SoCal Grange Race Roll Call!!!! Congrats PaulD!!!

[jonescg]

Awesome effort from the electron harnessers

So what was the cause of the LiPo fire? I'm getting worried about my LiPo plans now :|

Just caught word that Marco Simoncelli died from his injuries at Sepang

Racing motorbikes lets you know you are alive, but can also remind you of our own mortality.

 

[Kurt]

The pics and video of this day's racing are going to be great. Nothing like a out of control bike more power than the tyres can handle from a spectators perspective.

I am shocked that PaulD bike is only 3hp - 2.2kw and can hit 49mph and be competitive - 1st place. Surely it would have to be more than 2.2kw even just to hit 49mph?

Actually I would be keen to know more specs on his bike , controller, voltage, amps, mods to the motor.

Kurt

 

[AussieJester]

=
Just caught word that Marco Simoncelli died from his injuries at Sepang
=

Yes what a an accident too

video of the accident

He was collected by Edwards and Rossi i new it was going to be serious when i saw Simoncelli's helmet bouncing along the track :-| Condolences to his friends and family...

RIP Marco

KiM

 

[liveforphysics]

The pics and video of this day's racing are going to be great. Nothing like a out of control bike more power than the tyres can handle from a spectators perspective.

I am shocked that PaulD bike is only 3hp - 2.2kw and can hit 49mph and be competitive - 1st place. Surely it would have to be more than 2.2kw even just to hit 49mph?

Actually I would be keen to know more specs on his bike , controller, voltage, amps, mods to the motor.

Kurt

I was just saying it felt like ~3hp. I think he was running 66v lipo pack at 55amps, so using 80% for motor and drive train efficiency, that would make it 3.8hp.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

i think the real eye opener here is for those who seriously believe a hubbie isn't worthy of holding a geared motors jock-strap.

erm...the frock beat LFP³ granted but it was to be expected Luke would run his bike into the ground and not finish at all LoL... wasn't the frock bike half a lap behind the winning non-frock still, doesn't exactly make it competitive now does it Perhaps we can let the frock hold the jock strap thats used to wipe excessive chain lube off a non frock setup

KiM

how is beating all the gassers not being competitive??
fer sur if fractions of a second difference are imortant to your app then the inertial mass of a hub motor puts it at disadvantage.
but irl do i really care if i make it to the top of the hill 10 seconds later or even 10 minutes later as long as i make it?

that's the whole point.
a hub motor gives you 95% of geared setup for 5% the effort/outlay.
i.e. a honda civic that can run with the porsches i think lfp can relate to.
how competitive do you suppose a 26" dia 10kW cont/40kW peak hubmotor would be?
at least then it would be on a level playfield with lfp's 10kW golden motor.
anyone wanna give a go with a CSIRO solarcar motor mounted on a bike?


so huge congratulations & many thanx to team farfle-aidan.
despite the penultimate finish you're still winners in my book.
you're my heros for showing the world what a few of us frock-jocks already knew.
luke never mentioned, exactly what was the top speed on farfle's bike?
sounds like it may have been top end limited,
i think it might have benefited with a phase advance board.

 

[AussieJester]

how is beating all the gassers not being competitive??

The gassers weren't the leading bikes to be beat were they to be competitve you must be up with the leaders and fractions of seconds are very important in this context i.e RACING They weren't popping up a hill to the corner store Toorbough if they were the frock would be fine obviously ...second is not winning and half a lap behind is not competitive in any form of motorsport.
They all did a superb job regardless, i also don't think a non frock v's hub debate is really necessary its all been done before hasn't it.

KiM

 

[Kurt]

[/quote]I was just saying it felt like ~3hp. I think he was running 66v lipo pack at 55amps, so using 80% for motor and drive train efficiency, that would make it 3.8hp.[/quote]

That's about what I am running with my trike although it doesn't do 49mph so he must be geared higher and like you said its very mild. It would have for very soft acceleration for a race bike. He must be one hell of a rider like you were saying to not loose to much speed in the corners.

Kurt

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

how is beating all the gassers not being competitive??

