LightningRods mid drive kit

[robocam]

The amount of energy you carry is the same no matter how you configure your battery pack. Capacity should really be measured in watt-hours, not amp-hours. A 96V 10Ah pack has the same amount of energy as a 48V 20Ah pack.

It's better to setup your battery for high voltage so that you can run lower currents, reducing the stress on your components.

It depends on who you talk to. Luke was telling me to stick to 48 volts and build for lots of capacity. I can see why. If you use a similar amount of cells to get 100v or 48 volts, then you have lots more cells for capacity (mah). Yes the motor will spin slower, but is easily fixed with gearing. I'm kind of torn...so 20S seems like a good balance between higher voltage and reduced mah. When I build a motorcycle conversion, then I'll go to well over 100v...on light stuff...20S seems pretty reasonable to me. I get 45-55mph on that which is plenty fast.

I am just going to say this for all future lr kit buyers.

Turn up the volts as high as you can go and turn down the amps as low as you can go.

90v 20a is really the bees knees for most riding. (not extreme mountains)....

 

[ElectricGod]

Obviously watts and amps are closely related. The problem I have with using watt/hours for capacity is it says nothing about how much current I am using. It's my opinion that most folks are looking at current draw under load to determine how long they can ride based on their Ah capacity rather than watt/hours. My meter shows me watt/hours, but I look almost exclusively at current draw and voltage. I personally use watt/hours more to tell me that X trip used Y watts and that I have Z watts left. But the things I really want to know is current and voltage...not watt/hours.

There is an inference you are making, that I'm not sure I agree with. Volts times amps = watts. It doesn't matter if you have more volts and less amps to get the same watts or the other way around. I totally agree. Depending on the motor and system design, sometimes high voltage is the wrong answer. Hi voltage gets you RPMs, but not more torque. For that you need amps. Admittedly if you are trying to maintain the the same wheel speed, then yes gearing down a higher RPM motor with still get you the torque you had before and at less amps, but that's only applicable to inrunners and outrunners. Hub motors are a different animal. There are no gearing options so if it takes you 20 amps to ride up a 6% hill at 48 volts, it will probably take 20 amps to do it at 100 volts.

System stress...yes anything running at high RPMs is seeing less torque loading than the same components running at lower RPMs under the same loads, but regardless of the system, eventually something is going to see the torque loading that is needed at the wheel. So at best...all you can do is shift around where the torque loading occurs. High motor RPMs simply shifts the loading to later in the system where it eventually gets geared down to wheel speeds.

The amount of energy you carry is the same no matter how you configure your battery pack. Capacity should really be measured in watt-hours, not amp-hours. A 96V 10Ah pack has the same amount of energy as a 48V 20Ah pack.

It's better to setup your battery for high voltage so that you can run lower currents, reducing the stress on your components.

It depends on who you talk to. Luke was telling me to stick to 48 volts and build for lots of capacity. I can see why. If you use a similar amount of cells to get 100v or 48 volts, then you have lots more cells for capacity (mah). Yes the motor will spin slower, but is easily fixed with gearing. I'm kind of torn...so 20S seems like a good balance between higher voltage and reduced mah. When I build a motorcycle conversion, then I'll go to well over 100v...on light stuff...20S seems pretty reasonable to me. I get 45-55mph on that which is plenty fast.

I am just going to say this for all future lr kit buyers.

Turn up the volts as high as you can go and turn down the amps as low as you can go.

90v 20a is really the bees knees for most riding. (not extreme mountains)....

 

[robocam]

...The problem I have with using watt/hours for capacity is it says nothing about how much current I am using.

What do you mean by how much current you are using? If you mean how many amp-hours you're using, that's not really a technically correct way to look at it because an amp-hour is not a unit of energy, and how much energy you use depends on the voltage of your battery, and that varies over the course of a cycle. One amp-hour when your battery is fully charged has much more energy than one amp-hour when you're battery is almost depleted.

So it doesn't make sense when people say they use a certain number of Ah per distance because not everyone uses the same battery voltage, and amp-hours of a fully charged battery contain more energy than amp-hours of a partially-charged battery.

It's my opinion that most folks are looking at current draw under load to determine how long they can ride based on their Ah capacity...

