Suzuki RG250F Gamma conversion

[jonescg]

I have discovered 8 mm plate aluminium is $450 per square metre. Not sure what steel is, but steel is a bit stronger.

Anyway, here is the idea I have for mounting the motors. There is a 440 mm long 30x30mm square tube which supports the motors and serves as an attachement point for my motor protectors.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
CHRIS

[jonescg]

Well there goes half of my workday chasing up engineering firms to do my laser cutting and welding But all good:

I have Goodwill engineering in Malaga doing the welding, and Action Laser Cutting in Bayswater doing my cutting. I decided to go for 8 mm aluminium for the light-weight factor, and it's probably a bit cheaper. The plans are otherwise the same. I'm using solid 16 mm aluminium bar to join the two motor mounts at 12, 3 and 6 o'clock, with 30 mm x 30 mm x 3 mm aluminium square tube to sit at 7 o'clock. This will be the main attachment point to the frame, via tabs either side of the motorcycle frame, and a bolt to clamp it nice and firm. I'd rather not drill into the frame as it's pretty light, but maybe this is not such an issue

I also got All-Bend in Wangara to make some 20 mm protective crash bars to come out from the sides of the frame - one on the bikes left hand side to protect the Agni motor, and one on the right hand side to protect the counter-balancing auxillary batteries. My controller arrived from Kelly on Monday, and I figure it will fit perfectly on the back behind the seat. Just have to run a bit more cable down to the motors and batteries.

Coming together

[AussieJester]

Action Laser Cutting in Bayswater doing my cutting.

If you dont mind me asking what do they charge for the cutting the plates out? Is it a 'job by job' quote is it and do you have to supply the DXF file or just the drawing?

KiM

[jonescg]

Don't know about the quote till tomorrow morning, but I'm guessing there will be about $450 worth of plate ally, and maybe a couple of hundred bucks worth of labour :confused: The crash protector material is hell cheap, as always the labour will add up. I hope the whole lot will be under $600.

[jonescg]

F'N Stoked!

The materials and laser cutting will come to $128! That's awesome!

[AussieJester]

F'N Stoked!

The materials and laser cutting will come to $128! That's awesome!

Booyaaah!!! freakin sweet mate .... what sort of time frame you looking at for them to do it?

KiM

[recumpence]

I have found some things that seem cheap turn out to be freakin expensive, while other bits that you are just positive will cost an arm and a leg end up costing much less than ever imagined.

Great news, indeed!

Matt

[AussieJester]

jonescg, i dont recall if i suggested/or you already are a member of the Australian Electrical Vehicle forum?
i haven't seen your worklog there so im guessing not? I would urge you to join up there obviously by the name it is predominatly Aussies there, my worklog has 2654 MORE views there than it does here on Endless Sphere (12516 v's 9862 here on ES) so it is a HUGELY active forum devoted to e-cars and e-motorcycles mainly. You might get some god tips for suppliers (locally) etc

There is also regular meets for Perth Members at the EV Shop so they can ctach up in person and discuss and perve on each others masterpieces...

KiM

[jonescg]

I'm not all about the post-view-whoring you know Kim Besides, I have a job as a plant scientist so I really ought to spend some time doing what I get paid for...

Yeah, I'll join the EV mob at some point. I'm good friends with Rob Mason's daughter. Rob started EVWorks I think... I will be buying all my cable and fuses etc from him. I went along to the Electrikhana thing they did at AHG. Some great builds there... shame about the top speeds though.

The cutting will be done by next wednesday, and I'm guessing the crash bars will be much the same. My sprockets ought to arrive today or tomorrow.

[AussieJester]

I'm not all about the post-view-whoring you know Kim

Nothing to do with "post view whoring" it was simply an indication of the activity of the forum ie. its more active than ES its LOCAL and is devoted to e-cars and e-motorcycles, Endless Sphere is not, it mainly bicyles... here your a minority on AEVA your the norm and would get a heap of advice and access to the local 'market' for components saving you a heap of $$$....was just a suggestion though...carry on

KiM

[jonescg]

Yeah, and a good one too.

