2WD Semi-Recumbent Recycled-Parts Cargo eBike: "CrazyBike2"

[amberwolf]

Well, the frame seems at least similar to his Currie Mongoose build, but I havent' directly compared pics. I don't know where he lives, either (a search of his posts didn't turn up any references to cities in the valley here, or arizona, but I thought I remembered something about the pacific northwest area?).

This one, however, doesn't look as neatly done as what I recall of Xyster's.

 

[amberwolf]

Something I keep forgetting to post, about that controller throttle rollback/surge issue:

During the rollback portion, it is definitely actively braking the wheel, not just lowering the power level output. It's not going into regen, though, cuz there is zero regen current measured by the CA if I don't use regen braking manually at any point in a ride.


I can feel the braking, each time it peaks in speed and then begins to slow--it's not the same as if I just cut throttle back manually--that just coasts down to the new set speed, whereas the problematic behavior is definitely actively braking the wheel down below whatever setpoint it thinks there is.


A version of the problem that doesnt' happen very often (relatively) but does at least once every other ride or so, sometimes less, is that it will suddenly decide after braking/rollback down to around 1MPH less than where it is actually set at, it will keep that as it's new setpoint. So if I have the throttle physically friction-clamped in place to give me ~19.5MPH, and it does it's surge/rollback thing for a while, someitmes it will roll down to 18.5MPH or less, and then instead of ever surging back up to and past the original 19.5MPH, it will now surge/rollback around the new center setpoint of ~18.5MPH, going up to around 1MPH above and below that point. If I use the ebrake to cut out the controller, and slow to a stop, without touching the throttle, then when I relase the brake and finally re-reach the original 19.5MPH setpoint it will now go back to cycling around that one. So it is definitely not that the throttle slipped off it's original point and went down--it's that the controller "forgets" what it was set to, and just starts doing something else. But it is consistent in that it is almost always ~1MPH less than the original setpoint.

If I were on a long enough run without any stops, I could find out if it would continue to dro in 1MPH increments like that, but I only get at most a mile before I have to stop again, and usually only half a mile. On extremely rare occasions I'll reach a light when it turns green and not have to slow or stop, but at most that buys me a half a mile. I think I'd need several miles without stopping or slowing to see how this behavior might continue.


I have yet to do the off-ground speed test, because I have to mvoe the speed sensor off hte back wheal onto the front one, and the wiring is inside the "fairing" so it isn't a simple job. It also takes a while to ge thte magnet and sensor lined up right on the rear wheel cuz of the way the frame is made back there, and I don't like havingt to redo it. So...eventually I'll get that test done. :/

 

[amberwolf]

Last night on the way home from work a police SUV was booking it south on 31st Ave while I was going north, just after I'd turned onto 31st from Sahuaro, I'd guess that I was up toward Christy or Mercer but I don't remember. They noticed me as they were about to pass me and slowed way down really fast--just short of skidding deceleration levels, I think. Then they shone their spotlight at me and blinded me; I had to slow down myself, from around 18.5 down to probably 12-13MPH (couldn't see to tell for sure) just to be sure I would have more time to react to things now that I was blinded by their searchlight.

I just waved at them with my left hand and continued riding on, figuring if they wanted me to stop they'd light up their flashing blue and red or say something over the loudspeaker.

They flicked the light off of me, flashed it around the area a moment, then they were past me and turned left onto the street I'd just passed. Didn't turn around and come bakc my way.

I guess they were just curious as to what the heck I was riding? :lol:


Nothing else particularly interesting other than the usual stupidities by pedestrians and drivers, as I've noted in previous posts at various times. And people passing me saying "cool bike" or whatever, or thumbs up, etc.

Oh, wait--there was one more that combined stupid and appreciation in one: A lady in a red (?) SUV pulled up to my right as I was stopping at a red light on the way to work, several days ago. At that light, the only space to the right of where I was can only make right turns (it's not marked that way, but hte road doesn't continue across the intersection from that lane, so you're kinda forced to, or else collide with traffic passing straight thru the intersection from the lane I was in). She then said thru her open window that she was going to go straight thru, but wanted to tell me she thought it was interesting (or nifty or useful or whatever it was she said; I can't remember right now--the only part that really stands out is her unsafe and probably illegal traffic maneuver). When the light turned green we went thru; I can't recall the order but almost certainly I would have waited for her to go rather than risk being run over by someone already doing something stupid. (she wouldn't be the first one to nearly run me over after giving me a thumbs up for riding my contraption; I don't think most that have done so even gave a second thought to running me down in the process of getting ahead of me afterwards).



Bike itsel fisholding up ok, oher than the broken seat frame on the right side. Still waitin to get together with the guy that has my new(est) welder, to get it back from him (had to leave it at his place after I fixed my rear frame for the dropout problem) and take it to Bill's to try to fix the seat. Guess he's been really busy lately.