You can certainly use those numbers to estimate how far you can ride, but I thought we were talking about building packs to higher amp-hour ratings. Do you agree that a 48V 20Ah battery will give you the same range that a 96V 10Ah battery can? I thought you were saying that it's advantageous to build a lower voltage pack with more amp-hours. I'm trying to say that there is nothing a 48V 20Ah system can do that a 96V 10Ah system can't.

I personally use watt/hours more to tell me that X trip used Y watts and that I have Z watts left.

Here's something to keep in mind when using the energy unit of watt-hours to track battery capacity. The amount of energy a battery can supply depends on how hard it's worked. The number of usable watt-hours depends on how much current you draw, and since current draw is quite variable, so are the available watt-hours. Unless you bike the exact same route every day in the exact way, starting and stopping at the same rates and places, you can't really know how many watt-hours you have left based on how many watt-hours you've used. Do you really keep track of watt-hours? Have you done tests to estimate your battery's capacity in watt-hours?

There is an inference you are making, that I'm not sure I agree with.

What do you disagree with?

Volts times amps = watts. It doesn't matter if you have more volts and less amps to get the same watts or the other way around.

I agree with those statements, or are you saying you don't agree?

Depending on the motor and system design, sometimes high voltage is the wrong answer. Hi voltage gets you RPMs, but not more torque.

That is not correct. Higher voltage does give you more torque, and this holds especially true with a mid drive. Imagine running the motor at 24V 30A and 48V 30A. Are you saying that running the motor at twice the power doesn't give you more torque?

...if you are trying to maintain the the same wheel speed, then yes gearing down a higher RPM motor with still get you the torque you had before and at less amps, but that's only applicable to inrunners and outrunners. Hub motors are a different animal. There are no gearing options so if it takes you 20 amps to ride up a 6% hill at 48 volts, it will probably take 20 amps to do it at 100 volts.

Will a hub motor will go up a hill faster if it is using 2000 watts or 960 watts? Let's take it to the extreme. Let's say you have one at 10V 20A (200W) and one at 100V 20A (2000W). Will they will both output the same amount of torque?

System stress...yes anything running at high RPMs is seeing less torque loading than the same components running at lower RPMs under the same loads, but regardless of the system, eventually something is going to see the torque loading that is needed at the wheel. So at best...all you can do is shift around where the torque loading occurs. High motor RPMs simply shifts the loading to later in the system where it eventually gets geared down to wheel speeds.

Yes, you want to shift the stress to the last component. Why would you want all the components in your system to be stressed? Wouldn't it make sense to only stress one component, the rear hub? You can save your chains, belt, sprockets/chainrings, bearings, etc. from premature wear by running higher rpms where possible. Then you can use a strong hub that can handle the power.

The amount of energy you carry is the same no matter how you configure your battery pack. Capacity should really be measured in watt-hours, not amp-hours. A 96V 10Ah pack has the same amount of energy as a 48V 20Ah pack.

It's better to setup your battery for high voltage so that you can run lower currents, reducing the stress on your components.

It depends on who you talk to. Luke was telling me to stick to 48 volts and build for lots of capacity. I can see why. If you use a similar amount of cells to get 100v or 48 volts, then you have lots more cells for capacity (mah). Yes the motor will spin slower, but is easily fixed with gearing. I'm kind of torn...so 20S seems like a good balance between higher voltage and reduced mah. When I build a motorcycle conversion, then I'll go to well over 100v...on light stuff...20S seems pretty reasonable to me. I get 45-55mph on that which is plenty fast.

I am just going to say this for all future lr kit buyers.

Turn up the volts as high as you can go and turn down the amps as low as you can go.

90v 20a is really the bees knees for most riding. (not extreme mountains)....

 

[John Bozi]

Obviously increasing amps increases hill climbing, but increasing your volts does to a lesser extent too. If you have enough amps to start with as I do, then the volts just try to climb it faster the more that steep bit flattens out the more they just so gradually keep increasing your speed. Mostly though you barely notice increases in torque when you up your volts, you mostly notice that once you get to that flat section it keeps increasing in speed smoothly. That to me is priceless.
There are two different things I am trying to achieve. The main thing I am aiming to do really is to tame the brutality or severity of the way the motor kicks in that most people experience when they run the kit. And then rounding that out over the course of the ride instead of having a big difference between hot off the charge and nearing empty.

