Please Help Compile Used Zero Component Information

[MitchJi]

Hi,

I think I have finally figured out how to affordably obtain the quality of control (controller motor combination) plus a lot of the performance of Luke's death bike. Use matching Zero motorcycle components.

It's a 1st prototype and development test motor for what became the 2013 Zero motor. It's an extremely efficient PMAC 3 phase air cooled inrunner. I have fitted, dyno tested and tuned, and raced with a Perm132 (modded), an Agni 95R (brushes setup by Cedric Lynch himself), the big brushless MARS, the 5kW golden motor and the biggest 10kW golden motor.

This motor has higher continous power capability than any 2 of them combined. This motor also isn't saturated even if you pump in enough current to make > 200ft-lbs. (I'm going to be pumping enough current into it to do that soon.)

We did it mainly for the heat reason you mentioned, as hall melting failure was our demise at the last race event, as well as a previous race.

The second reason you mentioned wasn't really something we were needing for this application, but WOW! It just make it silky smooth, no more chug-chug-chug at low RPM's as each hall sensor latches and tells the fets to switch the next coil on, it's just silky now, you can make the motor spin so slowly you can barely see it moving at all, and it's just perfectly smooth with no torque ripple noticed at all now. Really feels like electric power should feel at all RPM's rather than little bumps of torque pulses when you're at low speeds.

It's fun having this much torque too, I just nosed the front wheel up to a staircase outside a strip mall, and in a very slow controlled calm way, just torqued up the 10 stairs or so and rode along the sidewalk path at the top. It felt even easier than walking up stairs, though the seat does kinda smash into your ass as the rear tire goes over each step. I don't know that it would have been possible to do it so effortlessly on hall sensors.

Is it a viable way to obtain the quality of control Luke described above (or close) to use Zero components (matched controller and motor)?

For DIY ebike use buying the components from Zero is probably too expensive? But buying a wrecked or used older Zero, particularly with a bad pack is definitely affordable.

Would someone please provide a brief cheat-sheet of Zero year models with the associated components, with their pros and cons for DIY ebike use?

For example for someone who would be satisfied with the Agni level of performance (still a very fast ebike or light moped ) do any or all of the Zero models with Agni motors and the associated Sevcon controllers have the quality of control he described above?

 

[dnmun]

i liked your idea of watching the Coparts insurance auctions to see if there are Zeroes there too. i will try to do that more and post them up here.