e-bike: re-wiring part 1

Feeling that it's time to get back to work on my e-bike project, I've started work on rebuilding the electrics.  This will involve two sub-projects; re-building the battery pack and stripping and re-building the wiring harness.

I've disassembled the battery and will be ordering a few bits and pieces to put it all back together again as sort of a cylinder. I'm considering putting in a fan to help with cooling and maybe a heating element for when it's cold. Like today was.. nearly froze my fingers off riding home on my motorcycle. >.<

I've stripped the wiring harness back to just the wiring necessary to make the motor work. Here's what it's trimmed back to:



[Edit:  Oops.. made a mistake on that diagram.  I'll upload a fixed version shortly.]

(The light grey parts are what I've chopped out.)

I've a bit of soldering to do and then I'll hook everything back up to test if it still works.  It'll be very stripped back functionality wise; just a twist throttle and that's about it.  Once the battery is connected it's ready to go, no key, no safety switches that detect if the brakes a pressed, no brake lights, no turn signals, no horn, no anti-theft system.  Phew.

Once I'm sure I've not killed it, I'll start building my own on/off, lighting, control panel, etc. systems based on 5 volts.

I'm also planning to rebuild the motor wheel, replace the front one and do some hack and slash on the frame.  This project is going to keep me busy for a while. ^_^

e-bike: horn details

I've been curious about the horn on my Switch 100 since I first set eyes on it.  A simple horn does not need these many wires.

I think it's probably part of the security system, a hypothesis that's supported by the way that the power on/off key switch consists of just two wires.

Lets see what's inside.  A bit of prying with a wood chisel and...

The back of this board looks a bit complex for just being a speaker driver.

Hmm.. lots of diodes, resistors, a transformer and an IC of some sort.  Not sure what the IC is, but it at least drives the speaker, probably has the audio data that is played by the siren and arm/disarm in it's memory.  Somewhere on here is probably a motion sensor as well, perhaps as part of the IC.. I could test that by hooking it back up to the harness, arming it and poking the speaker to see if motion triggers it.

Maybe later.  I've just finished stripping the whole thing back down the the frame again.  I'm considering ways to strip down the frame of the bike a bit to reduce weight and to combine it with parts from the kid's bike that I picked up.

end of my relationship with a machine

Not much to look at, but parked out on the street there - almost completely hidden behind the lamp post and my coworker's big Harley - is my wee Honda CBR125R, who I call "Arthur".

I bought him third hand, about two and a half years ago, and since then he's been my work-horse of a bike.  Getting me to-and-fro on my daily commute, weather permitting.  Much like this photo he's done the work in an unobtrusive manner, no drama, no show boating, just head down and getting it done to the best of his abilities.  Which were uncomfortably pushed to their limits once I began riding on the highway rather than sticking to side streets.  His tiny 125cc four stroke can just barely keep up with traffic if I thrash it for every cubic millimeter of power that it can produce.

So it's time for Arthur to be replaced.

Yesterday I took this photo of him from the lunchroom window of the office I work at, to remember the last day I rode him.  I had to drive in my smart car today as the motorcycle insurance swaps over to the new bike, which I'll be picking that up this evening; a shiny new Suzuki V-Strom DL650A ABS.

Arthur will soon be sold to his fourth owner.  Thank you, faithful steed. :)

t.e.r.a. 1st anniversary meet

I attended the first anniversary meet of the Toronto Electric Riders Assoc., at Cafe Uno in the Distillery District.  This morning I decided, 'Heck with it.. my e-bike is more-or-less ride-able - I'll take that.'  I've already worked out a route to take if/when I ride my e-bike to work, and the Distillery District is right on the route, so it seemed like a great test to see if it - and I - could handle the route.

After topping up the batteries and inflating the tires, I was off.  I used My Tracks on my Android to keep a GPS track of my route, there and back again.

With every bump and rock on the trail I was impressed once again with just how HEAVY my bike is.. or may be it's just the shocks that are way too stiff.  "KaTHUNK kaTHUNK kaTHUNK", along the sidewalk gets old real fast. >.<

On the whole it performed quite well:

Trip Down
24.64 km in 1:18
18.87 km/h avg.
37.80 km/h peak

Trip Back
24.10 km in 1:12
19.91 km/h avg.
35.15 km/h peak

For the last kilometre or so on the ride back I was having to pedal assist as the batteries were on their last dregs.  Which is GREAT as now I have a good idea of the bike's range:  48 km apx.  I'm charging the batteries now and timing how long it takes.. see if that'll let me calculate roughly what their Amp Hours are.  It's supposed to be 15 AH, but certainly worth checking.