I may be proven wrong but from the experience of riding it doesn't matter if I am running high or low volts. It can be witnessed even when the rear wheel is off the ground. That "ramp up" is harsh the higher the amps regardless of volts in the tiny turn of the throttle.

Master the programming or find other means of how those amps increase from zero to max amps (40a my new controller limit) and you will have a smoother and happier drivetrain regardless of voltage.

That's the difference. The other stuff is of secondary importance.

I'm still conceptualizing this and trial running everything. I just share what I feel to improve riding this kit.

Another possibly inconsequential side to some is keeping the power down, but still making use of all it some how. Let me put this in real terms instead of hypothetical musings.

I have a big race up in the next couple of weeks and I will be using all my power to the finish line. I am literally needing to save power at the right times and carrying another 5 ah of weight is not going to suit my bike for post race day. I don't usually charge so high or discharge so low... but race day I'll push it for the sake of mid drives vs hub motors research.

92v x 40a is my starting capable power. 3680w
79v x 40a is my finishing capable power. 3160w Also pulling that 40a will start heating up the batteries once cells near 3.4v under-load. I'd like to finish on 3.6v resting.

If I run un limited you can see that I will be stressing everything more with an extra 520w at the start. (The more power you run the more you damage things). I'd rather spread that power out over the whole ride instead of in the first throttle twists. That extra 520w also makes throttle control on every corner I take a bit less predictable or controllable.

So I will limit myself on race day at about 3160w from start to finish.

At the start: 92v x 34a
At the end: 79v x 40a

Those 2 extra cells I added from 20s to 22s basically mean my new end of ride feels like my old start of ride. It also means my 90v max specified controller sees less amp draw at high voltages and yet I still get a much higher speed at the start.

I won't be able to do much about losing speed on flat sections as the course continues, but I can make sure I still can climb just as well by the end without slowing down too much.

sorry about the rant. Just getting excited about setting up the Lightning Rods Big Block the most suitable way for a serious test against 4 other hub motors. I know if I upped my speed with gearing, I'd have to up my power to 4-5kw and then it is highly like I would either win easily or not finish at all.......

 

[ElectricGod]

I'm going back to what I originally wrote since in some areas you took what I said out of the context I intended. Comments are inline in italics.

"Obviously watts and amps are closely related. The problem I have with using watt/hours for capacity is it says nothing about how much current I am using. It's my opinion that most folks are looking at current draw under load to determine how long they can ride based on their Ah capacity rather than watt/hours. My meter shows me watt/hours, but I look almost exclusively at current draw and voltage. I personally use watt/hours more to tell me that X trip used Y watts and that I have Z watts left. But the things I really want to know is current and voltage...not watt/hours."

It's my opinion that current use (Ah) tells me more about how far I'm going to get than does watts used (Wh). Admittedly instantaneous amps used is meaningless when determining Ah, but I know that 1000Wh will get me 1 mile or 5 miles depending on how I ride and how hard I hit the throttle. That's information gathered because I am familiar with my EV...just like you are familiar with yours. That gets me back to monitoring amps and amp/hours rather than watts and watt/hours. If I know I have 1000 watts to use, then really I am wanting to watch voltage and amps so that I use that 1000 watts to get me to my destination. Monitoring watt/hours wont tell me that, but monitoring my instantaneous voltage and current will tell me how much I am currently using and how much I can push harder or need to back off the throttle. Call it a more intuitive approach, but for me it works better than monitoring my watt/hour useage. Every ones battery pack gets more saggy towards the end of its charge. you know how yours responds and I know how mine responds. IMHO...that's more a "feel" or intuitive thing than hard numbers.

"There is an inference you are making, that I'm not sure I agree with. Volts times amps = watts. It doesn't matter if you have more volts and less amps to get the same watts or the other way around. I totally agree. Depending on the motor and system design, sometimes high voltage is the wrong answer. Hi voltage gets you RPMs, but not more torque. For that you need amps. Admittedly if you are trying to maintain the the same wheel speed, then yes gearing down a higher RPM motor with still get you the torque you had before and at less amps, but that's only applicable to inrunners and outrunners. Hub motors are a different animal. There are no gearing options so if it takes you 20 amps to ride up a 6% hill at 48 volts, it will probably take 20 amps to do it at 100 volts."

