flyinmonkie's chopper build

Hello all,

I'll be moving my bike and and all my tools down next week. That means I can put in the new controller and throttle and see if it lasts longer than 3 rides. The hills here will also be a good test of the 36v system. I guess I'll have to start collecting all the parts for an RC drive and geared hub. Will be awhile before that comes together though.

FM
 
The bike made the move just fine and I finally got some time to wire up the new controller. Gave it a test tonight and it seems to be all good. I have to work all weekend. This owning a business takes up a lot of time. I'm going to try and get the battery box all sorted with the new controller and 3 SLA's crammed in it early next week. Then I'll get some video and post it up. Looking forward to seeing how it preforms on the hills here and putting some miles on it.

FM
 
The chopper lives again! I finished rewiring the batteries and the charger cables today and put all the electrics in the battery box. About 10 lbs of sh** in a 5 lb bag. Anyway, I've added a master switch in the line from the batteries to the controller. That may be why my last one fried. I was just wiring it hard to the batteries and I would get a little spark every time. It may have gone one too many times. With the 3 12v 18ah sla's and the controller shoved in the battery box I wedged it all in the frame of the bike again. What a mission that is. Unfortunately I found out that I will never get my nice battery box lid on and get it all in the frame. Oh well. I'll figure something else out, or switch to Lipos and gain some room.

Well, for the first test ride, it goes pretty good. I just went down the street and back to see if it all held together. I am now charging the batteries as they have sat for a while and needed topping off. On Friday I'll get some video and put the GPS on it for a real test. It may be hard to find some flat ground for a good run, but I'll see what I can do.

Hope I don't have too many bugs. I'd like to run this one everyday for the summer and save for a geared RC bike to start next winter maybe.

FM
 
Went for a ride today. Wasn't too bad, but seemed to run out of power fast. I charged the batteries over night, but the voltage dropped off pretty quick. There must be a low voltage cutoff in the controller or the throttle, because it just cut out when the indicator on the throttle got down to less than 1/3rd battery left. I have a currie 36v scooter controller and a currie 36v scooter throttle with a built in battery indicator. Nothing flash.

Seems weird as they should have been fully charged. I checked the voltage when I got back and it was about 34.6v on a 36v setup. Remember I am running 3 18amh 12v sla's wired up in series for 36v. I may have gotten 2ks out of it at most and about half of it was coasting downhill. I didn't go up any large hills, but there really isn't anywhere flat near my house.

I am charging it again and will try to get some video tonight and see if it lasts any longer.

FM
 
may want to load test those sla's . your walk home may have been short but they may have recovered some by the time you got back to testing them. the move or storage may have claimed one ?
 
Thanks, yup that might be the case. I'm charging them again to see what the top voltage is. If it isn't what it should be, I'll check them separately to see it fone is off a bit. If it is, I'll shock it back to life. I'm thinking about switching to LoPo to set it up for the next build.

FM
 
I have confirmed one of my batteries is only charging to 10.3v. I my try to bring it back to life. I am not sure yet. I might switch to LiPo to get used to them. That means dropping back to 24v though and I don't know if I'll get the power I want out of 24v. I would also have to get a charger for LiPo, so a new sla might be cheaper if I can't bring the lame one back.

I am also debating reconfiguring the drive train to allow for a 3 speed hub. This will be the simplest way to get gears on this pig. May not be till after xmas. Decisions decisions.

FM
 
Go Lipo ifit comes down to having to buy more slas they are pretty cheak these days from HobbyCity...
Think of the weight you will save ! 44v 20ah of Lipo 6 kilo

KiM
 
I think I've sorted my battery problem. I individually charged the 3 12v batteries and seem to have them all up to a full charge now. I took the bike out tonight and went more than 5 minutes and still had a charge. I will give it a longer run soon to see if I have sorted it out fully.

I am seriously thinking of changing the drive train to give me some gears for the hills here. It was great when I lived where it was flat and I topped out about 36kph. Now with the hills I vary between 18 and 40kph. The drive train and the rest seem to be holding up, so it really is just the battery issue at the moment. If that is sorted, I'll see how it goes on the way to work and back. Then decide about the gearing.

