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Old 07-05-2012, 03:23 AM   #61 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mechman600 View Post
If I can offer some simple advice:

The engine you pulled out of your Honda is a stressed member, an integral part of the frame/chassis. Make sure you [very] solidly connect the two engines mounts back together when you are finished. A solid connection between the headset (upper engine mount) and swingarm base (rear engine mount) is mandatory, or your frame will snap like a twig and hurt someone.
I'd be very nervous about this. This is a 200lb motorcycle (without engine) carrying 400lbs of batteries & electrics? It could snap like a twig! I'd be worried about the tires being overloaded, too.


Last edited by JJJoseph; 07-05-2012 at 03:30 AM..
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Old 07-05-2012, 07:16 AM   #62 (permalink)
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that cycle looks great, for 60 mph though you should do a little streamlining. with a good fairing you could see much higher speeds, and use less juice.
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Old 07-05-2012, 10:27 AM   #63 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JJJoseph View Post
I'd be very nervous about this. This is a 200lb motorcycle (without engine) carrying 400lbs of batteries & electrics? It could snap like a twig! I'd be worried about the tires being overloaded, too.
That is why I picked a motorcycle that is so big and one that is designed to double as a touring bike, with a heavy front faring, saddle bags, trunk, there are even people putting trailer hitches on them, I was worried as well about the weight on the frame and tires but I was also worried about having enough braking power, so I picked a motor cycle that had big brakes designed for handling the weight of a loaded down touring motorcycle.
The frame looks to be plenty strong and the battery box is a stressed part of the frame, the tires and suspension don't seem to notice the weight, but I'll double check that I'm within the load range of the tires, ride height is looking pretty normal and I've taken it over some good sized speed bumps without the suspension bottoming out, I haven't tried doing that with a passenger yet of course but I'm good sized and it handles me just fine.

I've been thinking about faring to make it more streamlined but I don't want to add more weight to it, a canvas, fiber glass or sheet metal faring over the batteries is on the list of things to do, just to keep them more protected and me protected from them, I dind't increase the frontal area that much, the battery box sits a little lower then the stock engine but it's about as wide and much smoother then the stock gasoline engine was.

As it is I haven't been able to test top speed because my batteries that have a normal useful life of 5 years are getting close to 8 years old so my top speed so far is around 15 to 20mph off road in a field and I'm holding off on getting a new set of golf cart batteries because I really want to get some lithium batteries from a guy I know who is getting a larger pack in his car, but I'm thinking I might be able to borrow a set of golf cart batteries from my parents if they end up getting a set for the GE electrack tractor, but at this point the project is on hold while I save up money for batteries, but until then I plan to keep working my old set, trying to bring them back to life.
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Old 07-22-2012, 11:33 AM   #64 (permalink)
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Again, not much physical progress has happened, partly because in the last two months I've only worked enough to keep up with the cost of life and not enough to buy more toys and maybe that is for the best because a few days ago I was at the meeting of the local electric vehicle club and one of the members offered to sell me 36v worth of GBS lithium batteries, 100 amp hour cells that can handle 300 amps discharge continues and 1,000 amps for 10 seconds, the club did a group buy of these batteries so my cost would be $1,215 for the 36v bundle, I'd like it to be 48V so I need to see if anyone else who was part of the group buy has any spares as well, otherwise I can pay full retail and get more GBS cells, at the group buy cost lithium batteries would cost me $1,620 just for the cells and after adding up the cost of a new charger, battery management system that can communicate with the charger and has a screen that gives you a battery gauge with an amp meter as well, the total cost is still pretty reasonable at $2356 for a whole 48v lithium battery setup, compare that with $900 for lead acid batteries plus $530 for a low cost ElCon charger $365 for a PakTrakr gauge with amp meter pickup and at that point I'm still using lead acid batteries without that much of a cost savings!