I'll get on there eventually. I also spend a lot of time on MCNEWS.com.au/forum for general motorcycling and time-wasting activities. Too many forums... not enough time

[AussieJester]

Too many forums... not enough time

Know the feeling, i had my works logs mirrored on 6 forums took me hours everyday to reply to
posts etc, i have now cut it back to ES and AEVA.... Anywayz...back to the important stuff-->..

When are you looking at having this bike running, approximately? or is it still too far away for that
at this point? You have been moving along at a pretty good pace thus far held up as far as i can see by freight times
(know the feeling there too LoL) At least its the start of the year which means new race season at Barbegello so you have aaaaaall year to get this beast on the track! Will it be a race or tuning day you take it out? I need a weeks notice to please so i can organise transport out and a HiDef video camera to film the occasion.

RE: Sponsorship...maybe the 12volt shop and Battery World might be worth approaching?

KiM

[jonescg]

Good question...

I hope to have everything on board minus cell_man's LiPo's by the end of February. I'm thinking of using some SLA's just to ensure the system is working, and that will hopefully be on display for the Perth Sun Fair. I checked out Charlie's website Re: fibreglass, looks like a good contact. I know nothing about moulding my own fairings, but given the lack of originality with most e-moto conversions, I think some fresh fairings will look the goods. I hope to make it a little more aerodynamic than the original RG too.

I'm hoping by then I will have word from Gary about a BMS and a charger for 105.6 V and 60-80 Ah worth of lithium. I've budgeted for the batteries, but would prefer if someone else paid for them Unfortunately people want to see a finished product before they throw money at you. Maybe I'll be able to try her out at Barbs in May? I want to dyno test it too - no good quoting Agni's figures if you don't have RWHP.

Otherwise, I migh just have to enter into the TTX-GP That would attract a lot more interest and potential sponsorship, not to mention raising the profile of EVs in Australia. I don't know of any Aussies entering the IOM???

But it's coming along as quickly as I can pour money into it!

[AussieJester]

I have 4x12v20ah SLAS you could borrow to test out the system if its any help? (they are near new)
I would give them too you for keeps but require them as i have donated the trike they are in to a visually impaired
friend. I have an additional 3 12v 20ah batteries in less than good condition also you could have. Might save you
some $$$$ anywayz mate, there if you neeed them, i wont need them for at least 3-4months.

Best i could suggest for sponsorship is create a visually appealing resume of the bike the goals of it
'artists impression' of the finished product, basically make it look proffesional as possible and
take it into prospective sponsors to leave with them after you discuss the idea. Nothing you
havent already considered im sure.

Fiberglass and Resin sales is definitely the place aint it! If you get the extra dollars forget the fiberglass grab carbon fiber off them OH OH how about approaching them for sponsorship!! They have a pic of a speedway car (or bike forget which now...might even be a speedway sidecar, damn short-term memory loss LoL) hanging on their wall that they sponsor already so they aren't against the idea!

KiM

[Jay64]

For sponsorship let them know what YOU can do for them, not what they can do for you.

[jonescg]

Yeah, and that's why solar panel installation mobs would be delighted to see their name ona high-profile E-vent like the TTX-GP.

So I spent the afternoon looking at the RG frame wondering about fairings. The original fairngs look so disgusting:


so I thought maybe I could come up with something new. That requires new moulds and lots of expensive hard work, so I thought again... what's a cheap alternative?

RGV250 gamma fairings! They look good and they might actually fit. Although the RGV was a V-tein, making it considerably narrower than the RG. Still, might be a good way to make things a bit more aerodynamic and look good.



I spent some time playing with MS Paint and I discovered it's a frocking useless program for this sort of thing


Still, throttle is on. Now I can sit there and make "WHRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEE" noises

[Malcolm]

I spent some time playing with MS Paint ...