I'm going to mount my battery box slightly different to be able to get the lid on it and in the frame as well. Then it should look very finished. I took some really bad video the other day, but mostly you saw my fingers or the brake cables. I'll shoot some better stuff soon so you guys can see how it goes.

FM
 
I think I've revived my battery. After a couple of charge cycles and individually charging them, the one battery that was low on voltage seems to be holding as well as the others. I took it for a good test ride tonight and it went very well. I had put a couple of Ks on it the other day and then got 6.3 ks out of it tonight. That is on some rather hilly terrain as well. There were no problems with the gear train and everything felt very solid. I am very happy with the results of this build.

Now for some numbers. On the flat I could hold about 38k/hr. It peaked at 40k/hr and fluctuated between about 38 and 40k/hr according to my gps. It slowed down a lot on the hills, but that was expected. On the longest hill it dropped down to about 8k/hr and I was pedaling when the motor really started to bog down. I'd rather pedal a little than melt my motor before I actually put some ks on this bike. The down hills were often faster than the motor could drive the bike, so I coasted a lot of them. At the fastest on a down hill I hit 49k/hr and everything felt really solid. The bike handled very well and the homemade hub has held up so far. You can only feel some wobble through the brakes and the rim could probably be trued a little more.

After running for a while and pulling up a long hill the motor was only warm to the touch. I could still hold my hand on it as long as I wanted. Even at 36v the 24v currie motor seems to be holding up great.

I am away for the weekend, but will get some good video as soon as I get back. Looking forward to putting some k's on this bike and starting the next one. Time to collect some parts.

FM
 
Ok, I'm trying to put some video up. I have posted it on youtube, but I can't seem to get it to show up here. Not really being sure what to do at all may have something to do with it. So what's the secret?

FM
 
Hover your cursor over the 'youtube' option in the text editor and it tells you EXACTLY what needs to be done...

LoL... if i didnt respect you so much this reply would have taken the natural course of Aussie V's Kiwi derogatory slander :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Respect my friend YOU ROCK!!! AND ..if you cant work it out pm me ill help or msn me aussiejester@hotmail.com ill
explain it til you know howz its done

KiM
 
Thanks Kim,

That's a lot of respect to hold back slagging off a Kiwi as an Aussie, lol. There's more coming from me for sure. Maybe some day I'll give building a frame from scratch a go. I need to have a welder and burn a bunch of metal first. It truly is an art and you are an artist. Keep up the good work.

Anyway, here are the links to the vids on youtube. I may be able to see, design and build most anything mechanical, but computers and the internet work on FM technology and still elude me much of the time. For those that didn't figure that one out, F'ing magic.

[youtube]wZq97qGU_C8[/youtube]
[youtube]SfcBWt_TCn0[/youtube]
[youtube]XTMjEiG3X0w[/youtube]

The bike is in parts at the moment as I'm reconfiguring the battery box mounts so the batteries will fit inside it with the lid on. I am also rewiring the charging circuit and adding a plug so I don't have to remove the batteries or the box to charge them.

FM
 
I told you FM technology. It should be sorted now. If not I'll find some 12 yr old youtube genius to sort it out lol.
 
:)
very cool . 18k up and can do 40kph ? very nice. looks like a gentle slope in the vids ? so if i get this right your at 36v ? what is that controller pushing for amps?

nice work , gotta love video.
wich by the way is working now.
 
Looks good. :)

What part of NZ are you in? That looks like it could be pretty much any suburban tract in California. :roll: I spent the better part of two years in NZ about 10 years ago, doing some consulting work, mostly in and around Auckland, but my partner was a fly-fishing nut, so we ended up all over both the North and South Islands, somewhere different every weekend. It is amazing how different NZ and OZ are, in terms of geology, etc. If I remember right, NZ doesn't have any poisonous insects, snakes or other critters, and in the land of OZ, pretty much everything is poisonous, :lol: I guess it is because NZ originally was part of Antarctica and Australia basically spun off of Asia. That would explain the beautiful fiords in the north part of the South Island. You'd swear you were in Norway.

