don't have much direction on it as of now.

 

[iovaykind]

Looking forward to seeing how you cover up that mess of wires and batteries! I'm working on a build, but can't start till next Tuesday because of finals. Lucky you, APs end much earlier than college classes! That tray looks good, what I'd do to finish off the cover is build another piece for the top tube. Then put some velcro on the side of it, and stick a PVC sheet on it. Removable whenever you want to get inside to do more!

 

[GCinDC]

MAN AM I IMPRESSED WITH THE BIKE!!! THE BRAKES!! THE STABILITY!!! THE SUSPENSION!! I encourage everyone to spend at least a few hundred dollars on a quality bike to fully experience what an e-bike can offer! The difference is so substantial... I can't imagine going back to a cheap bike! I can't fully explain what it feels like to ride on a nice FS bike.. Grass is as smooth is pavement... Curbs are now small bumps in the road.. It feels less like a squeaky ghetto shab-rocket and more like a,,, pedal-assisted electric bicycle that rides like a motocross bike.

I am so happy for you!! I made a virtually identical comment after my first FS ebike ride! It is such a good feeling after riding crap.

Looks like a totally sweet build. A stealth-lite, if I may say so. at what total cost??

did you buy the bike off CL? wouldn't it be great if we could get a bunch of the same donor bike for such a low cost than do a production run of the other parts? at $3k, i'm sure there'd be some buyers and some profit, no? nevermind me, I'm just musing...

nice work, man! enjoy that!!

 

[Metallover]

I got the bike off of pinkbike. Craiglist in my area sucks for bikes.. It's much better for cows and tractors.

Total cost.. ehhh... I dont' have any exact figures but,, I'm curious $525 for the frame, hobbyking orders: $55 for wire and new wattmeter, $144 for 3 new lipos and two replacement cells, $318 for 4 lipos and other stuff, $170 for my first two lipos and other connectors and stuff, take about $50 off of that of stuff I didn't use on the bike,, $225 for motor, freewheel, and torque arm, $30 for the disc brake adapter, $30 for CST cyclops tires, $20 for new halls and resistors, $20 for the USB-ttl adapter, $90 for the e-crazyman 12fet controller, $75 for the Garmin, $40 for my power supply, $160 for my latest charger (others have failed),, and about $40 for odds and ends to build the battery rack

This includes shipping of everything, but it doesn't take into account tools and the countless hours I spent working on this thing,, and I"m sure I forgot a couple items

Grand total is,, $1892. I had a bunch of RCs, then I ditched them and I started building e-bikes in jan. of 2010 when I was 16,, one and a half years later this I what I've got.

The work and money was worth it! The skills and experience I've gained so far is invaluable,, Idk if colleges and scholarship people like hearing about stuff like this but I bet they do!!


I've got a sheet of plastic for the batteries,,, I'll ride it for 2-3 weeks to make sure I like how everything is situated then I'll hit the bike up with the plastic and some wire mesh.

thought I posted this but I guess not. break.-----------------------

I got a knock on my door today! I ordered the parts from digikey using USPS priority shipping on May 16th at 2:49pm. I got the parts on May 18 at around 11:00pm. Thats fast! Less than 2 days!

I ordered PN 480-1999-ND Honeywell "Sensor SS Hall Effect Bipolar" which are the SS41 sensors. link Hopefully they are the right ones!! And hopefully they play nice with the other two stock hall sensors!!

I'm getting better at taking macro pictures

I decided to just replace the hall I noticed was definitely dead. We'll see if it works!

The short between the black and red wires caused the red lead to break off the hall

I'll test my repair job after track practice today; batteries are mid-charge right now and I will have some interesting kill-a-watt pics/data to share from it!

 

[Metallover]

I got my halls all sealed up with two coats of liquid electrical tape! I'm about to re-assemble now.

I charged my batteries from the ride a few nights ago. The charger put in 27,368mAh which equates to about 656wh (@24V). The ride of 12.88mi had an efficiency of 51wh/mi, which means I'm making a lot of power! I was riding about 30mph with some wind for half of the trip and the other half was letting my friends ride it which means short runs of full throttle everywhere.

Now, the results with the kill-a-watt.

Here's how I had everything set up. I'm using two 575w HP power supplies in series for a 24v 1150w supply. I'm using a Hyperion EOS0615i Duo 3+ charger and charging half of the pack with each port. With nine 6s lipos, channel one sees 6s 25Ah and channel two sees 6s 20Ah.

I was using an extension cord, which apparently makes a pretty big difference. It isn't a huge cord but it isn't very scrawny either. It's the blue one in the picture. Voltage drop was pretty substantial., 7.7V. I will try extra hard to avoid long cords and wires from now on.

Here's what the meter showed during the charge. Watching it, under full power I got about 800w and 7A from the wall.

And at the end of the charge, I used 0.9 Kwh, which at 8.62 cents/Kwh in SD cost me 7.8 cents. That equates to .6 cents/mi, keeping in mind I rode inefficiently at 51wh/mi this charge.

If I put 0.66 Kwh into my pack, and I drew 0.9 Kwh from the wall, this means my charger/power supplies are 73% efficient. Looking at BiranG's amazing website, My charger is listed at 80% efficiency. I didn't have my watt meter hooked up between my power supplies and my charger, but I will next time so I can test my charger and power supply's individual efficiencies.

Last track meet is tomorrow unless the gods somehow help me get over 12'3" in pole vault and I make it to state.. Then just lifting/running for the rest of the summer until cross country starts. Today on the way to practice I saw an older guy on a motorized bicycle! It wasn't electric and traveling well over 40mph on the highway it might have been more of a moped, but it had pedals! My town has 8,800 people and I'm glad to finally see another person on a powered bike!!

Off to re-assemble and go for a ride before it gets too dark! (if my halls work) *fingers crossed*!!

 

[Metallover]

My halls don't work! The original two hall sensors cycle fine between 0V and 5V when I turn the motor but the new one that I replaced always stays at 5.1V.

Do I have the wrong sensor? Or maybe I damaged it when I soldered it? I don't think I did, but...

 

[beast775]

jeez that stinks! great build so far.

 

[Metallover]

Got it figured out! I was testing halls, and I realized I had the wires all mixed up. The hall I had replaced was working fine, but the third hall was blown! I had assumed the hall that wasn't working was the one I replaced, but I was wrong! I replaced the third, blown hall with another one of the ten halls I have and now I am back in business!!!

 

[snellemin]

Good to hear you got it straighten out.

 

[Metallover]

I got it all back together, and found my temperature sensor in the motor was dead. :x Took it all apart for about the 10th time this week and replaced it with my last spare. That leaves three $9 VT monitors with only one sensor... The second sensor fried in my controller when it shorted on the fets. They use a LM35 temperature sensor so I might try to make a few more sensors in the future.

But now it's all ready to go! About to take it out for a ride, but no offroading because we got about an inch of rain last night..

Got a fender put on so I won't have a wet stripe on my back!!

I made an [ugly] guard to protect my wires coming out of my motor in case of a fall. I didn't have enough axle left to use the plastic piece that came with the motor. I might make a new one of these in the future that looks better.

 

[Metallover]

A ride report with some numbers! I went all the way!, to my cutoff,, which was around 3.65v/cell; very conservative.

The cooling holes and 60mm fans on 18V in the 9c 2807 motor do their job very nicely! Last summer I constantly had to stop at over 100*C and today the motor never got over 70*C. I have the controller set for 50A, which is roughly 3,500W.

I think I'm producing more than 3,500W tho because last year my good watt meter showed 69A peak when the controller was limited to 57A. :| Not complaining tho. :lol:

Today my ride was 1:00:30 long and I went 19.86mi. Max speed was 37.6mph and avg speed was 19.7mph. Using 906Wh my efficiency was 45.6Wh/mi. I was riding pretty hard. I go hard.

My watt meter said I had used 4.85Ah out of 5Ah. My charger said the packs were at 12% at the start of the charge. My charger put in 906Wh in 122min using 1.26kWh. Two hours for a full charge aint bad!!

