jonescg's NEW electric racebike BUILD thread!

[jonescg]

So this is what half my pack will look like:


The back half will look identical. Whole thing should be 410 mm high, 320 mm wide and 320 mm deep. Not much bigger than a 30 can block of Swan Lager

You can see how the series connections start at the top and work their way down to the bottom, jump to the next column and snake their way back up to the top.

[Hillhater]

....Not much bigger than a 30 can block of Swan Lager

..but not quite as satisfying !

[Philistine]

....Not much bigger than a 30 can block of Swan Lager

..but not quite as satisfying !

If you use it to power the little toy the missus keeps in her bedside draw it is....

*strikes thinking man pose for 5 seconds*

Nah, on reflection I will take the block of Swan tins....

[jonescg]

Beer will always win, Phil.


Anyway, I got a quote on getting the copper bus bars cut up. The 2 mm stuff is good for a sealed e-bike pack, while I will need to use the 3 mm stuff for the 5P packs in the race bike. If I'm forcing >300 amps through it, I don't want it getting hot anywhere. So as always, over-spec everything. The race bike will have 108 bits of 3 mm copper, costing $400 including cutting.

Now, that might seem like a lot of money for 4.5 kg of copper all up, but that's 108 bits of 3 mm copper cut into perfect rectangles. Just think of how long that would take to cut with a hacksaw... What is an hour of your time worth? How big do you want your right arm to be?

I actually got quoted for 120 of the 2 mm bars, and 180 of the 3 mm bars, totalling $1000 all up. That's not bad in my opinion - enough to build 12 ebike batteries and almost two race bike packs. It's almost two cause I calculated the number I'll need wrong

Better just get the bike over here first. $775 from Melbourne to Perth with Motorcycle Movers. Why didn't I think of this before???

[liveforphysics]

This is so cool! I had missed the last few months progress on this thread, it's great to see it going so well! Woot!!!

[Doctorbass]

Beer will always win, Phil.


Anyway, I got a quote on getting the copper bus bars cut up. The 2 mm stuff is good for a sealed e-bike pack, while I will need to use the 3 mm stuff for the 5P packs in the race bike. If I'm forcing >300 amps through it, I don't want it getting hot anywhere. So as always, over-spec everything. The race bike will have 108 bits of 3 mm copper, costing $400 including cutting.

Now, that might seem like a lot of money for 4.5 kg of copper all up, but that's 108 bits of 3 mm copper cut into perfect rectangles. Just think of how long that would take to cut with a hacksaw... What is an hour of your time worth? How big do you want your right arm to be?

I actually got quoted for 120 of the 2 mm bars, and 180 of the 3 mm bars, totalling $1000 all up. That's not bad in my opinion - enough to build 12 ebike batteries and almost two race bike packs. It's almost two cause I calculated the number I'll need wrong

Better just get the bike over here first. $775 from Melbourne to Perth with Motorcycle Movers. Why didn't I think of this before???

Nice job!

I thougt it was for A123 20Ah cells and i would have asked you if you have extra PCB for the A123 pouchs

Doc

[bigmoose]

Chris, I missed a page or two of your thread, and when I caught up, I saw that the Turnigy cells have copper tab cores! I would never have thought that both were copper. Have you dithered with the grey coatings? Will they take solder? Are they aluminum? Any idea if the coatings are the same on each tab or different? Can you see any "splices" in the tabs where they transitioned from say a pure aluminum foil to this coated copper tab? If I missed where you talked about this, my apologies. I tried to twice scan the entire thread to catch it if you did, and didn't find more detail.

Where I am going with this is, it might be possible to chemically strip whatever that plating is off of the copper. That would leave you a nice, undamaged copper tab on both the anode and cathode.

[megacycle]

Busbar coil.png

(80.41 KiB) Downloaded 4 times

Might be cheaper

3mm is standard coil used in electrical earthing grids.
Tons of it in substations. Just jump the fence and cut it out like the copper theives have been doing
When you roll it out it flattens just like bar.

Busbar coil.png

(80.41 KiB) Downloaded 4 times

Sparkies just use bolt cutters, the cut edge is fine its not prominent, because it swages into a small v.
Save a hell of a lot on cutting fees. Was looking at roll for my build, but only needed 100A max.

Good luck, Like to get to one of your race days one day soon.

Yeh the blow torch thing, would solder paste work , not sure of the grade, only used it on bus myself.
Paint it on and torch it, hopefully board & connecting section of tab would take most of the heat.
Its gonna happening within a few secs anyhow. Takes or
Anyone blowtorched before, might give it a go with mine, let you know.

[jonescg]

Luke - Cheers man. The K5 GSXR was the big purchase. Even if this e-moto malarkey falls in an expensive heap, I'll still have a sweet track bike to have fun on.

Doc - Ask Full-Throttle to make a board up for you like he did for me. Top job! I can't see why it wouldn't work just as well, except that the tabs of the 20 Ah cells are dissimilar. You would need to buy them from Cell_man to have a copper tab spot welded to the cathode (he's been doing the same thing that Turnigy does).

Bigmoose - The tabs are both copper, but that's cause one of them is resistance welded to the aluminium tab protruding from the cell. They are coated with some kind of metal that doesn't like being soldered. I just grind it off with the Dremmel and a small flapper wheel, or even a small grinding stone. Then the solder then sticks like the proverbial. You could possibly use an acid, but I'd rather avoid that since there is a good possibility of residual corrosion.

Megacycle - I did look into this, but the local supplier couldn't assure me that it was 99.99% Cu or lower grade. I know some earth strap uses 99.0% Cu which isn't as good a conductor. At 5% impurities (especially zinc) copper is only as conductive as aluminium! These guys have a few other options so I will look into them. The main reason I didn't go for stock material is the odd width - 18 mm is all I can safely fit. 16 mm is a bit too small for my liking.

3 mm copper sounds hefty, but since these cells are going into a sealed pack they simply cannot afford to get hot. I am a firm believer in having sufficient copper there to sink the heat being generated at the tab.

[jonescg]

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/200W-Solderi ... 4841c9aaff

What do you reckon? Pair of these should make light work of the job? I'll have to change the plugs over to suit Australian GPOs though...

[Timma2500]

Damn that gsxr looks nice, almost a shame to cut it up

Those battery boards came out nicely Chris, a really clean solution in the end.

Keep up the good work mate Can't wait to see the motor install.


Paul

[jonescg]

Don't worry mate, it's going to remain an ICEer till the end of the year. I plan on booking every trackday I can

[voicecoils]

Don't worry mate, it's going to remain an ICEer till the end of the year. I plan on booking every trackday I can

Try to stay upright, at least till its electric!

Do you think you'll have to hack and weld the frame or can everything bolt on if the right brackets & plates get CNCd, lasercut etc for mounting battery box, motor + controller?

[jonescg]

Hehe, it comes with crash knobs in the right spots

I am planning on getting the mounting spars for the motor made such that they will serve as a structural member of the frame. Towards the head brackets on the frame, I will have a horizontal member in place to take the weight of the batteries, as well as something front and back to stop movement in these directions. The plan is to use as many of the original mounting points as possible with minimum disturbance to the frame. I don't plan on removing the middle of the swingarm if I can help it, but I really don't think I'll need to if I use a jackshaft.

If I have to go with a wavesculptor controller, the only way I'll get it to fit is to slide it under the seat, and as Kyle said, might require modifying the subframe. Hopefully not. I really hope a bigger range of controllers come on line, because there isn't a lot out there.

[voicecoils]

But then Kyle hacked up an MV F4!

Fabricating a new rear subframe for the Wave' makes sense to fit it neatly and preserve the original.

Have you seen EV Drives' remy-core offerings?

Crash knobs sound good, but I'm confident you'll keep the rubber side down

[jonescg]

Well I just bought myself two honking great 200 W soldering irons. I need to get some solid copper round and make a big hammer head for it. These chisel tips just aren't big enough I don't think.

On the bike front, I have made final payment but need to wait until my funds replenish and I can afford to get it shipped over to the West. Then I need to save even more funds and keep going until about the end of the year if I want a decent electric conversion

[Nuts&Volts]

But then Kyle hacked up an MV F4!

Fabricating a new rear subframe for the Wave' makes sense to fit it neatly and preserve the original.

Have you seen EV Drives' remy-core offerings?

Crash knobs sound good, but I'm confident you'll keep the rubber side down

The F4 wasn't being used and we haven't hacked it up too much

Those EV Drives are just too heavy for a motorcycle and cost more than an EVO or YASA offering which in turn are 50lbs+ lighter

[jonescg]

Woohoo! Happy Easter everyone!

My good news; the trackbike is being picked up in Melbourne on Monday and should be in my hot little hands by the 17th of April Only $740 one way! Fortunately it's going to be crated by the company, so there's one less thing for me to worry about.

Can't wait!!!

[Jay64]

Awesome! Looking forward to the beauty "coming home".

[grindz145]

Looking forward to some donor bike pr0n

[jonescg]

Dammit! Why does Perth have to remain stuck in the 80s? My track bike has arrived in Perth, but it's sitting at the depot and can't be picked up on the weekend - cause they don't even open on Saturdays! I have to wait out a whole sunny weekend without my new bike!

The trucking company is called White Line Transport You'd think it would have been much speedier service

[SplinterOz]

Just to let you know Danny did a 1:15.6 at Wakefield. And Danny only won because Jason pulled his lanyard.

[jonescg]

SPEWIN!!!!

Oh man! Poor Jase must feel like a clown! I listened to the audio and it was close all race.

Really wish I was there

[jonescg]

Looking forward to some donor bike pr0n

Finally she is in my hands . Alas I had to get back to work as soon as I could, but rest assured this evening she's going to get some street time









Oh, and my soldering irons finally arrived. Cheap and cheerful Chinese... crap




It came with wire capable of handling about a 0.5 amp current... Not sure I'm cool with that, but I can find a better lead.

[SplinterOz]

Love the bike!!! Not so sure about the soldering irons.