This paragraph got particularly chopped up in a way that lost meaning in the process. First off, the inference isn't how to calculate watts...that's just facts. The inference is that more voltage is always better for the drive train...whatever that is and that's what I don't agree with. Any BLDC will run faster with more voltage. Only in an inrunner or outrunner can you use gearing to take advantage to turn more RPMs into more torque. In a hub motor, there's no gearing to mess with so the increased voltage will get you more RPMs, but probably current usage will remain pretty close to the same for the same kinds of load conditions.

System stress...yes anything running at high RPMs is seeing less torque loading than the same components running at lower RPMs under the same loads, but regardless of the system, eventually something is going to see the torque loading that is needed at the wheel. So at best...all you can do is shift around where the torque loading occurs. High motor RPMs simply shifts the loading to later in the system where it eventually gets geared down to wheel speeds.

I agree with your comments on this paragraph. I wasn't trying to refute anything here...just pointing out things that higher RPMs can help provide and the realities that we all eventually have to face. I do the same thing as you suggested. I load my back wheel heavily and try to keep everything else spinning as fast as possible.

 

[robocam]

I'm going back to what I originally wrote since in some areas you took what I said out of the context I intended. Comments are inline in italics.

Sorry about that. I didn't mean to mess it up.

It's my opinion that current use (Ah) tells me more about how far I'm going to get than does watts used (Wh). Admittedly instantaneous amps used is meaningless when determining Ah, but I know that 1000Wh will get me 1 mile or 5 miles depending on how I ride and how hard I hit the throttle. That's information gathered because I am familiar with my EV...just like you are familiar with yours. That gets me back to monitoring amps and amp/hours rather than watts and watt/hours. If I know I have 1000 watts to use, then really I am wanting to watch voltage and amps so that I use that 1000 watts to get me to my destination. Monitoring watt/hours wont tell me that, but monitoring my instantaneous voltage and current will tell me how much I am currently using and how much I can push harder or need to back off the throttle. Call it a more intuitive approach, but for me it works better than monitoring my watt/hour useage. Every ones battery pack gets more saggy towards the end of its charge. you know how yours responds and I know how mine responds. IMHO...that's more a "feel" or intuitive thing than hard numbers.

Thanks for the clarification. That makes sense.

"There is an inference you are making, that I'm not sure I agree with. Volts times amps = watts. It doesn't matter if you have more volts and less amps to get the same watts or the other way around. I totally agree. Depending on the motor and system design, sometimes high voltage is the wrong answer. Hi voltage gets you RPMs, but not more torque. For that you need amps. Admittedly if you are trying to maintain the the same wheel speed, then yes gearing down a higher RPM motor with still get you the torque you had before and at less amps, but that's only applicable to inrunners and outrunners. Hub motors are a different animal. There are no gearing options so if it takes you 20 amps to ride up a 6% hill at 48 volts, it will probably take 20 amps to do it at 100 volts."

This paragraph got particularly chopped up in a way that lost meaning in the process. First off, the inference isn't how to calculate watts...that's just facts. The inference is that more voltage is always better for the drive train...whatever that is and that's what I don't agree with. Any BLDC will run faster with more voltage. Only in an inrunner or outrunner can you use gearing to take advantage to turn more RPMs into more torque. In a hub motor, there's no gearing to mess with so the increased voltage will get you more RPMs, but probably current usage will remain pretty close to the same for the same kinds of load conditions.

I would say that a higher voltage (up to a certain point) is usually better because it expands your available options. If you want to go faster or accelerate harder, you can. If you want to reduce the wear on most of your bike's components, you can. And yes, I agree that reducing wear really only applies to a system that allows you to change the gearing, but you could also change the wheel size on a hub motor bike.

But a hub motor still behaves the same as the motor in a mid drive right? The only difference is the fixed gearing. It would be no different than a mid drive with a single gear ratio. So because of that, increasing the voltage sent to the coils of any motor should result in a higher torque output right? A hub motor sent 10V at 20A is not going to produce as much torque as a hub motor sent 100V at 20A. There's a power difference of 10 times right? Shouldn't the 200W setup be significantly slower in acceleration than the 2000W setup? And of course we're talking about the behavior of the hub motor below its maximum power handling. I'm sure there are nonlinearities when it's operating beyond its capabilities.

