LightingRod kit standard 09/2014 edition

[1BFC]

Ti can be a mixed bag strength wise. I don't have a reference chart handy.

However this may be a good starting point. In general they do not recommend replacing 8.8 or higher with "Their" Ti products.

http://faqload.com/faqs/bicycle-components/bolt-tuning-replacing-heavy-steel-bolts-with-titanium-aluminum-and-carbon-fiber

 

[emaayan]

Ti can be a mixed bag strength wise. I don't have a reference chart handy.

However this may be a good starting point. In general they do not recommend replacing 8.8 or higher with "Their" Ti products.

http://faqload.com/faqs/bicycle-components/bolt-tuning-replacing-heavy-steel-bolts-with-titanium-aluminum-and-carbon-fiber

ti should not be considered stronger then steel, (i was told that AFTER i got a bunch of ti bolts because i got tired of stripping nirosta allens) by my frame maker, who said that ti frames are just lighter but certainly not stronger.

 

[Cryptic]

Thanks for info - high tensile carbon steel it is then

 

[LightningRods]

Titanium is brittle, has poor ductility, compared to steel. Grade 8 is crazy overkill on a car. I used to buy it for my hot rods just to have the best. The good part is that once you reach M6 or 1/4" it's fairly easy to come by. My first thought for fixing the breaking bolt problem was to go to grade 8. Nope. Can't get grade 8 M5 or #10 SAE at any of the vendors that I use. That's why I'm redesigning the lower sheets to make room for M6 or 1/4". Bigger + harder = better. As the old joke goes, "That's what she said!"

 

[emaayan]

Titanium is brittle, has poor ductility, compared to steel. Grade 8 is crazy overkill on a car. I used to buy it for my hot rods just to have the best. The good part is that once you reach M6 or 1/4" it's fairly easy to come by. My first thought for fixing the breaking bolt problem was to go to grade 8. Nope. Can't get grade 8 M5 or #10 SAE at any of the vendors that I use. That's why I'm redesigning the lower sheets to make room for M6 or 1/4". Bigger + harder = better. As the old joke goes, "That's what she said!"

i would have thought to go with M6 as well, but i'm afraid that just increasing the hole size (i think the slots do accept M6) may weaken it because it was thinner , plus not having spacers (unless he'll offer bigger spacers)

btw if you have more re-desining to do , i suggest you start versioning your parts (at least the lower /upper sheets) at some point you'll have a customer saying they have a problem with this and that part and you wouldn't know which exactly they are talking about, that's exactly why i titled this message 09/2014 edition (was assuming that was around the time you built it)

L-R , have you tried these yet http://www.smartbolts.com/ looks like a cool idea..

 

[LightningRods]

New lower sheets drawing posted. http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=57720&p=958898#p958898

 

[1BFC]

Mcmaster and fastenal appear to have high strength m5 hardware available for anyone working with your current revision kits.

Unless you need a length that isn't stocked normally you should have an easy source.

Since I don't have a kit myself yet it's hard to give more specific advice or feedback.

 

[LightningRods]

Fastenal is one of the suppliers that I use. They don't stock any good quality M5 at my local store and I was told that they can't get it. I'll go to the Fastenal web site and see what I can find in a search. Thanks.

 

[Cryptic]

I guess there's a point at which the intrinsic strength of a material becomes irrelevant as the dimensions change - a hair-width of Grade 8 is compromised because of the lack of material. Bigger is, indeed, better (although, as with most things, there will be an optimum point, after which the increased size & weight is unnecessary, as it's already beefy enough for the job in hand)

 

[tomjasz]

"Best" bolt means with the highest tensile strength. Grade 5 is a good bolt, grade 8 is the best we common folk can buy. I don't know all of the tensile strength ratings of stainless steel. The internet is as close to you as it is to me. I'm pretty sure that grade 8 high carbon steel trumps any kind of stainless.

Don't feel bad about being snubbed by machinists. I come to them with a $1,000 order and they do the same thing to me. Piece by piece I'm buying my own equipment so I don't have to put up with their attitude.

