liveforphysics wrote:I wouldnt even show up for an electric vs electric race. They are all my friends, I cant get in kill-mode or even motivated to race them. When its electrics racing gas bikes head to head, I go nuts for it and cant get enough, and no price is too much to pay for the experience.
There's nothing like a particularly smelly two stroke to bring the competitive "red mist" on- or that guy in front of you with on the little scooter and the super obnoxious plumber's crack hanging out! (If you were racing you know exactly what I'm talking about!)
I have to say I had a most excellent time at the race on Saturday, thank everyone for ignoring the economic arguments against it and COMING OUT TO THE RACE!
Here's the only media I have worth sharing- some onboard video of the partial race lap during which the motor died on PaulD's old bike. The video is a little long and uncut, check the description on Youtube for a "random access directory" to the important bits.
For the record, here's the short version of "outcome of Acuteaero's race weekend": Installed a 12fet Lyen controller on Thursday, set up with four shunts to solve "cutting out problem" viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16910. It was good for about six practice laps on Friday before shedding some solder off the board and blowing some fets (3077 fets- didn't have any replacements) It may well have lasted longer with a lower current limit. Borrowed Farfle's beefed up 24fet on Saturday morning and wired it in- set the battery limit reasonably low but the "phase current limit" far too high in the software- the motor heated up fast with low-speed acceleration and shorted a phase before the end of one race lap.
My other bike, named "the shortbus" is a BMX cruiser with a HS motor, add on wheelbase lengthening dropouts, 17" moped wheels and a suspension fork- it was fun to ride and reliable for dozens of laps- I low-sided it in one heat (why did I forget to wear gloves!), then my friend low-sided it in the same turn in another race... the bike was fine. It suffered mainly from a lack of refinement that matched the hurried nature of its construction- the brakes were bad to start and only got worse, and the fork (bought used on ebay...) obviously needs to be rebuilt- as well the original BMX bars are too short to actually fit a brake lever, throttle and hand grip on. I hope to get all these issues sorted out soon.
The Kokam LiPo packs I built for the race performed great- kind of a trial by fire as I didn't have time to thoroughly test them. I'll post photos of them in a different thread soon. Charging via Prius worked awesome. Only downside was that the big gas genset was running most of the time anyways! On friday before everyone else arrived I was charging in pure silence- with the prius engine running at idle only about 1/4 of the time! It was like magic! Even with all the charging and driving around at 75 mph I still got 40+mpg on the tank. (/end obnoxious prius fanboy session)
I'm a bit disappointed that I was not able to realize a better result with PaulD's bike- It's a beautiful machine and a temperamental beast. My failures also underline the meaning of Paul's success with the bike. He is truly a very capable dude. Of the many who have experimented with the RC motors on the forum few have stuck with them- I can understand why. The failures at this event are instructive to me though, I will continue reading on the forum about the success and failure of others with these motors and get set up better for next time. It's worth it
About awards, and everything- this goes straight back to the topic of how to classify e-bikes for a race, and how to fairly compare them to gas bikes. This is a topic that has been thoroughly and passionately discussed in the past- viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19042 and more recently viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33220 and viewtopic.php?f=25&t=31157&start=75 with no strong consensus. Basically as long as there are no prizes and everyone's just there to have fun it doesn't matter, but as soon as there are prizes, even just chunky trophies it starts to concern people. I thought about making prizes for the race (if only I had had time! not a chance!), but I really would have wanted to make a prize for everyone. The e-bike presence at the race was such a great community, constructive thing- I really appreciated the presence and contribution of each e-biker and ES poster who showed up. In the context of the "Electric Revolution" this is what really matters. Everyone who was there was pitching in, sharing parts and knowledge, and doing the absolute best they could- this is not nascar or something where every contestant has a huge budget to make a rig that follows the letter of the rulebook- everyone here is inventing, home-brewing and hacking guided by their own ideas of what they want to build and the resources available to them. Making classes and rules simply disincentivizes the creation of this kind of creative atmosphere. I would rather have people build whatever they want and let the results fall where they do rather than have people's creativity shaped around classes, or even denied entirely as a result of rules and regulations.Again. I had a great time at the event, thanks to all of you who came and participated. It was great to meet some people I hadn't met before, and to hang out and be a part of the camaraderie. Looking forward to seeing you all again at the remaining events this year!
which could have contributed to the failure.
I'll finish setting up my dyno project and then do some testing and really scope out what's going on.
Thanks man