But this whole thing started as a discussion about configuring a battery. I thought you were saying there was an advantage to having a 48V 20Ah battery over a 96V 10Ah battery. If your controller can handle the voltage and has the capability of being programmed (including making your bike behave as if it had a 48V battery), is there a reason to choose the 48V 20Ah over a 96V 10aH?

 

[izeman]

@electricgod: if this is a technical discussion, could we please agree to use correct terms? it's "Wh" and not watts/hour. watts per hour, or amps per hour is just wrong and misleading.

 

[John Bozi]

I am the Nightrider!
I'm a fuel-injected suicide machine.
I am a rocker! I am a roller!
I am an out-of-controller!
I am the Nightrider, baby...

I love information and am grateful to people who share it honestly with no other agendas hidden ($ or whatever). Those people who share information and work it out are the ones that make the ES great. Those that play games with information and sharing it are the dark ones I couldn't care less if they disappeared off the face of the Earth. Give and work out your info guys, especially if you have it. We better ourselves.

Here is my test ride today of the race track to be run in about a week. I WATT limited to 3.2kw and even though I finished with a bit more on the safe side, I wouldn't be able to be pulling much more than this out of the battery at 20% left. I could see under load I was already at 80v. Race day, I will up to about half way of max and min because I have now tested my distances and should have a tad more.... and since I cant win on speed on the open I might increase my chances on the climbs.

I will run at 3.5kw max which will only help me a bit more where I was bogging in the first half of the ride when climbing the mountain, toward the end I was already drawing at 80 x 40.

[youtube]LYo_VM5mypM[/youtube]

please hit the like button if you appreciate me documenting the kit in anyway. It's the only way I gauge if I should bother recording more about this kit.

 

[robocam]

I wonder if some might be thinking about this the wrong way. I say this because it appears that some make seem like you can vary the current without varying the voltage the motor sees. When a motor is given a certain voltage, it can only draw one current for any given load. In other words, a motor can't draw more or less current at a given voltage for the same load. If it's given X volts, it will always draw Y amps under that same load. It's the controller that's limiting the current, and it does this by lowering the voltage sent to the motor (in most cases through PWM). So even if you have a 96V battery and you gun it full throttle, if your controller is limiting the current, the motor is not seeing 96V.

Restated, basically the controller is connecting and disconnecting the battery to the motor at varying duty cycles to achieve a target current. If the controller is programmed to limit the current to 40 amps, it will pulse the battery at a duty cycle that satisfies this rule.

So if you remove the current limiter from the controller, varying the voltage has the same effect as varying the current because the controller varies the current by varying the voltage.

Obviously increasing amps increases hill climbing, but increasing your volts does to a lesser extent too. If you have enough amps to start with as I do, then the volts just try to climb it faster the more that steep bit flattens out the more they just so gradually keep increasing your speed. Mostly though you barely notice increases in torque when you up your volts...

 

[ElectricGod]

I wonder if some might be thinking about this the wrong way. I say this because it appears that some make seem like you can vary the current without varying the voltage the motor sees. When a motor is given a certain voltage, it can only draw one current for any given load. In other words, a motor can't draw more or less current at a given voltage for the same load. If it's given X volts, it will always draw Y amps under that same load. It's the controller that's limiting the current, and it does this by lowering the voltage sent to the motor (in most cases through PWM). So even if you have a 96V battery and you gun it full throttle, if your controller is limiting the current, the motor is not seeing 96V.

Restated, basically the controller is connecting and disconnecting the battery to the motor at varying duty cycles to achieve a target current. If the controller is programmed to limit the current to 40 amps, it will pulse the battery at a duty cycle that satisfies this rule.

So if you remove the current limiter from the controller, varying the voltage has the same effect as varying the current because the controller varies the current by varying the voltage.

Obviously increasing amps increases hill climbing, but increasing your volts does to a lesser extent too. If you have enough amps to start with as I do, then the volts just try to climb it faster the more that steep bit flattens out the more they just so gradually keep increasing your speed. Mostly though you barely notice increases in torque when you up your volts...

