Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

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wanders
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

I managed to pull 42mph out of it today, limited by motor rpm. I think it is easily capable of over 50mph with the right gearing.

...

I also have 45lbs of battery weight, and I will be able to cut off 25lbs of that with a 20Ah LiFePO4

Awesome and fearless job, Tommy. Wear a BMX/downhill-style full-face helmet when you ride this thing, OK? And the LiFePO4's will seriously cut the weight. Two questions:

1) What is your gear ratio?

2) What tires are you using?

Willie

reikiman
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

A fully charged SLA is at 13.2v IIRC so 13.2v x 3 = 39.6v

Please wear a good helmet.

For an ammeter think about the Cycle Analyst. You can get them with a high-amperage shunt to measure that many amps, plus the Cycle Analyst acts as a speedometer and voltmeter and has some good quality information on its display.

VRdublove
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

I figured out the voltage problem, two of my quick disconnects for the charger were loose, so two of the batteries weren't charging, but that's fixed. I am wearing a full face Giro downhill helmet, I wouldn't wear any less simply because a bike helmet wouldn't do much at these speeds. The gear ratio is 4:1, 12T motor drive sprocket, and 48T sprocket on the hub. The tires are Maxxis Hookworm Urban tires, they are 2.5's, nice and thick. I guess I will go with the cycle analyst, I just didn't want to have to spend another hundred plus dollars. Any one have one for sale used?

I rode it to class today (I go to Appalachian State University), and I parked it out in front of the Tech building. The interest in it was insane. Everytime I looked outside throughout the day at least one person was looking at it. At one point, a long bearded "hippie" was smoking his cigarette while staring at it with a puzzled look on his face, that made me laugh. When I went to leave, there were about ten people gathered around asking me questions, and they all watched me ride off into the sunset, probably disappointed by the lack of noise that it made. Overall I was really happy with the positive response. Bill Clinton was actually speaking on campus today, and I got a ton of wild looks and yells as a whirred by the 1000 person long line waiting to go inside. What a bike! haha

-Tommy

Bringing High-Performance Electric Trikes to the People!!

www.FFRtrikes.com

andrew
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

That's awesome. Just a suggestion: get a beefy U-lock. Or even put two locks on. Still, that's not even very good security. There's lots of bicycle theft at universities. Maybe try and park near anywhere there's a camera if you can.

[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project]KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion[/url]
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/588-fixing-my-chinese-scooter]900 watt scooter[/url]
Pic from http://www.electri

VRdublove
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

Thanks man, I actually have a nice beefy U-lock that I use for it. I park it in front of the tech building along one of the main roads in Boone, so there are always people coming in and out, and almost everyone knows its mine, so if anyone started fooling with it someone would get suspicious. I've had no problems so far. I have just over 50 miles on it now, and top speed is officially 44mph. I'm looking into some Lithium from either A123 or Foxx Power, that will get rid of a lot of the weight.

-Tommy

Bringing High-Performance Electric Trikes to the People!!

www.FFRtrikes.com

VRdublove
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

I just got done making a video, nothing special, but here you go:

Another question: I noticed on Sevcon's website that they said the max power output of their PMAC controller is 4kw. What exactly does this mean? Since my controller is 36V, and 250 amp max, wouldn't that be 9kw? Even at the continuous rating of 100 amps on the 48V controller, it would be exceeding its max power output at 4.8kw. Am I missing something?

-Tommy

Bringing High-Performance Electric Trikes to the People!!

www.FFRtrikes.com

LinkOfHyrule
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

Dunno. Pretty much all controllers are like that for some reason. My "600W" controller is good for 36V and 30A, which is 1080W. Plus it works at 48V, so thats 1440W.

The author of this post isn't responsible for any injury, disability or dismemberment, death, financial loss, illness, addiction, hereditary disease, or any other undesirable consequence or general misfortune resulting from use of the "information" contai

andrew
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

I think that is just a motor recommendation. From their site:

PM AC Motor Controller
For motors to 4 kW

These controllers are probably designed to usually be used on heavy utility electric vehicles. These can usually draw a bit more power than the motor is rated for quite a while. I think it's just a recommendation with some safety margin. I wouldn't worry about it.

If you want to make sure your controller is not limiting, than you'll need to install an amp meter. No real way around that. I didn't know that my scooter controller was limiting back to 20 amps. The performance was good (20 amps * 36v = 720 watts * .8 (losses) = 576 watts output), but nothing like what I expected from a 900 watt motor. If the controller wasn't limiting, I'm sure the motor could pull more than 40 amps on the hills, or put out more than 1,000 watts; maybe even twice the power if the controller wasn't the bottleneck. And this was with a high quality Navitas controller that could do 100 amps peak, but it quickly cut the current back. :( Anyway, install an amp meter if you want to know what's going on, or your not satisfied with the performance. Also feel the controller to see if it's getting hot, as it may be limiting to protect itself.

[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project]KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion[/url]
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/588-fixing-my-chinese-scooter]900 watt scooter[/url]
Pic from http://www.electri

VRdublove
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

Thanks guys, I have an ammeter in the mail, so we will see what is going on. The controller, motor, and batteries are all hardly even warm to the touch after hard riding. This setup is used to carrying a lot more weight than I am dealing with.

The weird thing about this controller is that it is set up to do a 250 amp 10 second boost, and 100 amp continuous. But as for when that "boost" is available, it is a mystery to me. I have experienced it twice so far, and both times it scared the sh*t out of me! It came on when my buddy was riding it as well. It will lift the front tire off the ground from a stop, but I don't know how it decides when to activate it. Coming off a full charge, you would think it would do it as soon as you flicked the throttle tbe whole way back, but it doesn't. It does it whenever it feels like it I guess?

-Tommy

Bringing High-Performance Electric Trikes to the People!!

www.FFRtrikes.com

Nigel Loller
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

Hi Read your thread and thought you might know what is wrong with my etec motor..set up in a push trailer .
The problem is that while everything works 'wheels up' when you try an actual road test the controller (sevcon millipak) trips out after 3 seconds ...Did you run with an out of the box setting or did you set the parameters your self and if so how?
Nigel

VRdublove
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Re: Wiring brushless Etek, cable guage?

Nigel,

Sounds like your amp limit may be set too low. Do you have an ammeter or cycle analyst? Who programmed your millipak? I tweaked a couple things out of the box, but it should run fine without any modifications to the programming.

Tommy

-Tommy

Bringing High-Performance Electric Trikes to the People!!

www.FFRtrikes.com

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