I now know that if I want to ride my e-bike to work it'll take roughly 1.5 hours, each way.  Which is far slower than riding my motorcycle down in the morning, but about the same as the ride back after work.  And that I'll have to take the charger along to top up the battery pack at the office.

The meet itself was ok.  Chatted with some guys about this-n-that, wandered around the Distillery looking at insanely priced clothing that I'm sure I've seen for sale at Value Village and drank an also very over priced - but GOOD - iced cap.

Here's my horrible abortion of an e-bike, off to one side of the collection of bikes that showed up for the meet.

I saw only one other bike there that actually seemed like a bicycle that was power assisted, rather than an electric scooter with pedals added as an after thought.  Mind you, the pedals on my bike are pretty useless once it gets over 10 km/h.  And the left one fell off on the way home.. some fool forgot to tighten the nuts on the crank arms. -.-

I plan to change that.  I want gears on my bike.. and a bell.. a proper bicycle bell not the "weeenk  weenk" electric horn sound that it currently makes.  Would fit in better on the bike paths that way.

Anyhoo.  A good day to be an e-bike rider! ^_^

Edit:  Oh!  The battery has finished charging.. 2:49.  Nice.  Shouldn't be a problem at all to top up at the office.

e-bike: waiting...

Currently my e-bike project is on "pause" while I wait for packages to arrive and figure out how I'm going to reduce the frame weight.

Package #1 is coming from Taiwan, and is four "LM2596HV DC-DC 4.5-55V Adjustable Power Supply Converter Step-down Modules" from ProDCtoDC.com  I plan to use these, perhaps in conjunction with other electronic components, to convert my battery pack's mighty DC voltage to something that won't fry the other components I want to use in my build.

Package #2 is coming from the US and is a bunch of electronics from SparkFun, including an IOIO board which I plan to use to connect via Bluetooth with an Android phone, to provide a new dashboard for the bike.  I'm going to experiment with various sensors on the board & phone.  I'm also planning to use the IOIO board to help with things like driving the turn signals.. I'll be replacing the stock bulbs with LEDs.

Frame-wise I'm leaning towards getting a small, portable oxy acetylene torch kit and learning to braze bike bits together.  The idea being to scavenge some old, worn out (and cheap!) bike frames for useful and lighter components and assemble a new frame, something like the old one but lighter.

There's a bunch of other things I'd like to try as well:  Rewinding the wheel motor to try and improve it's efficiency, rebuilding the battery pack so it's more aesthetically pleasing, vacuum mould my own plastic body panels, etc., etc.

Hopefully it will keep me amused for a while. :)

motorcycle shopping

After looking through the bike ranges of every company that sells motorcycles in Canada, there are three bikes on my short-list: Honda NC700, Suzuki V-Strom 650 and Triumph Tiger 800.

Yesterday I drove four hours to North Bay Cycle & Sports to take part in an official "Ride With Us" event put on by Honda. I spent 45 minutes riding the NC700X in a group of about a dozen other test riders, all on different bikes, including my friend & room mate who rode an Aero Shadow. Then another four hours drive back home.

It was worth it! Bombing around the hills and lakes around North Bay on a beautiful, strong bike with a great riding position. So very, very much more comfortable and fun than my CBR125. To get up to 115kph on my current bike I have to crouch very low, my chin up between the handle bars, and thrash the engine in sixth gear. On the NC700X I was sitting up comfortably, in fourth gear, and it was purring along.. and it's a six speed, so there's plenty more power and gearing for high efficiency cruising.

Only thing I would change is giving it a taller wind screen, which is one of the available options. I also had a look at and sit on the "S" model, which has a lower seat and is more sporty in how it's set up, so I prefer the "X".

With the taller windscreen, shipping, tax, etc. it would cost me $11,039 If I financed for 60 months through Honda it'd be another $2,707. Might get a bit for my CBR125 as a trade-in, or if I sell it privately, but I only paid $2,300 for it two years ago so I'm not expecting much.