There's another possibility here that you may not have considered. I'm running a small moped sized kick scooter with a big block. It will pop wheelies and if you are not paying attention will yank itself right out from underneath you if you aren't holding on. As a result, I set the phase current to much less than maximum current. My Kelly controller can deliver 120 amps continuous or 220 amps for 10 seconds. With my controller set to no limits, then the big block is so strong that it compromises the fun factor of the scooter. The scooter just accelerates hard all the time and is more like a bucking bronco. As a result I have phase current limited to 40% of maximum. In this scenario, the controller isn't just switch that turns on full current to the motor.

 

[robocam]

Oh I definitely agree that too much power unlimited can ruin the fun. But I'm not sure I understand what you mean in the first sentence. I'm not saying we should run without limiters if that's what you mean.

What programmable controllers would you recommend? I'm looking into other options for my mid drive. How are the Lyen-modified controllers?

There's another possibility here that you may not have considered. I'm running a small moped sized kick scooter with a big block. It will pop wheelies and if you are not paying attention will yank itself right out from underneath you if you aren't holding on. As a result, I set the phase current to much less than maximum current. My Kelly controller can deliver 120 amps continuous or 220 amps for 10 seconds. With my controller set to no limits, then the big block is so strong that it compromises the fun factor of the scooter. The scooter just accelerates hard all the time and is more like a bucking bronco. As a result I have phase current limited to 40% of maximum. In this scenario, the controller isn't just switch that turns on full current to the motor.

 

[ElectricGod]

Oh I definitely agree that too much power unlimited can ruin the fun. But I'm not sure I understand what you mean in the first sentence. I'm not saying we should run without limiters if that's what you mean.

What programmable controllers would you recommend? I'm looking into other options for my mid drive. How are the Lyen-modified controllers?

There's another possibility here that you may not have considered. I'm running a small moped sized kick scooter with a big block. It will pop wheelies and if you are not paying attention will yank itself right out from underneath you if you aren't holding on. As a result, I set the phase current to much less than maximum current. My Kelly controller can deliver 120 amps continuous or 220 amps for 10 seconds. With my controller set to no limits, then the big block is so strong that it compromises the fun factor of the scooter. The scooter just accelerates hard all the time and is more like a bucking bronco. As a result I have phase current limited to 40% of maximum. In this scenario, the controller isn't just switch that turns on full current to the motor.

The possibility I was referring to is in a controller that limits phase current. In controllers with this ability, the mosfets are not operating as straight up switches. They are partly conducting and are providing an adjustable voltage drop (resistance) across them that as a result limits current. In this scenario, the mosfets are more like switching power resistors.

I've never tried a Lyen, but the modified ones work with the CA which is a fantastic tool. I generally like Kelly controllers. They used to have a less than wonderful reputation, but my experience has been that they work and work well and don't break. Their smaller controllers don't support phase weakening that I have seen. This would be a nice addition to their already respectable feature set. They use all Toshiba mosfets in their controllers. I have a sinusoidal and trapazoidal controller from them. The features are a little different between the controllers, but work well. I would like to try a higher end controller...just to see what it does that I'm not currently getting for $100 less. The 2 Kelly controllers I have both limit battery and phase current.

 

[bionicdan]

or bug qulbix for a longer swing arm

I was thinking about seeing if a revolt rv120 short might fit where that silver sprocket it. Is there any chance anyone could measure the max diameter circle in that area before I buy anything. Tia Dan

 

[bionicdan]

or bug qulbix for a longer swing arm

I was thinking about seeing if a revolt rv120 short might fit where that silver sprocket is inside the frame. Is there any chance anyone could measure the max diameter circle in that area before I buy anything. Tia Dan

 

[Samer]

LightningRods could you please post some photos of you kits ?
small and big block

cheers

 

[eTrailster]

[/quote]

LightningRods could you please post some photos of you kits ?
small and big block

cheers

I think Mike has been taking a break from the forum, but I've spoken to him in email.
If you search this thread, you will find many photos and videos.
Maybe Mike's youtube channel will help. (the assembly videos)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaQQ7xFoeBYWSmM_XaD0Sg

Any questions can be answered adequately by a number of members here.