The gassers weren't the leading bikes to be beat were they to be competitve you must be up with the leaders and fractions of seconds are very important in this context i.e RACING They weren't popping up a hill to the corner store Toorbough if they were the frock would be fine obviously ...second is not winning and half a lap behind is not competitive in any form of motorsport.
They all did a superb job regardless, i also don't think a non frock v's hub debate is really necessary its all been done before hasn't it.

KiM

as has the gasser v electric yet here we are.
and of course they were the ones to beat since a gasser came closer than lfp to taking the big prize.
but no debate.
it's satisfying enuf to know that you've shifted your position to acknowledging the promotion in rank from frockmotor to jockmotor.

 

[dogman dan]

Awesome results. Bummed Thud didn't get into the final action, but thrilled that Paul won. Amazed Lukes bike held up for as long as it did. Great going guys!

Curious about the lipo fire. Panting to see some vid, but understand you may need to get home, then have time to edit and post it.

 

[kfong]

I think Luke actually made some great progress on this race. His controller, didn't die. His motor didn't go up in flames. All of It was still somewhat running afterwards. If what I suspect is true. The halls could not handle the heat. Moving the electronics out of the heat zone with external sensors is the next logical progression. He is pushing his equipment to it's limits. That's what real racing is all about. No one can say he didn't have the fastest bike there. I look forward to the next race with the new improvements. Great job everyone, sorry to hear about the lipo fire. I'm sure all are curious to know what caused it?

 

[dogman dan]

You bet. definitely progress for Luke. No flames this time. I would think it was heat, but hard to say. Sounds like it wasn't that hot. But mabye it was at the location of the actuall hall sensors.

Love the change the tire every heat thing. Prodigious. After last years DR, my drive tire looked ok on the outside, but inside it was all loose cords. Definiely have passed and left behind all stuff designed for a bike here.

 

[Alan B]

...

Motor outside temps never exceeded 155degF. That's cold for a motor. Not 100% sure what killed the sensors, but maybe internal temps were 100degf hotter inside the case somehow.

We will use externally mounted sine/cosine encoders from now on.

Excellent. Motor heat resistant sensors of some type at least. Or a controller that uses Halls for hole shot and then smoothly transitions to back EMF sensorless might be another good option for some setups.

 

[dogman dan]

First vid up from motorbicycling forum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8LBv9GZHyI&feature=youtu.be

 

[dogman dan]

Another one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ku1RivaTs8&feature=youtu.be

 

[Arlo1]

AWESOME GUYS! Congrats Paul. Its our show now. This is the shit the world needs to see to wake up!!!! Aweosome!

i think the real eye opener here is for those who seriously believe a hubbie isn't worthy of holding a geared motors jock-strap.

I was actually referring to electrics alone. I personally would not want to race a hub motor.... Although I could have been on the podium for this event. I Know how inefficient they are, so if I run my x5 to hard it makes a lot of heat then you need extra battery capacity to compensate and the motor it self weighs 31lbs more then something you can get the same performance form in a geared motor..... So if you add 35-40 extra pounds to a bike to make it work you also add more stress on the motor and make it run hotter. Now the biggest thing with a hub motor is you are limited once you find saturation you can not accelerate any faster.... But with a geared motor if you don't have enough HP you just gear down and spin the motor faster! And when you have a geared motor spinning faster it will cool better!

 

[John in CR]

Racing with hubs requires not sending more than ~5kw to the hub if you want to last more than a couple laps.

Ok, that's it. I accept that challenge. 8) Blanket statements like that are simply invalid. It's like me saying e-bicycle racing with non-hub motors requires not sending more than 6kw to the motor. :lol: Just because guys run with the incorrect gearing and voltage, and don't adequately understand their motors' limits, doesn't mean there's some common power limit. It's still just an electric motor subject to the same constraints with similarly shaped performance curves.

The conclusion still just out of reach due to your racing with fumes background is that it's not about tuning the controller for optimum motor performance. It's about tuning the controller for the given load. The difficult part is that the rider can still blow a motor just like ICE racers, but our electrics are like running a Formula 1 car with no instruments, no tachometer, and virtually no audible feedback from the motor.

