UK Giant DH Team eBike - CA advice needed

[RichiePA]

Busy stressy day in the garage today,

Started well by fitting the finished dropouts to the swingarm and getting the swingarm back on the bike which went well
View attachment 6


Then I turned my attention to the rear wheel which I got from crystlyte europe, I found a thread last night about HT/HS rear hub motors having problems with cable rubbing so I thought I should check this out and see if I need to mod mine before I run the hub. bearing in mind this is a brand new hub motor supplied direct from crystalyte europe I was mighty pissed off to take of the protective cover and find this.
View attachment 5
View attachment 4

I've emailed these photos to crystalyte europe and will be interested to hear their response, but I've struggled to get replies out of them in the past so I won’t be holding my breath. I think I'm going to have to fix this myself so if anyone has any pointers for me as ever it will be much appreciated.
Anyways can’t let little things like that get you down so I cracked on and fitted the wheel just to see how the bike looked as it has been in bits for a few months now. Fitting the derailleur was a but of a battle as I'd made its mounting an M10 threaded hole when really it should be some imperial thread. luckily there was an odd tap knocking about the workshop that look suitable so I retapped the hole and used a bit of brute force and ignorance to get the bolt in. after that it was a simple case of fitting the wheel and brakes, The rear wheel isn’t completely perfectly aligned but it's pretty damn close so it will do for the moment. After fitting the wheel and the brakes I noticed that the calliper is rubbing on the hub just lightly. so I’ll need to make / bye a spacer if they exist to shift the disc a few extra mm from the hub.
View attachment 3
View attachment 2
View attachment 1

 

[knoxie]

Hi

Starting to take shape there mate! it only looks like the installation got nicked? I reckon the phase wires might be OK, I would try and wrap some tape around them and give it a go, its very hard to check with a meter if there are any shorts as they will of course be shorted though the windings.

You might get out before the autumn leaves start falling.

Knoxie

 

[Planky]

Hi Richie,

My disc brake calliper also rubbed on my HS3540 so I spaced it out and it works fine.
I also did the mod where the phase wires come out of the motor.

Done a couple of hundred miles on my KMX so far and loving it!

 

[RichiePA]

Hi

Starting to take shape there mate! it only looks like the installation got nicked? I reckon the phase wires might be OK, I would try and wrap some tape around them and give it a go, its very hard to check with a meter if there are any shorts as they will of course be shorted though the windings.

You might get out before the autumn leaves start falling.

Knoxie

Yeah I think/hope the damage is just to the outer insulation, I'll do the anti-rubbing mod tomorrow and have a closer look. I've ordered all the wires and heatshrink and junk that I need for the battery harness and will soon have 4 repaired LiPO packs so I'll be able to run on 5Ah just to test everything works. After that is the dreaded battery box :?

Hi Richie,

My disc brake calliper also rubbed on my HS3540 so I spaced it out and it works fine.
I also did the mod where the phase wires come out of the motor.

Done a couple of hundred miles on my KMX so far and loving it!

Cool I'll space off the disc with some washers tomorrow till I find the right thickness then either make or order the correct thickness shim.

 

[RichiePA]

Oh yeah, today I found a shim had been supplied with the hubl for the freewheel and thanks to a little help from Jozzer it is all fixed and freewheeling just like it ought-ta

 

[RichiePA]

Woooooooooohooooooooo!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAGUfYz6zRI

check me out in my orange trousers!

 

[RichiePA]

[youtube]XAGUfYz6zRI[/youtube]

Finally finished repairing the first 4 lipo packs today so it was the first time I could chuck 72V at the controller and take the bike for a test ride, unfortunatly the lipo charger that i bought a couple of weeks ago didn't work propperly and has been sent back for repair of replacement.

Still lots and lots of work to do, big issues are:

Brakes (rubbing all over the place and feel a bit spongey at the moment so will have to spend a bit of time getting them working propperly)
More LiPOs (4 down 8 to go!)
Battery box (cant keep riding round with masking tape holding everything together)

I'll get back on it when i get back from france I'm just chuffed that it works!

