Number Two

[anotherkiwi]

The last time that river flooded it was on the 8 o'clock news, several villages were badly hit. Thunderstorms on mountains after hot sunny periods = flash floods. Today it was >30°C

Yes. Probably a wee bit lower Wh average with a hub but that is down to my riding style.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I love lipo!

OK I may have said that a couple of times... The Graphene packs may be more expensive and slightly bulkier but:

They charge faster
They stay balanced
Cells are within 0.01V
They don't puff. At all! Charge or discharge.

I will have to try a run with them in series to see how much they deliver between 4.15 V and 3.65 V. I am guessing much more than 8600 mAh I got from the Multistars, maybe 9000 mAh? I am also happy with my new charging setup: 2 x 300 W is just right for 10000 mAh packs and the power supply is working great now that I know what it wants (18 V output). The packs charge in minutes not hours at 1C, all 4 packs charged to storage voltage in less than an hour total after today's ride.

Today 61.54 km, average speed 23.67 km/h, top speed 59.19 km/h, elevation gain 1259 metres (eat your heart out Eddie ) max altitude 455 m. For a total of 467 Wh or 7.59 Wh/km. There were a couple of spots over 13% in the hairpins. The lycras love it. They don't like me much... Oh and I spotted a lad on a Haibike, of course he wasn't wearing a helmet nor full body armour, just shades. Was he dongled?



No photos a google image search gives a good idea, just that the sun was setting when I reached the top and I almost whipped out the nikon but I'm a rider not a photographer

 

[Deleted member 4366]

A burning plastic smell told me something was amiss and the 10 year old converted PC power supply promptly made a "pop" sound and ceased to function.

Maybe my drawing 18 Amps constant was a little beyond its means?

Capacitors don't see current. Instead, they see voltage. There's only two reasons that I know why they blow: Voltage too high compared with the voltage written on the capacitor, like if you connected a 12v power supply directly to a 6S battery pack; or reverse connection. I'd check again whether you have your connections the right way round!

There's a fair chance that it'll come back to life if you put in a new capacitor, unless you didn't make any of the above errors.

 

[anotherkiwi]

It wasn't a capacitor I said condenser because I tried to see what it was on wikipedia, apparently I failed. It was a composant that looks like an old school chewing gum or a "berlingot". Bottom row, center right. Caps are top left.

I know yellow = +12V and black = Gnd it was connected correctly and it was load that it couldn't handle. It still turned on and spun the cooling fan, just didn't provide enough power to the charger any more.

A ten year old free PC power supply that can't provide 18 Amps constant has no place in my life, it has been binned.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

A capacitor and condensor are the same thing, except nobody calls them condensors these days, though occasionally you here the capacitor on the old automotive ignition systems with contact breakers called a condensor.

The ones in your picture look like tantalum capacitors. They're standing on the symbol for an LED. They're polarised, so would pop if subjected to reverse voltage. I've never actually seen one pop, but I've heard that they catch fire. Electrolytic capacitors pop and give off pungent smoke when they blow, and they spread gunge all around. They're the ones top left of your picture. They also can't take reverse polarity without blowing.

No current ever flows through a capacitor. It only flows in and out with massive current, which is what causes the spark when you connect your controller to a live battery. The whole point of capacitors is that they charge and discharge instantly with high current. They boost the instantaneous current in things like PWM chargers and motor controllers. They're also used for smoothing out current by absorbing peaks and giving back in the troughs.

That's capacitors. Tomorrow, we'll be doing transistors.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I've been assembling my own PCs for a few years so I know quite a bit about bulging and leaking caps!

"But for smoothing, bypassing, or decoupling applications like in power supplies, the capacitors work additionally as AC resistors to filter undesired AC components from voltage rails. "
I think it is the smoothing out current function this one assumes it is next to the two main cylindrical caps in the power supply. As I was drawing maximum current maybe there were voltage spikes and combined with old age, low cost component etc. it got the better of it? The pop sound is the rupture of the enveloppe and it spewed similar kind of grey gunk that comes out of leaking caps.

When the tin can caps pop they can do a real fireworks display! I had one go in a CRT computer monitor once, just before a very important presentation to a client of course...

 

[anotherkiwi]

Houston we have a problem...