Someday I'll get back to the HSR3548 motor wheel rebuild (it's still packed in a box with other stuff right now, somewhere here at Bill's, and will probably stay there until I can move back into my house, whenever that happens...probably not till early February at this point. So not worrying about the Pirelli tire yet, either, till the wheel's ready. Or at least, not till I might have a chance at geting it ready.


Typical Wh/mile usage still hovers around 29Wh/mile or so. As low as 26, as high as 33, depending mostly on winds.

Pulling hte kennel trailer with Tiny in it to my house to do more yard cleanup is more like 40-45Wh/mile, because I usually go a lot slower, like around 15-16MPH. Apparently with the 9C 2806 in 26" wheel, that means it's less efficient by a lot than when I ride faster at 18-19MPH, even with trailer and load, cuz that works out to more like 33-38Wh/mile--a huge difference that doesn't make sense to me, unless the motor is somehow far less efficient under a higher load at the slower speed.


Have only got a few short-ish (6-8 mile) runs like that to test the theory, with a lot of stops and starts in there (at least a couple of dozen), so as I collect more data points I'll be able to say with more certainty about the efficiency issue.

 

[amberwolf]

Since the Vpower pack and a number of other batteries were taken by looters, and I had need of those to make a pack for either a spare bike, Delta Tripper, Dayglo Avenger, or a spare pack for CrazyBike2 or whatever my main bike ends up being in the future, I decided to spend some of the money for fire recovery on Rollodo's A123 pack here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=55055

as it should fit inside the same kind of 50cal ammocan my EIG pack does, is similar voltage and capacity and capabilities, and is a fair bit "safer" than going with RC LiPo packs, both for failsafe reasons and that the DOA rate is too high to risk. (I already have a good 10Ah pack of them that I use on CB2 or DT, but don't trust this type of cell that well).

I will also copy this post into it's own thread in the review & testing section, and try to remember to keep it updated.

Anyway, it was purchased late last week, and arrived early this week. I was working the day it arrived so didn't get to do much with it till midday the next day, and only got a good test ride with it late last night, and fell asleep before I could post the results.

It was shipped well-packed inside a topeak expandable rack bag, with that inside a box, which didn't show any real sign of abuse, which is unusual for a >25lb package. I apparently didnt' take a pic of it still inside the bag or in the box, though I thought I had it's not on the phone. So first pics are here:


There's the detachable fuse, charger, de-shrinkwrapped half, and still-shrinkwrapped half. Ideally I'd like to source a piece of the same shrink used on there and redo that, just for that extra bit of protection, but since it will be inside a metal ammo can it probably doesn't really need it.

Charger is a "Modary" MDA16358405000, 58.4V 5A. Never heard of the brand, but doesn't mean a thing. Will eventually post pics of the insides.



It's a split pack, so these are one half's interconnect with the other (blue bullets, JST), charging port (red/black PP45s), discharging port (red/white/black PP45s)



and the other half's interconnects (blue bullets, JST) and the fuse connector (red Dean)



Because, well, you know, I had to: I took the lid off the toolbox on the bike and put the battery down in there, and strapped it in, then ran it to the charging port on the bike (because my battery ports are SB50s and I don't know where I put my converter cable, it's in one of the couple dozen boxes of stuff here at Bill's while I wait for them to finish the house repairs/inpsections/etc so I can move back in). Because this bypasses the shunt to reach the controller, I only had voltage readings, so no test data from the "first ride". Sorry it's so dark, but I didn't remember where I'd put the phone with the flash, and it was almost 1030pm.
View attachment 1




More about this in the next post.

















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[amberwolf]

Next step was to put the pack into something I can just strap or bolt onto the bike(s) as needed, and in this case means an ammocan cuz it's tough enough to survive minor scrapes and whatnot, and ugly enough to be less a theft target, etc. And it's what I already use for the other packs, partly with teh intent that if a pack burns for any reason, it should be contained within the ammocan, venting only hot smoke and not belching fire. Still untested theory, though.

So...here's the pack between the Topeak rack bag and the ammocan:



the Topeak bag is a good fit, too, just needing padding around it to pack it in tightly, but the bag is bigger than what I'd like to use on the bike, and while the expandable sides of it could be useful for other things, I'd rather save the bag for using on a regular bike rack (like on my Nishik-E if I ever get the chance to work on it, assuming I even still have the stuff I was going to do it with).



But the ammocan is a tighter fit, and makes a final pack not much bigger than the actual pack size:



There's barely room for some of this foam on the bottom and ends:





It's such a tight fit that I could only use foam on the outer side of the pack (assuming it's mounted where the EIG pack is now). There's simply no way to force the pack down into the box with foam on all sides. If I used mousepads instead, then maybe, with a few thicknesses of them, it'd be possible, but not this stiff closed-cell blue foam.

So there is a strip of foam at the bottom outer side, and top outer side, and not even enough space to do it in the center of the outer side, cuz of the stamping in the side of the box. Unfortunatley that means that same stamping that's on the *other* side of teh box is pressing on the side of the pack directly, on the black half. My hope is to alleviate that later by gluing in plastic shims around the stamping, to create more even pressure. I just didn't ahve time yesterday.


Before I put the foam or th epack in there, I cut and filed a notch at the front corner of the box for the cabling to come out of. THen the edges are covered in several layers of electrical tape to prevent rubbing of cabling insulation on metal edges.





Cables come out with room to move around in there if thye have to .


You can also see the interconnects down in front of ht epack inside, with the fuse held up to the right:


Then with the fuse folded down in front. Note that there is foam down below those wires, preventing the pack from being able to move forward and press on the fuse or connectors, should it somehow get loose from the very tight fit of foam on teh sides.



Lid closes and latches down with a very tight fit, is actually pressing the packs down into the bottom foam. No room for anything on th etop side.



All closed up, ready for use:
View attachment 2


Weighed on the scale, 25.1lbs:



Could just unstrap the EIG pack and put this in it's place:



But had to go out and do some grocery shopping and stuff with Bill first, so mounting and testing had to wait.







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[amberwolf]

I forgot to post that while thinking about options for padding on that pack, after finding it too tight to get in there with foam on all sides, I mounted that side-looking mirror thing on the front of hte bike, so I can finally look around cars/etc at intersections so I can see if things are coming that I should wait for. It's not perfect but it does work. I need to raise it's rear point about an inch, though, for the right angle on the line of sight.


View attachment 14



Was getting dark when we got back, so I didn't have enough light for some of the things I wanted to do (including welding up the broken seat frame), but the shopping was worth it, since at Goodwill I finally found some sweatpants and flannel pajamas that fit me and that I liked the feel of, for cheap enough to be worth it (been looking since shortly after the fire, since all of mine were lost in the fire itself, early last year). Also found a BBQ thermometer that will do what I need for motor and/or controller or batteyr temperature monitoring.



Was only $3, by Polder, and has a detachable fork with the sensors in it. It turns on as soon as you put batteries in it, and begins measuring the temperature, so that means if I run it off a DC-DC it'll turn on as soon as the bike does. No extra switches or buttons to deal with. Also has a backlight that comes on at any button press (and of course I could wire it up to always be on or be swtiched separately).


Plan is to detach the connector from the fork, split the sensors off the fork to use separately (if it's possible, depends on how they're wired and what kind they are--may have to stay in parallel to be able to read correctly, am hoping I can switch between them at a new switch on the dash) mount the handle on the "dashboard" in a way that allows it to be read easily. It'll be a while before I can do anything with it, maybe months. But at least I've got it to start pondering about.







Back to the battery pack:

I opened up the "fairing" on the center of hte bike to take out the RC LiPo ammocan pack an dput this one in ther einstead, but I miscalculated when I made the new support rails on the bike several months ago when I did those frame repairs, and there is not enough space for the pack *and* the chain. I can put hte pack in but hte chain cannot move past it; it's pinned between the pack and the frame.


So since i need the chain as backup in case of complete power failure (not htat I could pedal far, but I might be able to go in short bursts and still get home on a short trip---be much easier than walking it home; I can't really do that anymore; stuff just hurts too much), I pulled the pack back out nad put the RC pack back in (for the extra range just in case), htough I moved it as far forward as it would go, moving it's weight more onto the front and less onto the back wheel, by a few inches.

While doing this I did also move the speedo from rear to front, so now I can test the off-ground wheel test of the controller surge/rollback issue. Have to set up the bike on something to hold the wheel offground though, cuz I can barely lift the front end by hand and can't really hold it there whle testing--I kept having it hit the ground and dig a hole every time I tried more than a second or two. Just not capable of it anymore.


Anyway, after all that, I got out on a test ride. The pack isn't fully charged, just whatever charge it had when it arrived, minus whatever tiny amount I used that night on the round-the-block quickie check of it.


Pics of the CA screens below. The Vmin is cuz the pack came unplugged when I hit a pothole, and it got jostled in the rear left cargo pod; the only place I had for it without undoing and redoing other things on the bike, which I dind't have time for last night; was already well after 9pm when I started the ride, and I was pretty tired.


This is the new mounting point for the battery connectors for now, so I can swap them out without undoing the fairing. (can't add this pack direclty in parallel, cuz it's lower nominal voltage than the others). SB50 main input is tied to the frame behind the coroplast, so I can jus tpull off the SB50 for either the built-in packs or the A123 pack, and plug in the other one.




Charging port for the bike itself is just in front of that, tied to the frame PP45s, cuz it kept ripping off the coroplast I had it on after a few charging cycles. Pretty hard to see in the pics, though, at the end after teh CA pics.

