Leaf / leafmotor / leafbike high efficiency 1500w motor

Bullfrog said:

Toecutter...why/how did you decide to go with a Leaf motor? Without knowing the background on your decision, I'd probably choose a motor with a 45-50mm wide stator and probably a 205mm diameter...something like the QS205 or something similar if I was going to run the power levels you mentioned. Going with the smaller diameter wheel/tire should help you with acceleration and over heating.

Just asking so I can learn...I plan to build a bike with a Direct Drive Hub motor at some point.

Thanks

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I wanted to retain pedal-only functionality in my electric velomobile, even with a dead battery that is unable to cancel the cogging torque. The Leafbike has the lowest cogging torque losses of any available DD hub motor that can peak at 5+ kW that can also fit a gear cluster. And its weight isn't too terrible either. Keep in kind I'm trying to keep my vehicle under 100 lbs, in effort to retain that pedal-only functionality.

Right now, I can turn the motor off and hold 21-23 mph on flat ground just pedaling it and sprint to 35 mph. And I have the gearing for and it is light enough to climb a 20% gradient at walking speed using a reasonable pedal cadence with the drive system shut off.

Turn the drive system on, and in my current configuration I can keep up with traffic and reach 45 mph with my pedaling being able to add thrust at any operating point, helping to greatly extend my range. I get about 150-200 miles range @ 30-35 mph on a 1.5 kWh battery pack with about 150W of pedaling(I added the second Greenway 48V 15.6AH pack in parallel and never updated my topic with that info). I want more performance and top speed, which is why I'm getting a 3T motor and an ASI BAC4000 controller, and will e building up a 72V battery pack, probably from Panasonic 2170s. And of course, a new more aerodynamic body shell based on the Milan SL velomobile I bought to reverse engineer.

An ideal drive system for me would be a high-powered switched reluctance setup using a motor of about 7-10 lbs that had a freehub body for a 9-speed bicycle cassette that could fit into 135mm dropouts. It would have zero cogging torque losses and would be efficient enough to make far more peak power than I could get traction for while shedding some weight. But no such thing is on the market yet.

markz said:

It sucks not having an ebike you ride at a moments notice when you dont have a vehicle.

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I bought the Milan velomobile not just to reverse engineer, but to serve as a backup, but idiot drivers keep smashing into it. This is 2nd time I had to take it out of commission to make repairs because some bitch in a white CUV deliberately tailgaited me to where I couldn't slow down while crossing some trolley tracks, then very likely rammed me which caused me to flip me at 25 mph, then drove off. I think she rammed me because there is damage on the tail section at bumper height, but at first I thought I crossed the trolley tracks at too shallow of an angle, but the wheels and bottom are undamaged. The 1st time I was hit I was broadsided then the bastard sped off when I asked about his insurance. This thing was not cheap!

The Milan is also unmotorized, so I need to make sure I won't have to make a long distance field visit to a job site more than 10 miles away for the week or so that I work on the KMX. Over short distances, I am slightly faster regarding rolling average in the unmotorized Milan, but not over longer distances(sometimes I have to go 70-80 miles out from home), and definitely not up hills, and have to choose my ride routes carefully to avoid steep climbs on roads with 40 mph traffic. Lots of hills where I live.

With a motor, hills are no problem. I might be able to transfer the 4T 1500W motor I have and the Phaserunner to the Milan when it is repaired and after my 3T wind and ASI controller are installed in the KMX which doing so will require a new battery pack and addition of the rear suspension to the KMX.

Sorry to hear about your wreck and the damage to the Milan. Sounds like the Schell protected you. No broken bones?
Don't understand why an ASI 4000, figured a 2000 would be big enough for a leafmotor.

The Toecutter said:

Bullfrog said:

Toecutter...why/how did you decide to go with a Leaf motor? Without knowing the background on your decision, I'd probably choose a motor with a 45-50mm wide stator and probably a 205mm diameter...something like the QS205 or something similar if I was going to run the power levels you mentioned. Going with the smaller diameter wheel/tire should help you with acceleration and over heating.

Just asking so I can learn...I plan to build a bike with a Direct Drive Hub motor at some point.