I would still like to ride the V-Strom - it has a bit less grunt than the Honda and costs a teeny bit more. I went to the Niagara Falls Motorcycle Show last weekend, but even though it was only noon on Sunday, the Suzuki crew were packing up the bikes to leave. So I didn't get a test ride. The rest of the show was nothing of interest to me; it was a waste of a 3 hour drive, $40 admission for me and my husband and another 3 hours back. Not a great potential customer experience. Looking at their events page on the Suzuki website, looks like the only remaining test ride this year is not until the end of August and I'd have to pay for admission to the Canadian Superbike Championship event to get my hands on a V-Strom. Nope.

I'm all but decided against the Tiger as it costs significantly more and - from the reviews I've read - has more grunt than I need and is less fuel efficient. Two weeks ago I filled out the forms on the Triumph Canada website to "Request a Test Ride" and I have not heard anything back. I doubt I'll be getting onto a Tiger any day soon...

e-bike: late night first ride

Finally took my bike out for a quick spin around the neighbourhood.  Just kind of threw it together, bits of wire hanging out here and there, no lights or signals, bungee cords making sure the battery pack doesn't tumble out. *heh*

It was FUN!

The motor certainly has a lot of zip to it and quite a pleasingly electric sound.  Vzzzzzzzzzzzziiimmmmmmmmmmmm........... :D

There are however a few problems that I've noticed which I will need to work on:

• the frame weights a SHIT TONNE.  A metric Shit Tonne.  Not certain how I'll address that other than perhaps making a new one.  I really like the style of the bike so I would likely copy some of the frame concept that's already there.. though in a lighter material.  Not certain what or how.  I don't weld and have no where to do welding even if I did.
• the steering is quite dangerous.  The first 10 degrees or so, left and right of center, are ok but then the weight of the bike tries to press down on the wheel and make it flop over abruptly.  I think it's because the wheel forks are completely straight, with just the angle of the steering column providing any rake at all.
• the brakes are a bit intense.. but.. better too strong than weak.
• trying to pedal at anything faster than, say, 1/3rd of the motor's speed is futile and pedalling from a stop is very difficult.  Some kind of adjustable gearing system might be worth looking into.  The current gear set is laughably terrible in how it's put together.  The transfer shaft doesn't have -any- bearings at all for example.  Quality manufacturing. -.-

So, that's about it for now.  I like it, but it could use some work before I'll love it.

Somewhat related to this post:  Last weekend I passed my M2-Exit motorcycle riding test, so I now have a full M class licence. \o/  Shopping for a new set of wheels has begun...

e-bike: updated battery & wiring diagrams

Here are updated battery and wiring diagrams, based on things I've figured out since I posted the first set.  Please delete or ignore any previous versions, thanks. :)

Battery Wiring Diagram v3

Download a large copy here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2ihJ04Ijch5NGkzZ2pMVllMNVk

Switch 100 Wiring Diagram v1

Download a PDF here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2ihJ04Ijch5U21MSE9uWVJUbDA

e-bike: whoops part 2

I have determined why my Switch 100's motor running in reverse. Messing around with the wiring, battery and pouring over various diagrams and photos was getting me nowhere, until I spotted something in this photo:

I took this when I was disassembling the wheel hub motor - not because it needed fixing, I just wanted to poke around inside and see what was in there.  The photo is of the wire order for the socket that connects the Hall Effect sensors to the controller, which I took because I had to remove the wires from the socket in order to take the wheel apart.

The important bit is that the wires coming out of the motor pass through the brake side of the wheel, and I've gone and reassembled the wheel backwards, so that the wires are coming out of the gear side instead.  No wonder it's running in reverse, I've put the stator in backwards. >.<

I've taken the wheel apart and rebuilt it, and it's now running perfectly. \o/

Next I'll temporarily install the batteries into the bike frame - bungee cords and duct tape go! - and take it for a test spin, then maybe an endurance ride to determine the battery capacity.

...

In other news, I passed my M2 Exit test today, so I now have a full M class license.  YAHOO! ^_^

Time to start shopping for a new motorcycle.

e-bike: whoops!

During the last week I've been re-assembling my Switch 100, getting it ready for a test run to ensure that everything still runs and to determine the battery pack capacity.  I'd like to know roughly how far it will get me on a charge before I try to go anywhere.

