My econo-e-bike

[E-HP]

If it happens, and you reverse-pedal, does it stop? (that should, if it's PAS-triggered, and no throttle signal is present, "instantly" cease any PAS-caused throttle signal output).

I'll need to check on that. For now, after re-reading the unofficial ES user guide, I made an adjustment to the throttle input thresholds, since it specifically calls out auto-cruise and PAS issues that can be related to those settings. If it still happens, I'll turn off PAS in the setup to see if that eliminates the issue; then troubleshoot the PAS setting if it doesn't.

I had a runaway bike incident while doing my maintenance. I accidentally touch the throttle, and the bike bolted across the yard and flipped over, breaking my handlebar on/off switch cluster in the process. I fabricated a switch holder out of ABS and hot glued it to the side of the Grin digital aux switches. I need to clean up some of the excess hot glue, then I'll wrap the switch holder with carbon fiber wrap. I'll make another switch plate out of ABS to mount behind/in front of my CA where I'll relocate my lighting switch and my analog CA input potentiometer.


EDIT: Not my best work. Looks a little bit better in real life, but I'm going to have to redo it, after it bugs me some more.


I replaced my derailleur this morning. The bent up 30 year old Deore LX was falling apart, so I replaced it will a cheapo Shimano Altus that feels like a boat anchor, but functions so much better than the old broken down unit, at least judging by a quick lap around the block. I'll do a more thorough test and fine tune the alignment when I go out for a test ride this afternoon.

EDIT: Changing the threshold seemed to improve things, but not completely. It may be just wishful thinking. The issue popped up again after about 2 hours of riding. Up until then things were fine. Similar to the other times, the power level stayed around 280W-300W and after a few seconds, it would drop to zero. I tried to tap the brake cutoff to see if that would stop the behavior, but I couldn't tell for sure if the power continued to flow right after tapping the cutoff, or if it was just dropping to zero. When it happens when I'm using throttle, it's after I let off and watts go to zero. I could be coasting quite a ways, approaching a stop, when it will jump up to ~280W and stay there for a random period before dropping to zero.

I'm also trying to see if bumps trigger it dropping to zero or not. I don't have a consistent feel for that yet. I forgot to try the pedal backwards thing, so I'll try that tomorrow.

On the cruise control, I still need to lower the voltage variation setting to keep it from triggering when I don't want to, even with the long delay. Since I'm using the power throttle, it set itself to 1000W, even though I was manipulating the throttle. Not as scary as full throttle, but still more than enough to get to 27mph-28mph. I'm afraid of trying the speed throttle with autocruise, or just afraid of trying the speed throttle at all without some more research. If the throttle ramping still applies, I might be willing to try it with my power turned way down.

The new derailleur is huge compared to my old one. And triple the weight is my guess. It shifts smoothly and feels great. I need to shift it through it's range a few times when I go out next to get any stretch out of the cable. I was making minor adjustments during my ride, but since I don't shift or only use 2 gears, the cable isn't getting much action.

With that change, the only thing left from my original build are the cranks and bottom bracket. Everything else has been swapped out and upgraded from the original economy build. Once I upgrade to the torque sensing bottom bracket, all parts will have been replaced. What's nice is that it's now just about perfectly dialed in to what I want, even though I didn't really know what I wanted in the beginning. The learn and upgrade as I go along philosophy has really helped, since the original investment was very small, and could be considered tuition, but every upgrade was targeted to get a certain result. I could still put all of the parts of the original kit on a bike and be riding it the same day, so I didn't lose anything. Sure, I still want a full suspension build, but I really need a good rack if the bike is going have any other function besides riding. I'm not a backpack kind of guy either. I think the last upgrade, probably far into the future, will be to build a 21700 cell battery with as many cells as I can fit in the triangle; probably 20S5P and something around 25Ah with 60A+ output. I may skip the BMS if I need the space to get any extra group in, and just have balance leads to monitor and manually balance if it's ever necessary. I will parallel that with 20S 5Ah of 45C lipos for extra boost current.

 

[99t4]

The new derailleur is huge compared to my old one. And triple the weight is my guess. It shifts smoothly and feels great.

In my experience, all the Shimanos across the price range shift well (their main reason for being). The differences are in the weight, size, material, finish, bling-bling, and build quality. But they all seem to shift equally well.