Thanks

Click to expand...

I wanted to retain pedal-only functionality in my electric velomobile, even with a dead battery that is unable to cancel the cogging torque. The Leafbike has the lowest cogging torque losses of any available DD hub motor that can peak at 5+ kW that can also fit a gear cluster. And its weight isn't too terrible either. Keep in kind I'm trying to keep my vehicle under 100 lbs, in effort to retain that pedal-only functionality.

Right now, I can turn the motor off and hold 21-23 mph on flat ground just pedaling it and sprint to 35 mph. And I have the gearing for and it is light enough to climb a 20% gradient at walking speed using a reasonable pedal cadence with the drive system shut off.

Turn the drive system on, and in my current configuration I can keep up with traffic and reach 45 mph with my pedaling being able to add thrust at any operating point, helping to greatly extend my range. I get about 150-200 miles range @ 30-35 mph on a 1.5 kWh battery pack with about 150W of pedaling(I added the second Greenway 48V 15.6AH pack in parallel and never updated my topic with that info). I want more performance and top speed, which is why I'm getting a 3T motor and an ASI BAC4000 controller, and will e building up a 72V battery pack, probably from Panasonic 2170s. And of course, a new more aerodynamic body shell based on the Milan SL velomobile I bought to reverse engineer.

An ideal drive system for me would be a high-powered switched reluctance setup using a motor of about 7-10 lbs that had a freehub body for a 9-speed bicycle cassette that could fit into 135mm dropouts. It would have zero cogging torque losses and would be efficient enough to make far more peak power than I could get traction for while shedding some weight. But no such thing is on the market yet.

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Thanks...now I understand :wink: .

ZeroEm said:

Sorry to hear about your wreck and the damage to the Milan. Sounds like the Schell protected you. No broken bones?

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Not even scratches, abrasions, or bruises.

Don't understand why an ASI 4000, figured a 2000 would be big enough for a leafmotor.

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The vendor I was seeking to purchase a 2000 from didn't have them in stock, but has the 4000. I decided to order one ahead of the expected apex of the shipping and electronics shortage flustercuck.

How much money did you get for those accidents?

Think he needs a GOPro and get them recorded. Assault with a deadly weapon.

markz said:

How much money did you get for those accidents?

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Nothing. They were both hit and runs. Each time I've paid my own money to fix the Milan.

Oh dude, if you had a camera, thats extra money in your pocket, plus a criminal charge for the runners.
But theres a caveat to that because on the news and criminal charges it comes down to if the driver would have reasonably known they hit you.

The Toecutter said:

markz said:

How much money did you get for those accidents?

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Nothing. They were both hit and runs. Each time I've paid my own money to fix the Milan.

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In the first instance, I got the license plate. The police didn't even care. The person who hit me the first time very likely had no insurance, and therefore no money anyhow. Fortunately it cost me less than $100 and about 4 hours of work to fix everything, but the Milan was out of commission for 2 weeks as I waited for parts.

The 2nd one was driving a newish CUV and was deliberately tail-gaiting me at less than a foot from the rear. A white woman in her 30s was honking and screaming out the window at me. I was doing the speed limit. Just before I was flipped over, I heard the tires of the vehicle behind me screeching from application of the brakes as I was attempting to slow down to cross some trolley tracks. When I was flipping over, I heard the CUV accelerate full throttle, and it continued accelerating for the 5-10 seconds or so that the Milan was skidding on its side against the pavement and rotating around. There were witnesses who saw it. I could not initially tell if I flipped from the rear wheel getting caught in the trolley tracks(I tried to come in at an angle to prevent it, but wasn't able to slow down enough to get as large of an angle as I'd have liked), but after inspecting the damage, it appears that she hit the top of the tail.

By the time I got out of the flipped over Milan, she was long gone. Given the duration she was accelerating at wide open throttle, she may have gotten up to more than 70 mph, in a 25 mph zone.

I recently got it rideable again, but the repairs to get it back to where it was stock are going to cost hundreds of dollars and tens more hours of labor. There's lots of marred gel coat, some carbon fiber cracks, and I need to replace the heel bump covers that got torn off.