 

[knoxie]

Hey 8)

Nice one!! you beat Deec on this!! shame on you Deec

Bikes looking nice and the motor nice and poky! have fun with it, looking forward to seeing more video and the upgrades with the battery mount.

Knoxie

 

[RichiePA]

Today I learnt;

1. A watched battery never fully charges.

2. Drilling holes in the plastic casing of your cheapy nasty power supply to try and help it not get so alarmingly hot is a silly Idea, especially if you're as cack-handed as me

3. Absolute power corrupts absolutely (had my second go on the bike, this time with a fully charged pack now I cant stop smiling )

I've really got to get on with the rest of the batteries and make a box to fit the frame (I'm thinking of making a simple framework that when assembled on the bike frame will be locked into position then maybe vacuum moulded plastic panels that can be bolted on and off the supporting framework. and some foam inside to hold the batteries securely.

 

[Planky]

That looks like a nice ride.

 

[RichiePA]

Right thats my holiday out of the way now its time to get back to the bike,

I've been to see Jozzer and picked up a load more duff 18.5v 5000mAh LiPOs thankfully most of them are Mavizens which have a thin clear film wrapped around each of the cells so the separating them is a lot easier than the old turnigy packs which tend to pull and get wrinkled up when separating as the double sided adhesive is put directly on the side of the cell (however Jozzer gave me a Turningy pack from a new batch and it seems that they have now gone for the clear film option as well now so this should be less of an issue if I need to repair trurningys in the future.)

Heres some I made earlier,
View attachment 2

and here are the reject cells.


I've made 9 new packs so far so only 3 more to go but I've still got to balance and cycle the packs a few times to check that their ok, Once I know they're ok I'll shrink wrap them. Balancing a 5000mAh pack with a battery medic takes hours so I think I'm in for a fun few weeks . I now have a pile of puffed, torn, or just plain dead cells sitting in my landlords brazier in the garden ready to blow at any moment

Once the packs are sorted I'll start work on a circuit board that can act as a harness to parallel the balance leads and I need to find some nice little strips of copper to make some bus bars. - I'm not going to worry about a BMS for now, For the time being I'll try and keep the electronics as simple as possible and just have some low voltage alarms on the parallel up balance leads.
I’ve been thinking alot about how to do the battery box and make it look tidy and I think I’ll just blatantly copy what Keyne has done on his Giant (http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26029&start=90) and go the fibreglass route. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Once the battery packs are done I’ll now exactly how much space to give them and will start making a mould.

Since I couldn’t face another day of Lipo repair and because I’m getting excited about being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel I’ve had a little play around with Ideas for the bikes colour scheme (I’ll strip everything when I make the fibreglass panels so it makes sense to paint everything then.

I'm thinking the green would be good If I can get a really bright glossy shade but the red would probably be easier since I already have a red sadle and pedals.

 

[RichiePA]

Ok thats all 12 LiPOs repaired and they seem to be working well although they've only had a single charge and balance each so far so hopefully in the next few days I can take the bike for a few short rides using just 4 packs at a time ( 4s1p ) to see if they are staying in balance as they drain.

Charging has been a slow process, My current charging setup is a turningy Accucell 6 (50w) and a PC power supply which only seems to be giving 11.5V at a guestimated 2A which means I can only charge at 1A at the moment or 0.2C However if I borrow my mates bench top power supply I can get the turningy up to around 2.9A charge current before the charger reaches its 50W limit. That gives me 0.6C better but still way of what I'd ideally like. So at the moment I'm trying to find out what my options are for a powerful charging set up. So far I have seen and been impressed by the Hyperion EOS 1420i NET3 Charger 1S-14S,20A max,550W which means I could split my pack in half 37V 15Ah and chage each half in just over an hour each based on:
3.7V X 10s = 37V
550W / 37V = 14.9A
which seems Ok to me
That set up would cost me £140 for the charger (fast-lad.co.uk)
Jozzer has recommended the 1300W Cellpro Powerlab8 V2 for £240 although I think this might be a bit of overkill for my set up. It would charge the lipos fast tho.