It's less-than-more together - I'm leaving a lot of cosmetic bits off - and I was test fitting the battery pack when disaster struck.  Twice.  Both times my own foolish fault. :(

The first incident happened when the BMS board brushed across the ends of a couple of the batteries and shorted for a millisecond.  Yeep!  I think (hope) that the board is all right.  It stank of overheated PCB board, but I believe it was just dumping the current from one ground post to another, rather than through any of the components.

To test if it works still I put the pack onto the floor next to the assembled bike and plugged it in.

BLEEP!

Power.  Lights.  Woo!  The pack still seems to be alive.. though I have yet to try charging it yet...

This is where the second accident happened.  I gingerly tried the throttle and suddenly the bike was leaping and crashing around, sparks were flying from the battery pack, my brain nearly leapt out of my ears in shock. 0.0

It appears I have the positive and negative inverted on the pack, and this caused the bike's motor to run in reverse.  When that happened the chain drive connected to the pedals caused them to start spinning and one of the pedals began "walking" along the battery pack on the floor.

Net damage to the pack is minimal.  A few broken plastic bits on the orange battery frames, two of the battery sensor wires were damaged and one of the batteries had a bit of it's blue plastic sleeve torn.  None of them are leaking or otherwise appear to be damaged.

So.. still feeling kind of frazzled I'm repairing the damaged sensor wires.  Then I'm going to invest some time into making sure the battery ends are covered so that there won't be any more shorts.  I'm also going to redo the positive and negative coming out of the battery.  It looks like I had that correct in the first place.. earlier I believed that I must have had it inverted, which is why the bike wouldn't run during an earlier test.

At that time I tried flipping the battery's polarity.  Still wouldn't run.  Many hours later I figured out that it was because some sensor switches in the handlebar controls were fixed in the on position - they're normally off unless the rider uses the brakes - and it ran fine once I tested it with them in the off position.

Unfortunately I didn't think to check if the original polarity of the battery was correct.

Oh well.  This too is a learning experience.  Perhaps reading about it here will help someone else avoid a similar mistake. :)

Back to work.  I'd like to do a test ride tomorrow.

e-bike: wiring diagram

Since my last post about the battery pack, I've been plodding away working on making a wiring diagram for my Switch 100.  Since I plan to make some changes I needed to first work out what I'm starting with.

Here's a 'beta' version of the diagram:

[ Image Removed ]

You can also download a PDF version here:  [ Link Removed ]  I recommend viewing it at 200% size.

It's still beta though, as I want to go over everything again to make sure I have the connections worked out correctly.. there are a couple I'm not certain of.  If you own a Switch 100 (or one of it's many named siblings) and wouldn't mind taking some detailed photos of the wiring on the Brushless Motor Controller, that would certainly help.

I thought I had.. turns out I didn't. -.-

e-bike: battery build, interlude

Just a quick note:  I've tested the battery pack out on my e-bike.. or rather the eviscerated electronics from my e-bike.. and it works!  Powers the lights, the motor and the LOUDEST gods bedamned theft alarm I've ever had go off right next to me.

That bloody thing is getting modded ASAP. >.<;

Woo!  Next steps will not involve the battery pack, so "part 3 of 3" will be a while.  I plan to rebuild the pack with making it pretty in mind, as I would like to make it visible through the bike's shell.  Those blue cells are just to nice looking to hide. 8)

More later.

e-bike: battery build, part 2 of 3

Moving on to the BMS (Battery Management System), here's the top-side of the BMS that came with my kit.

And the wiring diagram that EV Assemble ( http://myworld.ebay.ca/evassemble ) emailed me when the kit shipped from China.

(Diagram is copyright EV Assemble and is shown here purely for instructional purposes.)

And these are the connectors that came with the kit, and that were attached to the charger.

I didn't like them.  So I decided to modify all of the connectors that came with the kit, starting with the seventeen sensor wires that would have to be connected to the battery pack.

The sensor wires pick up the characteristic voltage drop that occours when a lithium chemistry battery reaches it's full capacity charge.  When it senses that one of the batteries in the pack has reached capacity, the BMS will drain off some of the current that the charger is pumping into that battery in order to avoid over charging.