Geez man, that really sucks! I had one guy yell at me claiming I was doing 35 in a 25 zone. I asked him why he passed me then? On a double yellow blind hill crest no less of course.

A front/rear dash cam that is easier to manage than a go-pro is the best I can think of. Maybe with video evidence the pigs would care more.

Does anyone have any hard data on the continuous phase current, 10 minute phase current, and 1 minute phase current for the various windings of the 1000W and 1500W Leafbike motor without overheating any of its components, or alternatively, continuous torque, 10 minute torque, and 1 minute torque? On Page 44 of this topic, there was some data posted for the MXUS 3K:

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66489&start=1075#p1188438

I'm hoping to find similar info for the Leafbike variants.

An ASI BAC4000 controller is on the way, and I want to put as much phase current as I can to a 3T wind 1500W motor that will soon be arriving, without damaging or destroying it. I picked the 1500W because it had the thicker 3mm phase wires, which a customer service representative at Leafbike said would not fit through the axle of the 1000W version. Otherwise I'd have bought the 1000W version as it is wound significantly faster than the 1500W version. I may still buy one in the future to modify.

I initially plan to run a 72V pack with 4kW peak to the motor, and I'm going to go up from there to perhaps as much as 10 kW peak, after adding ferrofluid, fans, and cooling fins. I will have a 10K NTC thermistor to supply a signal to a temperature-sensing feature of the CA3 computer.

I want to be able to get a close estimate of what kind of acceleration I can expect at the absolute limit of this motor's capabilities, as well as possible max cruising speeds. This is going to be a high speed build with a 70+ mph top speed. If a decent light weight 100Vnom+ FOC controller comes out, I may eventually make it capable of triple digits.

If I assume 150A max phase current and 7 kW peak power, it is theoretically possible to do 0-30 mph in 4 seconds and 0-60 mph in 10 seconds. But significantly faster may be possible if the motor can handle the high phase currents the BAC4000 is capable of, even if only for 10 seconds at a time. If the max phase current of 430A doesn't destroy or damage the motor, 0-30 mph in under 2.5 seconds and 0-60 mph in under 7 seconds may be possible if I can get enough traction. I'm trying to get a good idea of what I'm looking at and to what extent it would be prudent to limit the motor. Obviously, the faster the better, but there will be a balancing act between max phase current and the temperature sensing kicking in and throttling back my acceleration. But the reason I don't go with a MXUS or larger motor is I want to retain pedaling functionality with a dead battery and need a wide gearing range offered by freewheel or cassette compatibility and require the Leafbike's low cogging losses.

Mark my words. A death machine will be born.

Remember the Leaf 35H 5T (10.49kv) is in the motor simulator, click Show All at the end of the pull down list.
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html
The kv is all you get for specifics from the motor simulator.

Unfortunately the Leaf 35H 5T isnt in the Trip Simulator, I've always wondered why that was, just an oversight.

It doesn't want to model the "Overheat In" row. Grin hasn't done thermal testing on it, it seems. Nor was I able to locate the motor's data in their possession to try to do calculations on my own by coming up with an assumed polynomial for its capability to shed heat versus rpm.

I already used this simulator to get torque vs rpm data for various phase current and battery pack settings. My question is how much phase current can I apply to it without damaging or destroying it? THAT is what is ultimately going to determine its maximum parameters, and thus maximum performance. There's no use applying the full 430A of phase current if it will cause the CA3 to throttle the current back before I get to 30 mph. I want to apply as much current as possible up to top speed without either going into a thermal rollback or overheating. Finding this sweet spot in turn can allow me to estimate the expected 0-60 mph time with accuracy. I'd absolutely LOVE to do 0-60 mph in under 7 seconds, as that would make it comparable to a decently quick car, but is it actually feasible? Or am I looking at 8 or 9 seconds instead? Whatever it happens to be, I want to make my machine the fastest it can be in this metric. Do keep in mind the police Dodge Chargers do 0-60 in ~6.5 seconds and the police Ford Explorer hybrids do it in 5.9 seconds, although it takes both of them about 2.5 seconds to do 0-30 mph.

