A Series of Tubes

Since this post deals mainly with the wiring of the bike, Luke advised the title of this post. For those of you who don't understand the reference, Interweb. It's somewhat ironic that Ted Stevens died while we were finishing off the "tubes".

Here's a video of me spinning the rear wheel for the first time.



Here are a couple videos with Luke and me riding for the first time.





Here's the bike with the kick stand added. Luke had to cut through the frame and attach it to the battery cage. Works great.



We put the fairings on last week and the bike looks almost stock. Check out the green LEDs on the bms on the batteries.




The motor gets hot if we run the bike too hard, so we added a pan under the bike to ram air up. It's a start, but it might need something else to run air across the motor and controller.

We are also trying to find the best location for the battery charging cable. We tried to take it out of the top of the tank. It is very cool, but it's a little cumbersome to get it out. So, we are still looking for a better solution. Maybe a retractable wheel or something.

Well, that's about it. Just little things now. Bought new tires, they're on back order. Looking forward to getting the bike registered and getting on the road.

Moving Right Along

The battery cage is done. Luke is really getting good at welding. Looks great.




The gear on the rear wheel didn't have enough teeth for what we needed. I looked online, but it was impossible to find one that had the right amount of teeth and fit the bike. So, I bought one and made it work. Here's a picture of me grinding down some screws to make it fit in the frame.



Now that fabrication was finished we scraped the rust off and painted the metal. The cage almost looks like a stock piece.



So, we put the batteries back in and locked everything in.



I bought a 420 type chain online, but it was too short. So, I went to a local motorcycle dealer and bought some more. We added several more links and installed it. It almost looks like a real bike.




We are really close to finishing the project now. We connected the bms circuits across each of the batteries (a time consuming procedure). Unfortunately, Luke and I have each burned a circuit up and I bought some extras from the dealer. Tonight we added the electronics to the bike and started making the cables. We used 2 gauge welding wire.





This post wasn't exactly poetic, but I'm tired and the images speak more than I can. Another few hours of work and the bike will be ready for it's maiden voyage. When that happens I'll be sure to put up some video.

And We're Back

Luke and I have been continuing work as parts have arrived. The motor showed up a few weeks ago and we designed a mount for it. We made a wood version first to be sure we had everything in the right area code. It looks like something off a UFO.



At the end of May the batteries were supposed to arrive. They didn't. So, I email the retailer and he basically tells me it's not going to happen, that I need to cancel the order through my credit card. Thanks dude. So, I cancel the order and look for another retailer. Found the same batteries from another place for a bit higher price.

Then, last Saturday we got to work on the battery chassis. It took several hours, but Luke was on a mission. Here's some pictures.







While he was making that, I made a plastic piece for the electrical components to adhere to.




I was doing this most of the night.



Luke then transferred the wood template of the motor mount to the metal and got to work. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of that process because it was pretty involved. I guess I was pretty drunk by that point and forgot. After we drilled out the mounting holes, we learned that the holes were well off. It took a lot of filing to fix them. But, we did it and Luke welded it to the A-frame tonight.






The batteries came in yesterday. This is what they look like.

Once More Into The Breach

Though the progress we make is slight, it is meaningful. We have no parts, but still we trudge on. I spent two nights cleaning the grease sludge off the bike and it has reminded me why I like the idea of electrical vehicles so much. Oil is filthy. Cleaning this portion of the bike…



Did this to my hands…



It would seem appropriate that we should have an oil spill the week we begin this project. It is time for an alternative means of energy.
Ok, off the soapbox. The bike was dumped at some point by the previous owner and the right handle bar was badly bent.



So, instead of buying a new handlebar, Luke just made a new one. Suzuki tried to be clever and make the handle bar 22mm thick. There are no standard pipes that width. So, we bought a smaller pipe and made a shim out of an old license plate. Now that’s recycling.




Luke continues to fabricate. He started welding some stuff tonight.



The outcome is this little parallelogram/trapezoid/rhombus job.



It connects the motor to the frame. He’s gonna attach another thick piece of metal to this thing which will make motor attachment much more elegant.

