SabreWalt's NEWWAY NW36-250b (kingsmotorbikes controller)

[sabrewalt]

Well, I finally got on my bike after making some of the changes that Mathurin made and also a different approach on the mounting and battery wiring.
This is a test post see what it looks like with a picture... The performance was MUCH better than before. I have about 200 miles on the old setup so I have some things I can compare. It REALLY pulls up the 1 bad hill I have. Does not slow down to a crawl like it used to. I did try the first time to start from a stop UP a hill with my fat butt on it and it twisted right out of the dropouts. I'll never do that again. I also REALLY chinched the bolts down TIGHT. This is good enough to commute places with. I'll run some more tests over the holiday and compare with my old numbers. Stay tuned...

 

[sabrewalt]

First comment - I don't like the Anderson Powerpoles. They don't click lock like I thought they would. I need to find something else. They are my new battery connectors.

 

[sabrewalt]

Picture log. Before - trials - now.

 

[sabrewalt]

Here is the board. First picture shows how dry and thin the traces are.
Second picture shows my attempt to use wicking braid to fatten the trace. I had to take the one on the side off and use thin wire because it would not fit back in the box without shorting. Notice the extra buss bar to suplement the top one.

 

[sabrewalt]

Connector replacement

 

[sabrewalt]

My makeshift bike stand. A black and decker workmate. Used the vice function to hold a pipe in the seat tube.

 

[sabrewalt]

Battery now connects directly to controller. No switches.

 

[sabrewalt]

Couple more pictures for ya.

 

[sabrewalt]

Final thoughts before I turn in. Gotta find a better power connector. Power poles are not hacking it. Suggestions welcome.

I plan to add back some sort of accurate voltmeter and mount it on the handle bar but I am not going to put it in the amp chain just to keep those wires as short as possible. Hopefully I won't have the literal melt down that Mathurin had because there is a 30 amp fuse in the battery postive line. It is the first thing off the battery and is inside the battery case.

From my first ride I would say that this thing actually has some more usefulness. This is a differnent Ebike now.

Thanks Mathurin for the spark to make these mods. I may actually throw 48 volts on here and see what happens... MAYBE. I am going to play with this for awhile.

 

[sabrewalt]

I have to take it back about the powerpoles. The big wire was overpowering the connector. I pushed them together and put a pin between the plus and minus and it works much better. Did a 20 mile ride today. Report soon.

 

[sabrewalt]

New Test. Same course as before same fat rider.
19.5 MPH. Repeated course 4 times same results.
This is faster than I could do before with aggressive peddling. WOW.

Will pull me up most hills now without peddling at about 15 mph.
Steady peddling will get me 21 mph and I am sure it is cutting down the
amps used.

It actually cut out on my bad hill when I opened it up at 6 MPH with no peddling to see if it would accelerate like last night. This was at the end of the ride. I wonder if it just sagged and the cutout kicked in????

MY PREVIOUS TEST.

I went out today with a GPS and tested the kingsmotorbike cheap
> chinese hubmotor. I am 250lbs. Back tire is a MTB tire. Bike is 21
> speed raliegh. M20. Set at highest gear. I have done none of the
> electrical rework I was planning yet. A
> 27 lbs of batterys.
> 19 lb hubmotor.
>
> On a flat. No Pedling 14.5 mph
> On a flat, light pedling, 15.5 mpg
> On a flat, medium pedling that causes heart rate increase. 17mpg
> On a flat, Agressive peddling to get 18 MPH. That is about all it
> can handle at that weight. Your about out of gearing anyway.
> Any hill at all slows the motor down but light nearly effortless
> peddling will allow the bike to at least maintain the 14 mph speed
> on a mild hill. We have one or two fairly steep hills and that
> requires medium to aggressive pedal to maintain 12 mph.

 

[Mathurin]

Yo, waytogo!

What's this about a pin in the powerpole?

 

[sabrewalt]

The Pin you asked about.

