4 hour Cannondale Hooligan build finished.

Hey Guys,

I was in the shop the other day after finishing a bunch of work on customer's bikes and drive systems and I began looking at various parts I had laying around the shop. "Hmm, I have a drawer full of lipo packs (brand new). I have a couple battery boxes, a brand new fan cooled 5 turn Delta 3220, controllers, throttles, drive parts, frame mounts, sprockets, chains, etc. Then I glanced at my red Hooligan that I had setup for mild trials riding [but rarely ride] and I decided to build myself a bike as quickly as possible and this is what I came up with.

Here are the specs;

V4 drive
5 turn Delta, fan cooled 3220 (12,000 RPM motor)
10ah of 12S-25C lipo in CNC machined battery boxes
Drive unit frame mount clamps used to mount the boxes
Edge 160 controller
Simple PWM throttle
18 to 1 ratio from motor to rear wheel
One of my 47mm wide rims on the rear
AUW is 45 pounds exactly

I set to building the bike, and all of the wiring, component mounting, machining a couple small parts, I had spent 4 hours on the bike and it is finished. I have around 15 miles on it so far. The range is around 10 miles on a charge with my wheelie riding style.

So, I programmed the controller for throttle response setting of 1. This reduced the violence of the response and drastically smoothed out the low speed control.

The bike rides great and is EXPLOSIVE! I have pulled nearly 10,000 watts according to the data logger. I can run at 30mph and snap wheelie violently. It is actually way too much power for such a small bike. But, with the throttle response at 1 and a bit of care taken with the throttle, it rides wonderfully.

This bike is very similar to the PK Ripper I built 5 years ago, but it is lighter, faster, and more refined.

I cannot believe how easy this bike was to build.

Enjoy the pics.

Matt

it's easy to build when you have all the right tools next to you. Not for most people here :lol:

4 hours :lol:

It looks like a lot of fun Please make video.

10000w on bat is equal to about 8000w on the wheel and chain?
It looks like a normal bicycle chain or is it a special?

recumbent built took me a year and a half...

cwah said:

it's easy to build when you have all the right tools next to you. Not for most people here :lol:

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i don't totally agree. even if you got all the tools in the world it needs a lot of knowledge, experience and craftsmanship to have a finished product that works as designed/thought and looks good.
i got all the tools i need, and still it's a mind twisting challenge to make my bike look the way i want it.

Matt,

Fantastic post and thanks for sharing. It shows what can be done today with today's skills and equipment.

cannot believe how easy this bike was to build.

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Just to warn any viewers who are not aware of your master expert e-bike builder skills, this is as good as it gets. Best parts and best knowledge on tap to do this sort of build.

The vast majority of us can look to this as the gold standard build example, knowing it is going to take us longer, more mistakes, returned parts, multiple attempts at mounting and fine tuning all the various components, plenty of out of pocket costs, and a lot more frustration than joy at the 4 hour mark.

It is like watching the golf pro on Sunday TV hammer that ball down the fairway. Looks so damn easy, until you go through a bucket of balls on the range and see a pile of white balls about 10 yards in front of you.

That said, this is an incredible inspiration to us all knowing what can be achieved with the right skills, knowledge, parts, and $$$.

Thanks for sharing!

aWWWW dAMMN...My Hooligan has a Cute 100 on it...want to trade? (Actually I like it too) - max 750 watts. Can sustain 25mph. Only took two hours to build, after I found the 60T front ring which looks hilarious on it...

Impressive. I wonder if the Genius Book of World Records has a category for the fastest well done non-kit scratch built e-bike or not, if so you may have set a new record.

So far my own personal most complicated and labor and design intensive build took me over a year but a lot of that was component sourcing since I was using a very abnormal system voltage for an e-bike and it was hard to find compatible components off the shelf as well as building the frame from from scratch as well. Although I have done kit installs in a probably about the same amount of time as you but certainly not a scratch build !!!

That is incredibly impressive work in such a short time frame, I know for a fact that it can take longer then that to properly install a kit sometimes for some folks.

