Lectra Motorcycle

My Lectra has been on the motorcycle stand for so long I'd forgotten what it looks like on the ground. It's a squat little motorcycle.

Okay, the last set of things to do had one small set of things which would be the minimal to get it running. So here's what I did last night and this morning... clean up and tie down the wiring, making sure it's all well-routed. Well, most of it.. there's one clump which I just kinda velcro'd into a ball to take care of later. :) I redid some of the main power cables including the long one to the controller which used to have a solenoid in the middle. Reattached the rear lights, the seat, took it down off the motorcycle stand, and rolled it out into the driveway.

So.. Wow is this thing neat. More silent than I thought it'd be.. I'm accustomed to the pure silence of the EVT (no chain) but even with a chain this is pretty darn quiet. Accelerates great. The rear brake is a little weak and I hope that's a simple adjustment. It handles extremely well, much better than my Honda Rebel.

I made a major milestone this evening and wanted to share with y'all the status.

I'm working to rejeuvenate a Lectra motorcycle. Look back in my blog postings for previous status updates. This motorcycle is gonna be way cool when phase 2 is finished. At the moment though I'm still working on getting phase 1 finished, namely to have the motorcycle functioning and running on the road.

I had recently been posting about the DC-DC converter etc.. those questions are settled. The DC-DC converter from Powerstream is doing the job excellently. It's a 12.5 Amp unit which will be giving ample power for the light system. Then for a combination of emergency disconnect and manual contactor, I have two huge switches. One has a big red button, the other has a lever that also functions as a key. Both are rated for well over 500 Amps continuous and will be more than sufficient for this motorcycle. I haven't yet figured out exactly where they'll be mounted.

The major success this evening is the lighting system. I've been puzzling over the maze of wires as implemented in the original wiring harness... and.. while Lawrence promises me the original wiring harness was perfectly functional, I couldn't figure it out. And I could see ways to simplify the wiring harness. So... I cut the old wiring harness out, and have wired up the simplified harness for the lighting system. As of this evening the headlights, horn, and turn signals are working, and the tail/brake lights is within reach to do very quickly.

The other thing I'm working on right now is a box to hold the speedometer and paktrakr display. What I'm planning is a plexiglass box which will mount on this post between the handlebars which held the previous dashboard. The box is about halfway finished.

What's left?

Besides the dashboard... As I said, there's the issue of mounting the manual contactor. I'm thinking to make another plexiglass box, mounting it in the place which would normally have the gas tank. The contactor could be mounted on that box, and I've got a couple other meters and whatnot which can be mounted on this box. Like the keyswitch. And the wiring needs to be cleaned up, and tied down properly. And the body panels need to be remounted. And I have to get it insured, and once it's insured I need to go to the DMV to reinstate the registration.

In another forum posting I mentioned a problem with the solenoid/contactor on my Lectra. The ratings on the contactor is 60v @ 300A continuous. I'd thought that would be sufficient for a 60 volt pack going through a 400A controller. But the solenoid is stuck in the ON position all the time, indicating the contacts have welded shut.

I did some research on alternatives. I did find some solenoid contactors which might be good. Such as Contactor, Albright #SW-200, 250 amp carry, 360 amp momentary, 1500 amp interrupt, 12 volt coil ... it's rated for 120 volts and enough amps to handle what my Lectra will be doing.

Some of y'all suggested various brands, and to look in the Graingers catalog. Somehow I wasn't able to find anything suitable in that catalog so either I looked in the wrong place ..or...?

A solenoid is interesting because you can control it with a simple circuit such as a keyswitch. But I got to thinking, and the solenoids require a constant current to keep the contacts closed. The one I have now requires 1A continuous to keep the contacts closed, and others required even more.

I got an interesting idea from Lawrence (the guy who sold me the bike). He talked about manual disconnects, and that some exist which can work with a cable. I can imagine a lever on the handlebar that operates a cable that operates a manual disconnect. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything like that either. But thinking about manual disconnects got me to this: Switch, Battery Disconnect, Albright ED250B At Cloud Electric they have this: Switch Power Cutoff - Heavy Duty 5000 Amp ... which also looks interesting, but I went with the Albright switch instead for some reason. Maybe because of the big red button.

It's a heavy duty switch that's got the right ratings for my purpose. Plus it should work as an emergency disconnect in case the controller goes coocoo. Just push the big red button. Power machinery should always have a big red button, right?

I had one time built a manual disconnect with a pair of anderson connectors. One of the anderson's has a loop while the other has two tails. You install this inline in cable. To disconnect the circuit simply yank on the loop to pull the anderson connector. It makes sense in theory, but the one I built is really difficult to pull out. It's also pretty darn large and I didn't see a way to fit it into the bike (space is tight).