Our electrics are so much better than gassers that we can actually run faster without having variable gears and de-tuning our rigs so the rider can do whatever he wants with the throttle. Ultimately that won't be competitive though, so the real challenge will be coming up with the best measurement of what's going on with the motor. Is there anything more than temperature that needs measuring? It will probably take multiple sensors, since different regions have different thermal limits and heat or cool at different rates. How would you get the feedback to the rider, audible, some in helmet visual display...Bike racers don't/can't look at instruments do they? The hardest part will be determining the thermal limits.

BTW, did Paul win with essentially the same rig as last time? That's just incredible display of skill to win with so little power.

Were you really running at just 11kw output, and still be able to spin the wheel at any time? If so, gasser horsepower ratings are incredibly misleading. As far as detuning yours to last, I image that lengthening the current ramp up time just a bit will make a big difference without killing the throttle fun too much. 8)

 

[Arlo1]

Another one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ku1RivaTs8&feature=youtu.be

Who is it that blows by at 2:55 ?

 

[dogman dan]

Looked like pink leathers didn't it. Lukes freind maybe.

Re Johns comment, depends on the hubmotor. For sure getting the right combination of windings and rim size to go with the controler settings is cruicial. Get it as wrong as I did at last years death race and you still get a pretty fast bike, but the race better be 6 laps, not 10. I don't think it's a hubmotor cant win thing as much as it's a matter of some things that haven't been figured out yet. But in the unlimited class, it's going to take hubmotors designed for 5kw or more. This made for a bike stuff is not going to cut it. Not against a 20 hp gas motor.

It will be fun though, when things grow enough to have a 9c class, a 5400 class, etc even if unofficial. The funnest racing for the budget racer will ultimately be done on virtually identical bikes, much like sailboat one design racing. So what if you are racing for 15th, so long as you beat the other guy on the same motor as you have.

 

[beast775]

wicked .

 

[ohzee]

Looks like a good time. I sure do enjoy the video/audio on ebikes rather then all the noise from the gas one's.

 

[zombiess]

Another one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ku1RivaTs8&feature=youtu.be

Who is it that blows by at 2:55 ?

That was me. I missed the 2nd ebike heat and asked if I could run in the 50cc 2 stroke class. Neil who ran the event gave me permission but said I had to start at the very back of the pack and give them a head start so I didn't interfere with them. There were 24 50cc stinkers and me on my ebike. I sat behind the start line after they left until they go to the first corner then left. I went from position 25 giving everyone a 20 sec head start and placed 7th I was told.

I took it really easy because I didn't want to screw up their race since I was a guest in it. This is also the only race I didn't crash in.

1st ebike race, crashed on lap 2 due to lack of skill
ultimate bike race, crashed lap 1 I think because the rear tire was a the edge of traction and I hit a very tiny bump causing me to move the throttle ever so slightly which meant I low sided and walked the bike off the track

In the 60cc bike race I had a top speed of 50.8 MPH on the straight away. I was feeding the bike about 6KW of power and it didn't eve get very hot. 20" wheels for the win. Super touchy ebike throttles for the loss.

So to recap, I raced 3 time, crashed twice, finished once. This was my first time ever racing something with 2 wheels on any kind of track, but now I know where the limits are.

 

[zombiess]

Smoked 2 hubs setting up a bike for this race. Smoked the hub on the second lap of the race. Racing with hubs requires not sending more than ~5kw to the hub if you want to last more than a couple laps.

I had some 8800W bursts in my 2806 and many times saw the CA reading over 6KW. Motor got warm, but Henry was able to touch the phase windings inside the motor for about a second to check the temp and while hot, no discoloration or smell and motor cooled off quickly.

20" wheels = into efficiency much faster

On another note, I think I had the shortest wheel base bicycle at the race and looked like a clown riding it.

 

[acuteaero]

I will sort through the hundreds of pictures I took at the event and post the maybe 5% of decent ones once I get home and off this horribad netbook- for now, some carnage pics, because everyone loves carnage pics.

