dogman said:
Yeah, they sure are fun. It's the basic setup to get into the 40 mph club on the cheap. You don't have to ride that fast all the time.
One last thing, looks like you might have more than 10 ah of battery on there. It's enough to melt a motor if you don't back off some on the rides.
So add a motor thermometer, so you know when you are getting above 250F inside there. Riding hard, 8-10 miles will be edging towards the smoke coming out.
Ventilate that hub cover too.
Controller has high quality IRFB4110 mosfets. I was pretty suprised when I opened it up, I was expecting some nasty cheap chineese designed ones. Runs very cool in all weather, I dont use full throttle that often though, just for short runs to get me out of harms way. I always apply the throttle very gradually, usually helping the motor by pedalling.
Plus thrashing it everywhere would be very inefficiant, batterys would go from full to empty in like 10 miles. Someone doing a project like this needs some good old common sense.
Same with motor, I have checked temps several times while riding and the only time I managed to warm it up was when I was abusing it by pulling some kids round a field in my cargo trailer. It has fairly skinny phase wires, so I think the phase wires would melt before the motor does.
And us Brit's dont get much hot weather, we get about 2 weeks of hot sun per year.
I have some foam padding in that box that you probably cant see, and they are housed in a custom made battery bag, the bag is ziptied to the box. They are a pretty tight fit in there and I have ridden down a bumpy canal tow path without any damage to the lipos.
No torque arm, but it has some locking nuts that are meant to stop it from rotating, my dropouts are pretty tough on my bike and I use a massive heavy automotive grade wrench to tighten it up. I have to do it real tight anyway as I have a trailer hitch sandwiched in there and it can loosen the bolts if the nut is not done up tight enough. I might put torque arms on in future anyway, I agree its better to be safe than sorry. Budget is being streched rather thin at the moment.
My brake cables seem to be doing a alright job of stopping my handlebar bag from bashing on the stem, works for me anyway, only got a little 5ah 4s in there for my lights and phone charger. I have a decent set of front forks that absorbs some shock too.
Although I really like your suggestions and I am always trying to improve my creation, its a slow and gradual process. So "works for me" but maybe not for someone else.