Norco Empire 5 + 80-100 Outrunner, 5kw

[Timma2500]

Hey all,

I've decided to rebuild my first build, the Norco Empire 5 bike that once had a planetary gearbox and Astroflight 8150. The Astro has since found a new home in the UK and the crappy cheap-ass planetary gearbox went in the rubbish bin ages ago. Up 'till now i'd planned on transferring the Cyclone driveline thats in my Specialized FSR into this bike but i've since had a change of plans...

I've had a hankering to do another RC drive so when i stumbled across those 130kv 80-100 outrunners on ebay for $160AUD (shipped) that are similar if not the same as the well known Turnigy 80-100's, i thought what the hell, why not!

I'll be pairing this up with a spare old Castle Creations HV140 and cutdown Magura throttle from the Astro build though this time i won't be using a Throttlizer, i'll instead go for one of Justin's brilliant little RC CA interface thingys to make it all come together and current limit it to around 100 - 110amps.
If the HV140 dies eventually, i'll see if Castle can send me out a Rev2 HV160 8)

The frame will also go under the knife yet again, this time 'round using much thinner 3mm aluminium instead of the original's 5 and 10mm which i've since found to be way overkill and too heavy. Once again the motor will be in the frame but i've come up with a neat way to duct airflow around the motor and exiting behind the motor / frame while not seeing the motor from the side. More on this later...

Gear reduction wise it'll comprise a 2 stage #25 drive to the cranks with the exact gear ratios yet to be decided as i'm not sure yet whether to gear it low for extreme climbing or a little higher for around 75-80kph top speed.

The bike already has an adjustable Marzocchi TST airsprung rear shock and this will work along side my RockShox 454 Pike 20mm axle airsprung fork.
Rear end uses a 12mm Rockshox Maxle QR which sould be quite stiff and helpfull in controlling rear-end flex.
Travel is 5.5" front and 5" rear. Wheelbase will be lengthened to around 1190mm.

Weight wise this bike will come in well below my Intense M3 / Clyt HT3525 build, around or just under 30kg should be a given depending on whether i settle on a 15 or 20ah lipo setup.

Once again this build won't really start untill i've finished a fellow member's frame mods i've been stuffing around with for ages so there won't be many updates for a while except if some parts come in. The motor is already ordered but i'm yet to order the RC CA from Justin (if he has any in stock that is).


View attachment 5View attachment 4




Paul

P.s. Happy New Year everyone!

 

[farmkid4]

Ohhh sweat looking build looking forward to watching this!

What do you use to weld the aluminum? Beautiful bike!

Do you have a link to the motor? tried a search but didnt find it.

 

[Timma2500]

Cheers farmkid4,

I use a TIG welder to weld the frame.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/C80100-KV130-bulshless-Outrunner-Motor-RC-Flugzeug-EMP-Free-Shipping-/120839798118?pt=RC_Modellbau&hash=item1c229cfd66

It seems i could have got it cheaper, bugger! Ah well never mind. There are a few listings for these, search: C80100.

I just got another as a spare.




Paul

 

[Tom Tom]

Fantastic build! I'd buy it in a heartbeat if they were available.

Its a helluvaaaaa lot better looking than an optibike.

 

[Spicerack]

Nice..... and subscribed!

Look forward to seeing how you do it so I can totally copy you! (I'll even bribe you with beer to have a close look at it when it's done!)

and a Happy New Year to you too Paul.

Andy

 

[ohzee]

Damn you do some sweet ass metal work.. Yea cant wait to see how she turns out.

 

[farmkid4]

Cheers farmkid4,

I use a TIG welder to weld the frame.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/C80100-KV130-bulshless-Outrunner-Motor-RC-Flugzeug-EMP-Free-Shipping-/120839798118?pt=RC_Modellbau&hash=item1c229cfd66

It seems i could have got it cheaper, bugger! Ah well never mind. There are a few listings for these, search: C80100.

I just got another as a spare.




Paul

Thank you for the link

Interested to see more pics/hear what you think of the motor.

 

[Timma2500]

Cheers boys i'm looking forward to this build.

