**POST YOUR PACK**

[Jay]

Motor: Wilderness Energy BL36 (like a Crystalite 408, I think), running at 48V.


Batteries: NiMH 10AH (D cells), 1 36V pack + 1 12V pack, purchased from Batteryspace 15 months ago for about $360, including 4 cheap 12V chargers. Price has increased around 70% since then.

Weight: 16 pounds. Mounted to frame with aluminum angle brackets, hose clamps, & velcro straps. Here's a photo:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5228/1136/1600/bike%20with%20new%20bag.jpg

Has got to be the easiest-to-steal battery mount ever - yank a couple of velcro straps and it's yours. Have nice secure parking at work, fortunately.

Current draw held mostly under 10A with nearly constant pedaling. This would not be a good setup for someone who doesn't want to pedal; the motor's operating at an inefficient RPM without pedaling (would be okay for short ranges, I guess).

Usage so far: about 160 charge cycles, to average of about 70-80% depth of discharge. Haven't had wattmeter on bike in over a year, and have kinda forgotten most of the numbers (shoulda written it down).

Weak points: Cheap chargers (no temp sensing) let batt's get hot, though I do charge them indoors in summer. Batteries also get hot on rides home from work on 100 degree days in summer. Afraid all this heat will shorten life.

Strong points: roughly double usable energy of previous 7AH SLA's, with 8 lbs less weight. Perfect capacity for my commute (18 mi each way, with recharge at work) No worries about leaving them sitting partially discharged. Bike handles better with battery CG nearer crank, compared to previous SLAs on rear rack.

Hoping these will last a while; am counting on an easy, safe Li option being available when it's time to replace them.

Jay

 

[Doctorbass]

Update 10 july 2007:

my new pack

not assembled now

I will remone the plastic cover and make one pack of 40 cell soon

i'm searching for 5.5" heat shrink..

I agree with you Magudaman!

8)

Doc

 

[biohazardman]

Chemistry LifePo4 from Dewalt A123 packs
Voltage 56V
AH 4.6
Cost $200+ 4X 28V packs from Toolking. Plus is for wire connectors.


Weight <5lbs
Chinese Charger that doesn't werq $139 I was wrong about the charger it does werq after all.
Excellent TP Packs BMS board plus parts about $100 and 14 hours of soldering under a magnifying glass.

Gots to have batteries and these Dewalts have proven to be nearly indestructable. 10 miles per 4.6 AH @ 20MPH, 7 miles @30MPH. Old 48V packs charged up in 17-20 minutes with a Vicor Power supply @52.7V. Have five battery packs so 50+ mile range if I want it. I get my 260lbs of body and bike a bit over 2 miles down the road per pound of battery weight. 56V pack is 4" x 8.5" x 2.75" 48V is a bit over 7" long instead of 8.5.

 

[morph999]

Thundersky 36v 20AH
Cost: $360 + $30 shipping. = $390
Rated maximum continuous discharge: 2C (and verified)
Bought from elitepowersolutions.com

I'm pretty happy with them. They aren't indestructible like A123's but if you treat them well, they are pretty good. I use a 40 amp discharge rate on every single ride (after a break in period) and they are holding up to it. I was worried at first but I think they can handle it. I use a 1500 watt peak and 40 amp discharge rate on them.

Had one cell go bad on me for some reason. Maybe a quality control thing? I don't know.

 

[moostrodamus]

SLA 6 X 12v 7ah for 72v
Weight about 32 lbs
Bought from http://advancedbattery.ca/
Cost with connectors, keyswitch and two XLR connectors for 2 X 36v chargers about CND$ 150


Works good so far, first time mounting batts in the frame, makes a big difference in balance, though have to get used to the rear of the bike with no weight...

 

[AussieJester]

This is my lipo setup 44v 15ah 50v hot off charger (6x 22v 5000mah 20C Turnigy packs using GGoodrum parallel adapter boards)......

Charged with 48v 320-48 Meanwel PSU balanced with
Battery Medic combined with a GGoodrum battery Medic Booster

Weighs around 6 kilo including ESC and throttle interface (about 11 pound?)

KiM

 

[dogman dan]

Here's what I'm working on today. Boxes to protect my lipo in case of a crash on the racing bike. There will be two of these, one on each side of the frame behind the handlebars.View attachment Lipo box side view.jpg

The boxes are poplar wood 1/2" x 2" actual measurement, and the sides are 1/8 aluminum sheet that used to be a road sign. A block of wood mounted into the frame will provide an attachment point for the boxes, and the batteries will be easy to swap out between heats. I still need to add something to hold the batteries down into the box, possibly just tape, and I may relocate the warning buzzers to the frame.