Charging screen of CA, about a minute after plugging in charger. To do the charging thru the CA, since this pack has a separate charge port, I had to unplug it's discharge port from the bike, plug in thru the charge port instead, and then plug in it's charger into the bike's charge port, so the CA can monitor. That'd be a PITA to do every time if I had this pack mounted on teh bike, so I would probably just put a plain wattmeter on the charger itself and plug right into the packs' charge port, rather than monitor iwth the CA. I sitll have the old WattsUp from AussieJester, here with me at Bills, so I know I still ahve that one. I don't know if I still have either of the Turnigy watt meters, cuz I don't rememeber where they were before the fire, and have no idea where they are now (assuming they weren't stolen by looters). So I'd probably use the Watts Up, since the charging voltage doesn't go high enough to worry about it.




And of course, Tiny was bored by the whole thing, though she followed me around wherever I went (except on the test ride), and usually dozed off somewhere nearby. (she's asleep next to me right now while I type this up).



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[The Stig]

Well crazy bike is looking good, + new mirrors!

 

[amberwolf]

Still dialing the angle on the side-looking mirrors, but they definitely help at intersections, parking lots, and driveways. Would help more i I put it on a little boom out almost past the front wheel, but it'll have to do where it si now.


A lesson I just re-taught myself last night, which I forgot to post in the stuff above:

With Andersons, especially the smaller types typically used on ebike stuff (not so much a problem with PP75/SB50 and higher) the wires need to "float" in the housings, so that the contacts remain flat against each other. If the wires are either so fat that they fill the housing backend, or are pulled toward one side of teh housing such that the contact is forced away from the mating surface of the connecting contact on the other side, it can make a higher resistance than normal.

When redoing some of the other wiring on CrazyBike2 in the above battery/etc posts, and neatening up some loose-hanging cable at my front hub motor on the fork, I created a problem. I "knew" I had left it that way for a reason but didn't remember what it was...until I "fixed" it by ziptying the cables in a bundle, pulling the phase wires exiting from the backs of one side of the housings into a J up along the side of the housings, in the direction that causes their contacts inside to be forced away from the mating contacts on the controler side wires.

This made the acceleration just enough lower to notice, with higher power usage to get it, and when I stopped to check things I found the connector housings pretty warm, which is unusual. I then realized what I'd done and cut the ziptie, let it all hang like before, and the problem went away.


However, I also created a new problem, which may well be related, or could be a hall connector problem (since the JST for the halls was tied up at the same time, and is now back the way it was). As I reach about 17.something MPH, right up until I pass 18MPH, I get a brand new sound of distorted tinny rattly grinding from the front hubmotor, the 9C 2806. It's almost the same sound you get when the halls or phase wires are in the wrong combo, but not as loud. There's no corresponding current spike, though, and hte problem goes away outside of that narrow speed zone. It is not like the normal 9C grinding/whining, though, and it worries me. It happens either accelerating or decelerating, but only if there is power to the motor; if I just cut throttle and coast down it doesn't happen.


But the problem *might* have nothing to do with that, and could be a simple mechanical vibration...because: I also moved the speedo sensor to the front wheel at the same time, and now it's magnet (the plastic screw-clamp-around-spokes type) is mounted between two spokes very close to the flange at the hub. It is *possible* that there is a resonance happening that vibrates that magnet or clamp, and that vibrates the spokes and the wheel...but I doubt it.


It is *also* possible it's a resonance with the cable for the speedo, passing next to the very thin front fender, and making it vibrate against the fender, but again I doubt it because there's at least 1/8" gap between them at the narrowest point, at rest.

So I dunno what causes it yet, but it is A) annoying, and B) worrisome because I don't like unexplained noises from the bike--they all too often lead to broken stuff.




And another note I forgot to make a week or so ago: I'd let the tires get low in air over the last month or so, until I began to feel the squishiness of the rear when changing lanes or turning. When I aired them up I think the back was down to nearly 20PSI, and the front down to 30-something. Normally each is 50-60PSI. I aired them back up to about 55PSI each, and now my Wh/mile is down from a bit over 30Wh/mile to 25Wh/mile average, for the bit-over-six-mile commute from Bill's to work and back.

So it does matter a lot what your tire pressure is, especialy with a big heavy bike like this one.

 

[amberwolf]

And I forgot these pics, of the tire tracks on the dirveway here at Bill's. The thin thin lines are from since I aired it up a few days ago, and the thicker ones are from before that, wiht lower pressure allowing more tire surface to cotnact the ground. realy big difference in contact area.

 

[amberwolf]

Still at ~25Wh/mile average whenever I don't have to do much stop/start traffic. If I do, it brings it up to ~29Wh/mile. On days when there's no school, and the two very short 15MPH sections aren't there, it's closer to 24Wh/mile.

 

[The Stig]

w/ pedalling?

Still at ~25Wh/mile average whenever I don't have to do much stop/start traffic. If I do, it brings it up to ~29Wh/mile. On days when there's no school, and the two very short 15MPH sections aren't there, it's closer to 24Wh/mile.

