eVFR

Here’s a video that my friend Jim and I shot earlier this week. We have all the fairings on it, and pretty much have the motor mount and battery pack design nailed. We’ll be cleaning up the wiring, making some small changes to the mounts, and upgrading the rear sprocket to a 60tooth (ordered 7-18-08).

Right now, I’m working on the custom charging system that will be installed as well as the 12V aux system for lighting.

Real nice shot at the beginning and end of Jim hitting 50mph.

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My friend Jim came and took some video of the bike riding around with full fairings. We both rode it and filmed. He’ll cut the video this week, and I’ll post to youtube ASAP.We took the bike apart last night and are going to be modifying the motor mount due to fairing clearance issues, add a motor support and clean things up.

We also lowered the battery cage a tiny bit due to frame clearance issues. The front batteries were hitting the frame a little bit. We’re also installing battery hold downs, and painting the frame. We’re not going to go all out on this frame or the motor mount, since we’ll be “transplanting” the guts of this one to the other bike eventually. We got lots of ideas on motor mounting and will be remaking another mount, as well as a new battery cage for the lifepo. We don’t know if it’l be 72V or 144V yet, all depends on what batteries I get. If I go 144V, I only need 20-30Ah or so. If I go 72V I’d like to do 60Ah. I’d like something near a 4000Wh pack.

Right now, while Loni is doing the battery cage, I’ll be soldering the boards for my charging system. We got them in last week, and I’m going to be putting them together. There is once module for each battery to monitor and charge cells individually. The front end of the charging system is ~700W, so it’l charge the motorcycle just fine in ~4 hours (~2500Wh pack right now). The charging system for LifePo will be completely different.

We’ve got to work on how to fit the charging system inside the frame. There’s still lots of room, so I’m not too concerned. It’l all be temporary anyway.

Also still need to get the Aux battery and DC-DC converter integrated, as well as the lighting (got some White LED’s for turn signals and brake lights). It’l be another month or two of 1 or 2 days a week until she’s finished, but she’ll be LEGAL!

Called insurance yesterday, waiting to hear back. Registering it won’t be a problem, already talked to Salem, OR and they said Motorcycles are excempt from DEQ, but they might need to see that its electric. I’ll post updates to this matter as I find more information.

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Last Wednesday I found out that the OEVA was having an EV Awareness Day on Saturday, so of course I wanted to get things all ready on the bike. Jim came over and helped cut out the bottom of the tank. Since we have another bike, we cut that tank first to test.

The paint bubbled a little when Jim cut it with the Plasma torch, so he used a cutting wheel for the rest. He cut the new tank and we fit it on the bike. We were up until like 1am. I came in Friday the 4th of July and worked on mounting the contactor, fuse and controller. I was up on the roof of Synkromotive when the fireworks started in Portland…. It was pretty cool. I finished putting everything together, but when I wired it back up… it didn’t power up. It was 2am, so I decided to get some rest and come early the next morning. I was completely beat. Here’s a pic of her on the trailer around 2Am:

I went in Saturday morning and called Ives. The Busbar on the prototype was marked wrong. I put the + and - backwards, but since its got the precharge resistor built in, it never got pack voltage. I changed the wires around, and it started right up. David was also there in the morning and he got the Sparrow running. Here’s a pic of him on the bike just before we left:

He and I got to the EV Awareness Day around 1130, and stayed until around 4. I wore a Synkromotive shirt, and passed out a few business cards for Synkromotive to those that inquired, but I didn’t try to advertise. There was quite a turnout though, tons of people came by and looked at the bike. To my knowledge, there’s nothing like it in Portland. Here she is all pretty at Pioneer Square on Saturday:

The first question out of everyone’s mouth was “How far does it go”… to which I replied “15-20 miles on crappy used UPS batteries I got for free”. I initially wanted to go with larger lead, but since these were free, I wanted to develop/test the mechanical first, and then upgrade to lithium in the fall. Its all working and now I can shop for alternatives to lead. Most people scoffed a little, I didn’t care, Its quite a feat in a motorcycle, especially keeping it stock looking. I know what the end result will be…. LiFePo and AC will eventually find their way into that bike. It will perform well, and range will be 30-40 miles. Overall, the event was great. At the end of the day, I drove the sparrow to Synkromotive (that thing is fun), and David drove in front of me on the motorcycle. It wasn’t far, and we took backroads to be safe. Its not registered yet. That happens this week. It got home safely, but batteries were dying. Right now we’re aroung 16 miles on a charge off the tripmeter. Not bad. Especially since another guy named Travis stopped by and took it for a spin, and me, Loni and Jim did speed runs earlier in the week.

We still have to get the charging system functional, and install lights and a new aux battery for the lights, but its 95% done. I ordered Ev200 contactors (one extra) and will install next week. I’m going to order a 60tooth rear sprocket to help the acceleration, and hopefully help the battery life (lower amp draw at lower rpm). I’m starting to look at distributors for LiFePo, but will decide in a couple months. I can afford 1/2 a pack right now, but I’m going to wait and see what goes on in the next few months. Right now, I’m fine with it. At least now, she’s not naked anymore. I sexied her up!

Click here for some more pictures in the eVFR album.

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So last night, I dropped by Synkromotive to help Ives with some testing. We tried logging with the DataQ again, and it it kept failing, no matter what setting we used. Nothing seemed to help. We unhooked it, and I’m going to contact Customer Service. We need something to compare our measured values to.

We spent the rest of the evening getting the Old Tachometer (originally fed off the engine spark), to display the current on the motor side. Its pretty cool, as you give it gas, it displays current at a 50A per 1000rpm resolution. So 200A is 4krpm. I’ll likely print something to display actual A, but its great for testing. Its just a PWM signal to the original Tach line. I’m totally cool with keeping the stock look, infact, I’m HOPING to keep as much of a stock look as possible. Now I need to order a PB-6 to keep my original throttle, order a EV200 contactor and get the lights working.

David Boyd got the bike up to 60mph… wow! It was fresh off the pack, and pulled 300A or so up to 30mph, and then it started to drop… at 55mph, it was roughly half of that. Better gearing should help this, as less torque is needed. We’ll keep gearing what it is for now because we’re testing something new every day. I thought it felt kind of like a 250cc, but David said it actually feels more like a 500cc. I think the batteries are waking up a little too, so switching to new ones in the future, with higher current draw is definately going to help. This controller rocks!

I got a jacket the other day, and am going to pick up a Helmet this weekend. Insurance won’t be that hard (My agent has been really cool about helping me). Registering it should be ok, but I’ll have to have someone make sure they see it doesn’t have an exhaust/was converted to electric so I can be excluded from DEQ. I’m also going to get a Motorcycle instruction permit… and keep my riding limited to daytime, with a friend. Just need to take the Knowledge test.

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So last night, after not going to meetings for over a month, I decided to go to another DorkbotPDX meeting. I had been talking with several of the members for the last couple months, getting ideas, talking about some projects I want to work on, and updating them on the progress of the bike. Last time I went, I gave some stuff away, mostly stuff I had no use for. I wanted to see what they’d done with it since then.

Well, after getting it running last week, I decided to show them what we have been working on at Synkromotive. I brought the bike down, and was amazed at the popularity of it all. One member brought his video camera and recorded us taking it off the trailer and taking it for a run, with the batteries topped off. We had a group out front of Lucky Lab (Dorkbot members as well as Bar Patrons), asking questions… it was great. I let Don (Feurig on dorkbotpdx’s site) take a ride, and he had nothing but good things to say.

I was actually suprised at the acceleration and pep it had off a newly charged pack. I really need to get a new battery pack. I think the batteries are waking up though, and the motor brushes are seating. The chain is settling in, the motor heat is now stabilized. Its got a ways to go, but its all a continuous project, right? Everything will be improved. Starting with a new pack, MAYBE a change in gear ratio, and maybe some stiffening of the motor mount. After that, its just getting the lighting working again. I just need to sit down with it and figure out wiring.

Anyway, I’m hoping to get the video that was shot, and post to youtube.

Thats it for now.

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