I also need a 24V 30-50A power supply. I've found a 900W Variable 1-30V 30A Switch Mode Ps from rapid for £174 that should do the job. Does anyone know of similar spec cheaper bench power supply
I'm not sure If I could use 2 PC 800W PSU at 12V 50A and have them wired in series to give me 24V 50A that would only cost me £60 instead. although it seems to me that 50A is a massive amount for little computer wires to be handling. and the PSU I'm using at the moment which was given to me for free so I cant complain although is rated to 8A it falls over above 2A (the charger comes up with an Input voltage error message)

Anyone want to offer me the benifit of their wisdom or know any threads that might have some related info

 

[knoxie]

Hi Richie

Looking good there!! you must have time and patience to repair all those packs!! fair play to you mate! OK there are some threads on here jut dig around, there are some reasonable ham radio power supplies, you need to check the continuous ratings on them though as a 50A supply may not offer 100% duty at that amperage.

Have a look here

http://www.moonraker.eu/Amateur-Rad...pplies/QJE-QJ-PS50II-50-AMP-POWER-SUPPLY-UNIT

Just look for other UK ham suppliers or take your phone cam in to smiths and scan a few out of the pages of practical wireless!!

Be great to see some more videos from you and great to see you making use of those faulty batts nice work

 

[RichiePA]

Cheers Knoxie,

Yeah with patience and liberal application of swear words I got all the packs done at long last and so far only one seems to be playing up I think Its got a high internal resistance cell or perhaps I forgot to balance it who knows, its in quarantine at the moment and if it doesn't sort its self out with a cycle and a bit of balancing then I'll whip that cell out and replace it. (which reminds me I've got a whole stack of dead lipos to put out with the recycling)

As for the vids I haven't ridden the bike that much. (been away on holiday or fixing lipos) However I did take the bike out today for its first proper ride. I only had 4packs (72V 5Ah) on the bike since I haven’t sorted a proper battery box yet so I kept it short and sweet. It was great fun over-taking a guy on a scooter 8) and I'm pretty pleased with how the bike can easily accelerate up to and maintain top speed (around 35mph) up some big frock off hills. I did about 4miles total and the packs were about 3 quarters spent. Really need to sort out the battery box ASAP. I managed to have a mini break down half way as well I disconnected the pack and one of the Anderson pins had slipped back in its housing just enough to break the circuit. I thought I was going to end up doing the ebike walk of shame on my very first propper ride but my friend found the problem and I was soon underway again.

Also I need to have an On noise or LED somewhere obvious since I almost sent the bike ghostying down the street when I went to move it not realising it was on at the time. Although hopfully events like that will become less frequent as I get more used to the bike.

With regards to the vids I'm toying with the idea of getting a GoPro since I race karts aswell it would come in handy... soon maybe.

 

[RichiePA]

Well the "shake down period" was going so well for a while there. I've had quite a few 4-5mile round trips to uni and back and other than the anderson connector pin pushing out I hadn't had any problems at all really then the other day I took the bike to uni and disconnected the pack when I locked up the bike. when I went to ride home and re-connected the pack the controller wasn't turning on. First thought was that it was the anderson again so I had a fiddle with that and it seemed ok other than mutiple sparking connections have started to frazzle the pins a bit but nothing that major. I took the bike home (ebike walk of shame ) and replaced the battery pack anderson connector with a heavy duty key isolator switch then tested the bike out again and still nothing. :? the motor controller is getting 80V but the little LED isn't coming on so I'm guessing I'm going to have to open it up and have a look inside.

Anyway thats tomorrows job, hopefully It will be obviouse what has gone wrong and it will be a simple enough fix. Fingers crossed!

If anyone has any experience with crystalyte sensorless controllers playing up like this and can give me pointers on what to look for it would be much appreiciated my limited electronics troubleshooting skills of "try turning it off and on again" dont seem to be solving this issue.

 

[knoxie]

Give Jozzer a call Richie! he will sort you else check the forum for posts there are loads good luck, cant be a lot wrong buddy after all its sensorless :wink:

 

[RichiePA]

Fixed!

The ON/OFF switch was burnt out, it wasn't obvious but when I put the multimeter across it there was no continuity in the on or off positions so I've shorted the wires going to the switch as I now have my big isolator key switch anyways. Luckily it was the first thing I checked so fault finding took all of 30seconds , it would have taken a lot longer if I'd have had to totally strip all the internals out.

It seems to me that the fault was down to cheap components being used on the Crystalite 72V 45A sensorless controller as the switch was rated at 10A 240VAC so that’s about 2.4KW but this switch has to handle the spike from approx 80VDC 15A(x20C) battery which could spike up to 24KW - please correct me if I'm wrong electronics isn't my strongest point.

I think I'll add a capacitor across the new isolator switch which should hopefully take the bulk of the fight out of the spark and save the contacts from burning out.

 

[Planky]

Nice to hear it was quick to find and simple to fix.

 

[knoxie]

yes good to hear you fixed it and yes those switches are poor quality, think all mine started going, I just plug the batteries straight in and change the anderson connectors every 6 months as the arching does get em, you can use a pre charge resistor or a capacitor.

 

[RichiePA]

Richie,

don't waste money on M12 nylocs, the hs/ht axel nuts are imperial 1/2" NF (20 TPI).
BTW do you have any pics/diagrams of your pack setup, mines the same and i'd love to "see your guts" so i can get a better idea how to cable them up
Also +1 for having the torque arms pinned to reassure against loose nuts.

D

I thought I'd move the answer to this one back to my thread as I dont want to stomp all over Keyne's brilliant build thread.

Yeah I forgot those nuts were imperial (there isn't a smily for spitting with disgust so use your imagination) I use a 19mm spanner on them all the time so it just locked into my brain as M12.

yes I do have wiring diagrams for my current battery set up which is just 4 in series (seems to be good for 5-8miles) and what I'm about to do to get all 12 LiPOs

Currently


Next


Heres the latest picture of the bike, I realised I haven't put up a picture of it since its been working so its about time I'll try and do some more and maybe even a video soon. (notice the keyed kill switch 8) )

I've got my new cell voltage monitor/alarm now aswell which is possibly the best £2.47 inc p+p I've ever spent you can pick them up on ebay shipping from hongkong took about 3 weeks but well worth the wait and I'll be buying a load more very soon.

I took the bike for a little ride today and found a nice bit of land to play around on within a couple of miles of where i live which has a dissused BMX track! I discovered i'm just as crap jumping a bike with electrical assistance as without! but still rolling over the doubles and popping little wheelies off the tops of the jumps all felt like fun to me. maybe once I've got a bit more confident with the bike i'll start trying to catch some air.

other than the on/off switch burning out the otherday the bike has been pretty well behaved although it did shear the rear innertube valve so I'm now running a little more pressure in the back tyre which I hope should prevent this happening again.

 

[GCinDC]

It warms my heart to see that EV Grin on the video!!

Looks like a great build! Congrats! Sounds like you've started the hard way sorting out dead lipos! haha.

Are you planning on fitting all 12 packs in that triangle? As shown, do you have the four packs 2 high by 2 wide?

Do you have a proper crimper for the andersons? I never did and kept melting the housings before finally going to bullets. I melted scores of them. Nice to see you sorted the on/off switch issue. Most of my issues have been connectors. Try not to let any water get to them either since they corrode so easily...

Discharging w/ those batt medics is slow! Ypedal made a JST-XH to Powerpole adapter. I can't seem to find a photo of it now, but could be useful for managing individual cell voltages... EDIT: here it is, from this page on his site:

How's the acceleration from a stop w/ that sensorless controller? Enough to wheelie?

Are you planning on getting a Cycle Analyst? Totally worth it!

 

[RichiePA]

Hey GC, thanks for all you kind words. Yes starting my first build by renovating dead lipos wasn't the easiest route to go but I must have the cheapest 72V 15Ahr pack ever coming in at a grand total of £150 and I'm a poor student so my options were pretty limited.