I was pumping 8Kw and 250 phase amps through my heavily modified leaf.
Stock I wouldn't go over 6KW and 150A though.

Cheers

Thank you. I'll probably start with 4kW/150A until I add all the cooling mods. Then 8 kW/250A. I'll run a simulation on both of those later tonight and see what numbers it estimates for my performance. It will be quite car-like in the larger of the two configurations.

LFP wired up a leafmotor and tested it. I will need to find that thread again. He found the leafmotor can handle 2000w and maintain a stable temperature. This is without cooling aids and in a shop with moderate temperatures. No one has that I know has monitored just the phase amps just the draw on the battery. The more amps you dump into it then the shorter the time will be.

Adding FF or hub heat sinks and in cooler weather will increase this. It is still a 1500w motor. Just wondering 2000w is quite fast in a Velomobile and then pedaling along with it what 70 mph. I'm sure once you get it set up start low with the phase amps and work your way up to see what it can handle and share with us.

ZeroEm said:

LFP wired up a leafmotor and tested it. I will need to find that thread again. He found the leafmotor can handle 2000w and maintain a stable temperature. This is without cooling aids and in a shop with moderate temperatures. No one has that I know has monitored just the phase amps just the draw on the battery. The more amps you dump into it then the shorter the time will be.

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Nice to know a much more skilled tester reproduced my findings

Still salty taht leafbike knows how to make a better motor, but won't!!

Theres a chance you might use the full 2000W on accelwration, but once you are up to cruising speed, you will inly draw the watts needed to maintain the throttle setting.

A stable cruise speed is often less than half the max watts if acceleration. Of course there are many factors. If you load up with heavy cargo or present high wind resistance...it will draw more watts.

Because of this, many riders accelerate on a Leafbike hub with 52V x 50A = 2600W with no overheating problems. Then...adding Ferro-Fluid boost acceleration and cruise watts another notch above this...

With the next body shell, I'm expecting 200-250W needed to cruise at 30 mph and maybe 2 kW needed to cruise at the expected top speed of 71 mph. There's a lot I'm going to need to do to make this thing mechanically safe at such a speed, but it is not impossible.

The 8kW will be for acceleration. If the motor were capable of more, then I'd aim for that. I'd REALLY like 20 kW, but that would kill this motor. Eventually, I plan to go to a much higher voltage system to make triple digit speeds possible. The motors capable of handling 20 kW are too lossy to pedal while the drive system is disabled.

I'm building a car replacement after all, but with pedal-only functionality still present. Aero is of utmost importance to pulling this off. Acceleration will make it a desirable vehicle to have. I don't want it to be perceived as a "penalty vehicle", but something unique and cool that can still hold its own with much more powerful vehicles. And I'm going to make it look like it belongs in a Mad Max movie, because it would be very functional as a vehicle if such a fuel-scarce setting were to transpire in real life. I'd love to ride it to the next "Wasteland Weekend" and walk around wearing my cloak and plague doctor mask.

An online acquaintance at another forum photoshopped my vehicle and came up with the following image based upon a description I made of my proposal:



Tonight I'll get a chance to run some acceleration simulations based upon what Cowardly Duck has shared. I'll post the results.

Ah...that makes sense now.

Would that require DMV registration?

Can't imagine insurance, best save the decorations for after that's been finalised

john61ct said:

Would that require DMV registration?

Can't imagine insurance, best save the decorations for after that's been finalised

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I don't concern myself with such things. The vehicle depicted above reflects my sensibilities and values. I have no drivers license or id card. It isn't explicitly illegal in my state, that being said. I've even discussed the matter with an attorney, and he recommended not to do anything stupid because the purely technical non-illegality of the vehicle wouldn't be enough to keep the cops away. That legal status could change if ebikes become defined in the legal code, but that won't change my usage of the vehicle. I tend to cruise around 30-35 mph and that won't change as long as I'm using a KMX for a base platform.

With that said, below are some simulation results, with the assumptions outlined.