Olympic level building skills and experience, probably equivalent level access to tools and components, and resulting Olympic level time results !!! Very impressive !!!


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The only thing I noticed which could turn out to be an issue is your lower battery box inside the frame triangle. Looks like its a sealed tight box except for the top where the wires come out. In a rain storm that makes a place for water to get into the top of the box with a sealed bottom so the water can't drain out = potential problem resulting. If it were me I would seal up the top around the wires with silicon and/or drill a small drain hole in the bottom of the box. Or does it have a drain hole that isn't visible in the pictures? Just the one potential flaw I spotted, could be a potential water trap where water can get in the top and can't drain out. Yah, there is a lot of other electric stuff on the outside exposed that in the rain will get plenty of water but at least they won't trap water, I think that lower batter box could.

I just get this picture in my mind of riding that bike thinking all is well on a nice sunny day not realizing that the lower battery box is still full of water from the rain storm that dumped on my for the last mile home on the previous ride and my batteries in the lower box are soaking in dirty water like a steak in a pan of marinade and I don't know it because all the rest of the bike is all nice and dry and its a sunny warm day - could end badly for the batteries in the lower box. Upper battery box also might need a drain hole and/or have the gap around where the wires go out sealed up with some silicon but since its slot opening isn't facing upwards and is on the back side not as big of a deal and if if it did get water inside it could only trap water up to the bottom of the slot cut. so couldn't be even half full of trapped water. Lower box though with slot on top and sealed bottom could fill up all the way and probably more likely to trap water with the opening on the top and all the water on the top tube dripping and draining down into it directly below.

You might not even be worried about such things though, fair weather only fun e-bike vs. all weather commuter e-bike mentality.

This build is not truly a "From Scratch" project. For those who don't know, I manufacture high-end drive systems based on Astro Flight brushless RC motors. I had the drive unit in stock, the motor, controller, throttle, battery boxes, and much of the remaining parts. What I had to make from scratch was;

Battery box mounting blocks
drive unit mounting shims

Beyond that, I had to assemble the drive, machine the jackshaft, narrow the FW adapter, install the drive unit, install the left side sprocket (which required machining the disc brake caliper bracket to move the caliper over a bit), run the left side chain, install the throttle, program the controller, mount the controller and throttle box, tidy up all the wires, and it was finished.

I have to say that there are a number of things that contributed to the speed of this build;

#1 I had everything in stock
#2 I have all the tools I need
#3 I have built so many of these systems that I know them like the back of my hand.

If I was not so familiar with this, and I did not have the parts or knowledge, it would have been a $4,000 proposition (maybe a touch less), and about 100 hours of time screwing around trying to figure it all out.

Oh, this is a fair weather sport bike. It will never see the rain.

My next bike, however, that is another story. :wink:

Matt

I love this bike, except for the over anxious wheelie tendency.

So, I decided to mount a lower set of trials forks to drop the nose of the bike. This dropped the nose 2 inches and the bars one inch. Now it is a bit less wheelie prone and much better handling.

It pulls more wattage now.

Matt

hey, if you only need 4 hours to make such a bike, why don't you sell full bike like this to the community for 2000$?? I'm sure plenty of people would want one!

maybe because parts alone exceed $2000 easily? motor and gearbox alone are $1000+. add batteries, controller, mounting hardware, and not to forget the bike

aaah bike are so expensive!!

The hardware is worth roughly $4,000 with the bike.

Matt

Looks "faster" with the front end change

Cool, thanks for clarification on the fair weather only bike, looking forward to your next build which if I get your implication right is going to be just about weather proof. Will enjoy seeing how you go about that, so far my attempts at 100% weather proofing have been less then 100% effective so I'm always glad for new ideas along those lines.

I bet the bike would handle better with more cells mounted up front. I have 20ah more lipo in stock. Maybe I will make a supplemental pack to add for longer rides.

