Thats great Dingus, the difference on mine was noticeable as well, and even more so now with the controller back to pulling the correct amps.
I only run LiPos on mine, never ran LiFePo, and probably wont on this bike since they are not as "amp happy" as LiPos are and these LiFePos are twice or even triple the price than LiPos. To date I have never run this thing at anything above 50.2 volts, and let me be clear that I am really happy as it is now so I think I'll be holding on my 72V adventure... maybe the next bike I build will be using a much beefier DH/FR frame with a Cyclone 3000W kit @ 72V for some serious off-road fun... and I have a gut feeling that a shunt-modded 72V C3000 kit will probably get to 50 or 60 mph... some food for thought...
My commute today was a totally new experience; HOLY SHIT POWER BATMAN!! Its official, my controller is back! no more struggling uphills stuck at 35 amps, now it just goes up the hill like nothing is there; but in exchange to this newly found performance my Wh/mile went from low 40s, high 30s up to 55 Wh/mi, not super bad, but I should probably start considering new larger batteries for this guy and give the 12 Ah multistars for my wife's ebike.
Today I was cruising at 30mph in 4th gear without a single hitch, pretty much ran it on 4th gear for most of the commute, so I can safely say that with this amount of power and RPMs the motor has I probably don't need as many as gears for the motor as I needed before (I just dummy pedal along), and definitively I don't need an 11T anymore!! I also found out that Bike will pull a wheelie if I am not careful off the line... Another interesting thing is that the Cyclone controller won't engage the full power all at once when stomping on the gas, it has some sort of smooth ramp up when in mode #3, like a gradual rush of power build up so its fairly easy on the gears b/c I don't hear any teeth engagement clacking when shifting, not that it really matter anyways since I am running in 4th or 5th gear (like 24T) so the chain has little torque going through it. I will build a proper SPDT switch mod like you did this weekend so I can toggle between modes as well. But I think I'll commute on mode #2 like it was before, mode #3 seems great for doing off-road fun stuff, but for commuting I think it puts too much power, way more than I really need.
Salt water contamination: Good idea, in the end tho, I simply soldered all signal/control wires together so there won't be the slightest chance of salt corrosion anymore. I will probably build a battery box to replace the styrofoam box at some point, but so far the styrofoam box is working rather well. All my XT90 connectors have the cable ends hot glued for watertightness so water doesn't get inside my main power connectors but this is been a learning curve for sure
G.
DingusMcGee said:
gman1971,
we are all listening. I did add the pbc to the Trek 69-er and it does seem more aggressive on the accelerations. I fixed the resistor onto a 2.8mm 3 Way Electrical Connector for the Trek 69-er. see pic
View attachment 1
Interesting find on the cap voltage. Suppose you had a nominal 72v LiFePO4 battery then at charging voltage max the caps, if the controller was on, would see 3.65 x 24 = 87.6 v and with Li-Ion 4.2 x 20 = 84v. Either style of 72v batt pack at full charge would be pushing these controller components to overload conditions.
My thoughts: nominal 60 volts is okay for the controller but when I add 24v again I will have a different controller mounted and save this unit for < 72v.
Salt water contamination: I phased out the zip locks bags and built a 3/16 ply box around the out side of the triangle. I did RTV silicone the ebrake connections at the handles. I also applied poly-U foam to the upper 2 openings. I will trim the excess foam when it is soundly dry and paint it other than white primer. see pic