(At least that's my understanding of how it works.. please leave a comment to correct me if you know better.)

I picked up a pack of quick connectors at Sayal, drilled a small hole through the metal tang, and then trimmed off the plastic connector where a wire would normally be attached.  I did this because the wires for the sensors are far too small to work with the usual way of attaching these quick connectors.

Then I soldered one of these modified quick connectors to each of the sensor wires.

The next step was building the wiring harness that would connect the BMS to both the charging unit and to the load.. the e-bike.  After a bit of thought I decided to re-use the connectors from the bike's original SLA battery pack for the load part of the circuit, and have a separate connector for the charging part.

Since the load side socket is a standard 3 prong AC connector, I decided to cannibalize a monitor power cable to build the charge side connector.  I didn't want to have two 3 prong AC sockets on the battery pack's casing, as that might get confusing as to which socket was for charging and which was for the load.

Here's what my circuit diagram ended up looking like.

[ image removed ]

EDIT:  I've made an important update to the above diagram!  I had the polarity of the plug going into the e-bike backwards.

EDIT EDIT:  Okay... looks like I may have had the polarity right in the first place.  I've deleted the diagram and will be uploading a corrected version soon, once I've gone over everything and fixed it.

I picked up some Y shaped quick connectors and bolts to use for hooking it all together.  Here's what it looked like with the first wire put together and bolted to the BMS.

Unfortunately I didn't notice until too late that there is a bus wire between the two boards of the BMS which, due to where it's soldered to the pad, gets in the way of the nut used to attach one the wire to the "Out-" pad.  I took apart the two boards to get a look at the problem.. just had to undo the four screws and pull the boards apart, like so.  (I've put a circle around the problem area.)

Fortunately I was able to snip off a bit of the bus' wire and give the nut just enough space to fit.

Having the boards apart made it easier to bolt on all of the wires.

And with the sensor wires plugged in, here's my finished BMS, ready to be connected to the battery and tested.

First step in connecting the BMS to battery is to attach the sensor wires.  First I unplugged the sensor wires from the BMS again.  If they were left plugged in then the BMS would begin sensing the status of the batteries as I went along, attaching them, which would cause it to begin trying to balance the charges of the batteries.  If it tried to do this while only having a couple of batteries connected it could quickly burn out the BMS as it tries to balance charged batteries against batteries that it has no readings for at all.. the ones that have not yet been hooked up.

If you have the sensor wires plugged in to the BMS and you start hooking things up, you will see an LED on the BMS come on, some time around when you're hooking up the third sensor wire, and the BMS will begin to heat up.  If that happens remove the sensor wire you just connected, unplug the wires from the BMS, and carry on.

Once I had the sensor wires unplugged, I connected the "0" sensor wire to the negative end of the battery pack.

Then I flipped the pack over and connected the "1" wire to the negative end of the next cell in the pack.

Then flipped it back over again and connected the "2" wire to the negative end of the next cell.

And carried on along the cell like this, flipping it over and connecting the negative end of the next cell to the next sensor wire.  Be very careful that you don't accidentally cause a short while you are working with the bridging bars.

There we go, all the sensor wires hooked up.  Notice that I've got the battery pack sitting in an enamelled "butcher's tray".  I thought this was a reasonable safety precaution, just in case something shorted out and one of the batteries leaked or even caught fire.

At this point it's safe to plug the sensor wires into the BMS, so I did that, grabbed the power supply and took everything outside onto my concrete patio in order to do a test charge.  I didn't want to try the first charge indoors, just in case of catastrophic failure, leaking acid, flames, etc.

But it worked fine.  Here's the charger, with the Power LED and Charging LED both lit up.

And here's the battery pack and BMS, with an LED or three lit inside of the BMS, indicating that it's balancing the charging between the batteries.

So that's the rough build of the battery pack completed.  Since there were no flames or magic smoke escaping, I brought everything back inside and finished charging the pack.. which only took a few minutes since it seems they were shipped from China with a full charge.

Next step will be to do a load test to make sure the batteries work with the bike and to test their capacity.  So I'll have to partly re-assemble the bike, which is currently in various boxes in my work room.

e-bike: battery build, part 1 of 3

Started assembling the battery pack.. I might do an Instructables about the process, since I've not been able to find any clear "how to" info online about putting together one of these Headway battery kits.