A BIG difference in tensile strength. SS snaps fairly easy compared to grade 8. In my real life experience.

I live in Winona, Fastenal's home base, and would help.

 

[emaayan]

can you guess what this is ?

 

[jdevo2004]

Looks like you found a bike shop after all.

 

[emaayan]

No! I had an idea ,and my new best friend with the multpile mills shaved off the insides of my bb tool so it would reach all the way beyond the bb shaft. So now i have a superoiur tool to bolting the bb without using pedro wrench.

He even said i could bring my bike over there so i could assemble the drive there and solve any problems that might arise. Hes interested in the subject.

 

[jdevo2004]

Wow dude that is awesome. It will be nice to see you up and running soon. Good Luck.

 

[emaayan]

stop jinxing me.
maybe putting spacers wasn't such a good idea .. i'll need to take apart crankset, and remove the flat spacers i thought i'd need, as well as removing the spacers from that allen bolt.

 

[LightningRods]

stop jinxing me.
maybe putting spacers wasn't such a good idea .. i'll need to take apart crankset, and remove the flat spacers i thought i'd need, as well as removing the spacers from that allen bolt.

Welcome to my world. The width of the BB shell and the width of the BB axle are set and beyond my control. There is a VERY limited amount of space to work with between the chainwheels and the hardware on the side of the lower sheets.

Now you know why I used carriage bolts with no washers.

 

[LightningRods]

He even said i could bring my bike over there so i could assemble the drive there and solve any problems that might arise. Hes interested in the subject.

WOOOOO HOOOOO! He's our savior! I want him on retainer!

 

[emaayan]

stop jinxing me.
maybe putting spacers wasn't such a good idea .. i'll need to take apart crankset, and remove the flat spacers i thought i'd need, as well as removing the spacers from that allen bolt.

Welcome to my world. The width of the BB shell and the width of the BB axle are set and beyond my control. There is a VERY limited amount of space to work with between the chainwheels and the hardware on the side of the lower sheets.

Now you know why I used carriage bolts with no washers.

well that may be a problem driver sprocket wise, as these are not only bigger but wider, i'm currently using the biggest 18T and they are driving the chain so the links are starting to collide against the mud guard, placing more spacers between the mudguard and driven sprocket will cause the crank arm to collide with the mudguard, unless i place more spacers on the crank arm and freewheel.

i went out on my first ride with metal cranks arms and pedals, they felt really weird which made sense when i discovered i put them not all aligned with each other (with square taper there's no room for error it's either 90 or 180 degrees, over here, it's much more fine)
i didn't notice any major improvement switching to the 18T so i might get back to get 15T, i might get more speed with enough "runway" but i'm not sure it's wise.
i switched the bmc to 50 amps, so now it's 2500 watts limit, this seems to make an improvement in acceleration.
however the chain is stil still getting loose [youtube]1cbHBJqReHI[/youtube]
it's not as worse as before, but the chain skipping still occurs when i start at 10 11th gear (i don't expect to start at that level , but it's a simulation of high load) i may need to pay our miller he says he can use better plastic then yours (i forgot it's name, starts with a d ,dihara.. ) at least the system is riding order , so i can bring it to him for a change. i replaced the allen bolt i placed instead of the inner carriage bolt, because i stripped it's it's threads (it didn't took an effort) and placed a hex bolt not sure i tightend enough.
but i see no alternative then to place an other bolt on the chain side, all this guessing and tightening feels wrong and relaying on side pressure, maybe it's happening only to me because i'm using an 18T driver sprocket and i'm 250 pounds on a 29er starting from 6th gear.

 

[jdevo2004]

Take it easy with the power. Too much too soon and your going to hurt it.

Loosen the bottom sheet adjustment bolts, readjust the motor and tighten them again. Also then tightnen that motor adjusment bolt (the big star tip one underneath) as much as you can and then make sure it is securely in place by tightening that nut against the welded nut on the lower sheet bracket.

 

[LightningRods]

If you're having problems reaching the M6 locknut on the adjuster plate you can move it under the plate instead of on top where the welded nut is.

