My First public Build

[FastDemise]

Been on the forum for just a short while but felt I would share my lame build. (no 100a 100V build )

I've been using a Golden Motor 901 front DD since last year up until 2 days ago a phase wire rubbed through and shorted on the controller. So it's a good 'excuse' to do a bike with a lighter battery and a rear motor setup.

Parts List:

Batteries:
18650 14s14p 14Ah battery (heavy but works great)
5000mAh Turnigy Lipo 14s2p (will go 3p next month after paycheck)

Charging:
*Hoping to get Zephyr "Lite" BMS Kits but until I can buy a kit I'm making plans to make it myself*
Charged with a Hyperion 14s 550w charger / BMS 400w charger / Regulated Power Supply / last ditch use my Turnigy 4x6S

Electronics:
Used Crystalyte 5303 Rear Motor with 5 speed
Lyen 6 FET controller setup for 60V
Half twist throttle

Bike:
SHIMANO C-50 170 52/39 Crank (online pedal calculators say I can still pedal usefully ~25MPH using the 14t rear freewheel)
21" Hardtail aluminum frame
DocBass Torque Arms (Using 420 Epoxy)
seatpost with shock
brake, shifter, odds and ends gutted from my Giant Boulder bike.

I've been through about 5 bikes constantly changing my mind on what I want with the last setup being full suspension but sadly I was far too heavy for the small air shock. Luckily looking at a older frame it hit me when I looked at the rear dropouts and saw they were completely flat and smooth. A perfect candidate for Doc's torque arm and now that I'm getting rid of the 3 other bikes I have I'm committing to this build.

Also have a bumper sticker that reads."I waste gas and run over children" I think it's in good taste on a bicycle, haha.

The bike frame. Nothing special 21"


Drop Outs



The 18650 battery pack. Quite heavy and large but I did start into ebike with 4 12Ah SLAs.
The 2 large packs are 6s14p and the small one of the right is 2s18p

[FastDemise]

Just got the crystalyte motor in today and upgraded the phase wires with 12ga silicon wire. Awaiting the epoxy to attach the torque arms then progress from there.

[FastDemise]

Everything just showed up in the mail all at once. Lucky Me.

Checked all Lipo cells and so far everything checks out good ~3.8V all around.
The Hyperion Charger seems in good working order as well. Only issue is I can't seem to make my laptop accept the drivers so I can't do any discharge graphs unless I use my celllog.

[amberwolf]

Also have a bumper sticker that reads."I waste gas and run over children" I think it's in good taste on a bicycle, haha.

Just make sure you put a nice fat arrow underneath the sticker that points left, at all the cars....

[John in CR]

Good start. I wish I had started that well. You've got the potential for a really fun ebike. One problem though, a 6 fet controller won't survive a 5303.

[cassschr1]

I think Kfong made a comment about silicon wire insulation being not up to par in the axle location. BETTER OFF TO USE TEFLON COATED insulation is much tougher and thinner.

[FastDemise]

I think Kfong made a comment about silicon wire insulation being not up to par in the axle location. BETTER OFF TO USE TEFLON COATED insulation is much tougher and thinner.

I've also read that about the silicon wires wearing through but using Docs torque arms and alot of zip ties I won't be too worried about them rubbing through at least for now.

Good start. I wish I had started that well. You've got the potential for a really fun ebike. One problem though, a 6 fet controller won't survive a 5303.

Would keeping the battery and phase amps low help prolong the life of my controller?? I was planning to set the controller to 20A Battery and 50A phase.

[FastDemise]

Also have a bumper sticker that reads."I waste gas and run over children" I think it's in good taste on a bicycle, haha.

Just make sure you put a nice fat arrow underneath the sticker that points left, at all the cars....

Brilliant! I'm looking out for a large Arrow sticker now.

[FastDemise]

I was quite amazed that 1 cutting disc was able to cut thru 1 of Doc's Arms. Little dremel rig to hold it still so the cut wasn't horrible and I wasn't exploding cutting discs.


But wouldn't you know it when it came time to install the arms I didn't cut one side well enough for the derailleur. Then to make matters worse (or better?) I installed the wrong one on the wrong side. I am so on top of this! No big deal it doesn't hurt the bike or the fitment of the motor. Will just need to trim up the opposite arm once I get some more cutting discs. The epoxy will harden up enough that I can start doing fitment of controller and wire lengths.

Then sometime I'm sure I will get KFF from my new Lipo pack and then I'll officially become a ES member.

[FastDemise]

It's ALIVE! Program limited to 25A and I hit a max of 34MPH on a flat stretch of road.

