Blogs

The ELF 100 ESC (electronic speed controller) arrived today and I installed it in my Piaggio Boxer. The install was a cinch and everything seemed to be going very smoothly.

I did some test runs with the rear wheel elevated using my 24V SLA batteries. Here is my data table:

I've been pondering the next major phase of my Lectra motorcycle. I'm sure the battery pack will croak "soon" because SLA batteries supposedly have a life of 300 charge cycles (or so) and every time I ride the Lectra to work it is two deep charge cycles and while I haven't been keeping count it's likely the pack I have has 70-100 charge cycles in it right now.

comments needed pro and con . im trying this , i have small dc motor which 3 15 watt solar panels in sunlight spin motor just fine direct , running to wired alternator via belt wire to 12 volt battery then to dc to ac convertor which could handle my 10 small 12 volt chargers 4 amps ..???????????? trying here , perhaps reaching on this ,,,, lonnie

I spent a few hours this afternoon installing the HXT outrunner motor. It was a bit larger than the MY1016 that I had previously had as a prototype. And as it is an outrunner, this necessitated a different type of engine mounting.

Here you can see the base end of the outrunner motor with the power leads on the left. The X shaped bracket came with the outrunner and is what I used to attach it firmly to my Boxer's left engine support bracket.

My day job is involved with open source software advocacy. While many think the company I work for (Sun Microsystems) doesn't "get" open source software there are many of us working here who do, and many of us work on open source software full time (as I do). Sooo....

The servo tester that I ordered last week arrived by mail today. Still no sign of the ESC from Hong Kong so I can't wire everything up, but it's a start.

I go the E-Sky EK2-0907 servo tester from Hobby Lobby. With shipping, it was $13.69 although you can get it for a few less dollars if you shop around. I just wanted a basic model and it fit the bill. Most of the units that I see on ebay are identical to this.

Among my too-many-projects is a three wheel electric motorcycle that I bought around the same time as I got the Lectra (Aug 2006). Link is below to an earlier blog posting on this.

It's a 1978 Suzuki motorcycle which a guy had converted to electric by welding on the rear end (axle etc) of a golf cart. The motor is running at 48v and with regular car tires. I'd taken it around my neighborhood last year and got up to 40 miles/hr with it (maybe a bit more?) He said the rear end & motor were the most powerful he could find.

I started to get it registered last year and then had some kind of mistake happen while working on the wiring and it stopped running. Sooo... I focused on the Lectra to get it running and the three wheeler has been sitting there. And the last couple weeks I've fiddled around with it and got it running again.

I had to replace the controller and most of the power cables. And I had to figure out how the forward-reverse switch works, and along the way I finally worked out why a series motor is called a series motor. There was also an issue with the throttle where even with the throttle at 0 the controller saw a bit over 0 ohms and the controller would never go to 0 speed, so I pulled out the pot box, looked at it, put it back, and now it works right.

Currently it's configured with a 48v 400A Logisystems controller .. the forward-reverse switch works .. 48v 80ah battery pack .. the 12v system doesn't work so there's no lights, no horn, no turn signals .. and there are no mirrors .. so there are a few things left to do before I'll go back to the DMV and restart the registration process.

Where it'd been left last year I was to take it to the CHP office for an inspection. But, since it wasn't working, I didn't do the inspection. Last year the CHP officer thought I couldn't register it because it's a golf cart. I've since talked with this fellow who lives down the street ..and.. owns a three wheel electric motorcycle himself. He said that's silly and that my mistake obviously was to say "golf cart". He said all the CHP really needs to do is since the "engine" doesn't have the normal engine number, they need to generate a faked up engine number, which will be a sticker I'm supposed to attach to the motor. Not a big deal.

So it sounds as if rather soon I'll be having yet another EV running.

Probably I need to sell off a few of these vehicles..

Well, the postal carrier came and left without leaving me an ESC + servo tester, so I still can't install the HXT outrunner. But, she did leave me a little package from Hong Kong that contained the laser photo tachomoter that I ordered from ebay. I'm still amazed at just how cheap Chinese manufacturers are pumping things out. A laser tach would have cost me over a $100 just a few years ago, now I can buy one for $23 w/ shipping from Hong Kong. Incredible.

I'm moving this from a post to a blog to keep people up to date with my progress.

For those who haven't been following the threads I've posted to here are the problems I'm trying to solve:

1) Battery charging- Make sure our batteries live long and prosper.
2) Equalizing- Make sure they discharge at an equal rate so you're range isn't limited by your weakest battery.
3) Cost- Keep the price lower than the alternatives.
4) Patents- Must do this all without violating patents.

I'm still waiting for the ESC and servo to arrive (maybe early next week) for the outrunner motor, so I took the Boxer out for a test run with its temporary Razor motor and SLA batteries installed.

Piaggio Boxer
Motor: 250 watt MY1016 (from Razor Pocket Rocket)
Controller: 30A (from Razor)
Batteries: 2 x 12V 7Ah SLA (from Razor)
Front sprocket: 1.5" pulley (motor to wheel 39:1 ratio)