 

[spinningmagnets]

You can review the links to the kits in the first and second posts, to see pics (page one)

 

[John Bozi]

Just took this video which would have made a photo if I had just waited 6 seconds.
you can press pause any time for a still....
[youtube]WS0CkObx9Rw[/youtube]

 

[John Bozi]

Unfortunately there we lost 3 riders / half the expected turn out for the race.

Main hub motor rival made two wrong turns and had a couple of power disconnects which in my opinion would have lost him the race had we not waited around for each other.

The Mxus vented and statoraded overheated to 120 degrees a couple of times so had no chance either.

It was a technical win for the Lightning Rods Big Block, slower on the straights but kept chugging through everything. Highest temperatures were under 60 degrees celcius.

I also climbed up "Rob's knob" 3 times just for fun and because I could. I might have to rename it... You can see it at the end of the video where the 60kg raptor with a road tyre had no chance no matter the 10kw on tap...

There will have to be a rerace with more contestants before I pop the Champagne and wait till they all know the course as I do.

Still it was a fun outing.

Thanks Mike.

And up your volts boys!

[youtube]TR-smnVQqF8[/youtube]

Hit that like button for more love

 

[notger]

Hi,

since awhile i'm getting mor and more greedy about power.
So right now i push the small-block (actually the original gng) to 2000 Watts
Works pretty nice, the only downside is the hight temperature after a while.
On my adaptto controller i have really good overview about temperature rise and fall.

So today i was riding a pretty rough uphill-trail for several minutes with 2kw.
But temperature kept under 100°C cause it was cold enough outside.

So,... sure it would be on the time to change to the next bigger size of motor,
but cause i see that the smallblock handles 2kw well in cold temperature i rather go with more cooling, than more mass.

so i added a graphic with a rough idea of my plan, and to be honest i did not open my gngn for a while, so i'm not totally sure how much space there would be inside for a fan. but like i said, just a rough idea.

Now my question to you, do you think it's worth it (cooling-effect-wise) ?
and does anyone know of any kind of mesh or material wich would let air and heat trough oneside but shed water and humidity on the other ? (for covering the 6 airhole on the motor cover)

greets

notger

 

[notger]

Ok, just found a photot from my opened GNG.
There is definitely not so much space like in my draft, but sill some.

could someone who hase an open Motor give me the diameter of the rotor and the outer diameter
of the bearing seat on the motor cover.

Another question wich came up for me:
if i would leave the temp-sensor on the windings where they usually are, it might not show me the "real"
temperature, cause of the airflow the fan would make? or what do you think.

did anyone actually ever tried to put some kty41..2..3..4 temp sensors in parallel, it should always tell me the highest temp of both then, right?

 

[John Bozi]

Notget,

why do you fear a bit of extra weight of the big block?

You'd be trading that for a lot more complexity, something mid drives are already suffering from...
The dust build up might actually make things worse.
If the dust gets wet then you have mud.
The sound would increase too.
Putting mesh over open holes is far from having open holes too. It really limits air flow.

Could you instead maybe make sure there is no air gaps and increase your fin sizes some how? or the more logical change your gears and slow down a bit.

 

[StinkyGoalieGuy]

Hey John Bozi,

Can you post some detail photos of how your battery is mounted to your frame? It looks really slick and clean.

 

[John Bozi]

Wouldn't say sick and clean, but heres a couple

There are a few videos of building the box and views you can find in the signature link.

cheers.

 

[notger]

why do you fear a bit of extra weight of the big block?

it's not just the weight, it's the width of the whole kit that i do not like

The dust build up might actually make things worse.
If the dust gets wet then you have mud.

i actually thought that the airflow that gets constanltly created out of the hole will already keep alot of stuff from gettin in.
and to be sure i want to but some mesh over the hole, but yes i hear and understand the argument of limiting airflow.
thats why i wantes to ask if someone knows some mystical magical mesh.

Could you instead maybe make sure there is no air gaps and increase your fin sizes some how? or the more logical change your gears and slow down a bit.

Could you tell me more about :
"makin sure ther are no air gaps" how, why and where
"increasing my fin sizes" wich fins ? in the standard GNG LR motor ther are no fins ?

thanks

Notger