CAUTION
The batteries come already charged, so keep in mind that you're working with large live sources of electrons.  Be careful!


Tools Required

1. Phillips Screwdriver
2. Work Gloves (the plastic spacer blocks have sharp edges)

Step 1
Get two of the batteries and two of the block spacers.

Step 2
Insert the batteries into one of the spacers, making sure you have one positive end (the shiny silver end with venting holes) up and one negative end (the one with a ring of black lacquer) up.  Note:  Be very careful with the negative end, as if you crack the lacquer the electrolyte will leak.  Don't knock it against anything and do NOT over tighten the screw!

Step 3
Press the other spacer on top of the batteries, making certain that you have the tabbed edge and the slotted edge matching on the top and bottom spacers.  Then slide the tabs of a new spacer into the slots on the bottom spacer, making a space to insert the next pair of batteries.

Step 4
When you insert the next pair of batteries, alternate the positive and negative from the first set.

Step 5
Line up the tabs and slots of the next top spacer and press it down into place.  Gloves are very useful for this, and you can also press on the corners of the spacer using the handle of your screw driver.  Be careful not to damage the batteries.  Don't hammer on anything.. just press until it fits.

Step 6
Add another spacer, two more batteries, alternating the positive and negative.

Step 7
When pressing the top spacer into place you can also flip the pack upside-down and press down, gently, on the whole pack to help press the spacer into place.

Step 8
Keep adding batteries and spacers.

Step 9
Until you're finished putting the batteries together.  I went for a simple vertical stack, but I'm sure you could arrange the batteries into other shapes.  My pack needs to fit into a vertical space on the bike, and a vertical stack keeps things simple.  I like simple. :)

Step 10
Now things get a little more complicated with putting the bridging plates between the batteries.

The idea here is to bridge the cells in series, so that the 3.3v individual cells combine into a 52.8v apx. battery pack.  (16 cells x 3.3v apx. per cell)  Then the Battery Management System (BMS) will convert that into the 48v that my e-bike uses.

To bridge the cells into series, here's the pattern I attached the plates in.  The plates up on top of tea candles are for the top of the battery pack, and the other ones are for the bottom side.

The idea is that I'll connect the positive of a cell at one end of the pack, and the negative of a cell at the other end to the charger when charging pack and to the e-bike when discharging the pack.. well.. with the BMS in there to keep things from running wild and blowing things up.

The pattern of bridging plates inbetween the positive and negative connection points of the pack will complete the circuit by linking the positive and negative ends of the individual cells within the pack.

That's the theory anyway.  Time to attach the bridging plates and see the reality.

Step 11
Remove all of the end cap screws from the top of the battery, and loosely screw on the bridging plates.  I'm not screwing them all the way in as I will need to come back and make some changes later when I hook up the BMS, so just enough to make sure the batteries are securely connected is good enough for now.

Step 12
Now remove the screws from the other side, all except the positive and negative which will be used to connect the battery to the charger & bike.  You can roughly see where each of the metal plates will go.

CAUTION
At this point in the construction the risk of accidentally shorting out two or more of the batteries is very high! Be careful when placing the bridging plates!  I let one slip and it landed between the battery ends, briefly shorting them out, sparking a bit and starting to weld itself in place, before I was able to snatch it back out again.. burning my fingers to do it.

Fortunately the batteries don't appear to have been damaged.  The didn't heat up, nothing has cracked, nothing is leaking, the magic smoke didn't escape.  Whew!

Step 13
As a precaution against accidental shorts, briefly hold one of the bridging plates against the battery ends that you intend to attach it between.  This way you can quickly test that there isn't an unexpected short before you start trying to screw it in place.

Step 14
I decided to screw the plates down, lightly not all the way, one side of the battery pack, and then down the other side, to try and reduce the risk of accidental shorts.

Step 15
Check that the batteries are working in series with a multimeter.  53v is pretty close to what I was expecting, so everything looks good.

The next stage will involve hooking the battery pack up to the BMS and charger so that I can top them up, then I plan to connect the pack up to my e-bike and see how she runs.  First I need to make a trip to Sayal to buy some different connectors from the ones that came with the battery pack kit.  They just seem kind of cheap and I'd rather not rely on them.