Know the feeling. I've been messing about with Sketchup, trying to make my bike look a bit 'sexier'. I'm quickly realising that my artistic ambitions far outstrip my abilities...

Sketchup is worth a look though. Take a look in Google 3D Warehouse (you don't need the software to do that). You can probably find a chassis that's similar to your bike and then borrow the fairings from another bike just to see how it looks.

[jonescg]

Picked up the twin Agni motor mounts today! A nice BIG +1 to Action Laser cutting - all this for $122. Sweet!



I just hope that Goodwill Engineering are as generous with their services

[AussieJester]

Picked up the twin Agni motor mounts today! A nice BIG +1 to Action Laser cutting - all this for $122. Sweet!

Thats justtoo good IMO, would take me days to make those by hand would readily
pay the $$$ for that ...best of luck with Goodwill Engineering tell em you
will throw a couple of their stickers on the bike when its done if they give you a decent discount

KiM

[jonescg]

Woohoo! Picked up a tank for the RG yesterday. It's steel, and weighs about 4 kg so I'd rather make a mould of it and get a fibre glass or carbon fibre one made up.


I'd actually like to keep the bottom clear so I can stack 4 sets of 3P, 8S batteries in the engine bay and up into the tank. It's going to need more aluminium fabrication. Something I wish I could do, but I'll have to wait.


Still, she looks more and more like a motorbike



And thanks to Cell_Man I have placed a deposit on some of his cells I just wish the Aussie dollar would get closer to parity with the US dollar though. I'm taking a trip up to Malaga and Wangarra tomorrow to get the motor mounts welded up. Crash bars should be done by then too.

[graemebc]

If you want a free PS type program get gimp. It handy for doing mock ups of project like this one on my mx5 track car.

[jonescg]

So I dropped my motors and mounts off to Goodwill for then to weld it all up. They even offered to pick up the bike so they can ensure everything fits perfectly I'm liking these guys already. I asked if they knew about sprockets for these sorts of applications, and he suggested motion industries in Malaga, Perth. They were literally up the road 1 km.

http://www.motionindustries.com.au/Default.aspx

Bugger me if they don't have exactly what I need They do 19 mm keyway hubs, perfect for Agni motors! And they even have a variety of sprockets in 428 pitch to suit! You could even weld two 19 mm hubs and a 15 tooth sprocket together and get a front sprocket for my bike all for under $60 !!!

Sprockets Oz can get stuffed! These guys are the bomb!

Crash bars haven't even been started yet Oh well, can't get it all right.

[jonescg]

So yesterday afternoon I came home and looked at the bike, thinking, what on earth will have the same weight and dimensions of an Agni motor, that I can hang of the right hand side to balance the weight of the left?

An Agni motor!!! Argh! I can't believe I didn't think of this before! It makes mounting it into the frame of the bike a lot easier too. So I called Goodwill and cancelled my work request, and ordered another plate be laser cut. This one is identical to the last one, and with the 10 mm hole in the meat of the plate I can connect it up to the existing mounts. It also leaves room in the centre for batteries.

Always improving...

Attached below are pics of the plans and some cardboard aided design

[jonescg]

Sprockets Oz FINALLY got my sprockets to me. 14T front with a 50 mm wide, 19 mm bore, 6 mm keyway hub to suit the twin-shaft nature of the Agni, and a 47 T rear to suit the rear sprocket of the RG. I would have prefered if they'd cut some lightening holes in the rear, but I might ask Action laser cutting to help me out

Oh, and the second plate is cut too, so I can take it all up to Goodwill and get it assembled!!

[AussieJester]

. I would have prefered if they'd cut some lightening holes in the rear, but I might ask Action laser cutting to help me out

Do i even need to say anything about my thoughts on this....

Nice looking sprockets though mate, good too see you are progressing steadily I always get excited when i get a notification email
of an update to your thread, i know there's more often than not some nice bling to lookz at

KiM