 

[amberwolf]

These days I don't even try; it hurts too much. As it is, I'm walking with a cane and often wishing it was a walker instead.

 

[The Stig]

Well thank goodness for ebikes... but keeping the rest of your body in shape may be the way to go(edit: I mean like upper body, back, arms, etc). I dunno... 24 to 29 wh/mile sounds pretty darn good. I'm going to get laughable wh/mile when I get the snow bike running

 

[amberwolf]

As long as i am just riding, it's "aero" enough to have decent Wh/mile. But if I have to do much in the way of stops/starts, or any kind of hillclimbing, the high mass really eats into the power usage.

If it didn't hurt so much I'd pedal some. But even "ghost pedalling" hurts more than I can really deal with right now.



This morning I removed the EIG pack and clamped the A123 pack on in it's place, leaving the RC LiPo pack disconnected as a backup (not taking it off cuz I have to open up the "fairing" to access it).

I'll try to remember to post usage data for it as often as I can, and impressions of it's performance relative to the paired EIG/RC packs.

 

[amberwolf]

At the same time as the above, I redid the mounting of the speed soensor, and now I keep having trouble with the speedo sensor vibrating around on the fork, so speed readings and mileage (therefore wh/mile) are so obviously skewed that I have no useful data yet.


So...I am pondering a better way to mount it so it doens't have a problem. I redid it first because I had had problems with the speed sometimes reading hundreds of MPH, just for an instant, every few miles. Didn't happen enough to affect the wh/mile or mileage, AFAICT. But annoying. Second, because some cardboard flew up off the road in a breeze and got in teh spokes, and pulled the whole speedo off the fork, on the way home from work the day before I redid it and swapped packs. Lucky it didn't catch in the spokes and tear it off the cable.



Anyway, impressions so far are that it has roughly the same acceleration capability as the EIG and RC packs; a teeny bit less as it's voltage is less. I'm not sure yet if it will be sufficient for full acceleration with both the 9C and HSR3548 as 2WD, once I get that back on there, especially once I put a 12FET to run the 9C when I switch the existing 12FET to run the HSR3548 once it's back on the rear.

 

[amberwolf]

Speedo sensor has been stable and working the last few days, so am doing a rundown test on the A123 pack. Oddly, the Wh/mile usage is higher than it had been by a small but significant amount, indicating my previous readings might've been wrong, caused by intermittent issues with the sensor, perhaps.

However, since those readings were also when i thought it was stable and working, but with the EIG and RC packs instead of the A123, perhaps something in the packs themselves makes a difference. Internal resistance, or perhaps the slightly higher voltage of 14s LiCo / NMC vs 16s LiFePO4? I don't know. Slightly higher weight of the A123 pack vs the EIG pack?

To be sure, I will disconnect the A123 and use just the RC pack for a test run (one work commute), but leaving the A123 pack on there to keep the weight the same vs the A123 pack test presently in progress. Then I will swap the EIG pack back in place of teh A123 after this test is done, and do the same test with it, instead, first without the RC pack, as a full run-down test, and then with the RC pack as a single-commute test.

Then I'll be able to tell if it has anything at all to do with the battery or the weight difference, for the difference I'm seeing in Wh/mile.





Anyway, for the A123 rundown test, I've charged it up and left it on the charger (in case it needed to balance) all day/night Saturday until I left for work Sunday, and then have ridden to/from work each day since without recharging.

Am at ~11Ah used as of today, just over 20 miles, including a couple of detours for food on the way home last night and tonight. ~27Wh/mile average for the three days so far. About 51V during cruising. Can't remember the voltage drop during acceleration, will have to get the CA stats and post them up.

 

[amberwolf]

A123 pack's BMS shut off the pack at LVC tonight about halfway home. Wrote down all the CA data and switched over to the RC LiPo pack to finish getting home; A123 pack is now recharging. I was going to measure the individual cell voltages, but then remembered there isn't an external connector for access to that, except for half the pack, so I didn't take it off the bike and measure that half becuase I was (still am) worn out and very tired (already dozed off a couple times but can't stay asleep yet; still too many nightmares as usual).


The good part is that the BMS does indeed cut power at LVC, which is nice, so it protects the battery from me.


The bad part is that the "20Ah" battery doesn't even have 15Ah usable. That makes it a little better than the stolen-by-looters Vpower/Cammy pack was when I first fixed it. But I had hoped for more.

I can hope it's just an imbalance, but without measuring the cells I wont' really know. Leaving it on the charger for a few days should fix any minor imbalance, but I don't know about that much. I'm assuming that the BMS probably leaves ~10-20% capacity in the battery, in theory anyway, which means it should actually have ~17Ah actual capacity. But I'm not sure about that, because the way the voltage fell rapidly in the half mile before cutoff indicated I was reaching the end-of-discharge cliff of the cells themselves.