Now I know I said that part of my goal was to keep this motorcycles cost as low as possible, but my other goal was to have it be something that can be upgraded to perform better, so I still want to try it out with a good lead acid battery pack and see how it would work on the low budget end, or I might even stick with my 8 year old lead acid batteries and just toss a few more on for higher voltage, after all I only paid $20 each for them.
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Old 07-22-2012, 09:08 PM   #65 (permalink)
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If you can skip straight to Lithium, go for it!

My battery pack is 48V - 4 x Optima Yellow tops (55AH capacity each)
That was about $800, with no battery management or charger.

I've been very happy with them, as far as lead goes, but even the best lead is heavy and bulky compared to any Lithium!
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Old 07-22-2012, 10:45 PM   #66 (permalink)
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I would love to skip lead and just use lithium! but as it is I really want to know what kind of performance new 36v lead acid batteries would give me! if I buy new store brand batteries I can get 6 6v golf cart batteries for around $90 each, so a cheap new small pack would cost $540, then $200 for the used motor, less then $200 for a used controller, $150 for the motorcycle, $50 for the throttle, around $50 for 2/0 battery cables (way over sized!) and I'm at $1,250 for an electric motorcycle that works and can be repeated! granted that does not include the machined parts, but if I can keep those parts under $250 then I meet my $1,500 goal other then a battery charger... and I think if I bought a motor, speed controller, battery charger and battery cables all from a golf cart shop that they might cut me a deal.
I also got an Email back from Otis Deal, who's video Ben linked to a few weeks ago, Otis is running the same brand of lithium batteries and battery management system as I'm looking at and so far seems very pleased with it, he's getting 30 miles of range to 50% DOD and I'm planing on having a lower voltage but higher amperage pack, larger over all watt hours, so in theory I should get greater range with the greater watt hours, I of course also have a larger motorcycle frame so there is space to add more batteries on for even more range.

Last edited by Ryland; 07-22-2012 at 10:56 PM..
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Old 09-23-2012, 09:45 PM   #67 (permalink)
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Things are still moving slow, of course, but they are moving forward!
My dad bought a new set of golf cart batteries for the GE garden tractor and my plan was to put them in my motorcycle for a few hours before they get put in the garden tractor, but I of course have to fit that in to the free time I have, so my plan is to put those brand new batteries in and see how the motorcycle performs, as it is I have around 20mph off road top speed with 8 year old batteries, the speed controller cuts out at 30v and 300 amps, I've seen the batteries drop down to 32v (with 42v in batteries hooked up) and 280amps, so right on the threshold of what the controller is programmed to cut out at.

Now for the fun part, lithium batteries, so far I have 3 packs of GBS batteries, 36v and 100 amp hours and two contacts that I might be able to get a 4th set from to make a 48v 100amp hour pack! I also of course need to get a battery management system and a charger but the battery source I have also gets bulk orders of those, so depending on how much work I have in the coming weeks I might be getting all those nifty parts before the snow flies.

The other fun part is a $250 Honda CX500 that I bought because it has a bad water pump, extremely common problem with these motorcycles, it also came with all of the parts to fix the water pump, it otherwise looks perfect with good tires, turn signals, brakes, seat and gas tank, a quick search on Ebay seems to show that if I sell off all off the gasoline related part that I need to pull off I can make around $500 back, making a $1,500 or less out of pocket cost look very practical if you use lead acid batteries and around $3,500 with lithium batteries.
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Old 09-27-2012, 10:20 AM   #68 (permalink)
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Why not go with lithium packs? Kind of a lurker here... but I do have an electric bicycle I built using a road bike, brushless motor, and lithium packs. I'll try to create a thread for it somewhere.

Hobbyking has great deals on lithium packs.

For example: Turnigy 4000mAh 4S 20C Lipo Pack (USA Warehouse)

4AH 4s, 20C discharge. Putting together 2 in parallel, 10 in series and you'll have a super light 40AH pack at 30+ volts for $633.

As for the price, you can do better. Here's a little known secret for hobbyking, find the best price point for the batteries, then wait on the page. If you have to, walk away for 5 minutes or so. A popup will eventually come up enticing you to buy with a lower price. Add to cart, then multiply the number of batteries in your cart so they're all at the low rate. Saved my big on my electrical bicycle. (I used a total of a 8S, 10AH pack)
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Old 09-27-2012, 11:38 AM   #69 (permalink)
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I would want the voltage under load to be closer to 48v so I would want 4 per series string and to get 100 amp hours at 48v (what I'm going for with lithium right now) I would need 100 of those packs, I haven't seen their discounted price pop up yet, but 100 packs would cost $3165 for 5920 watt hours or $534 per KWH compare to the GBS batteries I have, they are going to cost me $1620 for 5120 watt hours or $316 per KWH, even if I had to pay the non bulk buy rate for the GBS lithium batteries they would still only cost me $484 per KWH and that is a price anyone can get even if they are just buying one pack.

So while RC model battery packs might work well for a bicycle, having 100 packs and 100 connections on a motorcycle, plus needing to figure out a BMS that works with 100 packs and a way to charge them all at once seems like a lot of work and cost.

The GBS Lithium batteries that I bought look really nice, they come packed together in sets of 4 cells with a total per pack voltage of 12.8v at rest, I bought the 100 amp hour cells so a 12.8v 100 amp hour pack weighs around 28.2 pounds with plastic caps on the tops to cover over the terminals, each battery post has 4 threaded holes instead of a single large threaded hole or stud, I hope this becomes the new standard because it gives greater contact area and has redundancy as far as a terminal coming loose.
www.ElitePowerSolutions.com sells a BMS and charger that is designed for these batteries and the BMS is supposed to fit under the cell caps, so all of the electrical connections are protected.

I'm working on a design for a battery box for these new lithium batteries that will be more enclosed with a panel on the side that you unbolt to get at the batteries, having a panel on the side will make the box stiffer and stronger while protecting the batteries in case of an accident and because 4 packs of lithium batteries takes up less space then 6 lead acid golf cart batteries, about half the space for the same usable watt hours.
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Old 09-30-2012, 11:41 PM   #70 (permalink)
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My dad wants to put his new batteries in the GE garden tractor so to avoid having to remove them and reinstall them I was able to put them in the motorcycle for an hour or so today! took about 30 minutes to install them and less then 15 minutes to remove them, took it for a quick ride out behind the house in the bumpy over grown grass and realized that I was not going to be able to get much speed before the batteries were bouncing all over the place with a risk of shorting out, so I grabbed some duct tape to attach the GPS so I'd get a decent speed reading and took off down the road, there is a nice stretch of road in front of their house that is 3/4 of a mile long, straight and pretty flat with a slight down hill slope, maybe a few feet drop over half a mile, full throttle it reached 40mph! this is with a brand new set of 36v lead acid golf cart batteries, voltage dropped to around 32v to 33v and it was pulling around 160 to 180 amps leveling out to around 120amp as the speed topped out, turning around and heading very slightly up hill my speed dropped down to about 32mph altho I didn't have the throttle wide open all the time due to a few bumps in the road and it seemed to be pulling 180 to 200 amps a bit more steady with the voltage dropping down to 32v or so.
After I got back and started removing batteries I realized my tire pressure was a little low, the front brake also needs work so it doesn't drag (hit it a few times to get it to retract) and this was with 400 pounds of lead acid batteries at only 36v, so this is about the worst performance you could hope for! I'm thinking that the Lithium batteries shouldn't have much voltage sage either, so a 48v pack should't drop down to 44v or 42v under load, it should stay at 48v to 49v even under heavy load, so my 40mph top speed should go up to closer to 60 or 65mph with a 48v lithium battery pack, dropping the weight by 300 pounds and putting more air in the tires should help as well!
I was also informed that my neighbors boyfriend has a job as a TIG welder, mostly on stainless steal but that he might be able to weld aluminum as well, if that is the case I'm going to see if he can make my next battery box out of aluminum!

I've also been wearing in the motor for my Commuti-Car and am tempted to pull the motorcycle motor out and apart to see if there are any improvements that can be made with it.

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