He also fabricated a stand for the bike out of 1’’ square tube. One more thing we don’t have to buy. Look at this beauty.




We also picked up a battery to make testing the wiring easier. Here's a couple of pictures showing that the wiring actually works.

Just My Luck

I purchased all the equipment last night before going to bed. Today (2010/04/27) I had to make a call to evcomponents.com because of an error I made during ordering the batteries. The fellow I talked to on the phone was helpful and said my batteries and charger would be sent in late May…Really, late May. They get these batteries from China, and I had read these shipments come in bulk, but still it is unfortunate.

So, no big deal. Luke and I can still put the motor in before the batteries make it…No, I got an email at around 8:00 pm stating that due to high demand the motor is on back order 2-6 weeks. Great.

Then, I go on elmoto.net tonight and find this. The company I’m purchasing the batteries and charger from is having major internal struggles including many of the workers walking out. In a separate post, the owner of the company stated that EVComponents will be folding and not taking any more orders. But, apparently some batteries coming in the May shipment are unsold including the batteries I want. When I talked to the guy this morning, it sounded like he was kind of unsure about what was on the next shipment, now I know why. This whole thing has me nervous. I hope there won’t be long discussions with Paypal and Mastercard in my future.

So, I guess we’ll fabricate using models made out of cardboard and pretty-up the wiring. Here’s a picture of Luke fabricating the motor mount.

In The Beginning

Alright, I have begun the dream of building an electric motorcycle with the help of my cousin Luke. Our areas of expertise mesh well together. We’re like Cagney and Lacey. He handles the mechanical, I do the electrical.

We picked up a 1989 Suzuki Katana on Saturday (2010/04/24) from a couple of dudes on Craig’s list. They were very helpful and luckily had the title and most of the parts for the bike in a box. They had already removed the engine and scavenged other parts to put it in another bike. That saved us a lot of work and I don’t have to worry about selling an engine and all its accoutrements.

Thankfully, Luke’s grandfather’s has a truck and moving the bike back to my garage was simple.

On Sunday (2010/04/25) we started reattaching the components to the bike such as turn signals and front brakes. A few pieces are missing, but the previous owner may still have them sitting in a box.

The wiring is a nightmare. I first had to unwrap about a spool of electrical tape to get to the wires and then realized the complexity that lay before me.

Most of these wires aren’t needed because they are related to the original combustion engine. So, I just had to determine what was necessary. I tediously reverse engineered the purpose of as many wires as I could and labeled them one-by-one.

On Monday (2010/04/26) I spent some more time finalizing the equipment for the bike. I learned of a motor, the Agni 95-R at electricracebikes.com, which is supposedly very efficient while being small and light. I also had the moment of clarity that the batteries I had intended on purchasing, the Odyssey PC925, are only 28 amp hours. Amp hours mean how much energy the batteries can hold and 28 is not very much. After considerably more searching I found some lithium iron phosphate batteries at evcomponents.com. I went with the Thundersky 40 ah model. These ended up being more expensive than the Odyssey batteries, but ironically less per amp hour.

Luke and I continued to mess with the bike. He removed a few more pieces from the bike and thought more about fabrication. Having nothing else to do until we get parts, he setup the welder and air compressor we’ll use for the build. He also bought adapters for the compressor for cutting and grinding; these will definitely come in handy.

Determined to figure out the wiring, I looked online for a diagram. No one gives that information away for free apparently, so I just jumped back in. I began cutting and removing wires that I was sure had nothing to do with signals, brakes or dashboard lighting. Finally, by late last night I got down to a pretty minimal amount of wires. I remembered I had a 5 volt 2 amp power supply sitting around and decided to try and hook it up. Of course the bike requires a 12 volt battery, but the power supply did enough. I actually got the turn signals and brake lights to work. The head light would work unless I short circuited it from the power supply. I just don’t think there was enough juice to get it going through the whole system. Also the turn signals would blink, but that again might be due to the microcontroller being under powered.

Here are some pictures of the lights (boring).

Right turn signal.

Left turn signal.

Right turn signal Dashboard.

Left turn signal Dashboard.

Brake off.

Brake on.