Lowest voltage I saw before cutoff was 38.V, when it then dropped to ~16V as I coasted down to a stop, CA still lit up from power generated by the motor slowing down. Just to see what would happen I switched off the breaker and waited a few seconds, then flipped it back on, but it didn't come back on. Flipped back off and waited a couple minutes, still same. Retried again once I got back to Bill's, and still nothing. But it came right on as soon as I plugged the charger into the charging port (which was *not* disconnected). So the BMS appears to latch off, once it's triggered LVC, until the charger is plugged in. Fine with me.

Anyway, the voltage on the charge port (and the main port after reenabling it by plugging in the charger, and then disconnecting it), was 44.9V. Flipping the breaker on and leaving it for a minute showed voltage dropping down as low as 43.6V just from the ~30W lighting drain.



CA data:
38.6Vmin
44.9Vrest
43.09Amax
-1.9Amin (regen)
20.1MPH max (probably on one of the slight downhill dips just before/after the roundabout near Bill's).
16.7MPH average
1h38m43s total time in motion
27.49miles total range
14.64Ah total capacity
27.2Wh/mile average
744Wh total capacity.

In the morning, we'll see what the recharge data (using the Turnigy Watt Meter vs the CA) shows for recharge Ah/Wh. It's never been very differnet from the CA in readings, so it should be usalbe for comparison data to the above. Theoretically with the 5A charger it should only take 3-4 hours to fully recharge it, depending on the curve it uses near end-of-charge, and balancing. Unfortunately no way to know when balancing is actually finished; no indicators on the pack itself, and charger just goes green once it reaches low enough current and/or high enough voltage, pack-level.

 

[amberwolf]

Since I'm finally back at the house now, and Dogman came all the way from Las Cruces for a few days to help me get stuff moved around and whatnot, we got the seat frame welded up and the covering replaced.

 

[amberwolf]

A few days ago, I hit a pothole that almost threw my cane off the bike (it's hooked thru the upper left of the seat cage/bar or it would have come off), and did pop open both cargo pod lids, and also broke off the left rear turn signal cover, leaving the light dangling out by it's wires.

With traffic around me I couldn't stop or get back in time to pick up the lens before it was crushed to powder, so it's gone, after a useful life of almost 30 years, between it's original vehicle and mine.

I moved a front lens to the rear, since I needed signals to ride home still, and white's not legal in back but is in front, so.... Then once home I ziptied the round lens off one of Delta Tripper's turn signals onto the square housing of CrazyBike2's front left unit, since it's different enough it won't screw onto it.

It works, and it isn't any uglier with it this way vs the way it was. :lol:


Anyway, that's all there is to report for now. Maybe get more internet access next week, I took off the middle of the week from work since the 23rd is the anniversary of the fire, and got the day before and after to plan and recover, if I need it.

 

[amberwolf]

More wifi access today while out and about for groceries/etc. Yesterday was at a friend's fixing his music computer; I guess he's been down for 13 months, unable to make music! I know how that feels.


Anyway, was gonna post more yesterday but didn't have time, only posted above while waiting for stuff on his system to finish.


Some power usage data for the last couple months or so:

Typically I get about 28-34Wh/mile usage on CrazyBike2 nowadays, for my work commute. If I have a tailwind it's as low as 24Wh/mile, but that's very rare. Usually it's a crosswind or headwind, and can increase it to 39Wh/mile.

Crosswinds are actually worse than headwinds, probably because of the plastic coverings. Certainly makes it harder to ride in a straight line then! Every time I come to a cross-street intersection, especially a major street that's wide, the crosswinds really hit hard and sudden, and make it difficult to control sometimes, especially if it's gusty.


Front wheel seems to be getting a little thin in the rubber, am going to have to invest in a new tire pretty soon. I still have some I can move off other wheels if I need to before then, but am first trying to find a good tire to last more than a year for the 26" wheel in front.

Also still need to get one of those Pirelli M75 (ML75? I forget) moped tires for the back 20" wheel, so I can put the Zero-rimmed HSR3548 back on there.


Oh, and I forgot to post before, but Mdd0127 has an idea he'd offered to try out on there, that we didn't have time/materials to do yet while he was last here:

Cut out two discs of plywood to fit between the motor's spoke flange and the rim, with holes in htem to lace with rope (hemp, etc?) and then epoxy the rope to keep it from loosening. The discs would make a "stronger" wheel than just the spokes I have here, though they would also make it more solid and less suspension in the spokes themselves--but there'd be no spokes to break and leave me stranded, either.

Since the spokes breaking on the bakc wheel has been a problem since the beginning of this bike, as it has no rear suspension and it has way too much of it's weight on that wheel, it might fix that problem. With the larger moped tire on there it would probably have just as much "suspension" from the tire then as it did with spokes and regular bicycle tire before, but be harder to break the wheel itself.

