Hi all
I own Tidal Force bicycle and I am wondering if there is any other owners here.
I found this forum much more informative and much more on focus than other one dedicated to TF.
I hope I would not be radiculed or laugh at like on that another one forum dedicated to TF.
Don't get me wrong , I just want o start disscussion about my TF to more focused group.
So I hope there are any people owning TFs.
It is wondefully designed e-bike, but like few other bikes it is microcontroller run, not one but two microcontrollers, one for BMS /PIC 16F..../ and one for motor control.
My question would be what you do after NMH cells on this bike are down to 80% or less capacity.
Any owners want to give any meaningful thoughts?
Miroslaw
TF owners
Mon, 03/26/2007 - 11:27
#1
TF owners
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Welcome to Visforvoltage! Anyone who has an interest in electric transportation is ok in my book and every convert helps our cause......
In regards of your question: but like few other bikes it is microcontroller run, not one but two microcontrollers, one for BMS /PIC 16F..../ and one for motor control.
My question would be what you do after NMH cells on this bike are down to 80% or less capacity.
I do not own a Tidal Force but I do own a similar hub motor kitted bike. see my blog: http://visforvoltage.org/blog/dennis
My Bionx kit has about 500 miles on the odometer. The Litium ion battery is no longer able to put out as much power as it used to brand new; which is acceptible since all rechargable battery operated devices have the same problem and I am ok with the slight loss in perfromance. It is still able to still travel at 15 mph unassisted and uphills, even very steep hills, at 8mph or better. A loss of 5 to 10 % from the battery's power is still acceptable for me, and I have no plans to invest the time to take the battery apart until it's maybe below 60-50% capacity.
How does your Tidal Force ride with the NiMH cells down at 80% capacity? With the microcontroller in the battery pack, it may be a little tricky changing out the batteries. But I'm sure there are others here on this page who has the knowledge to suggest solutions, if you want to get your hands dirty and invest the time to take apart and change out the batteries.
Check out http://www.powerstream.com. They have really cool Litium ferous phosphate batteries (LiFePO4). I plan to get those batteries to install on my Bionx kit when the Litium ions (probably Cobalts? Bionx does not state what type of Litium ion battery is used in their battery packs) in my Bionx battery packs die.
I hope this helps a little...
Cheers,
Dennis
Hi and welcome, the more the merrier and I like seeing the many diverse rides folks have.
I remember seeing an extended range TF battery pack on ebay once not so long ago. If worse comes to worse and a swap out of the in wheel batteries proves to be a no go maybe you could snag one of those as a supplement. It might also be easier to replace the batteries in the strap on extra pack than the wheel. Keep us informed of any progress and good luck.
Thank you for wecome
Dennis,
My battery capacity is not yet down to 80%. I wrote what when battery capacity is down to .....
After over 5700 km is still at its best , it feels strong. NMH are from SAFT one of the best in the world.
The bicycle is almost 2 years old and I ride in winter regularly up to -10C cold.
But my usual discharge is 50%, I discharge complety only for conditioning cells every 2 months or so.
TF electronics are so well designed. On similar weather days when I ride SOC indicator will lose 1 top LED from display at exactely same spot on my route withing 50 or so meters.
Yes, battery pack is integrated with BMS and fuel gusge chip, but motor controller is separate in rear wheel.
I recently had BMS failure , beacuse manufacturer Wavecrest failed to protect connector and electronics from condensation and humidity.
No any kind of coating on board, no grease in connector. Pins not gold plated. I am surprised it survived 5700km before connector developed white deposit. I rode into puddle last year and thought it was a reason, but now it would not matter if I rode into it or not. This are temp changes, humidity from air , oxidation, you just don't install not protected , not conformal coated circuit board and dry connector without dialectric grease, just like this.
My every car has greasy connectors.
When I open the pack it had pristine clean cells contacts like new, but connector developed oxidation from humidity electrolizes.
I already bought 4 V18 Milwakee tool batteries for 6Ah pack which I intend to build this year. I got also two V18 charges. There are e-moli cells in them, they will have very easy duty powering my bicycle. My TF as Canadian model is 500W restricted, just 14A at 36V in TURBO and I usually ride NORMAL about 250 W, very, very easy duty for e-moli cell, because you can draw from easly 30 A and much more, 10C would be only 60 Amps!!!
Milwakee packs can work in series with BMS INSERIES not like De walt.
Miroslaw
CM
Hi Miro,
I am a new owner of a sad old TF that I got at a garage sale...
The owner said his wife had bought it and then she left him for someone else (probably someone with a fancy car) so he was selling it.
I don't know if it works since it has been out parked outside for some time. It is pretty rusty.
The seller didn't have the key, charger or the manual. Do you know where I can get any of the above ? Got any suggestions ?
I would love to be able to charge up the front wheel so I can test it out ?
A copy of a manual would be great.
I would love to see if I can get it running.
Thanks in advance.
This is the saddest thing I have read in a long time. Left it outside? That's criminal! You would have to suppose the batteries are complete toast, wouldn't you?
"we must be the change we wish to see in the world"
Yeah, so sad.
There is a group on Google Groups dedicated to the Tidal Force bikes: http://groups.google.com/group/Tidalforce
Someone there ought to know a thing or two about those bikes.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Dave, first of all I was surprised to see that somebody posted to this thread I started so long time ago.
I lost link to this Vis for V forum after renovation and didnt visit it for months.
I think that I can help.
First of all by all means DO NOT GET RID OF THIS bike. You have one of the best controller-motor system on the world in your hands.
So to start with: service company for TFs bike is company called LEVT/Light Electric Vehicle.../. Google for their website.
Call them, but fist record all numbers from stickers and bike number stumped somwhere on the frame, you must have this number. They should find bike in database and sell you keys. But key is the least of your problem, locksmiths should do it in minutes.
LEVT also can recondtion your battery for hefty price. Let`s face it NMH cells in your TF are thing of the past
you know milage? But whatever it is if battery was not conditioned/fully charged /discharged every month cells developed cristalization which would be now very hard to knock down.
CM
I have 8800km on my TF step-through and fast approaching incredible 9000 km.
Notice it is NOT cheap Chinese c***. It bears US flag sticker for the reason.
Rear hub with connectors and cables coming out of it is mostly very solid and well protected, but water might penetrated casing.
Obviously you don`t store electric outside.
Do you have connector on the back for B-battery? If so youu need any 36V battery even small to plug into it, but FIRST ABSOLUTELY DISCONNECT FRONT BATTERY CABLES. All of them. be VERY CAREFUL NOT to short while you try to connect , use wires terminated with isolated female quick -disconnect and try to slide one by one inside connector over male prongs.
Of course you have to turn switch first, at this point throttle should be live.
Tomorrow I can write how I gave up on obsolete TF NMH battery when it was getting weak.
Lithium is the way to go and there are ready in form of Milwakee battery packs.
Enough to say my TF has normal front wheel and no single problem with power cut outs so common with TF original battery.
Miroslaw
CM
David,
thank you for posting link.
I hate to be negative but after 2 engineers left that forum I decided to go when I was radiculed and my post turned into joke.
There is wondeful man there, Larry "deerfencer", I love reading his posts , so passionate and logical.
Maybe lack of threads classification ....
I like here that threads are neatly grouped and organized. Well Google is free however
Miroslaw
CM
Again I feel sad and hopless when I see ordinary bicycle left outside covered by snow for months. That`s ordinary one, leaving E-bike outside for months -yes it is criminal.
But now back to the battery.
My pack could be used on any E-bike. It is not my invention in any ways. The point is that Lithium Manganise cells are easy available in Milwaukee power tools batts. Complete with BMS. You use years of engineering by Milwaukee and their engineers made damn sure they withstand abuse of construction site and deliver min.2000 cycles, that`s full cycles until LVoltage cut off. Everage E-biker would not discharge untill LV cut very often, I presume it will extend cycles above 2000 easly.
I used 18V batteries in 2 in series/3 paraller combination.
Beauty of Milwaukee batts is that they can be connected complete with BMS in series and paraller with nothing smoking. With DeWalt packs I know people had problems.
You simply connect plus to minus in series and plus to plus, minus to minus in parrarel. Buy connectors used in Milwaukee chargers direct from Milwaukee , ask service centre. Solder wires to these connectors/AWG14 between batteries, AWG12 as main leads/, bolt them to plate so they will not move, place in bag and on the rack.
For charging slide batts out.
I used above set up for couple of weeks of testing. On first trying on my TF restricted Canada 500W my WattsUp meter showed incredible 1600W drawn in TURBO mode, I was actually drawing over 40A which got me scared, bike easly reached max allowed 31km/h in around 5-6 sec. In NORMAL mode battery easly deliver 320-330W where it supposed to be only 250W max on TF battery. Secret is lower internal resistance of Lithiums, there are only 10 cells/3.6V each/ in series versus 30 in series for NMH.
After weeks I decided that I need my lagguage rack for my as I called it "vacation without gasoline" 3-5-days camping trips to outskirts of Calgary. My favourite is camping along Bow river, but with hordes of homeless people camping there also it can be dangerous. Whole sections of bicycle paths had been declared dangerous by Calgary cycling association but not the city hall. That`s much for Alberta adventage propaganda and constant bragging how rich Alberta is. Calgary falling in road disrepair and dilapidation, potholes, wide frost-made cracks get wider and wider, where is this Adventage? Propaganda. Schools falling in disrepair look like somewhere in poor countries.
So I decide to strip batteries from cases, cut out connecting blades/sticking high taking much room/, solder 2 AWG12 wires+thermistor wire to each, label them, bring al wires to switches, solder.
I stripped 2 charges from casings, stack them into weather-proof box /Pelican/ , built front panel with switches. Main switch is from NKK rated 40A at30VDC.
Thanks to simplicity/lack of any connectors on batts wires/ and high quality switches from NKK pack has low resistance path to motor contr. Look at schematics, no electronics here, just old Kirchof`s Law.
Each charger charges 3 batteries. One wire of charger and thermistor wire are switched by 2-pole rotary switch/rated 5A/ - ROT1, ROT2.
SW1 and SW2 seperate batts for charging, SW3 connects one side of group of batteries to ready for charging. What I am uneasy about is that one wire of charger is permanently connected to each bottom battery.
Should be any problem with this?
I absolutely avoid LV cutout to activate you see why.
Miroslaw
CM
Miroslaw
CM
Miroslaw,
Another TF owner here... Thanks for the updates; I am very interested in this subject, as you can imagine. My battery is still strong but I am keeping my eyes open for additional battery options or down the road, replacing my battery and removing the stock front wheel like you have done. However, I can't see the pics you posted so it is tough to follow your setup. Is there any way that you can get the pictures to display?
Thanks and Regards,
JC
JC
I cannot see them myself now.
I posted pictures, they were re-sized by this website and accepted and appeared, I saw them right after posting, maybe I broke any rules regardind picture posting.
Can administration explain, what I did wrong?
Miroslaw
CM
try to post pictures again
CM
try
CM