Andy, we should organise a ride together when its finished so you can hava look and ride of it, are you into offroad riding by any chance?

Another part ordered - a Blackspire 42t DH chainring to go with one of the 34t's from the last build.



Gearing will be: #25 60t/14t motor, #25 40t/14t, 42t crank/16t eno bicycle chain, 34t crank / 11/34t cassette giving about 32:1 total reduction in 1st gear.

Top speed should be around 65kph in 9th gear and about 21kph in 1st gear.
These speeds are about the same as my current Cyclone setup giving a good compromise between speed and climbing ability but with 2.5 times the peak power of the Cyclone :wink:


Paul

 

[sn0wchyld]

subbed

timma, always loved your work mate. inspired me to build a similar one myself, only with a old D8 cromo frame. how big (dia) is that 60t though? im guessing it wont be 'internal'?

 

[Spicerack]

Off road? Of course. That's why I didn't put slicks on my bike!

Once I get my bike fixed I'll be up for rides...

 

[GrayKard]

Did you have a build thread for the original version of this bike because I seem to remember seeing it before and really liking the way it was all integrated. I look forward to watching it be reborn.

Gary

 

[rodgah]

oooo i like what i see going on there paul

I think there is some weight to be lost when using #25 reduction compared to heavy reduction box's...(well atleast my neugart anyway probably weighs more than twice the sum of the parts in #25). Have you looked into using 1/2" pipe instead of shaft? I think looking at the pics you are going to keep both #25 stages on one side of the bike(collar's on the other side to hold the shafts in). Why not cut a groove on lathe, circlips to hold the shafts in, remove the large mass/hub on the large T sprockets, weld them to the small t sprockets and weld the lot to the shafts/pipes :wink: hahaha well thats atleast where I got to in my head before I threw the idea in the bin. One thing I have noticed about #25 is that you have to have very tight tolerances for the shaft hole size in the sprocket.....as just simply tightening the grub screws offsets the sprocket center enough to make the chain really vibrate.....spring tensioner would fix it but not such an easy solution.

look forward to seeing progress anyway mate

Cheers

 

[Timma2500]

Hey all,

Well the 42t chainring and two 80-100's turned up the other day. I'd love to use both on the bike but alas one is a spare...

timma, always loved your work mate. inspired me to build a similar one myself, only with a old D8 cromo frame. how big (dia) is that 60t though? im guessing it wont be 'internal'?

Thanks snOwchyld. Mate i'm not sure of the 60t sprocket dia but its reasonably big, 80mm +
Nah, too big to use it internally...

Off road? Of course. That's why I didn't put slicks on my bike!

Once I get my bike fixed I'll be up for rides...

Cool your on!

Did you have a build thread for the original version of this bike because I seem to remember seeing it before and really liking the way it was all integrated. I look forward to watching it be reborn.

Gary

Hi Gary, yeah i did have a build thread but i deleted alot of it under protest during the ES buyout some time ago. I'll try to find some of the old pictures and repost them on the thread.

Rodger, i had considered the setup you suggest but in the end, i've decided to take the easy way out and have ordered a 5:1 single stage PLE80 Neugart.
The main reason was space or lack of. Packaging two stages of #25 reduction was going to be a pain in the butt. I'm not too worried about the extra weight, atleast with it being a single stage unit it should be slightly lighter than a twin stage such as your 20:1. Have you made any headway on yours since your last update?



I've got a brand new 5:1 PLE80 coming from a surplus centre on ebay. These are far superior to the BaneBots gearbox i used on this bike originally. That gearbox never got further than 3km before breaking planets. This gearbox is rated to just over 100nm continuous which means i should just scrape in under that figure and well below its max figure of around 160nm (output).

Gearing will be: motor to gearbox #25 17t / 34t (2:1), 5:1 gearbox, gearbox to crank 14t / 42t (3:1) for a total of 30:1.


Paul

 

[Timma2500]

Hey all,

Not much to update apart from the 5:1 Neugart and Cyclone adapter / Dicta 14t freewheel arriving in the post:


Input shaft is 3/4" in diameter



The Neugart is slightly shorter than the motor and will be slimmed down 10 - 15mm more by using a shorter housing extension on the input side.
Being a PLE80, gearbox diameter is 80mm, same as the motor.


Output shaft is the standard 20mm diameter which happens to accept a Cyclone freewheel adapter perfectly. This means using a Dicta type freewheel instead of my preferred choice of an ENO but having seen Burtie put similar power and torque through his, i feel it should be ok.

I'll update later when theres something worthwhile to update!


Paul

 

[sn0wchyld]

hey mate, any progress on this one? or are you too busy riding the m3?
I found this again after almost forgetting about it... after my experiences with the ht hub I think this is the ultimate fate of my norko. guess Ill be taking a few tig welding classes this summer .

 

[Timma2500]

hey mate, any progress on this one? or are you too busy riding the m3?

Hey sn0wy, nah i havn't got around to it yet, still gotta finish my girlfriend's frame before i move onto this build...
I've got a few ideas up my sleave but no action as yet.

I found this again after almost forgetting about it... after my experiences with the ht hub I think this is the ultimate fate of my norko. guess Ill be taking a few tig welding classes this summer .

Are you still riding your Norko or have you given up on the HT? I quite like mine but it does need to be used within its limitations...
Start looking up some TIG welding courses, i wanna see more chop-job frames!

Mel and I went out for a ride around the Swan River on sunday, all was going well untill the throttle stuck on WOT at a really bad time...
We were crossing a bridge where the walkway is lower than the roadway, totally separate. Up till this point of the ride i'd kept the M3 in low power mode as we were just cruising around 20 - 25kph. I sped ahead in high power mode reaching 58kph but started to catch other cyclists so i slowed down, turned around to see Mel waaaay behind.

With the pathway being quite narrow (maybe 2m wide), i did a dohnut to turn around and headed back to her. As i got 20 or so metres in front of her, i did another dohnut and this is where the ride got real interesting! As the bike reached 180deg, i let off the throttle but the bike kept powering on. It popped an instant wheely into the wall half throwing me off then we spun around on the back wheel and it headed for the hand railing of the bridge almost climbing up and over it.

After this i fell to the ground with the bike then it managed to jam its back wheel between the lower railing and the concrete and this stalled the wheel. I immediately tried to un-wedge the wheel to save the controller from popping and just before i got it out the motor finally stopped.

I figured it must have fried the 18fet but to my delight, after switching it to low power mode and lifting the wheel off the ground to be on the safe side, it responded to throttle - sweet!!

All this happened so quickly it was just a blur and it wasn't untill this point that i really noticed the pain...
Lower back - ouch yeah must landed on it when i hit the ground, left knew - big egg and cut up, lower abdomen - severe pain, shin - indent mark in skin over the bone and already bluey/purple but worst of all - it felt like my left nut had been ripped straight out of the old santa's sack
I have never nutted myself anywhere nearly as bad as that before! Add to that, i even manged to cut the 'ol santa sack open, yep the seat or whatever got me good.
So good a few days later i still can't walk properly and the bruise covers everything down there if you know what i mean!

I went to my doctor today and he's confident theres no permanent damage but he also suggested there will be no horizontal fun for a while either - noooooooo lol.
No working either, i've had the last 2 days off and will be lucky to work this week...

To make matters worse, after Mel and i walked (me limped lol) the bikes the rest of the way over the bridge and she on a large rock on the other side, she went to stand up, had an unco moment and managed to sprain her ankle (she didn't want me to tell you all that part lol)

So we rode the 8km back to the ute just on electrical power alone, her sitting down and me standing up on the pedals unable to sit down lol :lol:

All in all, a ride neither of us will forget for a long time haha. I still don't know what caused the runaway WOT jam but i will check the throttle conections before the next ride thats for sure...

Paul

 

[sn0wchyld]

hey mate, any progress on this one? or are you too busy riding the m3?

Hey sn0wy, nah i havn't got around to it yet, still gotta finish my girlfriend's frame before i move onto this build...
I've got a few ideas up my sleave but no action as yet.

I found this again after almost forgetting about it... after my experiences with the ht hub I think this is the ultimate fate of my norko. guess Ill be taking a few tig welding classes this summer .

Are you still riding your Norko or have you given up on the HT? I quite like mine but it does need to be used within its limitations...
Start looking up some TIG welding courses, i wanna see more chop-job frames!

Mel and I went out for a ride around the Swan River on sunday, all was going well untill the throttle stuck on WOT at a really bad time...
We were crossing a bridge where the walkway is lower than the roadway, totally separate. Up till this point of the ride i'd kept the M3 in low power mode as we were just cruising around 20 - 25kph. I sped ahead in high power mode reaching 58kph but started to catch other cyclists so i slowed down, turned around to see Mel waaaay behind.

With the pathway being quite narrow (maybe 2m wide), i did a dohnut to turn around and headed back to her. As i got 20 or so metres in front of her, i did another dohnut and this is where the ride got real interesting! As the bike reached 180deg, i let off the throttle but the bike kept powering on. It popped an instant wheely into the wall half throwing me off then we spun around on the back wheel and it headed for the hand railing of the bridge almost climbing up and over it.

After this i fell to the ground with the bike then it managed to jam its back wheel between the lower railing and the concrete and this stalled the wheel. I immediately tried to un-wedge the wheel to save the controller from popping and just before i got it out the motor finally stopped.

I figured it must have fried the 18fet but to my delight, after switching it to low power mode and lifting the wheel off the ground to be on the safe side, it responded to throttle - sweet!!

All this happened so quickly it was just a blur and it wasn't untill this point that i really noticed the pain...
Lower back - ouch yeah must landed on it when i hit the ground, left knew - big egg and cut up, lower abdomen - severe pain, shin - indent mark in skin over the bone and already bluey/purple but worst of all - it felt like my left nut had been ripped straight out of the old santa's sack
I have never nutted myself anywhere nearly as bad as that before! Add to that, i even manged to cut the 'ol santa sack open, yep the seat or whatever got me good.
So good a few days later i still can't walk properly and the bruise covers everything down there if you know what i mean!

I went to my doctor today and he's confident theres no permanent damage but he also suggested there will be no horizontal fun for a while either - noooooooo lol.
No working either, i've had the last 2 days off and will be lucky to work this week...

To make matters worse, after Mel and i walked (me limped lol) the bikes the rest of the way over the bridge and she on a large rock on the other side, she went to stand up, had an unco moment and managed to sprain her ankle (she didn't want me to tell you all that part lol)

So we rode the 8km back to the ute just on electrical power alone, her sitting down and me standing up on the pedals unable to sit down lol :lol:

All in all, a ride neither of us will forget for a long time haha. I still don't know what caused the runaway WOT jam but i will check the throttle conections before the next ride thats for sure...

Paul

faaaaack mate... sounds painfull to say the least! Do you have a kill switch on your bike? I've got the 'on' switch of the lyen controller wired up to a RCA female plug, the male end of which is just a grab loop with the wires shorted. That way if something like that happens I just yank that out, and the controller switches off immediately.

I'm still riding the htorko, its still lots of fun, but the limitations (namely heat, weight, the resultant reliability (or lack there of)) are taking the shine off it. I wish I had more time and $, as it probably could be improved alot if I had more of these things, but I always wanted to use mid drives (unsprung weight, power density), and the lack of time means I don't want to spend any more time on the norko, atleast with a hub.

I'm going to play around with a few different configurations of mid drives, but once I settle on the ideal setup for me, I'll be putting a really big effort and some $$ into getting something that I really like, and is as reliable/robust as possible. Its probably going to be a 2 speed of some sort, about 5kw, hopefully 100% belt drive. Probably either a chopped or custom frame, depending on time/money and my skills. fortunately, equipment is a non-issue since the uni has tigs/migs/jigs etc.

 

[Danny Mayes]

Timma, dude, that sounds traumatic!

Glad to hear that there is no permanent damage though...

I am always inspired by your work, looking forward to seeing this thing progress.

D

 

[jansevr]

any progress on this build? i love your work - really beautiful and functional bikes!