GT i-drive 2.0 Build

[flyinmonkie]

clay, thanks for the patient counsel.

No worries Greg.

Others with more experience with cyclones can jump in here if I am wrong. They seem to be good with the higher watt and an external controller. They have a reduction planetary gearbox attached to them, so that is where a lot of the noise comes from. But, that means you don't have to reduce it as much before the rear wheel.

If you drive through the crank, then your pedal gearing with be opposite of your motor gearing. One of the main reasons I didn't go that route. Of course I don't pedal much now. It does seem the best way to do a non hub with a full sus so far though. Other than the motoped, which shares a jacshaft with the swing arm pivot.

Clay

[full-throttle]

hey FT, your numbers confuse me, esp when i look here. 2kW/40kph? i'm seeing 1200W 70kmh... is this what folks typically buy?

Hmm.. Cyclone numbers seem confusing too..

What I'm trying to say is: gear it for 40kph top speed. Any less and it's going to be too slow, any more and you'll start sacrificing peak torque.
2kW is what bike gears/chain should be able to cope with.

[gwhy!]

gwhy!, i've been following your trials build ebike->motorcycle. i never found out what motor/controller kit it is. i've been looking at a lot of trials bikes lately, as they seem like such a nice blend. what's your top speed with that?

The bike in that thread is geared for around a max of 25mph (40kph) but could be geared higher upto around 35-40mph and will still have enough grunt for trail riding, it uses a rc 3250W outrunner fitted with hall sensors, the controller is (at the moment ) a moddified 12fet (set to a 80A limit)and the whole system peaks at around 4kw @ 48v. Its not a kit but it is very simple to put together and wont break the bank, but it do get a little more complicated if you want to be able to peddle as well.

[Whiplash]

Yeah its a system similar to mine, but with lots more power! Same motor though, they make a bit more noise than a hub but they are a blast to ride!

[GCinDC]

thanks to FT for pointing me to Timma's 1200W cyclone review, for anyone else who's curious...

favorite single-pivot picture of the day:


instructive jump vid of the day - might have made if the front tire landed on steps too?:


just curious, anyone know what happened to the Blade 04? another vid.

[GCinDC]

[deecanio]

glad to see you were ok, good job job you didn't come off at any other point in the vid, speed!!

D

[GCinDC]

what it would have looked like from the front, from another vid, the repair work has been long gone, but there was light gravel along the sidewalk cutout. i braked, the right tire slipped, the bike went down on the left side and i launched forward doing what looked a sliding push up.

gravel.jpg (33.13 KiB) Viewed 790 times

it would have been very nasty w/o the gloves!

seems like lots of little tip overs lately.

i gotta replace that spoke on the rear wheel! was too lazy last night..

[rui_fujino]

wow! what happened there?! nd how fast were u going ?

[GCinDC]

wow! what happened there?! nd how fast were u going ?

didn't see the gravel. the front tire slid out. no big deal cause i was wearing gloves...

glad you wrote tho - i had you in mind when i posted the video in the rain, because you asked about that umbrella cover thing... i wanted you to see that the water that soaks me comes from the ground/tires, not from the sky! (granted, my fenders aren't very helpful either...)

[Sacman]

Nice bike Greg but with my dumb luck I'd probably snag my shorts in that exposed open chain.

[quote="GCinDC"]thanks to FT for pointing me to for anyone else who's curious...

favorite single-pivot picture of the day:


/quote]

[rui_fujino]

wow! what happened there?! nd how fast were u going ?

didn't see the gravel. the front tire slid out. no big deal cause i was wearing gloves...

glad you wrote tho - i had you in mind when i posted the video in the rain, because you asked about that umbrella cover thing... i wanted you to see that the water that soaks me comes from the ground/tires, not from the sky! (granted, my fenders aren't very helpful either...)

yea i got that...tho i've managed to make my mud guard almost perfect so that i wont get any wet rain off the ground!
I do agree that umbrella wont ever work out unless you travel at speed of normal cyclist :p

[GCinDC]

Nice bike Greg but with my dumb luck I'd probably snag my shorts in that exposed open chain.

it's a nicolai nucleon dh, case you're curious. and closeup pics of one here.

i originally found it while searching for Marzocchi Super Monster T (300mm travel) which happened to be on the electromoto blade:

what ever happened to these? anyone know? a video.. if anything was ever begging for lipo...

[knoxie]

Crikey Greg I was watching that last video through my fingers as I thought it might have been at speed, gloves for the win! I never go out without them (you can see in my vids) as even low speed crashes can really mess your hands up and as I need my hands for my job (who doesnt ...a grape crusher ) anyway yes good call, I use Fox motocross gloves as they offer a nice balance between weight and protection, to be honest we are all in the territory of proper motorcycle gloves and jacket for that matter, in the winter I often ride with a downhill mountain bike helmet, motorcycle jacket (has built in elbow and back protection and sometimes even motorcycle trousers, they have saved my bacon on 2 icy morning commutes already.

Keep the vids coming Greg and most importantly stay safe buddy

[GCinDC]

Thanks, knoxie. Ah, the fall. Wet leaves everywhere... And my rear tire is bald. And missing a spoke... And with the wobble, i had to spread the rear vbrakes so there's nothing on them... and we know my front axle is bent... I tried to replace the spoke with one from another ebike wheel but the spoke wasn't long enough to catch thread...