 

[docnjoj]

Now you gotta get some foam and fiberglas and streamline those boxes, dogman. After all it is racing!
otherDoc

 

[Metallover]

20c Turnigy Lipo
66.6v nominal, 75.6v fresh off the hyperion EOS610i charger
10ah, 666+wh
~$300 + shipping
The packs weight 889g each, and I have six, so my whole pack weighs 11.75 pounds

 

[tycreek]

Packs ... mine are 48v, cost $600 or there'about and perform very close to specification. Though I did have two former LiFePo4 packs with issues when new.

The little 10Ah pack is Lipo (Polymer Li-Ion) 14s, 6.7lb, 6.5"x6.5"x2.75" and has been rock solid so far! I never used more than 400Wh from this and usually only pull 300Wh on a commute cycle. It has a couple hundred miles now and I like it!

The next 2 are LiFePo4, 16s?p, 15Ah, and voltage sag is typical for 3C packs where at about 50% it can become noticeable with a 50A controller. They both perform almost identical. With a 30A limit on the controller I haven't noticed the sag all the way to a 550Wh discharge. These are getting very little use now but work great in parallel for really long rides.

Bread loaf pack is 16.5lb, 13.8"x6"x 4.3", round 5C cells. This just fits between the crank arms for low triangle mount but took a special long trunk bag to mount it on a rear rack. This battery form factor actually fits several full suspension frames that I've run across.

Narrow square block pack is 15lb, 11"x7.2"x3.3", pouch cells. This one fits Topeak bags and larger triangle spaces such as my current FS bike though it's too square for most FS frames. It worked great in very cold weather last winter!

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

the sides are 1/8 aluminum sheet that used to be a road sign.

right on.
great 2c i'm not the only one getting back some tax money at work.
if u kept the sign post too it makes a good trailer frame.

 

[dogman dan]

Two signs were found in the garage when I bought my house. Not sure what I'll do when my supply runs out. Great stuff. The posts are great too if you find em in a junkpile. I made a trailer hitch for a honda civic out of one once. If loose signs aren't avaliable, you can buy diamond plate alu, but it's pricy. It would suck to do 200 hours of comunity service over a piece of alu.

For sure once the boxes are installed, the next step is to get some fairing over stuff. I plan on using old coroplast political signs for that. So the whole frame will come to a point along the curve of the front wheel. Also some kind of small crude handlebar fairing. Stuffing the batts more into the frame would work better, but I really really want to be able to swap out my lipo in 2 minuites. Might need to just to finsh a race and come in last, but really I just want to use the batteries on more than one bike, and charge off the bike.

 

[Kingfish]

Chem: Originally LiFePO4, then switched to LiPo in February and never looked back.
Volt: 37V for many moons, then up-volted in June to 55V
Cap: Depends on use – Commuting 20-30 mi: 15Ah; Century rides or trips into Seattle: 50Ah @37V or 35Ah @55V; Touring: 60Ah @55V.
Cost: ~$2k; does not include bms, chargers, bags, returned faulty items, or any other related battery toy.

Before June, I had 10s3P in the front Triangle bag for commuting. The Trunk bag is added to augment an additional 10s6p or 7p for century rides or heading into Seattle.

Detail of Trunk bag:

The Trunk bag wasn’t fastened down all that well so I ended up using an old inner-tube with the stem cut out as a nice stretchy tie-down; couldn’t find a decent picture of that…

When touring I use the Ortlieb bags. The bike has pretty much remained in this configuration ever since ~ using the Trunk bag for commuting, or the Ortliebs for longer journeys.

<sigh> It's not the best setup: Like the Trunk bag, I have to tie down the Ortlieb bags with a cargo strap to keeps the bags from flying off

Inside Ortlieb Bag, I created a u-shaped framework from some thin aluminum and I bonded 1/8th-inch thick high-density closed-cell foam (HDCCF) for cushion. Also fab’d a back wall in the same manner with balsa standoffs to get the batts away from the protruding crown nuts (at the bottom of the image) which faces the inside towards the rack. On the opposite side I used a black sheet of 1/16th thick ABS with a large swath of HDCCF padding to protect the batteries from whatever external elements that may come crashing in, and yet the outer wall still remains flexible.

In this view the batteries are loaded five layers deep, each separated by one sheet of HDCCF. I used my socks to fill in the voids front (L) and back (R).