With that much battery, this bike might be perfect for Pikes Peak. :-D

Matt

You are an artist Matt. You are an inspirationally good builder to myself and so many others.

I would love to habe you on the team with us to design a modular width ultra efficient super light weight direct drive frocky with us.

liveforphysics said:

You are an artist Matt. You are an inspirationally good builder to myself and so many others.

I would love to habe you on the team with us to design a modular width ultra efficient super light weight direct drive frocky with us.

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I appreciate the words more than I can communicate, Luke.

One thing to remember, though, I am very good at working with what I know. I can do design work. But projects like this turn out so well because of experience as much as mechanical know how.

Matt

I am getting used to the crazy power. 10,000 watts is a bit on a wild side on a 45 pound 20 inch bike. But, I am settling into it and having fun.

Right now it is geared for just shy of 40mph (about 38mph). I feel like the bike needs to be geared for at least 45mph, or maybe 50mph to realize its full potential. It is capable of 15,000 watts peak (battery watts, so maybe 12,000 watts at the rear wheel).

Right now I see 2 volts of sag at 10,000 watts. So, that is pretty good. These 25C cells rock!

Oh, 10mph to 35mph takes 2 seconds if I literally lay over the bars.

It would pull harder if I could keep the front wheel down. Hmm, maybe I should lengthen the wheelbase and add more cells up front along with lowering the seat. I bet that would make this thing a sport bike.

Matt

Matt that looks like fun, my mates little norco DJ bike is still going strong ~3 years later. Has needed a new chain at around 1500kms but that is it. Its impressive alone that it has made that amount of kms ridden as a quick dose of adrenalin filled fun and never commuted anywhere!

I notice you are back to what looks like the v2 motor mount but a bit different with holes all over it? Old stock or does the devinci not have the reach for the belt reduction pulley sizes? I would of thought that style would of blocked airflow for the fan.

Belt drive rear would really top this off, besides who wants chainlube sprayed all over their artwork :lol:

Let me help you out, I might need some answers about your ESC setups.

Where is the video?

Sorry, no video yet......

However, I geared the bike up a touch. It is now geared for 43mph according to the math (I have not timed it yet).

Anyway, with this gearing, I was able to increase the throttle response a bit and I am seeing far less wheelie tendency. The bike pulls a consistent 11,700 watts under acceleration now and winds out at (ironically) 11,700 RPM under full load according to the data logger.

The increased gearing was accomplished by changing the pulley ratio on the reduction unit. The problem is, the only way to do this with pulleys I have in stock was to move from 5mm pitch up to 8mm pitch (again based on pulleys I had in stock). I am wondering if this larger pitch is affected by the extremely high RPM the motor pulley is turning. Generally, larger pitch is not as tolerant to high RPM. The belt gets a touch warm, but not hot.

Anyway, the bike is no longer a violent nightmare. Now it runs like a sport bike. It has strong acceleration and is very willing to wheelie, but it is not frightening.

Oh, the wheelie tendency is prevalent when the throttle is opened hard with the bike at or below around 60% of its top speed. Anything above that speed, I can hit the throttle and the front end get a touch light, but does not automatically wheelie.

Matt

I added 15ah more lipo this morning. That makes a total of 25ah. This should be good for a 40 mile range if I nurse it, or 30 miles of fun.

With the added weight up front, the bike corners better. It feels more planted. It was far too light before. This made the handling quite skittish.

I was hoping the added weight would tame more of the wheelie tendency. It does to a small amount. But, the bike is still ver willing to wheelie. However, it is far more controllable now. It feels lot like riding a 600 class sport bike in first or second gear. If you hit the throttle hard enough, it is very willing to wheelie, but not freakishly so anymore.

The weight is 58 pounds at this point.

Matt

recumpence said:

It feels lot like riding a 600 class sport bike

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Freakin gorgeous Matt, your fit and finish is always a step above most. 8)
I realize it's a shorter frame so you need to get out over it, but with a bit
shorter stem... the thing really has the "sport bike" look as well...
Kudos my Man!

Kevin