Still, I'd rather slower in the rain than take the metro! So a scenic detour yesterday, and a bit of tag with my son :


Anyway, now that push is coming to shove w/ my commuter, I'm madly hunting for a DH donor, and a MethTek HS3540 will arrive next week! I think the wheel will need upgrading - likely to an Alex DM32, as JRH suggested...

So... I've decided that while I'd really like low end torque, I won't need it as much on my commute unless I'm trials riding OVER the cars... The RC build will have to wait.

[Alan B]

Let's see. DS3540 is 40km/h at 36V, you are running about double that, right? so 80km/h which is 49.7 mph

Maybe you need motorcycle rims, tires, frame and brakes!

[GMUseless]

Anyway, now that push is coming to shove w/ my commuter, I'm madly hunting for a DH donor,

A few months back there were tons of early 2003-2006 Kona Stinky's on eBay. I picked up an 07 Coil Air Supreme I'm waiting to build up. It seems the Kona's are somewhat undervalued...maybe because the 4-bar linkage is usually shot. But replacing those pivots is nothing. And for eBikes there's a lot of in frame room on those Kona models.

Also, I liked the RM series from Rocky Mountain...single pivot, and a good bit of in frame real estate. There's a couple of RM-7 frames on eBay now.

[GCinDC]

Let's see. DS3540 is 40km/h at 36V, you are running about double that, right? so 80km/h which is 49.7 mph

Maybe you need motorcycle rims, tires, frame and brakes!

Hey Alan, you should know better than to just double the speed, right? It takes a lot more work to go faster and faster... Anyway, this looks to be a conservative estimate of the performance improvement over the 9C for my setup:

hs3540_vs_9C_at80v45A.jpg (88.62 KiB) Viewed 1579 times

thanks, GMU! i've been looking at those too, just not sure how much room there is in there! i'm liking the 03 giant dh comp... would be nice to finally join a TEAM... (i always thought you team owners were literally part of a team, or an ES team at least... )

[GMUseless]

The Giant DH's are pretty badass. I rode an 06 at keystone one year. The head angle was a little steep for a downhill bike, but it tracked like it was on rails. Huge fun. Just remember those dh comps have 150mm dropouts, which I'd guess would leave you with either an odd dish or some customization work when you go to dropping a standard hub in there.

[GCinDC]

The Giant DH's are pretty badass.

well, i found an 03 DH Comp in the rockies, and when i told him what i wanted to do and gave him a link to keyne's thread, he wrote:

Looks like a sick project. You don't want my frame though for it trust me, it been used hard for many years. In fact you might look at newer frames, 2005+ years. The geometry, for downhilling at least, is night and day difference. I recently did a demo of a 2011 Yetti 303D, it made my frame feel like a hard tail with 2 inches of travel in the front.

Some downfalls of this frame too:

Rear linkage is always coming loose.

Rear linkage hangs down really far. (I often times bashed mine, even when i wasn't bottoming out, on rocks and such.

Seatpost bracket often times hits top of suspension linkage when getting into the bottom end of the shock. I imagine with some extra weight, i.e. batteries and such, this could be a problem unless you had a very, very stiff spring, which could compromise the ride.

-2004 and up Giant started making better frames, everyone else has good stuff from 2005 and up.

[kfong]

Greg, get the 05, it has the most room for batteries and pick up the dropouts from this thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26029&start=165 then you have a quick solution to a damn good ebike! That was the original direction I was going for, before I got the versus. The head tube angle would of been better for the type of riding I like as well.

[GCinDC]

a quick edit of this year's highlights, jan thru oct:

some sounds were added. lol.

[knoxie]

Ahh Greg thats a great compilation buddy! so cool with all the weird effects too, nicely edited, it must have taken you ages to find all the shots and do this? its a cracking video and I forgot about the snow as well, that reminds me its getting cold and wet here now, the clocks go back this weekend, time to pull out the Magicshine Cree Lipo Lights

Thanks for sharing another great video, I for the life of me cant understand why you want a new bike? the one you got rocks!

Knoxie

[GCinDC]

thanks knoxie!

I for the life of me cant understand why you want a new bike? the one you got rocks!

2" rear travel is cramping my style... also, it feels like a ticking time bomb. tiny bent axle, wimpy brakes, etc, etc...

[GCinDC]

TRICK OR TREAT?

IMG_20111027_151117 (1).jpg (142.26 KiB) Viewed 1354 times

No card or flowers, but a nice spacey bag:

IMG_20111027_155246 (1)-1.jpg (106.85 KiB) Viewed 1354 times

I'll take some more pics this weekend. The spokes were rather loose, and the butted ends could move in an out of the motor holes. I'll do a little vid showing the movement. I'll do as methods suggested an ride it (nicely) for a couple miles then tighten all of them....

The rim and spokes are bigger than I'd thought, but I do plan on beating the living shit out of this, and I'd always planned to get a wider wheel/spokes, possibly 24". So we'll see. Part of that will also depend on the new donor.. In the meantime, does anyone know the max spoke size that can fit through the motor holes? I'll measure this weekend before I slap a tire on there. I think I'll also do some bench testing to compare the top speed unloaded is with the 9C.

Believe it or not this is the first Xlyte I've owned so I was a bit surprised to see the shorter wires. I'm glad I've got some of those stretchy velcro sleeves to cover the connectors on the chainstay or whatever that tube is.

ps. no other comments about the highlights vid? everyone think i've gone nuts w/ the sound effects? the sound on the clips was a mess (some non existant, others had tunes, etc, so i lowered it and rather than add another audioswap tune, i added every other sound effect from iMovie... )