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View Poll Results: would you ride it around town?
yes 30 60.00%
no 10 20.00%
wat 10 20.00%
Voters: 50. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 05-10-2008, 11:54 AM   #26
Dolphin Overton
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I think scooters are sooooper gay, but I'd rather have a scooter in this case
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Old 05-10-2008, 12:20 PM   #27
Hazdaz
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I think that is pretty sick.... and seems to be well engineered.

You mentioned that the batteries are in the 'trunk' looking thing in the back... is the whole thing one big battery? I would think that makes the bike very top-heavy. They couldn't be set lower in the bike? Possibly even using a couple of smaller batteries instead of one big one?

I am especially impressed by how 'stock' the bike looks from afar (minus the trunk of course).

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Old 05-10-2008, 03:28 PM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dolphin Overton View Post
I think scooters are sooooper gay, but I'd rather have a scooter in this case
ok. why? i LIKE riding bikes. i LIKE pedaling. i don't necessarily like the feeling i get when i'm at the bottom of a long hill at the end of a long day, however. this lets me do all that i did before, only quite a bit faster, and with less effort if i feel like being a bit lazy.

i already outlined practical reasons above why i didn't want a scooter, but an additional one was that it'd be no better for my health (and worse for the environment) than driving a car. i'd rather drive an early 90s civic hx and get 35+ mpg and be warm and dry in rainstorms than putter along in the wet on a 50cc scooter at 80 mpg. this gives me a third option, and that's its whole point.

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Originally Posted by Brad Pittiful View Post
cool fabrication...congrats to you...good luck with it
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Originally Posted by impressiveREX View Post
thats awesome keep it up. im far to fat for such action 6'5 320
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazdaz View Post
I think that is pretty sick.... and seems to be well engineered.

You mentioned that the batteries are in the 'trunk' looking thing in the back... is the whole thing one big battery? I would think that makes the bike very top-heavy. They couldn't be set lower in the bike? Possibly even using a couple of smaller batteries instead of one big one?

I am especially impressed by how 'stock' the bike looks from afar (minus the trunk of course).

thanks. i just got done with fabricating the new battery holder. its construction involved much use of the drill, a bent sheet of steel, multiple angle brackets, some hardware, elastomeric sealant (don't ask ), some pieces of rubber, a single cable tie, and, of course, quite a bit of duct tape...

with this new bracket, Hazdaz, the battery will live in the main triangle where it rightly belongs. weight that's low and central is much better. as it is now the bike is a pain to move about by hand in the garage, as it wants to fall over and flip at the slightest provocation with all that weight up high.

some people do use smaller batteries, and the truly inventive will do things like fill their fork and frame tubes with batteries. i don't trust my ability to not electrocute myself through the frame enough to try something like that.

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Old 05-10-2008, 04:09 PM   #29
rice h8r
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So how does the motor work, something spins inside that metal thing at the hub and the inertia spins the wheel to??
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Old 05-10-2008, 07:13 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shikataganai View Post
i just got done with fabricating the new battery holder. its construction involved much use of the drill, a bent sheet of steel, multiple angle brackets, some hardware, elastomeric sealant (don't ask ), some pieces of rubber, a single cable tie, and, of course, quite a bit of duct tape...

with this new bracket, Hazdaz, the battery will live in the main triangle where it rightly belongs. weight that's low and central is much better. as it is now the bike is a pain to move about by hand in the garage, as it wants to fall over and flip at the slightest provocation with all that weight up high.
my fabricated battery holder rode the failboat immediately. here's the story of the different versions i tried today:



i ended up trying a few battery mounting options today.









above is the second version. steel plate with angle brackets and side supports. secured to the water bottle holder bolt bosses. was met with immediate failure: water bottle holder bolts were too flimsy to torsional stresses, the battery itself barely fit in the triangle, and the whole assembly was too wide, causing the cranks and my legs to hit it every revolution. came off after only 5 feet of riding...

the third version was also short lived:



the third version, used only for one ride, from home to REI. the battery itself is huge! here it is strapped directly onto the rear rack, with a super-strong (too strong, actually!) bungee cord on top for good measure. note the waterproofing job on the motor controller, now bolted with plates to the rack. bit more theft resistant this way.



at REI i bought a Ortleib Bike Shopper waterproof pannier. the zipper is the same kind on my old drysuit. sweet. the battery itself fits inside nicely, and seems happy to be in its new home.



mounted up to the right side of the rack. the cord from the controller on the left to the bag just reaches.