No I don’t have a crimper for the andersons I just solder them and I've realised that is never going to give great results. I've had lots of problems with andersons of various sizes over the last few years since I've been making robots and large scale RC stuff (probably mostly due to not having a crimp tool) I've decided to move away from them as much as possible on the bike now also in favour of the 4mm gold bullets seem pretty reliable and fool proof.

yes I'm planning on fitting all 12 packs in the triangle with the packs in line with the down tube they should all fit nicely if I have them 3 wide hopefully this wont make the battery box uncomfortably wide but we'll just have to wait and see. at the moment I have the 4 packs in one row (each pack standing upright with the terminals exiting to the RHS at the top) that fit perfectly into a sturdy cardboard box which I’ve reinforced with loads of gaffa tape. Not ideal but good enough for the time being.

The LiPO balancer adaptor is a good idea I've just bought a load of JST-XH connectors so will knock up something similar soon. I think I'll have a male JST-XH connector in parallel so that I can keep the battery medic plugged in for monitoring the pack while I drain individual cells.

The acceleration is pretty good so long as the wheel is turning just ever so slightly it doest judder at all, but of course if you’re going from a dead stop it does judder quite badly. Wheelying power is there for sure (i let a group of friends ride the bike up and down the street one night at the pub, one girl got on and went straight into a wheelie/backflip before I could even finish my safety briefing on how responsive the throttle is :lol: ) I must say though that with the throttle controlling the voltage and not the ampage it is a little weird to control wheelies and bursts of power properly, I'm sure its something that I could get used to but its just a bit odd especially when coming up to short steep inclines like riding up a steep bank or something I'm still not familiar enough with the bike to know how its going to behave and whether or not to give it more throttle or keep it steady.

as for the cycle analyst I'd love one but apparently with the motor controller I've got not all of the CA functions would work. Crystalyt-europe told me there was a crystlyte version of the CA that would be similar but after telling me it would be dispatched at the end of that week and ignoring all my e-mails for the following couple of months i had to bombard them with multiple emails to get my money back.

at somepoint I'll upgrade my controller and then I'll get a CA

 

[RichiePA]

Just fitted my new 50t chain ring to the bike (it’s the largest size ring that the chain guide can take) Cheers to full-throttle for pointing me at a good one!
Its amazing what a difference it has made to the actual riding of the bike and this is based on just a quick ride around on what little juice I had left in the pack this morning. Its opened up 5 or so of the higher gears whereas before I was riding around exclusively in top gear now I can actually pedal effectively at a whole range of speeds right up to Vmax (34.5mph) which is a great feeling because before I was stomping on the pedals up to 15mph then spinning ever more franticly to a top pedalling speed of about 25mph before giving up and letting the bike do ALL the work after that which feels like cheating and must look ever so conspicuous to people watching. but now its all good and I feel like I'm really able to help out the motor/batteries all the time. Hopefully this should = a bit more range?

 

[knoxie]

great stuff richie and yes it will help with range a bit, it will also keep you fitter and might stop you getting arrested :wink:

 

[RichiePA]

Just watched "Charged", the electric TT feature film in the bonus material of the "closer to the edge" DVD that I've just got. Its inspired me to get back to work on the ebike.

My first mission will be to sort out the charging set up I think I'm going to go for 4x BMS chargers so I can charge the packs in four lots of 21.5V(almost the full charge voltage of a 5s 18.5V pack) x 3P this should mean that If I change my configuration in the future my charging solution should be pretty flexible rather than going for 1 big charger to meet my specific needs now but not bee so flexible.)

while I'm waiting on those I can be getting on with making the battery harness to get all 12 packs wired up

fish out and replace a couple of weak cells from the packs that I've identified.

give the breaks a good going over as I replaced the pads just before I stopped using the bike for winter and they were binding something horrible.

also apply some of my new found solidworks skills to designing a battery enclosure which I can then make from fibreglass.

Doesn't sound like much but I can imagine that will keep my busy till the start of the summer.