 

[Metallover]

I had an experience yesterday. I was hanging out at a buddies place then we were going to leave and go to a bonfire a couple miles away. When I was unplugging the pack from my charger (which carried nicely in a backpack) I shorted out four of my nine packs on the charge leads. It completely filled his garage with smoke and I felt pretty bad.. I got a little KFF but not much..

There was no initial damage except one pack's cells were all .05V lower than the rest. They were all still balanced, and I rode the bike 4-5 miles after that and it worked fine. I haven't checked my packs yet today.

Yesterday I went 36.21mi.. In the past four days I went 117 miles. My total on the new bike is about 150 ATM!

I also went off a couple drops yesterday,, Probably about two feet high concrete onto dirt in a construction site. It's like the bike was made for it! It took it like a champ!

 

[Metallover]

I made a video today. I made a chest mount out of a few belts, a metal plate, and some foam. I filmed with my ipod, because it's the best camera I have atm. :|

There was a 16mph wind during the video. When I edited it I used a wind noise reduction, and it made it way better believe it or not, but it still sucks. It was the best I could get it.

I looked rediculous.

I went really fast on the offroad sections- just slow enough to stay on the paths and on two wheels!

This is a Metallover-spec bike ride!

[youtube]2nz9k8zPD6M[/youtube]

I want to make more videos with different camera mounts and with a cameraman/tripod some time. I applied for a job today so if I get it I'll have a lot less time for this.. But if you have any suggestions for filming let me know!

 

[neptronix]

Going through those fields looks like a hoot & a half!!

Man, your charge connectors do look like an accident waiting to happen with those little plugs. What did the smoke come from? the batteries?

 

[Metallover]

The smoke came from the insulation of the wire melting and burning.. The batteries are fine; they still hold a pretty good balance just like they did before.

It took me all of 15 minutes to salvage what was left and put a new wire in there.

 

[neptronix]

Oh, haha, that's good.
I've done that before while putting a multimeter up to my battery in the field to check it, luckily the multimeter leads and battery connector vaporized, not anything else! There was a guy nearby that had a screwdriver and some MAF cleaner, used that to clean the contacts and got back on my way. My hands were black for a while though :lol:

You should probably go to andersons or 4mm bullets for the charge lead though so it doesn't happen again. You got lucky!
Also if you are charging over 10 amps, you may want to get a thicker charge cable too, like 12-14 gauge.

Pardon me if you already know this stuff

 

[Metallover]

Ha! I've had a similar experience! :lol:

I think the picture of my wires may be a little deceiving.. The plugs are 4mm bullets and the wire is either 12ga or 14ga speaker wire. The cable is about 4ft long and just gets a little warm during full power charging,, just enough to notice the warmth. It's not ideal but it's better than dropping $10 on nearly 4m of 12ga hobbyking wire..

 

[torker]

Glad you didn't fry anything else, or get hurt. Maybe a circuit breaker. That is awesome riding in the hills. Reminds me of my uncles place near Sisseton SD. You could see Minnesota from the tops of some. Good vid, only saw the sky a couple times

 

[Metallover]

Yeah SD is flat! Great for farming,, and wind. :|

I did some switching and moving in preparation for the plastic to house the batteries.

It's MUCH cleaner now. I'll have to keep an eye on controller temps for awhile to make sure the lack of airflow won't ruin it... but I'm confident it wont if I don't push it that hard.

My ac/dc converter (which powers fans in my motor) let out some smoke the other day when I unplugged my pack. I'm not exactly sure why it let go, but I am going to install my pre-charge resistors before I replace the converter.

As of now I have ridden 288.54 miles. On one stretch of only 4 days I rode 108 miles. It's supposed to rain 6 out of the next 7 days so it won't get much use then, but that also means I will have time to work on it if needed.

 

[torker]

I would worry about burying that controller. It would be good if it could be at the top rear of the triangle and cover everything but it. Maybe a temp sensor for it? It has been over 100 deg. here for 6 days straight. Probably not usual for you though. Actually it is too early for it here. Broke records set in 1933 I think. Normally doesn't hit 100 till July. We really need a pigtail on these controllers for temp. I wish we had some of your rain Are you anywhere near Sisseton/Aberdeen? The landscape looks very similar.