Home of the eBike Nerdcast!

A few years ago I built my first bike on a shoestring budget.  After riding it through a couple of Potsdam winters and the salt/sand and wear had got the best of it. All the while I was thinking of how to improve upon it. After endlessly ready the forums at endless-sphere I came up with a plan that would be the perfect electric bike for me.

Endless Sphere thread here.

Specs:

• 1000(++)+ watt Goldenmotor hubmotor.
• Custom, hand built controller (18 IRFB4110 MOSFETs ).
• Norco Scrambler with Xtracycle conversion.
• 4,7Kwh Lithium Cobalt battery back. (64V 72Ah)
• 100+ miles per charge (estimated 190+ but  not yet tested ) assuming  no pedaling…
• 203mm BB7 mechanical disc brakes
• Passenger capability
• Cycle Analyst Display from ebikes.ca
• 2nd place in the RIT green vehicle challenge, (1st place was a carbon fiber recumbent trike designed by a large team )

It’s an endless work-in-progress. Lots of updates (pictures are actually a bit old now) I still managed to get over 1000 miles on it this past summer.

Current projects include: Rigid battery box construction, controller reprogramming, various wire-harness tweaks, wide-loader xtracycle accessory, adding additional bracing to the xtracycle frame,additional lighting, hubmotor performance modifications, twist throttle (instead of thumb), and the list goes on…:D

Checkout some more pictures below:

I took some time to cleanup my bench this weekend and figured it would be a good time to take a picture and submit it to the WOTW cause. Workbench of the Week is a feature of the Amp hour podcast that I have enjoyed quite a bit. My setup isn’t anything terribly fancy. It’s what I use to build BLDC Controllers, Batteries, Protection Electronics, Digital Projects and a little Ham Radio tinkering. Here is a laundry list of equipment:

• Old School HP140T spectrum analyzer, works great
• Transistor Devices electronic load , 100v ~500W
• 13.8V linear power supply, 400w
• ~28V switching PS ~1500W
• Phillips 25mhz analog scope  (cheap hamfest find, need to pickup a Rigol soon…)
• Several Cheapie DMMs – Does the trick
• HP6034 power supply 300w (project)
• Hakko Soldering Station
• One-Hung-Lo soldering station….
• Self-Contained Cell Tab Welder
• Bunch of MSP430 prototyping toys tools sitting on the venerable CRT (12 yrs old )

Ebike Nerdcast - Episode 2 [ 56:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (399)

Show Notes

The audio overlaps a bit between the 2 of us. I blame the recording software yet again… I opted to keep the good quality audio, overlaps and all. Let me know what you think.

Cohost : Pete Prebus www.electricbikereport.com

http://electricbikereport.com/electric-bike-store-guide/ http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=23369&hilit=target $650 Currie bike w/ LiFePO4 Battery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clw6xSjNa-c 75mph dual-motor cyclone kit (unsafe, do not attempt ) Theme

Music By: MCLars: www.MCLars.com YTCracker: http://www.ytcracker.com/ Email to ebikenerd@troyrank.com

Logo by Nick Marquis: http://www.nicholasmarquis.net/ Thanks Nick!

Last year I picked up a little plow-tractor to get rid of the snow in the driveway. It’s kind of an interesting exhibit of US manufacturing abilities from the 1960s. It has a 2 cylinder 690cc briggs and stratton boxer motor. Most importantly it pushes snow really well because it weighs about 9 tons.  About  Halfway through the winter died. I checked everything, carburetter was fine, ignition seemed to work fine. I was stumped. After talking to some friends at work I decided to checkout the keyway on the flywheel, to see if it had slipped the key. Sure enough, it spun so, such that the spark timing was off. I managed to damage the flywheel while removing it and in turn damaged the starter gear. I found a new flywheel in the summertime. After 8 months of sitting like a half-eaten-zombie in my barn, the snow was starting to fly again, and this is the story of the Ressurection:

There it is,  taking up room in the barn and blocking the stairs for 8 months….

No flywheel, about to take off the starter to  replace the gear

Crappy, destroyed starter gear

Shiny new starter gear

Starter back in, Flywheel back on and… it smoked, it screamed, it ran …..IT’S ALLIVEE

Bodywork back on, and out to pillage for BRAAINS!…

As much fun as it is to restore this relic of a different time, and as much as it is incredible that 40+ years later this thing will even work at all, it also makes me wonder why we’re still using gasoline engines for things like this. It’s such an overly complicated, oily, smokey, loud system and to do what? Push snow around… If I have any more trouble with it I will convert it over too electric drive in about as much time as it took me to do the work in this post.

CNN did an amazing story about Justin Lemier-Elmore, an Ebike revolutionary indeed. It is a fantastic piece on the state of ebikes and a celebration of adventure and engineering.  If you take a peek in the gallery, you’ll notice a familiar bike…MINE! Although the caption refers to me as “Terry”. You win some, You lose some.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/12/electric.bike.hackers/index.html?hpt=T2

Ebike NerdCAST - Episode 1 [ 49:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1172)

Show Notes:

Guest: Greg Crist

Special Thanks to Chris Gammel and Dave Jones for the mention on The Amp Hour. I’m a big fan. Be sure to check out their show!

It turn’s out the limit of  ”simulated wood grain” as a heatsink, is well under 40W…

Step 1: Find a monitor in the dumpster at work

Step 2: Plug it in

Step 3: Hmm… the backlight doesn’t work

Step3: Take it apart

Step 4: Measure the input to the high voltage transformer, while being careful not to vaporize yourself on the 750V line

Step 5: Crap… ridiculously noisey

Step 6: Look at capacitors on the bus, notice that they’re bulging and leaking

Step 6.5 : replace 450uF 25V Caps with 450uF 50V caps

step 6.7: turn back on

step 6.8645988884: works like new

Step 9: Replace your crappy, 12 year old CRT

The only thing that’s badd now is frog and toad