Bionx 250 extra speed

[Wcarrothers]

Well lots a talk all the time about how Binox is closed and such..

Anywho.. I do CAN communication programming at work so I know a few things about the aprodch and how micros communicate between each other on a can network. Anyway was able to send a few commands reverse engineered from some code taken from a German site. Using one of my can devices I sent the commands in last year. I knew they effected something because the action of the regen breaking changed after sending them in, on breaking only the first blip or light regen. But I knew with the 26v even with the assist mph limit increased I would probably not see any change and I didn't.

Finally got around to upping the voltage. Used a lithium ion battery of about 16 volts in series with the Binox plugged in at the hub motor plug.

So now I have around 40 volts avaliable. Now I get assist and can pretty easily maintain 25mph with full assist on. With 3 blips of assist 21-22 mph is pretty easy even up hill or in wind.

My average befor on my 12 mile ride to and from work was between 16.5 to a best of maybe 17.3or6. First 12 mile trip with the assist went to 20.2 and on my second trip 21.1 then 19.3 with a lot of wind. None of those trips were run at fill assist most of the time I was at 3 blips of assist seeing I didn't know where I would end up with battery capacity.

Only down side is the amp hours of the extra pack is 14.2 so the Binox pack empties quite a bit faster being of lower capacity ( in series the lower capacity battery empties first.). The second battery has 2 segments which are wired in parallel. The capacity led readouts didnt indicate to much drop after use. So I think in order to balance the packs better I'll end up switching between the 2 parallel segments so they become the lower capacity pack thus emptying more.

I know probably a bit vague but most people don't know enough about CAN to understand if I tried besides Also would not want anyone to screw up there system trying to follow my instructions.

But USB can devices are around 300 bucks. The military lion battery I have is around 350, charger another 275 and cable 60 so not a real cheep mod..

Highest recorded speed on my trips so far was 30, doing 25-27 mph with full assist is pretty easy. Range befor indicator says Binox battery empty is ~26 miles but still gives plenty of assist although I refrain from going to much further as I'm not sure where the volage level is for the Binox pack at that point so I ease up. Far as I can tell the battery management micro in the battery pack calculates its level with out regard to the extra series pack.

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[Wcarrothers]

Didn't really mention except in the title but my Binox system I think my firmware 5.6 or I think that is the number that pops up on the display whe. I power up. And it is a 250 system with the 26v frame mount battery.


Got the system in 2011. And has been a great system so far and now even better. Hopefully I will not nuke any FETs. Far as I know they are 48 volt parts so should be good

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[silentflight]

Thanks for sharing about your experiments with the Bionx. We have been waiting for someone with the professional skills needed to make the Bionx system more powerful1 If you have a link to the German site's information you mentioned perhaps you could post it along with a link to one of the USB CAN bus devices. Did you have to make a cable to mate to the Bionx system? Did your device replace the throttle/display or were you able to patch it into the motor/battery/throttle and watch the communications between them?

Have you monitored the wattage going to your motor? When I upped the voltage on my I2C Bionx 250 watt motor it seemed like the system would abruptly cut off power to the motor for a second or two whenever I hit an upper threshold of something between 1200 and 1400 watts according to my Watt's Up meter. This was quite annoying and I eventually went back to riding it in stock mode.

Have a great time with your Bionx and feel free to enlighten the rest of us with more details or photos!

 

[Wcarrothers]

I actually made a cable to tap the can buying 2 plugs to splice in at the battery harness plugs. Those are very common db 9 plugs up I can get from digikey. Others buy round cables like the daily uses and tap there. Is is a one time connection and something you do on the bench so to speak.. Then unplug and put on the shelf till you want to send commands again.

Nothing changes except the extra battery connection plugged into the connection near the hub

So it is more or less seamless other then all of a sudden you can go 25mph just about any time ya want.

I've already found that now I'm running into or more like running down more people riding to work then I thought since now I'm running 10mph faster then them rather then a more similar speed..

That guy with the front and rear hubs who passed me like I was standing still last year will take a bit longer to catch me this year. Although estimate he was doing at least 35mph..

I found the info to do this last year. Printed out most of the info so will have to look it all up.

Wanted to get a 350 system this year but not knowing if I could apply the same mode and get the same results I'm not sure if I'll bother..

Sure with I studied German when in college rather then Spanish.


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[Wcarrothers]

Will post up photos but the military lion battery is so small you would not know it was there. It actually fits in my under seat bag. 14ah in 15 volt mode..

I have not fitted an amp meter yet to monitor that stuff. But suspect with the higher voltage the current should be lower so might actually be less stress on the FETs. Does ot matter really as I have 2 extra 250 fet hub circuit boards just incase

With the mod I have seen no cut out or any weird behavior at least inI the first 40 or so miles. Seems seamless just like the Binox system is supposed to be.. Will admit the battery level indicator on the Binox daily empties faster then it did befor but that might be a combo of the mod and that this battery is now over a year old but probably more due to the imbalance between the 2 capacities. But now can do my commute in 33-36 vs 44-45 min so I'm happy.

System is mounted to my giant anthem1


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[Wcarrothers]

Tomorrow I ride in and drive home with the bike. So will have a full Binox battery on the way in with out needing to conserve to get home. So will see what my average speed will be leaving it on fill assist rather then 3.