[part 1 of 2, too many images]
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Old 05-10-2008, 07:14 PM   #31
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[part 2 of 2, too many images]

a view from the rear. you can see the cord snaking from the left, under the rack, and into the bag, where it attaches with the battery.



yes, the bike now has more weight on the right than the left. it's not that big of a deal when you're riding.

i think we have a winner:

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Old 05-10-2008, 07:26 PM   #32
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in other news, over 57 miles (21.5 of them today alone!) i'm averaging just under 14 Wh/mile. what does this mean? it means i've used about 0.78 kWh to recharge the battery. keep in mind that i recharged it at the hospital, too, stealing their electricity... it's not a big deal, however, since the total amount of electricity is about 5 cents here in the pac nw.

that'd make cost per mile about $0.0009.*

(* if you conveniently ignore up front costs and battery replacement down the line. )
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Old 05-10-2008, 08:06 PM   #33
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If only you could recharge the battery while slowing down / coasting, you could get away with a much smaller battery.

Still interesting setup, but I think this is where multiple smaller batteries would come into play... to at least equalize the weight left-to-right on the bike.


BTW, where is the accelerator? Is it like a motorcycle in which you twist your wrist? (can't tell from the photos)
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Old 05-10-2008, 08:22 PM   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazdaz View Post
If only you could recharge the battery while slowing down / coasting, you could get away with a much smaller battery.

Still interesting setup, but I think this is where multiple smaller batteries would come into play... to at least equalize the weight left-to-right on the bike.

BTW, where is the accelerator? Is it like a motorcycle in which you twist your wrist? (can't tell from the photos)
the throttle is a right twist grip, just like on a motorcycle. the imbalance in weight is really not perceptible. the controller and all the wiring is on the left side, anyway, not to mention that no one complains that the drivetrain is off to the right on "normal" bikes.

regenerative braking isn't that effective on small vehicles such as bikes+riders. the majority of energy is spent fighting wind resistance, and there's not much kinetic energy to recover because the bike+rider system's mass is an order of magnitude (if not more) lower than that of a car. it's possible, but only reduces consumption by maybe 10%.

(my setup does regeneration but only if you're coasting down a hill at over 30 mph . i can confirm that it works fine and is a negligible energy saver.)

you're right, however, in that i could have gotten away with a smaller battery. right now i'm doing 14 Wh/mile at around 17.5 mph average speed, that's both up and downhill. going by the theoretical capacity of my pack that's a 41 mile range. (more like 35 in reality, and it'd take all night to recharge after such an affair.)

when i regear the bike i'll probably increase my cruising speed to 20 if not closer to 25 and thus my energy consumption, but i'll still probably have 30+ miles. i don't see myself doing 30 miles every day... oh well. light/partial discharges will probably help my expensive lithium battery pack last longer.

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Old 05-10-2008, 09:26 PM   #35
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It's FWD.


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Old 05-11-2008, 01:28 AM   #36
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Originally Posted by OutbackGT View Post
It's FWD.


driver-selectable awd, actually.
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Old 05-11-2008, 01:50 AM   #37
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what if it gets stolen and/or stripped??? What anti theft devices are on it?
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Old 05-11-2008, 01:56 AM   #38
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rice h8r View Post
what if it gets stolen and/or stripped??? What anti theft devices are on it?
The big chrome purse attached to the side?
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Old 05-11-2008, 02:04 AM   #39
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Originally Posted by rice h8r View Post
what if it gets stolen and/or stripped??? What anti theft devices are on it?
the motor controller is bolted to the rack with metal backing plates. the battery (in "the big chrome purse") comes with me. if someone wants to steal my $12 LED flasher up front then bully for them. otherwise it gets locked up like my other bikes, with a cable run through one wheel and a u-lock securing the other wheel to the frame.
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Old 05-12-2008, 12:21 AM   #40
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I like the concept but the thing looks rigged and does not seem cost effective.
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Old 05-12-2008, 12:33 AM   #41
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Do you ride it in the rain?
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Old 05-12-2008, 12:57 AM   #42
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What a hideous looking mess. I dig the "dyno chart" though.
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Old 05-12-2008, 01:08 AM   #43
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Is there a dccd option, lol? Would be nice to use in town, free outlets wouldn't last long though. Businesses would catch on quickly and try to prevent us from sponging energy. Solar charging would be a good supplement though.
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Old 05-12-2008, 01:20 AM   #44
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Originally Posted by sixosix View Post
I like the concept but the thing looks rigged and does not seem cost effective.
i agree that i'll probably never recoup the money i spent to build this. however, i will be using less gas since this lets me do essentially all of my in-town trips that don't require hauling large cargo on the e-bike. although money does buy gas they are not equivalent, and using less gas while not polluting horribly as scooters and motorcycles do each have their own worth to people who think as i do.