Using WattsUp Meter and odometer on bike:
4.85 miles
Used 3.878Ah from a 14s2p battery (5Ah Turnigy 20C 6s)
14min travel time

Talk about nice being able to follow with traffic in the 25MPH zones no problem.

All batteries seem to have arrived with no duds. I've cycled about half the pack and in a few more days will have the rest cycled. I set my 1420i Hyperion charger to 3.5-4.18 for now. Still can't get the drivers to work on my computer so I can't get discharge graphs.

Initial impressions after riding:
-throttle is smooth
-Controller is quite water resistant. (first ride I went to Lowe's and got caught in snow/rain)
-The bike is very back heavy. (I need to move my rear rack closer to frame so it's center it's behind the rear axle)
-The Amazon special $20 front steel shock needs to go
-With Docs Torque arms there is no give so removing and installing the motor is a real PITA so flats will need to be dealt with before they happen by using thick tubes filled with slime.
-Clyte 4303 motor is a monster in weight. Perhaps overkill for speeds only up to 35MPH and under 30amps
-Strong desire for full face gear. A simple motocross helmet should do

[FastDemise]

The nut on my 5303 motor is pretty neded up so finding a replacement at the hardware store is proving troublesome as its too messed up to fit any of the bolts properly so not confident on size. Anyone know the size I'm looking for?

[amberwolf]

IIRC, a metric car lugnut fits for at least some axles. I tested this on my 9C and I think it was a 14mm lugnut? Can't remember. Whatever your axle size is, on the threaded part (not the flats) is what you want to use. But if you have a car with metric lugnuts it's easy to try.

[FastDemise]

IIRC, a metric car lug nut fits for at least some axles. I tested this on my 9C and I think it was a 14mm lug nut? Can't remember. Whatever your axle size is, on the threaded part (not the flats) is what you want to use. But if you have a car with metric lug nuts it's easy to try.

Thanks, I was trying to get my messed up nut to fit on brand new bolts to test for proper size and everything just didn't fit quite right. My Jeep has metric lug nuts and will give it a shot. At least my gasser will help out it's replacement.

[FastDemise]

Well just ordered 2 more Turnigy 6s. I want some advice on what setup I should run. I'll have 6x 6s 5000mAh lipo so I can run 12s3p or 18s2p. Using Lyen 6fet controller. I can program it for either or and charging 12s or 18s will not be a issue with me. I understand that higher voltage means less amperage and makes things more efficient but I don't understand any of the science behind why. Both pack configurations will have the same wattage so technically run time should be the same right? It will just be that at 18s I could travel much faster.

A 2nd question. If I were to switch to a different rear motor like the Mac 1000w lyen sells running around ~1500w 12s25a or ~1800w 18s 25a would that be a problem? I know I can purchase stronger gears if it's necessary but this is my commuter bike so high speed and torque are not what I am looking for.

[amberwolf]

At faster speeds you'll have less range due to wind resistance at those speeds, so while your pack will have the same Wh total capacity, it probably won't take you as far as it would at the lower voltage / lower speed.

You can run it at the higher voltage anyway, and just use lower throttle, and get probably same range either way, but with the *ability* to have higher speed if you want it.

Regarding the motor, all I can say is my experieince with the Fusin geared front hub (with cheap nylon gears) is that at higher voltages it has a LOT more torque, so it tends to destroy dropouts and torque arms easier. It's only meant to be a less than 500W motor, so I can only imagine the precautions necessary with a >1KW geared motor.

I don't have anything like those problems with my 9C DD motor, even with the same controller and battery pack, because it doens't have the gears to help multiply the torque, I guess.

ALso, the Fusin at least doesn't like being run at lower speeds while having a higher voltage pack and higher current available. I keep meaning to put the three speed swithc on my Lyen 6FET and program it so I have a low speed / low current mode, so I don't keep cooking the motor. .


Oh, and while I haven't destroyed the gears yet, I did break the clutch yesterday.

[FastDemise]

So no real added benefit of going to 18s if keeping the speed limited to 30mph? Was just wondering if the increased voltage made things a little bit more efficient to warrant going higher in voltage.


A side note:
My hypersion charger is saying that my 18650 12s pack has 78mohm while 12s lipo is around 10mohm. I'm surprised it wasn't higher with how much solder and individuals connections are in the 18650 packs.

[FastDemise]

Well from the smell of it my power supply which is supposed to be 13.8V 20A output smells like roasting electronics with just a 10A load on it from the hyperion charger. Guess I'm going to computer power supplies. I really need to post pictures of my bike now since it's running and have put 60 miles on it already. ^_^

[wesnewell]

So no real added benefit of going to 18s if keeping the speed limited to 30mph? Was just wondering if the increased voltage made things a little bit more efficient to warrant going higher in voltage.