In all, I have not been terribly thrilled with any of my bike bags; they just don’t do the job well for long-term and repetitive use. I am resolved however to remedy the situation: I purchased a walking-foot sewing machine, and I bought a shed-load of material for making my own saddle bags – which I will get to as soon as I put some other fires out: Film at 11! :wink:

Note: All batteries are Zippy FlightMax 15C/2C 5000mAh from HK. Out of 36, a handful are a little swollen but otherwise fine; they survived the tour without additional gowth


Enjoy, KF

 

[will_newton]

11s4p turnigy lipos, 45 volts and 20ah, wired 5s 4x5000mah packs and 6s 4x5000mah with a Goodrum LVC on each pack. charged on a hyperion 615i Duo3

motor is WE BD36 26" front hub. the range is guaranteed 1ah/mile with very poor management (but more fun!), no pedal effort, and no limiting. 2ah/mile with good management, current limiting, top speed limiting and a fair bit of pedal assist. I usually go 16-20 miles or so and recharge.

I started with 3 12v 10 ah SLA for 36v . I could go about 5-6 miles before recharging on the SLA's and I killed them within 2-3 months.

The Turnigy packs give me 10+ mph more speed, less voltage sag, 2-3x more usable range and 1/2 the weight. You guys running around with 50+ pounds of lead batts should consider moving to the 21st century.

 

[kfong]

Here's mine Konions 40volts, 24ahrs total.

 

[999zip999]

Hay Kingfish, How much does your bike weigh total how far and how fast, top end ?

 

[Kingfish]

Hay Kingfish, How much does your bike weigh total how far and how fast, top end ?

Bike Weight:
This is an estimate as I have not had the bike weighed other than by Amtrak…
On that journey I removed the Ortlieb bags, my packpack, and the front-mounted Harley-Davidson tool bag. The toady said my bike weighed 60 lbs (presumed that included the heavy cardboard box pictured below).

The tool bag and backpacks remain unknown deltas; if I had to pick a number the tool bag was 10 lbs, the small backpack with water, camera, and food was about 15 lbs, and main backpack was close to 40 lbs (more food, more tools, clothes).

The Ortlieb Backroller Classic:
I split the 36 batteries between the two bags evenly. Their weight is calculated to be 1.27 lbs * 36 = 45.72 lbs. I don’t think any of the supporting framework weighed more than a pound really. Meanwell charger assembly (2.38 lbs * 3 = 7.14 lbs, plus wiring), hiking boots est. 5 lbs, plus more clothes for padding, cabling, and the weight of the bags (5 lbs). Funny thing is that Ortlieb doesn’t publish the carrying capacity other than in volume :?

So let’s add up what we know:

• Bike sans cardboard est. 50 lbs.
• Batteries at 46 lbs, Charger at 8 lbs, Ortliebs at 5 lbs = 59 lbs.
• Probably best to point me 50 lbs of stuff.
• Me: figure about 150 lbs wet.
• Total: estimate 309 lbs. which is within the predicted weight budget.

Farthest Distance:
Farthest in one day on a single charge was 173.3 miles with caveats: I stopped for about 45 minutes at an unplanned location to appease my mother; the ride into and out of this homestead was very steep and all the charge that I had made whilst sitting there was burned off getting back out to the main highway – so I consider it a wash if not a loss. The batteries were configured as 15s9p, and topped up to 63V. Based on what I learned from Day-1 of my trip, when the system reached 54V I had about 10 miles left to find a Pepsi machine

Top-End:
On the flat, 36 mph easy at any time with or without a load. On the road trip I hit 45 mph going downhill with a logging truck on my arse. Just this weekend the CA says I hit 49.5 mph someplace; I met up with LFP/Luke for Seattle Seafair and there was one spot where I was tear-ass down MLK Blvd heading north towards Madison Ave with him in front on his motorbike: That was a fun ride! So it might have been there; I don’t know for sure.
LiveForPhysics/Luke’s ride and my P0 chained together at Lake Washington Blvd Park. Sorry - forgot to take pics of the Hydros racing.

With all that weight in the back the front tire slips a bit so it could be a phantom accounting. That morning I discovered this: Continental Contact Reflex completely worn down to the carcass.

Had it replaced with a Specialized Armadillo 26x2 on the way to Seafair by Gerk’s in Redmond. That's one beefy tough tire! We were able to re-use the Specialized Desert tube.

That’s wot I knows, KF

 

[Farfle]

Here ya go
2 8s turnigy packs in series for a combined 59 volts at 5.8 Ahr
range: TBD, probably somewhere around 7 miles
Chemistry: Li-Po