50 amps is too much. Starting out in a high gear and pouring on more amps than recommended is trying to break the motor.

Hopefully you are feeling the effect that I described from raising the gearing higher and higher. With an 18T driver you've raised the gearing 50% higher than standard. And then you start out in 6th gear?

 

[spinningmagnets]

When attempting a top speed run, you really should shift through several gears instead of starting in top gear. If you have a 7-speed gear cluster at the rear wheel, perhaps use 3, 5, and 7?...the first two gears are very low and only useful for steep uphills. Once it is working well, maybe use only 4 and 7? If you start out in 7th with high power in top gear, you will regret it soon.

Get the bugs worked out on your system and get it properly adjusted and working fine at perhaps 20A? Then slowly raise the amps to explore its capabilities. If properly installed and adjusted, it should be able to take quite a bit of pounding, but...if improperly adjusted, you might break something before you've had a chance to even really use it.

Plus there is the cost of repair parts, and waiting for repair parts to arrive...one step at a time.

 

[LightningRods]

He has an 11 speed IGH. It still seems like a bad idea to start out in 6th with the secondary reduction lessened by 50%. Especially at 50 amps. Especially with 250 lbs of Emaayan on board. All we need now is a long, steep hill and we can have a very expensive toaster oven.

For someone who lives in a country where e-bikes are contraband, parts are difficult or impossible to import, and help is next to non-existant, you're awfully hard on your equipment, Emaayan.

 

[emaayan]

i'm starting at 6th gear on plain level because it's a middle gear, , on with a hill, i'll decrease the gears. i'm trying out worse case scenario before i run into them on the field. when i saw i didn't reach significant improvement on 18T i said i'll reduce back to 15T . also don't forget i'm keeping an eye out on the temperature inside the motor at all times so far it reached 62 degrees celius.

BMC controller doesn't really have a programmable settings, it has either 40 or 50 amps by connecting or disconnecting 2 wires. it also have a setting of sharp opening or soft opening, again, disconnecting or connecting a wire. right now i've adjusted both sharp opening AND 50 amps. mind you, it's not continuous 50 amps, unlike the super bmc, 6th gears don't incur continuous peak 2400 wattage. i think it would be more clear once i'll post a analogger file (it would be interesting to see how justin's web site will present it) , my main target is have high initial acceleration.

i'm aware of ca's ability to limit the wattage, however when i tried it with the ecospeed controller, it was very hard for it it keep up, it kept statering. you would push the throttle, the motor would jump one second and be shutdown by the limitation, then up agian, then down again. i emailed justin a speed vs throttle voltage , and he said the controller doesn't have a linear acceleration (which made even working with the thun impossible)

i may try that again, because ever since it got back from mofset replacement it's behaving nicer then before.

 

[jdevo2004]

Try setting Throttle In: Control Mode to "Pass Thru" on your cycle analyst and see if that smooths out the throttle control.

 

[spinningmagnets]

If hard acceleration is your goal, I strongly recommend you switch immediately to a 6 or 7-speed external sprocket gear cluster with a derailleur. I love IGH's, they are wonderful, but...what you are describing has been tried in this forum many times before. It will break. It is not a case of "if"...it is only a matter of time. Once broken, you cannot sell it or use it on a second bike.

The sprockets in the rear wheels gear cluster should be larger diameter, no 11T sprocket for top speed. With an 11T, only 5 teeth are engaged with the chain. Adding two more teeth means one of them is engaged to the chain (on a 13T, 6 teeth are engaged to the chain), going from 5 teeth to 6 means a 20% improvement in holding power.

Of course, you are talking about using your middle gears for hard acceleration from a stop. Select the largest possible rear sprockets that will work for you in order to engage as many teeth as possible, and then choose the smallest chainring that will just barely reach your desired top speed. If you could easily and cheaply find parts and help, I would say to have fun and beat on it just as I would. When something breaks...make a change. But...please do not treat this like you can get parts and help cheaply and easily. Best of luck...