Triple Rewind of Unite 500W Motor

[wcocc]

tnc scooter controller, 24-60 volt version, the better ones that they sell. I burned out some of the cheaper ones before.

Mike
can I drill holes in the rear of the motor? use a pelletier effect on the motor or something.

 

[safe]

Unless the newer ones are significantly different things should be about the same. There are three soldered "shunts" that are about 1/2" long and look sort of aluminum in color. They are pretty obvious in the old version. All it takes is a pair of wire cutters and just cut two of those three shunts. However, if you want it reversable you ought to actually desolder them from the circuit board. (more work, but it gives you the ability to go back to stock)

As far as drilling cooling holes... sure... I do that and I would guess as long as you don't weaken the motor too much mechanically that there will be no problem.

 

[safe]

Riding Tired

Last week was great weather with moderate temperatures and low humidity. I've been working hard to get some repairs done on my house because I had a dishwasher leak that messed up my downstairs last year. I'm still doing sheetrock. (ugh!)

Anyway...

At the end of the day I went for a ride on my ebike and though I didn't crash or make any significant mistakes it certainly felt scary. When you are rested and clear headed you can sense everything that's going on and anticipate what you will need to do to respond to any dangerous outcome. When you are tired you simply can't hold all the varables in your head simultaneously so you get lazy and just focus on what is in front of you. It's like your three dimensional sense drops back down to two dimensions... this is how you get hurt.

Riding tired is a bad idea. (you lose your "sixth sense" too)

This week looks like it will be five days of constant rain.

 

[safe]

New Stackable NiCads

I'm 10 miles away from 8000 miles on this bike. One of the SLA's is in serious decline and the remaining three are probably getting pretty old too. I'm going to finally make the last conversion over to pure NiCads.

Weight Savings - 40 lbs

Overall Loss in (usable) Battery Capacity - 20%

...however, since the old SLA's are now doing so badly I'm probably not even getting anywhere near what the combined SLA/NiCad setup now should deliver. One fork of my parallel wiring configuration always empties too early by a large margin. (because of the SLA cell)

I'm doing things a little different this time. On previous NiCad builds I've permanently assembled them together in a specific configuration. The problem with that is that when you want to change stuff around you have to do more work. This way you can assemble each 24 volt unit like LEGO blocks together into whatever you want. If you look closely there are two holes in the middle of the units where you can pass a bolt through. At this point the assembly options are unlimited. (I wish I did this from the beginning, but that's how things go... you learn along the way)

 

[safe]

It's Official...

...I've reached a total of 8000 miles on this bike.

What does it mean?

Not a whole lot, but it probably places me as an exception in that most people don't put a lot of miles on their motorized bikes. Mine has fallen apart, controller burned up, gotten flats, bent rims, thrown me into a ditch squishing my pinkie finger, and gone through many SLA batteries and motors to get me here.

Even the frame hasn't remained constant because it's been modified several times.

But it does make for a good place to make the NiCad switch.

 

[Toddmoto]

Mile stone

8K miles is impresive,
Congrats are in order. Are you schedualing a Watts up meter anytime soon?
I would love to see real empirical data on your steed.
hope the next 8 thousand go by without incident. T

 

[safe]

I alternate between working on getting my house prepared for sale and working on and riding the ebikes. I'm kind of trapped, I have so much continous maintenance on the house as well as larger repairs to fix prior problems then add in the Halbach Disc Motor project and keeping the older bike going and there's no time or energy left. Add in the fact that the weather in Missouri is so bad that about 60% of the time you can't do anything and things just get done when they can. Once I get out of this place (and out of the area) and get something smaller I'll be able to spend more time on the ebikes. (the house is just sucking my time away)

And I'm not even formally working anywhere... it's insane...

But yes, one day I will get to the meters.

The fact that I am able to post at all means that the weather is so bad I can't do anything. (which explains why I can post so much)

Tomorrow the weather is expected to have a heat index near 110 degrees.

 

[safe]

Heat Index 91 Degrees @ 8:30am

Missouri weather is just terrible this time of year...

I did manage to drive to the hardware store and pick up the parts needed to attach the new stackable NiCads. I'm still needing to rewire the wiring harness because I've changed the configuration again and also transfer some batteries around. There's still a lot to do, but it's already too hot to do anything, so as typical for this time of year I'll spend the day just trying to survive the heat. (what a waste of time)

New Battery Stats:

Total Capacity - 528 Wh (could be doubled if I switched to NiMh)

Total Battery Weight - 26 lbs

Battery Container Weight - Not sure, but these PVC pipe tubes are pretty light. Maybe add another couple pounds for the pipes and hardware.

--------------------------

At this point the battery weight should be getting low enough that it's not really a big factor any more. I'll notice the improvement on hill climbs the most... on downhills extra weight actually helps you go faster and on the flat it doesn't matter very much because it seems to not really effect top speed. Top speed is pretty much all about aerodynamics on the flat.

I'm guessing the total weight of the bike to be about 75 lbs now.

 

[safe]

Wiring Harness

A little less humid today...

Managed to get the wiring harness built. Got the bike together and went for a test ride. The range is at best 10 miles at full throttle (based on calculation) and I rode up and down some hills for about 7 miles. I might be able to improve things because half the NiCads are my older ones that have a lot of use and probably have lower capacity now. The new ones ended the ride at 25 volts while the older ones ended at 24 volts. (they start at 27 volts and in series the voltage is 27 * 2 = 54 volts in the beginning) I'm going try out all new ones next.

Riding reactions...

Well, the bike is obviously lighter and climbs hills much better. I'm able to go 2-4 mph faster up some hills I know. On the flat the speed is about the same. Haven't really tried a downhill yet. Acceleration is minimally faster.

Another nice thing is that the bike absorbs bumps a lot better.

I can now lift the bike up without straining myself... which is nice.

The handling didn't change much because the old central location for the SLA's was so good they kind of disappeared when you rode with them. However, it does feel quicker, but the center of mass seems to have shifted a little lower which tends to slow things down a bit. Overall the feeling is just "different".

 

[safe]

2 Mph Faster Everywhere

While top speed on any given straight away is the same, the fact that there is less weight increases the acceleration out of the turns and allows me to get to the next gear earlier. Being lighter also means the cornering speeds are higher so I'm carrying more speed everywhere. The net effect is about 2 mph faster all the time. Even on the small downhill I use for testing I was able to hit 54 mph rather than 52 mph because I was able to get to the higher gear earlier and that meant more time at full throttle in top gear.

Another factor seems to be the "no sag" characteristic of these 10C NiCads. They worked better today after exercising them a little. I actually have 10 chargers, so:

30 volts (charge voltage) * 1.5 amps (charge rate) = 45 watts

45 watts * 10 chargers = 450 watts charging rate

...so the turnaround time for a 15 minute ride is now less than an hour which means I could do many rides in a day. (if it wasn't so darn hot)

Overall the setup works really well. Less weight is always better than more weight.

Total bike weight is about 75 lbs.

The Neodymium magnet motor is performing flawlessly and the geardown is actually making less noise as it seems to have found some more smooth motion after having been broken in for some time.