-- Gary
 
All working mate, she goes well, i was most surprised though to see that the roads were sealed!!! and had lamp posts (i presume these are oil lamps and lit nightly by a man with a long stick with a wix) :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Top job mate...

KiM
 
Thanks guys.

enoob, yup 36v. Not sure what it is pushing, but it doesn't blow a 2oamp fuse in the main line. The controller is rated for 25amps and has only cut out once that I think was because I was drawing too many amps. It does that. It also has an LVC and I have hit that a couple of times in the endurance testing.

The hill in that shot is pretty gentle but just around the corner it gets pretty steep. None of the hills are very long, but some are really steep. We will see how long I go before I gear it or sell it to finance some of my next build.

GGoodrum, I'm in Wanaka now. Towards the south end of the South Isl. Good fly fishing around here. It does look a lot like CA. My sis lives outside of LA. Yup, nothing to kill you here except yourself. Pretty good that way.

Kim, Yup they just upgraded from oil to propane and run it from the mains. We get indoor plumbing next week. It's just like anywhere outside of Sydney in Oz. LOL

I'll get the bike back together this weekend and start commuting on it. In the mean time, I'm starting to collect parts for the next build! It's going to be awhile though, so don't hold your breath.

Clay
 
This may be a silly question, but some people here know much more about electronics than I do. I would like to wire my batteries in series to get 36v to drive the motor, but I would also like to wire them in parallel to charge them at the same time. Is it possible to to do this? They don't like to be wired that way and it provides a path from one battery's positive to it's negative and that is bad.

It is slightly frustrating to have to charge each battery on it's own and the 36v charger I have doesn't actually charge the batteries properly as it is a cheap pos.

Clay
 
You can definitely charge in parallel. I am pretty sure you can do so with the following setup, but you have to keep in mind that keeping the batteries balanced properly is a manual task if you do so. That is unless you have some kind of BMS circuit (battery management system).



So I'd use either a marine 2pole 1throw switch, or a pair of automotive battery cuttoff switches. Those ought to be able to handle the current just fine. The idea here is keep the switch(es) on for riding, and then SHUT THEM OFF to isolate each battery so that they are in parallel with the charger and there are no longer shorts from the charger to itself. The controller isolates the battery to the far right, and DO NOT THROW ON THE THROTTLE when charging...or make sure your "safety brake" switch is engaged. If you throw on the throttle the controller might try to pull juice from that last battery...and while I think some of these controllers have low voltage protection you never can be too careful.

I think you can even use multiple chargers if you happened to have some lying around...
 
Cheers dequinox,

I think I'm just going to wire separate charging leads for each battery and have 3 plugs for the the charger. It is a bit of a pain to charge them individually, but it will keep them balanced as well. Being SLA's, it's nice to be able to just plug it in and forget about it until you want to ride the next day.

I have a few drive train issues as well. I need to beef up the bracket that holds the drive side of the gear reduction. I have my next build in mind, and am a bit over this one. I don't want to spend too much more money on this build when it could go to my next build. I'll play around a little more and see if I don't tear this one down and sell off the bike to start my next one. Each one gets better though. The next one should be great.

Clay
 
It has been awhile since I have posted in this thread. Well, I figure the death, or retirement of the chopper is worth a post.

I had it going for a while and was nice to commute on. The hub I extended didn't quite cut it. It hasn't blown up, but it is just out of true enough to throw the chain whenever I hit a hill or get on the throttle. I was going to rebuild the motor mount and single stage reduction into one compact unit and change the drive line to run the proper hub or a wide 3 speed...

But I just picked up a dirt jump frame for $5. Yup $5. We have a fantastic recycling place here that sells, well basically anything uber cheap. So I know have steel frame (cheap) dirt jump frame with mechanical disc brakes. Just what I wanted for my next build. I am still going to make a new motor mount/single stage reduction and use the same motor I used on my last 2 builds. I will be switching to Lipo for fuel though. I'll start a build thread soon. This will be a slow build still as I have quite a bit to collect (wheels, batteries, ca, lvc, geared hub, enos, seat, seat post, any parts that need replacing on the bike...)

Clay
 
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