Also agreed with what you said about tuition cost. Have to include what a great value E-S is in that equation! :thumb:

 

[gobi]

I found one that comes with the USB > Serial cable, this one does NOT show if it has a regen cable (to turn it on/off)
<snip>
There is another one which comes with the USB connect cable and regen cable.

Not sure what you mean by "regen cable". With the linked controller, the braking is just a two-wire switch input (either high or low activation, but still just a switch), so you use whatever switch (like on an ebrake or brake lever with brake light switches, reed switch and magnet on a lever, caliper, or cable, button on handlebars, etc) you like, that is open circuit except when you want to engage braking.

If you have a controller that has variable regen controlled by a separate analog (usually three wire) input, then a hall or pot based throttle can be used, even including a cable-operated throttle unit with the cable pulled by a brake lever (which is how my SB Cruiser is setup).

Amberwolf,
agree, definitely not a variable regen cable.

when I saw it, I was confused, I assumed it is a enable/disable button.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800862958479.html

Look down at the connectors, and they have this connector there.

 

[amberwolf]

agree, definitely not a variable regen cable.

when I saw it, I was confused, I assumed it is a enable/disable button.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800862958479.html

Look down at the connectors, and they have this connector there.

I don't know which connector you're referring to.

If you mean for brake, there is a Low Brake, High Brake, and EBS Enable.

What the EBS Enable does, I don't know because it doesn't specify anywhere on the page. If it means to just enable/disable regen, it seems odd for a programmable controller (which this must be since it also has a USB programming cable right there on the page) to not just have this as a setting; there's not much use for most setups and conditions to have a connector for it that you could run to a switch. Generally a bike or vehicle either would have regen braking, or not use it at all, and not turn it on/off.

It would be much more useful to have a connector that allows you to vary the regen strength, even if it was a simple three-level just like the three-speed one, or even a two-level.

But...it is what it is.

 

[E-HP]

Well I guess getting regen back would still be a future desired upgrade, so the Sabvoton version may still be a possible option, at the right price.

For now I keep procrastinating on completing my winter upgrade/maintenance items, the torque sensor and cable harness. Maybe it's a good thing, since now that the cruise and soft start wiring isn't needed, I may use the harness for the torque sensor wire routing as well.

Even though we have half the winter to go, the days have gotten noticeably longer in the last week, and since the weekend rain showers ended and the sky was crystal clear, I had to take a ride. Since it was a weekday, the foot and bike traffic on the trails down by the bay was very light. I ended up barely pedaling the whole ride, just cruising with some light offroad trail riding mixed in. I pressed the button on the GoPro and it actually had a charge, so I shot a little bit of video too.

I think I need to put a velcro strap on my center stand to keep it from clunking around during the offroad stuff. Future upgrade

Also, my "upgrade" or replacement of my breaker/switch needs to be redone. Since the new breaker is AC/DC and only rated at 40A, it will trip under DC load (as opposed to the AC breaker I was using before). It will trip consistently if I hit 47mph, which is around 50A, per the simulator. It won't trip under bursts of 7kW, but trips when running continuous. I have a 50A to replace it with, also AC/DC, so hopefully that's good enough, since I never really run high current continuously.

EDIT:
I took a late afternoon ride, and ended up riding up the hill on the way home to see the sunset. It was late, so needed my lights on the way home. This is a spot at the top of a dead end street that is about 1/2 way up the hill. It was a good spot to see the sunset. I was thinking about taking the dirt trail the rest of the way up, but it was getting dark fast, so another day.



This is about 1/3 of the way up, at the bottom of the street from the other two pics, where the road Ts. Motor temps stayed under 60C, even though I was too lazy to pedal.

 

[gobi]

Amberwolf,

Generally a bike or vehicle either would have regen braking, or not use it at all, and not turn it on/off.

Figuring out the different flavor and scant instructions make it difficult to figure out what the exact nature of the connection and software options.
EBS seems to be the "Regen braking"
It seems to be acting like the FAR Driver regen, it is triggered by a 2 wire switch too. In the software one can set the "LEVEL" of regen braking.

E-HP,
Awesome riding trail you have there, many years back, I walked around the shore in Alameda all the way to the Row Club (where they row Hawai-5 o kinda boats with outriggers. During the day there was hardly anyone around.

