Endless Sphere

Here is an excellent video on removing the Prius hybrid battery. It doesn't just show the Prius battery removal, it is an excellent example of how to script a "how to" video. The actual battery removal is at 11:11 (after removing lots of car-body trim). Individual modules are exposed at 13:40. The n...

For every giant wind-generator that is built, a certain amount of gas-turbine capacity is added as a back up to ensure a steady stream of power, because the wind fluctuates too much. The gas turbines are jet engines that burn natural gas / methane to spin a generator. The US has so much methane, the...

I think the brass pulley is a good next step...

There is a clear benefit to helping the battery pack last many more months/ years if charged to only 4.1V per cell. There is a bigger benefit if charged to only 4.0V per cell. There is no ageing benefit to limiting the charge to anything below 4.0 V. Due to the sideways "S" shaped discharge curve, y...

My guess is that a 48V / 13S pack would work fine, and would make transient voltage spikes have lower peaks. I use a 52V pack, and if charged to the max 4.2V per cell, it should be 58.8V. I am told the capacitors are 63V max. I only charge to 4.1V per cell (*57V) and I haven't had a problem for abou...

It should absolutely be mounted so the cable points down, and then curves back up to be zip-tied to the frame. Doing this is called a "drip loop". Its impossible to avoid keeping humidity out of the inside of the motor, but the heat of the motor evaporates almost all of it on a regular basis. If the...

https://qz.com/1349245/the-next-major-innovation-in-batteries-might-be-here/ Though other startups have for years made various claims about lithium-metal batteries, none yet have gotten past the development or testing phases; Pellion has already been selling their battery to at least one buyer sinc...

Most buses are laser-cut from a sheet of pure nickel. For "some types" of battery pack builds, the individual cells are not supported enough, so the buses actually provide some mechanical support (which I do not recommend). You are right, the series connections carry the bulk of the current, and the...

An interesting fuse style on this NASA PDF: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/eric-darcy-nasa-lessons-learned-passive-thermal-runaway-propagation-resistant-designs-spacecraft-batteries.pdf A thin fuse, and a thicker fuse, so the entire strand would be running hot at high amps, and as soon a...

For a vehicle that would be exposed to the weather, I'd get a male-female Delphi "Weatherpack" connector set from a boat parts supply. You can get them with almost any pin-count.

I wouldn't be nervous to swap both male and female connectors to anything that was keyed (to prevent plugging in the wrong way)

https://www.electricbike.com/connectors ... tle-motor/

The XT150 's have less resistance, and work better.

Edit: XT90's work fine, it's just that the 150's are better, and would run a little cooler.

Mobipus is selling a huge volume of controllers to dealers globally. There is the rare customer that owns a soldering and knows how to use it, but...I'm guessing that's less than 1% of their customers. If given a choice, I would source one with no potting, but...my main interest in Mobipus is that.....

It's cheap, I'd say get it. If you ever get the motor "a little too hot" so that it demagnetised the magnets, you will wish you had spent a few bucks on Ferro Fluid when you had the chance. Cheap insurance...

Common motors can take a certain amount of abuse. The voltage spikes that can occur between the battery and controller can damage the sensitive electronics in the controller. It's good for all conductors from the battery to the motor be short and fat. The cost of fatter wire is small, and my time is...

Found the Alta battery pics on an Alta owners forum, and also the Alta section of an electric motorcycle forum. I'm on my phone right now, but both links are in the ES Alta thread in the electric moto section.

The cans that make up 18650 cells are nickel-plated steel. So using nickel-plated steel buses is equal to the conductivity of the cans. Nickel is more expensive than steel, and customers are very price conscious, so...customers vote for crappy products with their dollars. I vote for copper buses wit...

It is what it is, and yet... The "problem" with the dieselgate fiasco was that as an engine RPM rises and falls, there are transient situations where perfect combustion is missed, and there is either too much fuel or too much air. This is not the case with a constant-state RPM engine, such as what i...

First test is to check voltage on the battery leads (where it connects to the controller) with a digital multi-meter. Second test is to swap-in a separate "verified to work" throttle of the same type to verify it is not the throttle. Not because it is "likely" but because it is a fast and easy test....

Posting a pic, because I didn't think anyone would believe me...

Kansas, by the I-70 and state-77

I want to publicly thank ES member "casainho" for his countless hours of work in developing FREE open-source firmware for controllers from Kunteng/KT and also the TSDZ2/Tong Sheng drives. If you have used the open-source firmware, and appreciate the benefits, please consider the option to donate a f...

The bottoms and the sides of all the 18650's are used as a surface for cooling the cells. The pack is set up to provide high volts (355V-ish), and low amps from each cell, so they can get the max amp-hours of run time possible. As a result the pack runs fairly cool anyways. Apparently, keeping the c...

This reminds me of the DeHavilland Mosquito. It was built as a left and right side all the way down the assembly line. Then the two halves were joined after the last test and inspection.

Also used a lot of wood...

I love the folding wings!