actually, now that i think of it, i may well recoup the money: parking costs $4.25/day at the hospitals i'll be working at next year, and i'll be there 6 out of 7 days per week, 50 weeks out of 52. that's 300 days, so $1275 if i did my math correctly. it's quite conceivable that this saving + less depreciation on the car through less miles + less gas in its own right could come close to my initial purchase cost.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2slofouru View Post
Is there a dccd option, lol? Would be nice to use in town, free outlets wouldn't last long though. Businesses would catch on quickly and try to prevent us from sponging energy. Solar charging would be a good supplement though.
solar charging doesn't lend enough power to be useful when sized to fit small vehicles. if you had a big array and a storage battery on your house then it might be a different matter, but that's $$$$.

with regard to stealing power, no one should really care when it's on an individual scale: so far i've used just over 1 kWh to ride 70 miles on this thing. that's about 6 cents of electricity here in the pac NW.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KingGalantVr4 View Post
Do you ride it in the rain?
yes, i do -- logged 12.66 miles in seattle's finest rain today, for example, all between 18-30 mph, pedaling from a stop to ~10 mph then only intermittently pedaling afterwards when necessary on steep hills (7% grade requires some help). i waterproofed the controller (note the plastic bag on the rear shot ), electrical taped all the connections, and the battery itself lives inside that waterproof Ortlieb pannier.

while i'm a decent cyclist -- i've done a century, used to race cross, dh, and trials, etc. -- there's absolutely no way i could zip up a 4% grade at 20 mph as i did today _without pedaling_. i'm not a cat 1 racer, and chances are, neither is anyone else reading this thread.

Last edited by shikataganai; 05-12-2008 at 01:26 AM.
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Old 05-12-2008, 01:26 AM   #45
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Can you put another battery pack on the opposit side and double your power output?
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Old 05-12-2008, 01:32 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by KingGalantVr4 View Post
Can you put another battery pack on the opposit side and double your power output?
anything is possible in theory. with my particular setup i couldn't do that because my motor and controller are only rated for 48V. there are parts out there that work at 96V, and the power does rise, as you might expect. there are people out there who've done 60 mph on electric bikes. they're much madder than i am.

electrical primer 101: hook two 48V 12Ah batteries as i have in series and you'd have a 96V 12Ah pack. that'd be a huge bitch. it'd make more sense to split a pack like mine into two and run each 48V 6Ah segment in series, yielding 96V 6Ah. (the metric for a pack's capacity is Wh, watt-hours, which you get by multiplying the voltage by the amp-hour rating. thus 96V 6Ah is the same Wh as 48V 12Ah.)
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Old 05-12-2008, 11:11 AM   #47
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parallel two batteries for higher current and change your gearing to extract more wattage for the same speed?
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Old 05-12-2008, 11:22 AM   #48
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Originally Posted by 2slofouru View Post
parallel two batteries for higher current and change your gearing to extract more wattage for the same speed?
my LiFePO4 pack was expensive for good reason: not only does it have high energy density but it also is rated for safe, continuous 40A discharge. i don't need any more current from it, especially since my controller is only rated for 35A. more current would only help on the low end of the power curve, and i try to spend as little time down there as possible because the efficiency is lower.

regearing is not an option with hub motors... that said, some people use chain or belt drives so as to be able to regear for this purpose, and also because you have the potential of using motors and controllers from the R/C world. (R/C plane motors, for example, can't be used without such a reduction system since they spin at, say, 10,000 rpm. you want 300 rpm or so at the wheel.)

anyway, here are two additional power charts depicting the changes with different current along with my current 48V 35A setup:

407 motor (my motor) at 20A



407 motor, 35A (my setup)



407 motor, 50A



Cliffs Notes: 48V and 35A is a good compromise between torque, power, and efficiency for my setup, and my LiFePO4 battery will gladly flow 40A all day long (until it is discharged, that is)
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Old 05-12-2008, 12:04 PM   #49
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But can you make a computer survive aquatic conditions? (Flobots)
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Old 05-12-2008, 03:54 PM   #50
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...wat.?
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