It wouldn't be any worse than having a "solid spoked" wheel that doesnt' use laced-spokes, but rather just a machined rim with a few integral "spoke arms". The weight added isn't desirable, but for the strength tradeoff it would be acceptable if it worked.

I'm willing to try out the idea, since I can always take the stuff off and relace it as a normal wheel if it doesnt' work out.


If I could add the motorcycle shock to this bike, with a swingarm for hte rear wheel, that would help, too, but I'm not sur eI want to put all that work into this bike, when I would rather be finishing up it's future version instead, that takes the motor out of the wheel and puts it into the frame to make it easier to build good spoked wheels that are strong, without the weight in the wheel itself. And also lets me use it via a transmission to shift gears for optimal motor speed/efficiency sicne I have to slow down and speed up a lot in my typical riding, espcially work commutes or grocery runs which is most of what I do nowadays.


So....I'd kinda like to try out the solid wheel thing, since i don't really trust my radial lacing with the half-used and half-new spokes on the 20" HSR3548/Zero-rim wheel, anyway.

I

In other news, I've found a fair bit of my electronics stuff and repair tools, so at some point I need to take the fried CAv3 off the bike and see if I can fix it. Or if not, what it would cost to have Ebikes.ca fix it, cuz it'd be nice to have it working again, so I can get the experiments with the Thun sensor / etc started.

 

[amberwolf]

Speedo started going crazy again yesterday; thought I'd fixed it by just retightening the magnet on the spokes, but then today it really went out--either no speed indication at all, or hundreds of MPH with any hweel movement at all.

So I kept stopping on the side of the raod and realigning the magnet, and eventually had to take the sensor off the fork, pull out the core (PCB/reedswitch) and found it had twisted inside the housing so that the reed was at a right angle to the magnet. :? I fixed that so it's paralle to it instead, and it seems to be wokring ok.

But I think I will dig out a different sensor and put it on there, since it's possible that's not the only problem, and I don't like when it goes unreliable--it's worse than not having one at all.


Also had some problems with the brakes after the sprinkle/drizzle yesterday. Seems to be oily splash off the roads, most likely, cuz even if I tighten the brake arms/cable all the wya down till it actuallly clamps on the rim without pulling hte handle, it still has little braking power. The partial fix was to clean the pads and rims with ammonia, but I think there must be something in the pads themselves that won't clean out. I am letting them *wear* the stuff out first, today, and see if that fixes it (already feels better after a couple miles) but if not I will replace the pads with the spare set I bought back before the fire (intending to use them for the rear brakes I was going to weld together and install, the week the fire happened, that I never got to do).



I forgot to mention it before, but I also had a litle issue with an anderson connector melting, and it was for exactly the same reason I proposed to be the cause of it happening for other people: the contact was unable to "float" in the shell properly, to maintain flat contact with it's mating contact on the other connector, becaues i had taped the whole mess up to keep rain/etc out. A few days back, one of them actually melted the housings together and was no longer making contact at all, and the motor got "grindy" like a bad hall.

All three phases were getting hot, but only one was so far pushed out of alignment that it was actually only contacting a single bare edge of each tab together. The others were at least flat enough to only get hot, and not melty. When I pulled the tape off and retested the system, only the melty one was still a problem, the others stayed completely cool cuz they were able to self-align. As I was on the way to work at the time, I just cut the one really destroyed connnector off, backed the other one's contact out of the housing, and stripped wire back on the cutoff one to twist it aorund the wire out of the base of the other contact, taped that together, and it's been working fine since then. Only reason I haven't just taken them all off and soldered them is that once I get the rear wheel back on here, I will use this controller on taht rear wheel, so I don't wanna have to unsolder/resolder, and also wanna be able to swap which controller is on which wheel should I hsave problems on a ride in the future, for diagnostics and/ore to get home.

 

[amberwolf]

This is crossposted in this thread for reference, but the troubleshooting thread for it is actually here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=59426

Pics of the insides will be taken as soon as I can; I forgot to do so before work today, and didnt' want to go home to get pics before coming back to wifi to post this thread. Two pics linked below are just for reference, from when it arrived.

Charger ("Modary" MDA16358405000, 58.4V 5A) for the EM3EV (Cell_man) A123 pack failed to turn on either output LED when plugged into the wall last night. Verified fuse is ok at both ends of the charger, and it is getting power up to the input caps on the AC side of things. Have to dig out the oscilloscope and see if it's switching at all, cuz I didn't get any DC-side voltage readings at all with the DMM.


I suspect overheating, because the previous time I charged up, on the day it sprinkled in the morning, (saturday?) I had left my rain gear on the back of the seat of the bike, and the charger itself was on the seat. It had actually completed charging before I went to bed, but I had left it plugged in to do any balancing it might be able to do (I've never confirmed whether or not any balancing ever does occur, or is even needed, cuz I'd need to open up the packs to get to their leads and/or the BMS).

