|
So I had a wee bit of a 'garage find' from a friend of mine who is retiring and looking for homes on his projects. One of them was a mostly-done EV motorcycle conversion of a Honda interceptor that I ended up getting for the price of "roll it away and get it running, send pics and videos". Here's the baby in all it's fat, top heavy glory. According to the PO, his conversion was so top heavy that it was hard to take it on turns, or drive it at all. This is almost certainly because he has 350 lbs of batteries in a motorcycle that weighs 550 lbs when there is a full tank of gas in it.  Since I am a university professor who is helping start up a sustainability energy track at my local uni, I figured I should wrench on it to be a better prof on the EV side of things (I'm originally a solar cell geek who went to work for the Department of Energy on nuclear stuff, so I got the static energy stuff pretty well handled). Of course, that means getting the fat bastard to my uni garage. As a 900ish pound bike, it was... not fun.  But we got her to my garage and started taking a look at the wires, and taking inventory of the missing parts (front shroud, for those not familiar with the bike). After that, we took off the top fiberglass bit and took a look at what was going on with this conversion.  So, not the greatest wire organization, but not the worst. Also take note of the bottom half of the picture, and you'll notice two posts with holes in it, there was a plate there to help hold in those bigass lead acid batteries. Not sure if we'll put it back in and just opt for building battery pack made of LiFePO4 cells that will take up *far* less room, but we'll get to that when we have our batteries in. Taking off the back fiberglass plate gave us a nice surprise of "nothing changed from stock" which makes our lives simpler.  Should be just fine leaving as-is. Don't mind my test driver/student's Lakers socks, he's from the area and doesn't know any better. Also, look at how tiny the driving gear is.  Praise electric motors and their wondrous instant torque. On that note, it's a 8 hp continuous, 16 hp pulse motor, but frankly electric motors can do wayyy more than they are rated with proper ventilation or active cooling, which we'll be looking into for this bad boy. Speaking of the gears:  Look at that bitch. Look at that size difference. I thought it was an idiot decision until I looked up what the relevant sizing of it all should be for the motor we had. Electric motors man, electric motors. Here is a closeup of those batteries.  They go all the way up into where the gas tank was, making it super top heavy and a bitch to actually make go. We're hoping that with 16 LiFePO4 cells (at a 100Ah size) should drop the weight from 350 lbs to 90ish or so for the battery pack including encapsulation and air cooling, which should solve that issue, especially if we make sure to put it at the bottom of the plate. Also, let me take a moment to appreciate the quality welds on that frame extension to hold the battery pack. drat fine quality work. Complaints aside, I really love how the guy overengineered his power cables and his amperage circuit breakers.  I'm pretty sure this motor is going to run at 48V and 20A max, but here he is, prepping for a 600V line and a 200A breaker. Might have to size that one down to make it useful though. Got more reading to do. So that big blue thing with the fins is the motor controller.  and it's supposed to make sure we don't wreck the motor with voltages. I think it's Pulse width modulation for the power, but (A) I gotta get the data cable to check out it's settings. The PO should have it somewhere, and I'm going to return to his storage space for a hunt, because I'm not paying 500 bucks for a data cable if I don't have to and (B) I need to hopefully figure out how to get a modern computer to read a 2000s era program. This might be a rare crossover into SH/SC for this one. And that's where we are at right now. Gotta get a different charger for our battery pack, find a J1772 plug for letting it 'fast charge' at public charging stations, get a BMS system for the battery pack and to wait very patiently on the batteries to come from China. Hopefully I'll be back in a month with more pictures, and possibly a test drive.
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2023 20:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 01:53 |
|
|
loving hell how old is the conversion? And god it sounds like it's likely stock suspension so of course adding on all that battery weight would make it terrifying to turn, it's likely barely able to support everything and unlike big bikes like a dyna glide or gold wing that weight isnt centered low, and if it's lead acid you likely get some degree of fluid shifting which would throw things off even more. I'd be absolutely terrified to take that on any degree of corner that wasn't a slight turn. It sounds like an interesting project at least but definitely you need to get the weight distribution changed ASAP for safety. Likely the suspension may be toast if it's had that weight on it for any decent time.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2023 20:52
|
|
|
UCS Hellmaker posted:loving hell how old is the conversion? Conversion is ballpark 20 years old, going by the motor controller. Not 100% sure as the PO was gifted it by a 'crazy Russian engineer' for helping him as a personal reference for him on his immigration stuff. As for the suspension, I am also worried about that issue. First things first, getting the new batteries and spinning the wheel to get a feel for how it'll go, THEN take care of the suspension (always the rule of thumb for EV conversions, as the weight is invariably a bit higher due to the batteries). All those new batteries are going on the bottom of the old battery plate to lower the weight distribution and the new driver going to me my student, who is sub 150 lbs, so even with the new batteries, it'll still be within the spec load weight of 380 lbs, operating under the conservative assumption that the motor and engine are roughly the same weight (they are absolutely not, motor is significantly lighter). Also, I think this is my first post ever, if there is a mod looking at this thread, mind changing the tag to "80s" or "Tech" instead of "poo poo post"? Joey Steel fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Apr 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2023 21:13
|
|
|
Ground floorJoey Steel posted:I think this is my first post ever hi
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2023 14:35
|
|
|
Joey Steel posted:Also, I think this is my first post ever, if there is a mod looking at this thread, mind changing the tag to "80s" or "Tech" instead of "poo poo post"? Done. Also, that bike now weighs as much (maybe more?) than a goldwing. My concern is that you wont be able to get springs strong enough to hold all that weight, just based on how heavy the bike originally was. I'd be shocked if you could spring it to hold 400lbs of extra weight, although I'm sure an email to racetech could clear up whether its possible or not. The secondary problem is valving it to keep all that weight from just turning your forks into pogo sticks
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2023 19:33
|
|
|
Beve Stuscemi posted:Done. Now? I ditched the 350 lbs of batteries, and the motor is a fair whack lighter than the engine it replaced. Gotta weigh it, however. I'm replacing that pack with an 80 lbs pack of LiFePO4 batteries, with the option of maybe adding it to a total of 160 lbs of batteries when he wants to run it on the highways. My student who is going to use this is about 140 lbs himself. It'll fit, barely with the spec or 384 lbs of load. Hope he wasn't expecting to take a date on it... . Edit: that being said, I'll take any advice for how to make this sucker lighter or an idea of heavier duty shocks to compensate. Joey Steel fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Apr 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2023 03:42
|
|
|
OK, I missed the lifepo part, nevermind
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2023 04:36
|
|
|
This is cool. Is it weird that I like the brutalist frame modification?
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2023 16:34
|
|
|
Shelvocke posted:This is cool. Is it weird that I like the brutalist frame modification? I hope not, because I do too. I'm hoping to fit in another 16 LiFePO4 cells when my student can swing them, so he can make it a highway commuter.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2023 18:16
|
|
|
This rules.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2023 01:52
|
|
|
Hopefully we'll have a video of it rolling around by the end of May.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2023 02:36
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2023 18:55
|
|
|
Got my battery charger in, now all I need are the batteries... Should've gotten them local and paid the extra 200 bucks, I'm getting impatient.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 06:45
|
|
|
Yay, 16 of 32 batteries are in. Let's see if we can spin the wheel with these guys next week!
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 15:30
|
|
|
All batteries are in, and I'd like to say that we will test out spinning the wheel with the batteries on a bench top... But I'll also be getting a 1985 Jaguar xj6 from some totally AI- brain polish holocaust survivor who is thinning out his herd of xj6 cars. He loving rules.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2023 05:54
|
|
|
 Well hello there friend! Have no fear, we're going to spin the motorcycle wheel come this Monday (or fail like dogs) but this is my excuse for not doing that today. 1800 isn't too bad a deal for it. Better yet, the old dude had 2 (!) Rolls Royce cars from the 1950, so I really want to be his friend.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2023 05:35
|
|
|
Can't wait to see pics of it with the updated components!
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2023 16:53
|
|
|
Scam Likely posted:Can't wait to see pics of it with the updated components! We're unfortunately at an impasse for getting the motor controller running, it's now a game of troubleshooting whack a mole. My student is rendering the battery cradle to make a battery holder plan, but that's where we're at right now.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2023 01:06
|
|
|
Hm, is the motor brushless DC, or brushed, or like AC? If brushless does it use back emf for determining the rotor position or does it use hall sensors or something else?
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 15:32
|
|
|
SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:Hm, is the motor brushless DC, or brushed, or like AC? If brushless does it use back emf for determining the rotor position or does it use hall sensors or something else? Separately excited DC. It's... a bit dated of a technology.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 00:35
|
|
|
gently caress yes, wheel is spinning, video later.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2023 22:51
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6sdF7F1N6s Home stretch boys! Gotta fab the battery holder and put in the BMS but the bitch spins!
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 01:25
|
|
|
Neat project!Joey Steel posted:XJ picture What's up with the sad state OG Insight?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 05:16
|
|
|
Zero clue. It's the property of the university, so I have no ability to touch it and it's been sitting there since before I came here. Ditto that Porsche that I never got permission to get so I could convert it to an EV. C'est la vie. Just gotta convert an xj6, sell it off (and hopefully get a small profit) and then go on to other cars with this crew. It's fun though.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 05:51
|
|
|
https://youtu.be/TsqYFmOhZqU. So yeah. We got it running. Needs some non motor tlc but stick a fork in this thread. I'll eventually post a github link for 3d scans of the bike for people to think about doing their one some day. Joey Steel fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jul 25, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 03:07
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 04:12
|
|
|
That looks awesome  Would love some more photos, and (horizontal) video of the bike in motion.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 22:07
|
|
|
Wibla posted:That looks awesome Sure! Once I'm satisfied with the rest of the bike stuff (brake lines, battery mounting, shocks, etc) I'll see if I can't find my old gopro somewhere and have it mounted on my student's helmet.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2023 00:37
|
|
|
Now tear it all apart and add a 1:1 transmission with the loudest gears you can possibly design so it sounds like a VFR again
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2023 15:57
|
|
|
bonelessdongs posted:Now tear it all apart and add a 1:1 transmission with the loudest gears you can possibly design so it sounds like a VFR again Lol
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2023 16:28
|
|
|
drat what a rad thread, this is what I get for only looking at bookmarks
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2023 00:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 01:53 |
|
|
Cool test, I like the guys in the background momchalantly chilling and glancing overbonelessdongs posted:Now tear it all apart and add a 1:1 transmission with the loudest gears you can possibly design so it sounds like a VFR again
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2023 21:27
|
|
