GT i-drive 2.0 Build

[GCinDC]

perhaps not for long! after at 6 hours charging, 4 of which was balancing @~1-2A:


i'll check the bm6 voltages before and after my commute..

[methods]

Just wait until someone you know (who has a good quality DMM) comes around. No need to spend a grip - I only justify owning a really nice DMM because I use the hell out of it.

Yes I do have a deviant in the oven... little bastard is going to be popping out in like 5 weeks. I am excited.
This is something I have avoided my whole life.... never thought I would be excited. Guess it must be the hormones

-methods

so what fluke would i need?

ps. did i also read somewhere that there's a little deviant method in the oven? if so congrats.

[Alan B]

Yep, Mom's chemistry prepares Dad. It's amazing. Everyone's on drugs and they don't know it.

[GCinDC]

all my ebike vids are public again, on my youtube channel.

see the right column for playlists, or jump from here:
highlights
jumps
offroad
scenic
and lastly, commutes

[GCinDC]

loaning the GT out for an ebike addict who had to ship his own ride home, so i fixed up some of the issues:
- CA not coming on (not sure if i fixed it entirely, but it seems to work, and this ebike addict in question has never had the benefit of a CA, and only uses multimeter, so i hope he'll see the light). remounted it properly.
- rear brakes: lever spring was broke, ebrake contact therefore cutting power, vbrakes scavenged away, and replaced
- wire fastening, ship shaping


poor unvented discless 9C... i'll fix you up later, ok sweetie?

um, yeah, reminds me of torque arm miseries. i might have concerns for the passenger if this was the hs3540, but the 9C stayed put ok:

yeah, the light mount broke, and let's face it, it's not like i'm selling it...

i think he'll be shocked at how narrow the handlebars are, from his kona dh ride! i might have cut 2" off each side way back when. half twist here cause we couldn't be bothered to mod the magura... ah impatience.

his tools are gone, so i wonder how long before he gets a flat.

[GCinDC]

pretty sure these are total GT idrive stats, except cycles which are just for second batt pack:

20120715_211524.jpg (64.25 KiB) Viewed 685 times

[full-throttle]

One more

[N!co]

all my ebike vids are public again, on my youtube channel.

see the right column for playlists, or jump from here:
highlights
...

Hahaha, that man @ 0:15.

[GCinDC]

my GT is about to have a new owner.

i got chased (on my dh comp) the other day for a couple miles by a guy who, as it turned out, wanted to ask what demon from hell i was riding! and where could he get one.

he came over this weekend. i told him about my bikes and we went out riding, him on my GT and now he's gonna buy it.

i checked the front axle, btw and it's fine. i tightened up the rear brakes and it's in great shape.

i'm going to buy all new batts and a bulk charger for him, and when that comes in, hand it over.

the cool news is that he is a pro cameraman who uses drones and a motored paraglider. can you just see my mind working....

ps. and in case you didn't know it from my other thread, i'm getting surgery in two days so will be off the bikes for a couple months...

[grindz145]

the cool news is that he is a pro cameraman who uses drones and a motored paraglider. can you just see my mind working....

Hah! No way! I expect to see his posts on this thread...

Good luck with all the Def Leopard stuff too this week... Have you got the reference yet?

I hope your offering him a crash course in bike electronics with the purchase as well

[GCinDC]

Good luck with all the Def Leopard stuff too this week... Have you got the reference yet?

nope! i'll have to research that one. shoulder surgery --> def leopard... hmm

I hope your offering him a crash course in bike electronics with the purchase as well

bike going cheap. any maintenance/fixes will be billed at parts + $250/hr.

just kidding. crash course, indeed. but i'm not sure i like the sound of that.

really, it's the revolution, man. i've helped a couple people get up and running and it's been a pleasure.

hmm, be nice if there were a wireless chip that sent me info tho, something i could keep an eye on, if he forgets too. like keeping the lipo buzzer dongle plugged in. but that may come after we've killed a pack or two.

i think he's making a good decision. it's a sweet bike. he could have said no and tried to start cheaper, but we all know how that goes... much more expensive in the long run.

[grindz145]

http://www.future-link.com/25/rickallen.html I guess it was too obscure of a reference...

[GCinDC]

yesterday i hit the most amazing jump, but it was the uphill kind. it was like a quarry or construction site and the first time i went up the slope was too steep and the hub didn't have enough power, so i took a long run up and i swear i got like 8 feet of air and landed perfectly. it helped that the dirt was soft where i landed, and yeah, 8' is nothing for pros but for me i was frigging stoked! i looked down and my arm was fine too!

and then i woke up.

anyway, the future owner of this GT is lipo savvy, so that's good. he's a pro cameraman shooting often from an RC Hexacopter or powered paraglide. i wouldn't sell it to him if he was a lipo noob.

since the existing batts have like 800 cycles and probably only 6AH capacity, i bought new packs for him.

they arrived yesterday, and since you only have 24 hours to return duds, i checked the voltage and IR of each using the iCharger 1010B:

at first i was only concerned about each cell's IR because a lot of variation there could cause the pack to go out of balance. and then i figured i might as well check the voltage as well, and i was surprised to see that a few low cells (3.77, 3.79, 3.80) had low IR as well (1, 2, 2 mohm respectively):

can anyone explain this?

i got 9 packs for this reason and will not include the pack with the 3.77 cell, and hand that over as a backup.

next i will figure out how to combine them to balance out high and low IR per paralleled pack.

i figure i should cycle these as well? i've never done that on the icharger...