In normal operation, once charging is done the fan shuts off, and doesnt' turn back on again AFAICT, so the charger's standby operation warms it up enough to notice, even with a good breeze blowing past it in very cool night air. If the charger was covered up even loosely I'd guess it could get pretty hot.

When I got up the next day, the charger *was* covered up by the firefighter pants (nomex) of the gear, and the rest of the rain gear was over on Tiny's blanket near the bike, and in between the bike and blanket--I assume she smelled something interesting and dragged the stuff off of the back of the seat, and the pants landed across the charger. I didn't look at hte charger then, but I did notice it was room temperature, not warm like it normally is, but I guess I just assumed at that moment that the AC plug wasn't fully plugged in since TIny sometimes trips over it's cord and pulls it partly out of the wall, enough to not make contact anymore. I just put it away and got ready to ride, at the time.


So...most likley something in it has overheated and failed. The most likely things are the semiconductors, but it could be capacitors. Doesnt' appear to be an ICL cuz it has the main cap voltage on the AC/input side of the switching stuff.


For now I'm using another much slower charger, so I'm not down or unable to use the pack or anything, but I do wanna fix this much faster charger.

 

[amberwolf]

Been very very windy last few days, with wh/mile usage in the 40-50Wh/mile range.

As an example, today on the way here (to Denny's for their "birthday slam", which I usually forget to take advantage of, but decided to make sure I do for my 46th, before I head in to work), it took 1100W just to maintain 18MPH on the stretches going north. It was about 60Wh just to go the mile and a half or so from my house to here!

Motor was pretty warm. I didn't do any regen braking because I didn't want to add to it's heat load, expecting that it would already be getting toasty inside from the constant overload, on the "500W" front 26" 9C 2806.

Trying to reach 20MPH it would be peaking over 1500-1600W, higher during gusts and sidewinds that make more drag, so I stayed around 18mph instead.



The gusts and especially the sidewinds make it pretty hard to ride--it's worse with this plastic covering over the bike than it was before I put it on, which I knew would happen, and have experienced a few times since then, but these past few days have been worse than anything except one of the "habib" storms I rode home thru from work to the apartment last year.

Often I may be riding leaned way over to one side just to ride in a straight line, because of a sidewind, and then when I pass something that changes that wind, I may have to do a little S-swerve in my lane to get upright and straight again, and then go right back to leaning over to stay straight....

Thankfully I'm mostly doing these rides when there is little or no traffic on the roads, but it's quite the adventure when there *is* other traffic.

 

[amberwolf]

Winds went on for a few days there, finally died down Friday i think it was. Expected to be back with less intensity this coming week; it's a little breezy today but nothing like last week.


Fixed the Modary charger for the A123 pack thanks to Dnmun's advice about the thermal fuse inside the winding tape on the main transformer. Soldered a wire across it and it works like a champ, though of course now it has no thermal protection there. (was a 104-degree thermal fuse, IIRC, but I c an't remmeber if that was F or C).


It must be time to re-air up the tires again, cuz Wh/mile even in no wind is up to almost 34Wh/mile. Probably just the rear tire is low; I haven't checked it for thorns or anything in a while and I don't think I'm running any protection strips inside it, but I can't remember that either right now. I think it's just really thick tube and tehn the Ringworm tire itself.



Oh, and I think it was Thursday night that I got home and opened up the righthand cargo pod (the one usually on the ground as "kickstand") to get my toolbag out for something, and had my left hand instantly covered in dozens of biting black ants! Days later it still itches and the bites are still little knots around it, especially between my fingers.

I tossed the toolbag out the front door and backed the bike out as quick as I could, then sprayed the floor around the bike's parking spot with a bleach solution I keep mixed up under the sink for hte purpose (sometimes they get in the house, and I don't want them carrying messages about nommies out to their friends), just in case any had gottne loose and might be leaving a trail.

Then I hosed out the cargo pods and rinsed off the bike, and hten while I was at it I used some simple green and washed off the brake pads and rim since they ahve been getting less effective recently and I suspect oil or something splashed on them off the road back when it rained (couple weeks ago?). It definitely helped a lot; they now grab the rim MUCH better.


Then i used the SG to soak the pods and between the pod walls and hte styrofoam liners, cuz those ants must've been after *something* in there. Rewashed the pods again a while later, and now they ought to be sparkly clean. Also washed the toolbag the same way, in case it was on that.




At goodwill, I saw a cartop cargo carrier that I was REALLY tempted to buy on the 50% off day, but even at that it would've still been $50. It would have made a decent somewhat aero cargo pod for the long trailer I've been intending to build for a long time, but I just didnt' need to spend that money on it. If it had been $25 I would have bought it...even $30 might've done it. :/ But the sale is now over (happens every couple weeks on Saturdays) and it's back to $100, so definitely not getting it now.

 

[The Stig]

You sure showed those black ants.

Are you now considering a kickstand maybe, or ant-proofing that cargo pod?