 

[E-HP]

Four year flashback.

It showered in the morning, but then settled to an overcast sky and less chance of rain for the rest of the day. The balmy weather and temperatures are great for ebiking, with a nice warm jacket on. I went exploring for a while, but ended up at Point Richmond. The taco shop wasn't crowded because of the weather, so I grabbed a couple for lunch. There's a big hill between the downtown area and the bay, and a tunnel to make it convenient, but I decided to ride up to the top of the hill and over, since I haven't ridden up there in a while.

Coincidentally, I rode up the same hill 4 years ago on my first version of my ebike, very close to the same date, and with the same overcast weather.

I end up riding down the hill to that small point up in the right hand corner of the pic. I posted a link to a video of the ride between downtown and the point below.

From the taco shop to the top of the hill is one mile ride. It's paved, and fairly steep, at around 15% for a good portion and 20% on the steeper parts. The view at the top of Miller Knox Peak is 360 degrees, so even though it's only 300 feet above where I started, at sea level, the view is unobstructed in all directions. I rode down the other side of the hill after enjoying the view and eating my tacos.

The end of the line on the video, is the old west coast end of the line for the Santa Fe Railroad. From that point, ferries would transport cargo and people to San Francisco across the bay. The structure is still there, but it's mostly fisherman hanging around the area.

End of the line: Richmond's Ferry Point

A photographic look at Richmond's historic Ferry Point.

richmondconfidential.org

 

[thundercamel]

I love railroad history. I wonder if there are any abandoned lines around you that you could go railbiking down. All the ones here are either torn up or converted to trails. The trails are at least nice, but most of them are just bits and pieces instead of connecting the entire line that used to be there.

 

[E-HP]

I love railroad history. I wonder if there are any abandoned lines around you that you could go railbiking down. All the ones here are either torn up or converted to trails. The trails are at least nice, but most of them are just bits and pieces instead of connecting the entire line that used to be there.

A buddy of mine tried one of those railbiking tours and said he had a great time. The area and state are pretty rich in railroad history, with several museums and exhibits. The taco shop where I start my video is on Railroad Ave, and the area used to be a train station, so some businesses, like the Mechanic's Bank, are in old restored railroad station buildings. And, on the other side of the tunnel, there's a big warehouse building that's owned by the local model railroad club. I used to take my kids there and spend a whole day, since the trains were of all scales and the network of tracks modeled the railroad through the entire northern part of the state, from the mountains, through all of the major cities and towns. The local park up the hill from me has the outdoor version of that, but the trains go up to almost full scale, and they give rides on the large scale version of steam trains. The model trains run once a month, or used to. I haven't checked them out since my kids were little.

 

[E-HP]

Three year flashback.
I rode to Berkeley and climbed the hill up to the Lawrence Hall of Science. I took the same ride 3 years ago, but I ended up getting a wood screw stuck in my back tire before getting to the top, and even though I was able to unscrew is from my tire, without puncturing the tube, I felt it would be wise to get back home and do a more thorough inspection. At the time I had my old 1000W MXUX ebay hub, with Statorade. My econo-e-bike

While the Leaf motor had no problems with the climb, this time I was monitoring my temps. Statorade alone kept the temps in check for most of the climb, but near the top, a couple of cars were behind me, so I was pushing a little harder. I rolled back my throttle as the temps hit 99C and let the cars pass, which was enough to drop down to 96C, and I had 50 yards to go, and the road got steeper as I crested the hill at 103C. The temp cooled quickly as soon as I was off the throttle, and the Leaf seemed to be not worse for wear. That was the hottest it's gotten, but I wasn't going to stop a few yards from the top, and it survived. I'll definitely use this hill in a followup to test out the heat sink mod once I install them.

The ride up the hill and back. Beginning elevation 200 ft. Ending elevation 1115 ft.

Cyclotron at the entrance.


View from the observation area.

 

[E-HP]

I've tabled the torque sensing PAS upgrade for now. During the last few months I've developed some pain that's made it hard to stay on the saddle and pedal much, even with the Cloud 9 seat, so I've been throttling around most of the time, semi standing, and split my riding into around 20 to 25 miles in the morning then another ride during the late afternoon. Mostly just putting around at slow speeds, but also some ~20 mph cruising on non-busy side streets.