 

[sabrewalt]

Went riding today. Thought I would try murder hill with a full charge BUT. 35 MPH head wind as well. I hit the hill at about 12 MPH, opened the throttle and quit peddling. Bike slowed down to about 7 mph, groaned and quit. Would not restart. Pedeled home. Fuse ok. Board was not.. But it is fixed now. See photos. I was just testing and would not operate the bike this way normally. I now know this thing has some limits.

 

[Mathurin]

Yep, burnouts are cooler at the tires.

 

[safe]

Did you do one of those "higher current" modifications to the controller?

Those are not really that great of an idea you know. If you look at the engine performance chart below (which is true for all electric motors more or less) the horsepower "peaks" at a certain current limit. If you allow the current to go beyond that you don't do anything but waste energy (produce heat) and get nothing in return. It's pointless. The better idea is to get a larger motor and let it run in it's "efficiency zone".

(or maybe even a second motor)

 

[knightmb]

Yep, burnouts are cooler at the tires.

LOL, love the picture. Basically, you fine the dead corpse $200 right

 

[safe]

LOL, love the picture. Basically, you fine the dead corpse $200 right

Wow, that IS funny... :lol:

 

[sabrewalt]

To answer SAFE. I understand what you are saying about diminishing returns and beyond what we did may be fruitless. I am going to put 48 Volts on it in the next couple of weeks and see what we get.
However,
I don't know what one of "THOSE HIGHER CURRENT MODIFICATIONS" is. I'll tell ya though, whatever I did, it was not a waste of time. The performance of the bike is now amazing compared to the money I spent. I just have to be careful and not be stupid with it.

Basically I did the following:

Removed the crappy switch. removed all the battery wiring that was less than 12 Gauge except to the two short wires going inside the controller.

Shortened the battery wire as much as possible.

Removed those horrible connectors to the coils and replaced with molex connectors.

Added the "mathurin" buss bar mod. Added some wire to the negative and positive main traces on the board.

For that I got a 19.5 MPH and the ability to pull my fat ass up 95 pct of the hills out here with VERY little peddling.

I do not know which THING contributed the most. I am pretty happy with what I got.

 

[safe]

On the old Voltage Forum boards people were always talking about modifying their controllers to get more current through them. They would do things like solder extra wires into the controllers to allow more current through. (I never planned on doing that myself, so I didn't follow too closely)

Anyway, you managed to overload your system somehow (?) and it happened in a situation (low rpm's and high load) that normally means the current got too high. So I was guessing about what you did.

Ideally you would know what the performance curve of your motor was and from that you can calculate the limit that you never want to go past. (beyond the peak it's just wasteful heat anyway, no more power comes from it) Actually, from a range perspective you want to go even below the peak power because the "efficiency peak" is WAAAAAAY up high in the rpms near the maximum "no load" speed.

You want to "rev" your motor up high and not "bog down" down low if you want good performance, sort of like a car or motorcycle.

 

[sabrewalt]

OK, what you say makes sense, but whatever we did made the high end work much better so I may need to lower the fuse value to protect it from an amp spike. Normally, I would NEVER run a bike the way I ran it when I blew the trace. I was just looking for the edge(FOUND IT!!) I KNOW that the amp pull gotta be enormous and there ain't much to those traces. I imagine the amp pull has got to be just as bad by sitting on a hill and trying to to make that ungeared motor pull me up from a dead stop. I don't do that (and won't) It really fusses and twice it has actually twisted out of the fork.

Someday I will get my wallet out and buy a better kit with a better controller setup but for now I am going to enjoy this thing.

Thanks for the history lesson.

 

[sabrewalt]

Just a quick report.. My cheap chinese hubmotor with the Mathurin mods is still running strong after a couple of months. I can only run it a day or two a week because I have to work out of town all the time but it is still running strong. SLA's are holding up. 45 minute ride today pedeling hard the whole way(for exercise) and at the end of the ride I still had 37 volts with no load. It will get a lot of work out this summer.