Have to retire all the stop lights now to..

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[silentflight]

By the way, welcome to the Sphere!

If you've been reading here you've likely have noticed that Bionx is a niche device here, but hacking is a mainline Sphere endeavor!

I simply turned off the speed limit on my I2C bus 250 watt kit and then connected it to a 40 volt battery and was able to cruise at 25 mph.

Any further details regarding the command you sent would be interesting, did it raise or eliminate the speed limit for assist, or do something else to make it more powerful.

My German is rusty, but my vocabulary doubles with each beer. There is always someone on ES capable of understanding nearly anything and I would be surprised if we don't have a handful of native speakers around here somewhere...

 

[Wcarrothers]

I sent I think 3 commands or different bite strings in. Again did it end of last year so sending the commands was over 9 months ago now. Will check the prints of code I took and let ya know what the comments said each command was supposed to do..

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[Wcarrothers]

On the ic2 system is the older or previous control panel setup for Binox right?

Mine is the newer can based one so disable of the speed limit is done different as you know..

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[amberwolf]

Will post up photos but the military lion battery is so small you would not know it was there. It actually fits in my under seat bag. 14ah in 15 volt mode..

This kind?




If so, there's some specs I found for it here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=473003#p473003
reagarding current limits on it:

Max limits are 6A continuous or 18A for 5 seconds in 30V mode, and 12A continuous or 36A for 5 seconds in 15V mode.

I suspect you are within it's limitations, but it would be good to have a wattmeter on it to find out.

FWIW, I'd love to have a boxful of these to play with. They are a nice package for low-power ebikes.

 

[Wcarrothers]

Yep that is the artery I'm using as my auxiliary.

Expencive little bugger. They use them on the military robots..

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[Wcarrothers]

I've run these on the bench in much harsher situations then I'm running it on the bike.. In those cases they appeared to have a lot of smarts inside to Protect themselves..

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[Wcarrothers]

I'm not using the sim communication or anything though..

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[Wcarrothers]

Basicly at the time I reverse engeneered code from the open ebike forum translating the German and also from the http://www.bigxionflasher.org/download.html pages.

The Germans on the open ebike forum were very helpfull. I never did get a tiny can, but used my valuecan to do it.. Tiny can is a less expencive module if you can be them to sell it. The company did respond to email after a while last year..

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[the3rd8]

This is very useful stuff! I can't wait to trim down my commute...

Just to clarify: is it possible to tweak the system without using a Bionx bike interface? The page at http://www.bigxionflasher.org/unlock-bionx.html says it's needed.

 

[Wcarrothers]

Well put around 100 miles of commuting so far.. And I really like it..

One thing I want to work on is setting the regen breaking back to give full regen when activated by the brake sensor. I can't remember which of the commands took that away. course it might be one that causes another thus might be this way for ever. But basicly now you get min regen with the brake switch but could switch it on full with the - button.

Now for the fun.

for the most part I run 3 blips of assist and only some times go to 4. If I run 4 the entire way I end up draining the batterys to much to make it back and forth (24 miles total) with out completely draining one battery or the other (I charge the bionx battery at home and the other at work so they are some times out of balance).

Now with 3 blips you still have assistance above 20mph which is the best part of this mod. or in other words the system no longer gets you to 19mph and then leaves you with no help.

I can easily average 20mph on my commute and best is 22.6 so far.

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[Wcarrothers]

Well for some reason, I thought I read a while ago that the bionx controll used 48v FETs. Not sure why I thought that but thought that is what i read some where and had not had time to double check. But reading around sounds like the newer ones (mine is a can based system that I got in 2011) it should have the 75 v parts. Which got me thinking, I have a second 2590 battery sitting here which would give me another 14-16 volts. Which wold put the max voltage maybe around 60 when fully charged ( my 26v bionx battery measures 28 when charged and the others can gt to around 16). I am sure the voltage when in use drops some so would have a good safety margin. Wondering if that would be to much. I work with fets all the time at work, so i know they can be easily damaged, but also ive swaped plenty of them, assuming when they nuke they dont damage the boards, or take the gate driver chip out should be fixiable.

Anyway thinking about giving it a try, if nothing else to see what another 15v might give for a top speed. Guessing it probably is a moot point as I would suspect the extra voltage would cause my range to drop making even more making running that way impractical. Course also the issue that there would not be enough time to charge 2 2590 batteries during y work day seeing I only have a single battery charger.

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[Wcarrothers]

Well some where between 45 and 61 v the smarts in the bionx will refuse to turn on the FETs in the hub. .

Anyone know where the actual high voltage cut off is set?

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[Wcarrothers]

any way, I did get a chance to wire up 2 of the 15v 2590 batteries on top of the stock 26 and connected up, measured about 60-61 v at the hub connection. With the 2 batteries when testing in the basement the throttle would not respond after peddling to get the wheels started. Normally with the stock or single 15 v in series it would accelerate to 19 or 27 mph. With the e tra voltage I'm guessing the hub was detecting and disabling the FETs to protect for over voltage?

Can anyone verify a programmed voltage max for the hub power input on bionx systems?

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