I've been watching the progress on about a half dozen construction sites, which is pretty cool. There's a lot of digging and setting pilons, and they're using huge cranes to distribute the concrete when pouring the walls.


This was a big hole in the ground last summer.


They carved out part of the hill and are settings piling in deep.



I'm also seeing a lot more wall murals and street art. Seems like it's more the norm than the exception now; if there's a big cement/brick wall, chances are it will be a canvas for a mural; even on buildings that are 4 or 5 stories high.

Farm in the alley


Who?


This spanned a couple of buildings in the alley. Prince just randomly shows up on the right.


Modern art sculpture. Don't ask me what it is, LOL


EDIT 02-24-23 It's been freezing and raining, so only finding time to take short rides. The park a couple blocks from my house has a paved path I usually ride up, but there are a few short single track paths above it on the hillside, so I took a quick ride up and down the hill. Keep forgetting to put a velcro strap on my centerstand to keep the racket down.

EDIT 02-25-23 Not sure what the occasion was, but I spotted this huge flag (much larger than it appears in the pic) hanging over the intersection over by the local community center.



Rear brake pads are shot. I think they lasted two months. There's a reason that almost every house on the hills owns a Prius. Anyone living near the top must have to change brake pads a lot. I really miss my regen.

EDIT: 03-02-23 It recently dawned on me that while I get pretty cold riding my ebike, I never had that problem when riding my motorcycles. The difference is, on my motorcycles, I'd always wear leather. I recall that's when I'd discovered the benefits of leather and started wearing leather jackets all the time, even when not riding. Well I pulled my jacket out of the closet and went out for a late afternoon ride by the bay, where it's been pretty chilly riding along the water. Wow, what a difference. I could enjoy the cool and slightly balmy weather, just like I used to on my motorcycles. With my earphones playing the right tunes, I could just cruise, relax and enjoy.

Riding from the Albany "Bulb", up the hill, the Golden Gate Fields race track is at the top, and back down the other side to the stables. Only a few people out, so very peaceful.

EDIT: 03-03-2023 Riding a little further out to Oakland to expand my radius a little. I decided to ride up into the hills where the "firestorm" burned over 3000 houses on the hills above Oakland in 1991. I haven't been up that way since almost that long. I did ride my motorcycle around the area a couple of weeks after the fire and it was pretty bad. It was all ashes.
Anyway, I planned to start up Hiller drive which was and now is mainly condos, then wind around Charing Cross Rd that has single family custom homes, then down Tunnel Road the my starting point. 200 ft or so starting elevation, 950 ft at the top, 15%-20% on the way up, 18%-26% on the way down (and I ended up having no back brakes after about 1/3 of the way down). Starting motor temp, 52C, peak temp 90C (it was steeper than I had expected, plus I started at sea level getting to the starting spot so the motor was warm).

This looked like a good spot to let my hub cool. The condos above have a pretty expansive view. Motor was right at 90C when pulling over, but cooled pretty quickly.


The spot is at the top of the parking lot on the left in the stock photo below, so the condos are above;

If you follow the street as it winds up and around, then down on the right, the road continues on, and down the hill. Obviously the shot below was right after the fire:

I was expecting to see some cool custom homes, but was a bit disappointed. There were several homes that would qualify as cool looking, except for the fact that even though none where the same, the felt the same architecturally since they all were built at the same time to replace what was burned down. Oh well. Of course the views are spectacular from the inside with any of the houses along the hillside, LOL.

The ride down was terrifying. It was steeper than the route up, and my rear brakes that were already on their last leg completely were destroyed, with zero stopping power. I was relying on my fronts only, and fortunately they were up to the task. Whew!

I was surprised when I got to the bottom that I hadn't really used that much battery, I pedaled a little on the steeper parts on the way up, but the motor did most of the work. I didn't really need to stop at the 90C point, since the grade had decreased and the temp wasn't climbing fast, but it was convenient and a good spot to see the view.

I ended up riding over to one of the other neighborhoods that was burned in the fire (Broadway Terrace), and those homes were very cool. All custom, and each had it's own character. It was nice to putt around slowly and look at the homes and their landscape. They had great views, but they weren't all about the view.

I will be interesting to look more around Oakland.