Paul S's BBQ'd HS motor

SoSauty's Astro 3220 Meltdown

And, last but not least- SoSauty's 12S4P Turnigy LiPo fireball

Rushing to hook up the 8 6s packs in a 12s 4p configuration to make the first heat- one wrong connection, a little pop- I was watching trying to double check and avoid mistakes, but in the rush it evaded both of us- the anderson connector instantly welded and was impossible to disconnect- within five seconds it was a six foot high fireball.

Lastly, just for bonus kicks here's the video of Luke's bike's last burnout with Biff at the controls- the bike was seriously that bad at the end- you could hear and see the awful studdering juddering comm faults from across the race track.
[youtube]4M4RRJCM8YY[/youtube]

 

[dogman dan]

Thanks for the info on the fire. Easy to do, I have done it too, but always had a tab act like a fuse before anything bad could happen. Maybe the 4p deal meant it spread the short enough to keep the tabs intact, just long enough?

Stuff like that was why my race bike battery was designed to be removable, by rolling the bike over and shaking it.

 

[etard]

Update:

Better late than never, right fellas!!??

Well, the build off began showing signs of deadline infringement Thursday night. Thud was not happy with the skewed rear end, and so he chopped, bent and cut the thing back into a proper looking dropout and added some bracing/ motor mounts. He and I stayed up till 3:00 soldering everything up and he showed me how to convert a controller that would last. The frame was mostly done, but there was still a ton of work left to do. Pics of the progress the next morning:

Friday morning we wake up about 7 and start one of the longest days of my life, bodies broken, hands looking like vienna sausage we begin to tackle the seemingly ever increasing list of to do's. We are optimistic but quickly realize that any unforseen hurdles could throw the whole thing out of wack. First things first, we need custom 184mm spokes and JensonUSA does not have them in stock. Luckily, I find a place an hour away with a Phil Wood spoke cutter/threader so I head down to pick those up, I almost died 2-3 times splitting lanes in Friday LA type traffic on my motorcycle, but eventually make it back to find the FED Ex box full of Thud Gear has arrived! Woot!! Woot!!!

Then Jay64 show up around 8:00 pm, what a great guy with good racing stories and a very cool attitude. Of course his Frock motor needs minimal work to be put together and he sets up shop on the "dark" side of the patio. Long story short we stay up till 4:30 and decide to call it quits as our zombie like motion was not being very productive. We were not at all convinced that we would make the race at this point. We had a roller, untested motor setup, but pretty close to complete. Pics:

Race day! We are not ready and we know it's coming down to the line, but still possible! I set about putting the Jr Brute back together, connected the battery up around 10 am, went out front to test it, applied power..... :x motor is spinning rear sprocket but the wheel is not turning! Come to find out Aluminum, while easy to file and cut, is not suited for the keys that lock the freewwheels onto the cassette hub. FROCK!!!!!! We are beaten, broken e-builders at this point. The keys are a major component to both our systems which means neither bike is raceable. We shower up, pack mr GF car up and prepare to go up to the race as spectators and commune with the other forum members. Then I get a call from Jay64 saying the whole thing is almost over and we would miss all the action anyway. We make a crunch decision to go put 2 more hours into make steel keys just so we can get some track time. Success!!! so we pack up some batts, riding gear and throw the bikes in the back of the jeep, Grange here we come!!! Got there before everybody left but atfter all the action and had a really good time hanging with the guys. THIS is what it's all about, the race is just a damn good excuse to hang out with like-minded people and swap ideas and knowledge. We got to take some runs on Farfle's bike, and DAMN!! I didn't think a hubmotor could accelerate like that off the line. What an awesome build, and a great guy. I got to take a few laps after the sunset to ecperience the track... AWESOME track!! WAY better than Willow Springs crappy track, I hope we have another event here soon, count me in AND ready! Here are some pics of the bikes as of the moment. Along with some pics of my backyard as found this morning:

It was an epic week, a crash course in scratch built ebikes if you will. Thud is a wealth of knowledge and I tried to extract all the knowledge I could from him. A priceless expereince in my book, and I'm sure it will remain etched in Thud's memory as well. Today is cleanup day, and we will also complete the yet to be named Grange racer and we will be sure to take some videos of it in action today. Maybe Thud and I will do some drag racing!!

Can you find the dog in every picture?? :lol: