Project build thread. Diamond back overdrive EV

[eBikeWannaBe]

Awesome thread, I've read thru a lot of it and I like what you have done. The fabrication work is a notch above what most would be able to do imo. With the 12S battery, MP3 and 26 inch wheel do you have a feel for where the sweet spot is for running the motor efficiently? The least power consumption for the best speed sort of thing. For a lot of hubs you can look at ebikes.ca simulator but all they have listed is a golden 500watt not a magic pie. Thanks and try and avoid KFF while doing you battery connector rewire. :wink:

 

[rborger73]

Awesome thread, I've read thru a lot of it and I like what you have done. The fabrication work is a notch above what most would be able to do imo. With the 12S battery, MP3 and 26 inch wheel do you have a feel for where the sweet spot is for running the motor efficiently? The least power consumption for the best speed sort of thing. For a lot of hubs you can look at ebikes.ca simulator but all they have listed is a golden 500watt not a magic pie. Thanks and try and avoid KFF while doing you battery connector rewire. :wink:

Hehe thanks. Ya the triangle batteries are all redone. Not a spark to be seen. I did have to stop at midnight the one night after soldering two ends on reverse what I needed. I have the 29er wheel on the front and the 26" on the rear both with hookworm tires. I'm thinking 12s with the combo I currently have is pretty good. I did 15.2 miles this morning in a bit of a hurry and checked my rolling average speed. It was 25.5 mph. I'm in NW Pa about 40 minutes nw of pittsburgh. We have a lot of hills here. I normally am never slower than 20mph by the time I hit the top of any hill. Worst I've seen in the last few months was 17mph.

I'm waiting to see where speedict is going to end up with their controller / bms solution. I need to get a speed bump when I finally swap the internal pie controller for something more hefty. The adapto mini gives a boost for the same voltage and I know a lot of the controllers have that 120% thing. I just want to be a few mph closer to 40 on a flat. Want to hit 45 on downhills. I'm hoping to stick with 12s and see if I can get it just a wee bit faster without switching to 16 or 20s. I'd someday like however to be able to easily switch between 12s 40Ah and 24s 20Ah.

Lot more to do on the bike still. Once everything is moved down from the rear carrier to get my weight balanced a little more I'll be just about done I think. Thanks!

 

[rborger73]

Well finally taking some time to make the rear fender / battery and component housing. Got the inside framing mostly made, need to make a bracket to attach to the threaded hole in the frame under the seat post that will be riveted onto the top front of the fender / frame. Have to make the outer covers for the new frame that will keep everything dry and look like the front triangle does. This should do wonders for the bikes balance, and it is already really good with the Hookworms and half the battery weight in the triangle. The frame will stiffin up the bike a bit more as well. Soon my rear carrier will be free to actually carry my gear so I can lighten up the 30lb backpack I carry 20 miles each way to work. lol The rear tail light will be part of the fender and reside under the back lip of the rear carrier. Have to finish up my turn signals now as well. Getting closer..

Now need some sort of heating system in my back pack or on board the bike to keep me warm in this weather that is coming.. argg.. time to move to FL or something..

 

[amberwolf]

Looks nice, though I'd've gone for something much easier for drivers to see than black.


If you want to be warmer, the first thing I'd do is add some more of that "fairing" as a brushguard-style cover around the grips--it'll keep the wind off your hands, and possibly your forearms, which will help a lot in making you feel warmer, in my experience. My version on CrazyBike2 is pretty fugly, but it works in the mild cold we get here at night in winter (rarely below freezing) even wiht only light knit gloves, even on a 10+ mile ride.


There's also a number of threads around here discussing various ways ot keep warm, or to add heated clothing, etc.

 

[rborger73]

Looks nice, though I'd've gone for something much easier for drivers to see than black.


If you want to be warmer, the first thing I'd do is add some more of that "fairing" as a brushguard-style cover around the grips--it'll keep the wind off your hands, and possibly your forearms, which will help a lot in making you feel warmer, in my experience. My version on CrazyBike2 is pretty fugly, but it works in the mild cold we get here at night in winter (rarely below freezing) even wiht only light knit gloves, even on a 10+ mile ride.


There's also a number of threads around here discussing various ways ot keep warm, or to add heated clothing, etc.

I actually made one out of pvc sheeting but wasn't happy with it. I was resistant to use sheet metal, but I may since it is my best way to make it work the best. Would be covered with vinyl if I did. I'm trying to figure out a system similar to this

http://newsportsbikes.com/neither-cold-nor-heat-ac-and-heating-on-your-bike.html

No AC needed just heat. I'm playing around with a few ideas. Colder it gets the more I think about it. lol At some point the snow will stop me from risking 20 mile each way commutes to work, or I'll move to FL ... either way. But having some way to control heating where I could be warmer sure would extend the use of ebikes. We need the darn personal force fields to be invented and the world would be a much more safe place.

I layer up right now. Even though it is still hitting in the 70's here in NW PA when I normally leave it is well below 50. I do a layer of thermal underwear, just one pair of socks so far this year, normal jeans, but I do a tshirt under the thermal shirt, then another tshirt, then 2 hoodies. With one of these
Balaclava http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MQAWOY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

things, both hoods on plus a ball hat over the balaclava to help hold everything in place and work as a sunvisor. As it gets colder I add a heavy winter coat and double up on socks and sometimes double up on thermal underclothes. I was out test riding this one in 20 F and below with a full face motorcycle helmet. If I had just a small amount of blown in heated air a layer or so away from my skin, plus a helmet that I could also push the air into, would make cold weather riding more enjoyable.

 

[rborger73]

Bike rides noticeably better with the rear fender framing tying everything together and making it all more stiff. Even with the weight still up on the rear carrier. Can't wait to get all the stuff down below the rear carrier. Thing feels awesome already, not that it didn't handle wonderfully before. Oh how I love ebikes..

 

[rborger73]

Oh boy... Got all the wiring redone and batteries moved down by the motor.. Wow this thing feels awesome. Better than a motorcycle. No weight up top except me. Will get some pics up soon. Have to finish the outer shell of the fenders yet.

On a side note. After probably a month of not balancing did a check yesterday. Out of all 24 4s bricks .02 variation between the lowest and highest cell. No bms, bulk charging for around 5,000 of the miles. Have only balance charged maybe 4 or 5 times in 5,500 miles. I think the people having issues are running low capacity setups and running them down to worrying levels for them to get out of balance so bad. Or are using bad wiring causing resistance on some cells. Most I've seen in variation was .05.

Now time to start dealing with NW PA winter issues and if a 20 mile round trip below freezing is going to be an issue or not. Should be around 45F when I leave here in an hour or so. What is the temp your batteries seem to start to drop off noticeably?

 

[rborger73]

Little further. Hard to stop riding it long enough to work on it these days. Now at 50Ah of 12s. Adaptto controller about to be ordered tues or weds. This this gets more and more balanced the more I do. Looking more and more like I'm going to finish everything in green striped carbon fiber over all the panels.

 

[Alan B]

Nice build.

What happened to all the pics?

 

[rborger73]

Nice build.

What happened to all the pics?

Thank you, and apparently FB changes their links for single pics when you direct link them after a while. Here is a gallery of pics from it.

https://www.facebook.com/ryanborger/media_set?set=a.10153353517082528.1073741841.815537527&type=3

 

[Alan B]

That is awful. All that work linking pics and making a thread on your build and then boom. I don't trust FB much, they have consistently done things like that. You might consider putting some info on the first posting about that and maybe fixing a few of the pics.

My Diamondback Overdrive has been excellent. Since I got a used Nissan Leaf I've been giving my ebikes a rest (in this cold and wet weather I don't generally ebike anyway), but when nice weather returns I'll be ebiking again. I plan to take a couple to the desert this month, chasing the good weather.

I see you mentioned an AWD upgrade. I've been really enjoying my 2WD Bonanza. The second motor totally changes the machine. It gets a bit heavy but goes wherever it is pointed, if I can stay on it, and the motors do remain cool.

Best of luck with your projects. One of these days I will do a trike as well. Have fun!

 

[rborger73]

That is awful. All that work linking pics and making a thread on your build and then boom. I don't trust FB much, they have consistently done things like that. You might consider putting some info on the first posting about that and maybe fixing a few of the pics.

My Diamondback Overdrive has been excellent. Since I got a used Nissan Leaf I've been giving my ebikes a rest (in this cold and wet weather I don't generally ebike anyway), but when nice weather returns I'll be ebiking again. I plan to take a couple to the desert this month, chasing the good weather.

I see you mentioned an AWD upgrade. I've been really enjoying my 2WD Bonanza. The second motor totally changes the machine. It gets a bit heavy but goes wherever it is pointed, if I can stay on it, and the motors do remain cool.

Best of luck with your projects. One of these days I will do a trike as well. Have fun!

I think the AWD idea for my overdrive was pretty early on. Not sure if that was for two equal motors, or I've had the idea, if I can find a reliable front hub motor that is small and will hold up to 10,000 miles or more of at least it being a front wheel hub, I'd like to add a front hub before I do my trip I'm still trying to take that would be 7500 miles or so from east coast to west coast and back to east coast. Just as more of an emergency measure. I'd just throw a 20A breaker and leave it shut off most of the time unless I was using it for regen to pump in some more Ah on any long hills I might find. But ya the AWD I think I most recently was talking about was prob the small hub for the trip. A way to keep limping along if something happens with the rear controller or motor. I know my little 8fun front motors I have would be good enough to keep me over 20mph average moving speed at 12s. Just so the front hub bearing can take wear since I wouldn't be using the motor except in emergencies.

Ya I'll add some gallery links on the first post. Haven't checked the thread for a while.

 

[amberwolf]

FWIW, this is why I recommend uploading the pics directly to the forum, right into the posts, so that when external sites do wierd stuff or go away, the pics stay like they should.

ES's server has plenty of space for stuff, and is backed up on a regular basis these days (unlike pre-2011), so not much should ever be lost in a worst-case event.

 

[Chalo]

apparently FB changes their links for single pics when you direct link them after a while.

Facebook are not good people, and you should consider not doing business with them. That they would treat your photos as their property illustrates what I'm saying.

I'm very much looking forward to them following MySpace and AOL down the toilet bowl of irrelevance.