Elixxer- An Electric motorcycle is born

[mattW]

I got the controller in the mail this week, here's what it looks like, its smaller than I expected but that's probably a good thing:

And here is my DC-DC converter (about the same size as the controller), my main contactor and the two 0-5V throttles, one for acceleration one for regen. I was a little disappointed with the quality of the throttles (mainly aesthetically, they look a bit dodgy) but I might just use the 0-5k pot I already have and use the clutch level and another pot for regen rather than these. Don't know yet.

I got a good quote for my batteries this week and confirmed they will give me the amps I wanted so that is great news. And some other guys from OZ did some performance guestimates which I was pretty happy with too. 0-100km/h (60mph) looks like somewhere around the 6 second mark. This is looking like it will end up a really decent bike.

[dremd]

Subscribed:

If you can't figure out how to disassemble the calipers let me know and I'll hit up a gixxer buddy.

[mattW]

I've worked it out, I downloaded the shop manual, but you have to change you brake fluid at the same time and I'm in the middle of my exam week so I am waiting

It shouldn't be too long though, and I am expecting my motor any day now so we'll see how I go.

My aim is to finish by the end of the year (our summer) but I have a lot of money to save up for the batteries/BMS/charger. Everything else is should go pretty easily.

[mattW]

My next blog entry is up: Step 1: How to plan a DIY Electric Motorcycle.

[mattW]

Well the bike has been on the back burner for the past few months because of the pointy end of my college semester and moving house. But it now lives in the garage of my good friend tim and this weekend I got back on the horse and got some work done. The front brakes were seized so I took apart and cleaned the front pads and put it back together. Just need to get a brake bleeding kit, to get them working properly again. Here are a couple of photos:


Sorry about the image quality, my camera battery died so I had to take photo's on my phone.
Anyway we also set out about getting rid of the parts of the wiring harness that weren't necessary. We basically decided we'd keep everything at the handlebar end for now (lights, gauges etc) and redo all the cables from the bars to the rest of the bike (i.e the battery connection and rear brake/indicator lights). This meant we could get rid of a whole bunch of messy unnecessary wires in one big go which was nice. we'll redo the rest in a fortnight or so. Finally we gave the frame a clean to get rid of all the greasy black gunk that had built up. We got most of it with soapy water, but I'll be picking up some degreaser to get into the tricky spots. Here is the shiny washed frame: