Now that I ripped a huge portion of the dead weight on My XB700LI, it is much faster to accelerate now, although top speed remains about the same. The whole thing seems much less bulky, and once I figure out a better way to mount the lights and cluster I will determinately be able to go off road with this no problem. Braking is dramatically improved.
Unfortunately it still seems to only go 20, but it gets up to that speed very quickly, and at least it is street legal. The battery is now under the seat, it fits nicely in the lower bay of the seat if you remove the door, and you can run the power cable right from the controller to it. I am considering also putting the controller under the seat, I just didn't feel like messing with it today.
I'm pretty sure this will make people go "what the hell?". Wait till I break out the angle grinder tomorrow to remove even more weight. No passenger foot pegs anymore though, the weld broke off on one side when I stood on them to do a wheelie, which kind of worked which is more then I ever thought I'd get out of it. I will be removing the portion of the frame for the passenger's "sissy bar" as well. Nobody wanted to buy it from me so I made lemonade from my lemons. :]
I need solutions on what to do with the chain drive sprocket, we all know the pedals are garbage. I was thinking of putting something else like a gas or electric motor to feed the chain sprocket or even just to pedal right in between the supports where the batteries used to be, but I don't know where to start. I have a currie s500 motor and controller I just need to get a new throttle for that, but it's 24 volt so I'm not so sure if it would really even work with the battery, but if it was geared right I think it would help the top speed once the hub maxes out. The only other way I could think of is to get a 48v brushed motor controller and hook up the motor to the chain with a sprocket that matches it. The gear reduction will be lower then on the scooter because the sprocket is about an inch wide going to a sprocket that is like 8 inches and if it's on one that's like 2 or 3 inches like on the XB700li, I think the gearing would be high enough to get a higher top speed. Let me know what you think.
Hi, Nice looking bike. I have the same bike first generation with 4500 miles. I got it in August 2008. The original lithium battery died on me last year with about 3700 miles. I decided not to get another lithium battery and experiment with lead acid batteries. I placed four 12 volt batteries in the battery compartment and one under the seat for 60 volt configuration. Actually my multimeter shows 69 volts fully charged. The bike is now very heavy but with the added voltage but it now goes up to 26.7 miles per hour. I said that is the maximum speed. Average is more like 25 mph. There is a bike computer installed in the scooter, that is how I know the correct speed. I been running this configuration since January of 2012. It works well. I notice one of the wires was getting hot because it melted the plastic bag that contains the wires from the controller. I do not ride my bike more than 10 miles at the time. Hopefully the wires can handle the extra amps for a lot longer. The lights are now very bright because of the added voltage.
We were thinking about the sprocket too. Add a small gas engine to make it in to a hybrid bike. Than we thought, why bother. The bike is perfect the way it is and the conversion will cost money and lots of time and there is no way to know for sure it will work correctly. Not having to register the bike is great.
Energy Independence For A Bright Future.
www.solutionsgem.com
You really improved its looks! It might get a little "splashy," but it'll be worth it.
What the????
Actually, in order to improve your experience, just buy an extension battery with BMS, and plug that one in the charger port of the other.
You can still charge those batteries via the chargerport of the extension battery.
Plugging the batteries that way, you can maintain a higher voltage for a longer time driving!
Fully charged, via external cyclometer, I get 24,2MPH; but it goes down quickly to 23,8/23.6MPH.
When both batteries are about halfway empty, the speed still goes 22,8MPH.
When having a single battery, just the stock, the voltage drops quite quickly, so that after a few minutes of driving your top speed no longer exceeds 22MPH!
Torque is largely controller limited, so an extra battery can do something about increasing uphill torque, but can do nothing about acceleration from a dead start torque; as the controller artificially controls the acceleration process. Stripping the bike empty, probably could give some improvement.
However from what I see, your front struts would be super hard now, without the already little weight they get!
Both shocks are pretty hard (front and rear), but now your fronts have no more weight to shock, and driving over a railroad, or pothole might make your bike's front wheel want to 'jump' (on the road) more.
If I where you, I'd probably replace the controller, to a faster rotating one. That way you can drive somewhat faster. Perhaps even replace it with a 1000W controller (which allows extra torque).
But never have done an upgrade to the controller, I can't tell you what you'll end up getting!
I'd opt for a controller upgrade over a voltage upgrade, as when your battery upgrades to 60V (instead of 48V), the regenerative braking won't work anymore.
Regardless, I would not recommend this bike to go over 30MPH, simply because of the weak front fork. When driving 23,8MPH in a corner (= quite fast for a corner), you can make the fork and chassis torque quite a bit (try zigzagging left-right-left-right, and you'll see how much that bike torques, and why the recommended speed is not above 25MPH!).
Making it fall into moped category, they saved a lot of money (as they could use really cheap materials, like braking pads, and a cheap steel frame over more expensive parts necessary for more expensive bikes), as well saved their necks from expensive lawsuits (when the front fork breaks at 20MPH, you'd probably get some bruises. But when it breaks at 50MPH, you could be in the hospital or worse).
Why what the hell? It's the most logical thing to do to this scooter! Despite your higher voltage I still might win in a race with turns.
That is nice, I will look into adding the battery. For now the controller sounds like the better idea, but without a bms I wont be able to regain the power from braking correct? Can I add a bms to the stock cells?
With two batteries and a bms can you draw more power for off the line torque? I can now put both my legs down and literally run with this thing, I like the scooter a lot more after this weight reduction.
I know what you are saying, like with it stock and when you have someone on the back, it makes it hard to steer because there's no weight on the front, but no I don't have a problem with the shocks up front besides it being really loud across grass and stuff... this thing handles like a mini dirt bike in my yard I can now do laps like I used to in my schwinn s500. Can you put a heavy duty mountain bike fork on this?
The shocks are soft, with a lot of travel, I have no complaints besides the front struts, it is the only bike I've seen with struts like that that go in when you stop. I embrace the seat kicking me up when I go over a bump, it's doing me a favor by absorbing that impact.
I took off the volt meter wires and the speedo wire and mounted the wires that went to the cluster and the lights up in the steering yoke, the back light of the cluster and high beam light can illuminate my bike computer now :). However it did die after 5 miles when I drove it, and the weirdest thing happened, when I went to kick off and it died, it came back to life for a second and I was able to press the throttle again and have it cut out? Being lightened I would guess 50 pounds I would expect better, even with full throttle, I cut off the center stand and passenger pegs by the way, well one snapped when I tried to stand on the mounts to do a wheelie, which actually gets a few inches off the ground (more then I had hoped for).
Today I got a bmx bike for really cheap so I took the pedal crank off, and got it so it was just the front gear sprocket, and I drilled holes in it and ran 5 screws with double bolts on the other side through the existing pedal crank (on the side without the pin going through it) in order to get a much higher gear ratio. I just bought a chain yesterday and chain breaker tool, so I should be able to get that all together. I got a little lazy making room for the crank, I just torqued the metal mount for the controller back and forth with channellock pliers until it broke off on the right side :). Anyways I got hung up because of the pedal bearings, they keep falling out of the holder, do I need to bend it or is there a way to get a new bearing set for it?
I plan on putting the controller inside the seat box as well, I am just waiting on getting some crimp connectors, my motor wires have melted through the ones going to the controller already, it looks so melted all over the bag, but I guess I am not the only one this has happened to. The wires get warm in the bundle where the controller is, and they are also warm going to the hub motor down the frame.
My goal is to fit this in my car but I don't think with this frame it will, is there any other suitable frame for this motor? Do you think it would be possible to chop the tubing where the battery goes and shorten the scooter by about a foot and still be rid able? Can you cut off the metal for the sissy bar and rear fender without compromising the structure? I encourage anyone who is unhappy with their xb700li to do this, just get some zip ties. I want to point out that you shouldn't ride it in the rain anyways, it says weather proof controller but it definitely is not, I did ride it in the rain once and the blinkers wouldn't flash, it was terrible.
You can just hold the handlebars and run with the scooter to go fast, sounds funny but it works, also you can kick the ground 3 or 4 times to get going and you can hear the motor speeding up.
Picture is before pedal crank work. The tail lights look really sharp with just the handles on the frame and the mount for the handle goes through the brake light housing and you just need one long zip tie to hold it together, looks like two big fangs. Headlights are aimed really low, I will leave it for now. Let me know what you think is best for this thing.
ninelime, you are a real wildman for mods! Go to it! You ask a few questions that I have opinions (informed and otherwise) on, so here goes:
The controller does the regen, not the BMS. On the XB600, I get regen whenever I'm coasting above 22 MPH. Braking uses electrical braking, but the excess energy goes into heat rather than electricity. That said, regen is not a big issue for small (under bus-sized, actually) vehicles; our big energy costs go into air drag rather than overcoming inertia.
A heavy duty mountain bike fork would probably be an upgrade. I worry about those 72Volt wonders zipping around on the stock forks. Check the bearing size, though.
I woud ber surprised if they offered the bearings separately. Bearings, however, are pretty standard. My first fix would be locktite.
Good mod! There are two connector types that will help you: the Radio Shack Grubb screw "European style terminal strips" which are especially good for the three power wires to the hub motor, and the silver-plated Anderson Powwer Pole connector which are especially good for the battery pack connections. You may also consider upgrading the gauge of the wiring. Power wiring is 14 gauge, where 10 gauge would be better for this application.
Mark
@Ninelime:
For the chain, it also goes off the gears on my bike.
What I really need is 2 sliders welded on the bar, that will keep the chain on the wheel, or a chain tensioner (but that costs $$)
About the controller, I would not put it in the seat box, as the controller can get pretty hot, and without decent cooling can actually overheat.
Even if it does not immediately overheat, the increase in temperature decreases the capacitors inside the controller's lifetime.
What year did you purchase your 700Li?
My motor cables are adequate, and don't melt. It's a first to me to hear the insulation of them would melt!
I bought mine in 2012; but mainly use it for driving on straight surfaces.
Perhaps if you are living in a hilly area, or need to drive on a lot of bridges, the wires will heat up; I don't know.
The controller I have in mine is weather proof. It's an aluminum box, with fully closed walls.
I'm with mf70 in that the controller does the regen, however the BMS protects the battery.
You need a second BMS, if you don't have a diode circuit and want to connect both batteries in parallel.
Regen works from 5MPH and up, and depends on battery status. On a fully charged battery, the regen capabilities of the bike are minimal, as the generated voltage will be rejected by the BMS (BMS closes to protect the battery), and the voltage will go to the brake lights only.
Once you drive the bike around for a minute or two, the battery will have sufficient space to charge, and harvest the regenerative braking energy.
Also, adding a second battery improves braking, as more power can be harvested by 2 batteries instead of one.
One thing I would like to share (which I did before), is when you upgrade voltage with the stock controller you can expect following results:
Any voltage upgrade will disable regenerative braking, as the motor/controller configuration won't make enough voltage to actually charge the battery (perhaps a +3,6V might still give you some regenerative braking, but a +7,4V mod does not).
+7,4V takes your top speed from 23,8MPH to 25,8 or something, like you'll gain 2 to 2,5MPH max; not worth doing especially if you lose regenerative braking.
+12V (from 48V to 60V) will destroy your controller in the long run.
You could increase back wheel size, by putting bigger tires, but if you do that to gain speed, the math points out that to gain 2MPH, you'll need a tire that's 1in higher than the stock tire, which could work in the back (but not in the front, as there's not a lot of space to work with).
If you find any tire that has a higher profile, please let us know!
But most likely you'll find only tires with upto 0.5" gain on profile height, so we're talking about spending ~$30 on gaining 1MPH???
Good luck, and keep us updated on your progress!
Good luck with any other mods!
Hey I am on the road to making a real good mid drive system. A schwinn (currie) missile FS motor and 90 tooth sprocket will be my first test installed on the pedal crank aside a similar sized BMX crank which I bolted to onto the tiny crank and made a custom chain for it. I just need to find a decent way to mount the motor, I bought bolts and angle brackets today hopefully that will get me somewhere. I suppose with enough hose clamps and zip ties and tape I could mount it but I am much more confident in metal brackets and bolts. I am also looking at arm of the missile that comes from the shock maybe that can be used to hold the motor up against the old battery box supports. The sprocket on this motor is about the size of the regular 11 tooth one, I think it's a 15 tooth with one way clutch bearing but it's the wrong direction. I may have to use one of my other schwinn motors with regular sprockets.
Nevertheless, I have two other schwinn s500 scooters that could also probably be donors to this scooter. I could run the two of them in series at 48v 1000w, just make sure not to go below the LVC of the LIPO4 battery, we really have no bms apparently. Just a controller to protect us. I also have a 48v 350w controller coming maybe that can power the 24v 500w motor off of 4 small 7ah SLA batteries as an added power source.
I may have a small problem though the bearings are messed up for my pedal crank, I lost one of them and am resorting to a slightly smaller ball in there and the metal got all bent up on one side and it doesn't spin freely, and when I fully tighten the cranks back up there is a lot of resistance to spin. I hope I can replace these bearings somehow. Can I leave the spanner bolt just a little bit open somehow without having it completely come undone?
I hope to see some of you give me some ideas of where to go with this project. Cheap frame ideas to be more like a bike? What should I expect the gearing to be like for the motor? I can basically pedal up to the full speed of the scooter with the larger sprocket by pedal power, much different from the way it is out of the crate.
You said:
Um, "slightly smaller" doesn't sound good. Mechanical things like this need to move smoothly and freely. If they don't, they WILL fail prematurely.
Use a micrometer to get the EXACT size of the missing bearing and replace it. Bearings all over the world are standardized, and the exact replacement is out there somewhere. You may even be able to read the bearing size in micro-letters on the bearing shell or dust shield.
There's another thread about a boost motor; is that you? (I thought about it too at first, but since then I've concentrated on enjoying the quiet and effortless mobility I get from the stock scooter.)
Mark