EDIT 03-06-23 Nice day for a quick ride around downtown Oakland, Lake Merritt, and Jack London Square

EDIT 03-17-23 I feel like I just changed my tires, but looking back, it looks like that was back in January of last year for the front and April for the rear. I noticed over the last few weeks, when riding through a couple of curves on the path, that the bike felt pretty sketchy, sliding through the corner. Both front and rear tire are bald. That's with a little more that 3000 miles on the front, and probably only 2500 miles for the rear, so I guess that's normal wear. I have one Specialized Big Roller but need to order another. At least the Big Roller wore longer than the CST tire that wore out right away when mounted on the rear; the front has lasted until now.

 

[E-HP]

I've discovered how well my GoPro works for data gathering. I found a bunch of GoPro stuff I had, since I only used one of the mounts and forgot about the rest. One of the mounts allows me to mount the camera on my stem, so I decided to use it to record the CA data in real time. It works great for gathering data, and the stabilization makes the display crystal clear. I have to adjust the angle next time so I don't get the reflection of my dumb head.

You can't really spend time watching the readout in situations when you're on the throttle, but from quick glances and mental math, I think I was getting 5V to 5.5V of sag. My normal riding is with the 3 speed switch on low, but the controller provides pretty high current up to ~40MPH where it tops out in low. I run my battery from 83V down to 73V. I'd like to keep voltage sag to 3V or less in my normal riding since I have my CA roll back power starting at 73V. I don't want it kicking in too early due to sag, so hitting the throttle hard at 76V with 3V sag shouldn't trigger rollback. The GoPro made recording the data easy. I should have done this when collecting my temperature data.

I did five or six roll on acceleration runs, from 15mph and accelerating between cross streets. Leaning slightly forward at that speed avoided any chance of accidental wheelies. That's usually how I would use the most power, since I don't regularly do hard starts off the line. I think the second run provided the best data. The battery without load was at 81.4V (coasting up to the cross street) at the intersection, and it dipped to 76.5V when accelerating, or 4.9V sag at 4046W and 52.8A. Video starts at the second run.

Currently I have 3Ah of 30C lipos in parallel with my 14S lithium ion pack for burst current, and to provide voltage support. Now I have to figure out if I should go with a higher rated discharge lipo, or higher capacity for the support pack. The 6S Graphenes that are in series, have virtually no sag even at 70A, so it's really about beefing up the 14S part of my frankenbattery.

Here's the control case running the 14S part of the pack without voltage support lipos. Starting at virtually the same starting voltage, I'm hitting close to 5800W, which seemed a little odd, but the sag was significantly greater are around 9V, so the helper lipos are eliminating about 4V of sag. It's hammering the Samsung pack, pulling more than the continuous rating, but within the max that can be pulled from the cells.

I also collected some hill climbing data that I'm reviewing now. I tend to use less than half throttle when climbing a steep hill to keep the speed down, since I really don't want to flop over backwards. Upon initial review of the video, the bike was only doing 3500W or so max, but I haven't looked at the sag yet. This is a great way to collect and nerd out on the data, LOL.

This data will be useful for longer term planning of my future battery pack build and finding the right 21700 cells that can do the job without too much sag.

EDIT- the hill climbing data didn't provide any insights into the sag issue, but still provides usage info. The first hill isn't steep, and the second one is short and moderate, but the type that I would climb more slowly since most of the steeper off road trails tend to be rutty due to rains, so I keep it under 15mph most of the time and go light on the throttle to avoid losing traction. I think I'll try some steeper and slower climbs and get some temp data too.

I went on a short ride before sundown and did another quick sag test, but no revelations except that the sag is very consistent and proportional to the power usage.

EDIT 03-31-23 It keeps wanted to be sunny out, and it has been, a couple hours at a time. But mostly, still overcast and warm jacket weather.




EDIT 040223 Another almost clear day.


EDIT 04-10-23 I was on my way home from a ride and decided to head to the top of the hill. I had enough charge left that I shouldn't have hit my CA's LVC rollback. I hit record on my GoPro about 1/3 of the way up; it needed charging but there was a little juice left. I notice power dropping off near the top, but the voltage looked good, so it didn't make sense. Then, I looked to the right and saw the motor temp was at 106C and rising. Fortunately the grade decreased a bit and it started dropping slowly, and dropped to 98C or so at the top. GoPro battery ran out before then, but I got some good data.

 

[E-HP]

I noticed Hobby King has a decent selection of lipos in stock in their US warehouse, which means free shipping is an option. I've been planning on upgrading the 3Ah lipo packs (2 4S, 2 3S) that I have in parallel with my UPP triangle pack (35E, 40A). The lipo specs say 30C, 40C peak, but I thought I could count on 15C (45A) without too much sag, or 85A from the parallel packs. I have the CA limiting current to 70A and power to 6000W, but still get more sag than I want during midrange acceleration.
So, in a second attempt to eliminate the sag, I ordered a couple of 5Ah, 7S packs. Their specs says 60C, 120C peak, so if I can count on 20C with negligible sag,, that's 100A. I'm hoping to up the CA current to 80A, or 90A in unlimited mode. My performance goal is to beef up my midrange acceleration by getting rid of the sag.

While waiting for the packs, I'm conducting three midrange roll on tests. From a cruising speed of 20 mph, recording performance to 30 mph under full throttle roll on. I'll repeat it for 25 mph to 35 mph, and 30 mph to 40 mph. I think the pack upgrade will have a measurable performance improvement, so the before and after will be interesting (data to geek out over). The other benefit will be fewer individual packs to manage. The small packs are in great shape and all the cells stay balanced, but they fall short of their purpose so I'll find another use for them.

First test, 9 runs, 20 mph to 30 mph. After examining the footage frame by frame, I'm seeing between 2.5 and 2.75 seconds. It's hard to be accurate due to the slow update times of the CA display, so it took a fair amount of judgement. It's especially hard to get to a steady 20 mph to start from and not being off or too much on the throttle before rolling it on. The times are slower than if the bike was already accelerating, but still feels strong enough to compete in slower traffic.

I'm starting to get close to impacting my flat tire defense. I just need to get unlazy enough to swap my tires out.


EDIT: I just realized that I'll need to find a better stretch of asphalt to conduct my other tests. Getting to a steady 25 or 30 mph before rolling on the throttle isn't going to happen on these short sections of bike path.

EDIT: 04-22-23 The only place nearby that seem to fit the bill was the trail by the race track, along the bay. I rode over there this morning and there weren't a lot of people out yet, so I was able to get a few runs in, two in each direction for 25 to 35, then 30 to 40. There was a moderate cross wind, and by going in both directions, should reduce any issues with grade, although it's pretty flat. I'd say the acceleration between 25 to 30 is still OK for city traffic, but I'd love to get the 30 to 40 to be like the 20 to 30 performs currently, and based on the Grin simulator, I think somewhere between 80 and 90 amps can achieve that.

Lately I've been riding more on the street than on the trail. Now that there's construction and maintenance going on again, I've notice some of the roads that have been neglected for the last 3 years are being repaved and it's great to ride on a freshly paved glass smooth surface. I can see they are going to fix the trails as well since the ruts and bumps due to roots, etc. have florescent paint identifying them, so hopefully they'll be fixed soon. Having the extra acceleration will really help to create that additional margin of safety.

That lady in the third run surprised me. She was jogging backwards, so coming toward me rather than away, so I had to shut it down quickly.

EDIT: 04-24-23 I tried a hillclimbing voltage sag test on the way home yesterday, on the 20% I use for motor temp testing. I decided to ride up faster this time, since I'm studying the voltage sag, when in the past I've kept the speeds to around 20 mph and did some light pedaling as well, since that was more of a real world scenario when normally riding up the hill. I needed to set the 3 speed switch to medium for this climb. Plus, I had cars following behind, so I started with 20 mph on the 15% section and sped up to 30 mph, but with the intent of ramping up to 35 mph on the 17% part of the climb. I was still mainly keeping an eye on the motor temp, since the GoPro was recording the rest of the data. Well when I got to the 17% and rolled on the throttle, click, my breaker popped. I forgot about my undersized DC breaker. On other climbs, I still had the old AC breaker being used as a switch, so I never had the issue. Oh well, fail, but I still got some good data, which shows why my 45A breaker popped since with the sag, the current shot up even more to 73A. If I could have maintained 80V, then for the same power, I'd only be drawing something in the mid 60s.