Laden mass: 120 kg
CdA: 0.06 m^2 (new body shell planned. The current one is at least 3x this value)
Crr: 0.008
Pedal input: 500W (full effort)
Drive wheel: 20" diameter
72Vnom battery pack

4kW limit with 150A phase current, I get the following:

0-30 mph 4.4 secs
0-60 mph 15.7 secs
1/8 mile 11.9 secs @ 52.3 mph
¼ mile 19.5 secs @ 65.3 mph
Top speed 71 mph

8 kW limit with 250A phase current:

0-30 mph 2.8 secs
0-60 mph 9.9 secs
1/8 mile 10.1 secs @ 60.3 mph
¼ mile 17.0 secs @ 67.8 mph
Top speed 71 mph

10 kW limit with 250A phase current:

0-30 mph 2.6 secs
0-60 mph 9.2 secs
1/8 mile 9.8 secs @ 61.1 mph
¼ mile 16.7 secs @ 68.0 mph
Top speed 71 mph

As I get stronger, the bike will get faster. If I were to do a bunch of squats and train like a pro athlete to get to the point where I could squat 300 lbs at my 140 lb weight and make about 1200W at the pedal crank for ~15 seconds at a time, I could get significantly faster, especially considering the acceleration from the motor starts to reduce dramatically after about 45 mph.

8 kW limit with 250A phase limit and 1200W pedaling:

0-30 mph 2.5 secs
0-60 mph 8.7 secs
1/8 mile 9.7 secs @ 62.1 mph
¼ mile 16.4 secs @ 69.8 mph
Top speed 71 mph

10 kW limit with 250A phase current and 1200W pedaling:

0-30 mph 2.3 secs
0-60 mph 8.1 secs
1/8 mile 9.4 secs @ 62.7 mph
¼ mile 16.1 secs @ 69.9 mph
Top speed 71 mph

Also, there are ebike controllers that can go to 130V, but they don't have the features I'd like. If an FOC controller of about 2 lbs were to come onto the market that could do 130V and output at least 250A phase current(such a controller may be out soon in fact), and I were to pedal with 500W instead of 1200W with the motor limited to 10kW, we get the following results for the ultimate theoretical configuration with this motor:

0-30 mph 2.5 secs
0-60 mph 7.4 secs
1/8 mile 9.0 secs @ 74.3 mph
¼ mile 15.0 secs @ 84.7 mph
Top speed 118 mph

All of these results are very car-like. Not bad for a cheap Chinese motor in a vehicle that can still be operated purely on pedal power even faster than a triathlon bike in most settings. I wish they'd make a better motor that was lighter, more efficient, less lossy, could handle more applied power, and used a stronger design for the freewheel/cassette placement and axle. Imagine the 1000W 3T version of their motor set up as such with ultrathin 0.05mm lams, stronger magnets, and able to handle 15 kW peak @ 72V. If that kind of power could be pushed to the motor, 0-60 mph would be under 6 seconds and top speed into the 80+ mph range, and I'd really like to be able to screw around with fast cars at stop lights. The existing 1500W motor you can buy will merely keep up with normal cars, which still would be impressive all things considered.

ZeroEm said:

LFP wired up a leafmotor and tested it. I will need to find that thread again.

Click to expand...

This post from 2015 here in this thread
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66489&hilit=leaf+test+motor&start=675#p1111391
gives some of his results.

liveforphysics said:

I dyno'd it today. Will hopefully have time to edit the videos together tomorrow. It made a peak of 4.9hp output when feeding it ~8kW input. It's pretty efficiency from 500w to 2000w, falls off pretty sharply in efficiency above ~3500w input.

Also, adding ferro-fluid to it makes it run substantially cooler core temps while chugging away at 3kW.

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Later posts reference a video but I don't see one in any of the posts, so it is probably just on his youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrrMKZy5awZpOFcQWhmtiQ

Thx amberwolf, watched the video a while back. Really put me on the leafmotor. Don't want to leave out neptronix, who his post's on it got me interested.

Not saying it's the best motor, it fits good for have some power and still pedaling along. Had my max power at 3200w for a bit to play with. My style of riding 2000w continuous is about all that is needed.

Could figure it a 3k motor if you keep FF in it and monitored and don't lug it. Riding with out power at times, don't find any cogging that bothers me. Have road with it for over 3yrs and may be accustomed to it.