Sure there's a couple of benefits in increasing voltage. First, the added cells will give your pack more range, and second, the added voltage will increase acceleration.

[FastDemise]

Well I decided to stick with 12s for the time being. Logically I have a 1420i hyperion charger so 12s would require no changing of wiring from bike to charger. I have 6 6s lipos so I wired each pair in series then made a harness to wire each pair in parallel. Then made a pair of balance leads that parallel the first set of lipo then the 2nd set so at the cell level they are parallel as well. This also enabled me to simply move battery from bike and directly to charger without changing or touching any of the wire setup. I'm quite happy with that.



I did KFF a few days ago. Stupid me before I built the pack into one big one was charging each 6s on a parallel board and got ahead of myself and plugged all the batteries in the board but did not plug in the charging plugs first so as soon as I grabbed it *zap* haha It's got nothing on jumping cables sparking. It's so much crisper and sharp.

Also got 1 of my Meanwell SP-320-24 PS hooked up and just testing it's output on a 6s 18650 pack. Putting out 257W so that's within it's 87% efficiency range. If I can get my hands on Zephyr's BMS and charge board I should be able to do away with the hyperion and simply hooked up both my meanwells in series and charge when needed. The goal there is to be able to make the 20mile trip all the way to college campus and charge there instead of making a shorter 8 mile trip to a different campus then taking the shuttle.

For the bike I just changed the handle bars and finally got a top cap off one of my other parts bikes and now finally have a front shock that doesn't wobble. For the longest to ensure proper compression on the headset I was using a handlebar extension to apply the compression then just torqued down on the stem. Now that I just simply added a cap to keep the compression it's silky smooth operation. Pretty dumb of me to ride this long before learning about that.

Bike as it sits now.


Using old blackburn x6 lights. Put new batteries in and installed 250lumen cree LEDs

[BATFINK]

Nice build, I like that little front rack too. Did it mount on your brake mount? You should replace the colored cable ties with black and possibly paint the motor black and you would have a really stealthy bike there. Treat yourself to a cycle analyst to monitor your battery great stuff

Sent using Endless-Sphere Mobile app

[FastDemise]

Nice build, I like that little front rack too. Did it mount on your brake mount? You should replace the colored cable ties with black and possibly paint the motor black and you would have a really stealthy bike there. Treat yourself to a cycle analyst to monitor your battery great stuff

Sent using Endless-Sphere Mobile app

My thoughts exactly! The front rack was something off Ebay I got thinking it would have some use....so far I'm drawing a blank. It is mounted on the brake mount same as the mud flap. My idea of a stealth look would be using one of the geared hub motors due to size. I can not see the 5303 ever being hidden unless I'm using some really large panniers. Sometime this week I'll get the rest of the silver bits in black.

[BATFINK]

I'm using a front rack that mounts to my forks an going to use it to hold my battery in a plastic battery box. Have you thought about moving your battery bag onto it for better balance and also freeing up your larger rear rack for groceries

Sent using Endless-Sphere Mobile app

[FastDemise]

I'd love my topeak bag free for other goodies but was worried about the battery being attached to the front shock without any dampening. My battery is already wrapped in ups envelope bubble wrap stuff but I can give it a try with the velcro I have and perhaps a bungee net for just in case. It is worth giving it a serious look. What brand of rack is that?

Update: Got my SP-320-24 Meanwells working together in parallel finally. I'm liking the bubble wrap

[FastDemise]

Not sure if I'm being too picky or have a good reason to wonder about the health of each 6s pack.

*Update*
After Using a 2Ohm resistor 4.19v-3.5v I'm getting:
#1 - 4774mAh
#2 - 4800mAh
#6 - 4740mAh

#3 - 4548mAh #1 Weak
#4 - 4576mAh #6 Weak
#5 - 4510mAh (suspected bad cell due to low capacity)

Seems half my packs are bad. Seems #4 didn't show any signs of bad cell the first time I discharged it but it clearly shows up now. So I got a odd number of good cells. 18s possible with 2P with the LVC ~3.7 to keep the cells happy? I can repair the 2 with known bad cells since I got lucky and it's the outer cells that are bad.

Seems I can get a good 18s1p for quick runs to the store and 12s2p once I repair a pack for riding to school. What a drag to find out during a sunny day.

[shock]

Nice build, I like the look. I've got a 6 FET lyen and was wondering about its capability using larger DD hubs. Looks like you've been successful.

With Lipo, it seems the brick closest to the + discharge lead always drains more, especially after 15 or 20 cycles. My solution is rotating the 6cell banks, and/or rotate the bricks every once and awhile, so your not always pulling most from the same pack.

Keep up the good work!