[Skippic]

Don't you see a pattern? Why are all the IRs (except the last 3 packs) ordered from smallest to largest? It looks like a property of your charger. Even in the last 3 the values are pretty much ordered. Something smells fishy!

[GCinDC]

interesting point. maybe i'll reverse the connector!

just kidding.

but you're right. this is where methods recommends a fluke, i believe.

but i think anything under 5 mohm is fine and dandy. i've got some packs w/ cells at 10 or 20 mohms... i'll check the old ones when they come out!

[GCinDC]

i've got some packs w/ cells at 10 or 20 mohms... i'll check the old ones when they come out!

i took all the old cells out and split them up. um, correction, this pack may have diminished capacity, but is way more balanced than i would have imagined! granted this pack wasn't used much since May when i had some big imbalances, but in August, Skippic rode it to capacity daily when he lied about going on errands... and he used my bulk charger which was set to 4.2V per cell.

so this is a bit of a surprise!:

bear in mind the cells were paralled like A1:B2, A2:B2, A3:B3.....G5:H5.

edit: i wrote ~800 cycles but i think the number is closer to 760 or so. skippic, do you remember? the CA was flaking a bit so i'm not sure...

[Skippic]

Any chance you could discharge the pack to 3.7V and then measure? I did a check on mine and after some 7 months of bulk charging and everyday use all cells are perfectly leveled at full charge 4.18V +/-0.01V (I use my BMS). The question is if due to different capacities the cells are also leveled when discharged...

BTW, did you get to use the BMS?

[GCinDC]

Did not use your BMS. First time I opened pack in a long time...

Trying to think of a suitable way to kill the cells before disposing of them. Wish I had some welding rods, cause that'd be a fun way to discharge them.

My light bulb discharge station would take forever. Anyone use 1500W water heating elements, like this?


also, FWIW, the turnigy pack leads were cut, stripped and wire nutted to single 10g leads...

[fizzit]

My light bulb discharge station would take forever. Anyone use 1500W water heating elements, like this?

Yup, those work great. We used a bunch to drain the electric car's 18kwh pack. Many pots of water were boiled

[Skippic]

I used a 500W reflector (no need for water). Just make sure you set up an alarm.

[Trackman417]

Yup, those work great. We used a bunch to drain the electric car's 18kwh pack. Many pots of water were boiled

See that! You should put something in the pot of water, like lobsters, make a ready bake oven and get bake some cakes. The possibilities are endless
Let us know what you want to do with all the cake and lobsters mate

[zzoing]

I had exactly that bike, it was a very fun bike! In the end I sold it because it was too uncomfortable for my back, because the forks I had were lower and I was leaning forwards too much-and that is before I found an amazing secret about bikes that lean forward too much-if you have any strain on your back after some cross-country riding on a forwards leaning bike, riding with one leg higher than the other twisting your back at the same time as we do, then u absolutely should do a bit of inversion yoga and stretch out your back before bedtime, or hang from a branch and put 20 kg on your feet, just for 10 seconds it will keep your back in great condition! I can put 80 kg on my back again but indeed I remember that bike because I was fuct afterwards! and my back is still fukt!

the other issue with the bike, it is designed to counteract the bumps acting on the back wheel using I-drive to keep your feet level when you peddle uphill, which effectively reduces the point in having double suspension, because the bumps going through the back wheel travel through your feet, whereas a normal double suspension bike doesn't try and keep the pedals level with the back wheel, so the best massively powerful double suspension bike is definitely without something like an I-drive, to get the proper benefit of the back suspension!

Nice work though, that looks like an amazing deal!

[GCinDC]

thanks, zzoing. hellova an icon you got there. is that you? kudos if so. have you posted stuff up on pinkbike?

I remember that bike because I was fuct afterwards! and my back is still fukt!

funny you say that cause my back likes this bike better than my dh comp, where i hunch a bit. the GT here may ride a bit differently than yours tho, considering the angle change due to the forks, and i do have a pretty long neck on there, one i've thought about moving to my dh comp...

the new owner popped by last night to drop off a nice deposit of 800 in cash, mostly for the batts and charger i ordered.

i balanced charged all the lipos. one sat there balancing for almost 5 hours, but the rest were pretty quick.

and the old slightly puffy lipos are gonna be shipped to Rochester to power the Hipstrosity for the cost of shipping.

bit of a setback w/ the shoulder. after two weeks of not much pain and weaning myself of the pain killers, it's started killing. the nurse said it's highly unlikely i've damaged anything inside, and that this thursday, 3 wks out, i should start going w/o the sling. i said that's fine, as long as she keeps the scripts coming.

today's art shot:

[GCinDC]

the other issue with the bike, it is designed to counteract the bumps acting on the back wheel using I-drive to keep your feet level when you peddle uphill, which effectively reduces the point in having double suspension, because the bumps going through the back wheel travel through your feet

the biggest 'jump' i took the bike over was 6 steps in this old vid, and if you watch, you can see the rear wheel bounce.

i'm not sure if that's an illustration of your point or not, but i prefer illustration whenever possible.

[grindz145]

Nice little endoscopic tattoos. Looks kinda baddass.