So I decided to install the hidden wire brake switch and not being concentrated had a plug error moment... Tiny spark, no more PAS. More mucking about with tiny cheap wires with cr...y insulation tomorrow then. I was hoping to be riding

 

[Deleted member 4366]

The hidden wire brake sensors have red 5v, yellow ground and blue signal wires.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Yes I read your post on ES before I started but I think I may have plugged the brake sensor into PAS plug by accident... No, the battery wasn't plugged in so just the juice from the controller made the spark.

I'll look at it in the light of day when I get up in the afternoon.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

There isn't any juice in the controller when either the controller or battery are switched off. If you had a spark, either the battery was connected and the controller was switched on and you connected 5v to ground, or you connected a live battery wire to the PAS, which will have instantly killed it.

Connecting 5v to ground can wipe out the 5v regulator, so check that you have 5v on the throttle or PAS before doing anything.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I'm pretty sure the battery was unplugged, cap discharging? But I was not concentrating and the lights had gone off in the stairwell and... well any way my stupid error.

In any case is seems that I have fried the internal PAS of my GSM, I tried with another known working controller and no dice. What a pity but I just happen to have a couple of external PAS systems on hand! Back to the soldering iron, crimping and testing. I will make this thing work!

Where do I get the red 5 V from on a 09 bottle battery controller for the hidden wire brake switch? There are only two wire yellow and black brakes switch wires on that one.

But first things first - see if external PAS works with the S06SC controller.

EDIT:

Don't build your own bike buy one The PAS cable that I need has gone missing... I have all the other cables except the one I need of course.

Why am I without a bike when it was running swimmingly? She: "when are you going to lend me your bike so I can ride it to work?" Me: "when I have a brake switch so the motor cuts off, I am used to it running on and plan ahead"... Then I go and make a stupid mistake plugging it in... <lots of words that would get me lots of bad language marks go here>

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Where do I get the red 5 V from on a 09 bottle battery controller for the hidden wire brake switch? There are only two wire yellow and black brakes switch wires on that one.

Splice it in to the throttle or PAS red.

Then yellow HWBS goes to black brake connector. Blue HWBS goes to yellow brake.

 

[anotherkiwi]

The controller is not dead! The internal PAS is (HAL fried?)...

So the Dremel is out and I am fitting a Kunteng V12 external PAS. Because of space issues the sensor will be glued to the GSM motor support bracket and the 12 magnet ring thinned and glued to the crank arm. Note to Mister Moon: please use a 2 mm longer BB next time!

The big advantages are:

There is an option in the LCD-3 for this exact PAS sensor, three setting options to be precise!
The PAS does not kick in when pedalling backwards
Run on seems to be gone (to be verified on the road), stop turning the disk and the motor cuts immediately.

 

[trex]

I take my hat off to you sir. You are indeed a very resourceful fellow. By the way, the PAS sensor and disc on the GSM are same on the BBS01. That means it's not easy to replace the internal PAS disc! there is definitely a market for external PAS for the BBS/GSM.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Living proof of the kiwi and number eight wire legend!

Photos will follow soon when I get things cleaned up.

 

[anotherkiwi]

Back on the road

Unfortunately I will get to test bike discount dot de after sales support. My b+m light doesn't work, the main light yes but the daytime LEDs and the rear light no...

I like the feel of the 42 tooth chainring, will need to take out a couple of links because the chain is a bit slack.

The Shimano steps crank arms are really comfortable, the pedals are about 3 cm closer together and it makes a lot of difference.

The brake cutoff switch is useful but with the external PAS run on is not as noticeable.

The external PAS doesn't kick in so quickly but quickly enough, the magnets are very close together on the 12 magnet disk. Proper road testing needs to be done but everything feels better than before and before I was really pleased!

And I have cleaned up the cable runs so am quite pleased with the look of it. If only it had lights...

 

[cycling weakly]

Where did you get the steps crank arms from. Three centimetres is a huge reduction of the Q factor.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I'll have to be more careful with my hyperbole people are actually reading this... I'll have to measure but it is a substantial amount.

They came from bike-discount.de in the new e-bike parts section IIRC, yep

http://www.bike-discount.de/en/shop/cranksets-17871/l-24

Off to measure now.

EDIT: 3 floors down, 3 floors up <puffing>

2.6 cm or 1.3 cm each side, so I was off by 4 mm by eye not bad for an old fogey! About the thickness of the cranks supplied with my GSM. All those years of graphic design and the trained eye paid off!

 

[anotherkiwi]

So everything is cleaned up, main battery powered lights mounted and working (50% more lumens!) and I had planned on doing a few photos today to celebrate "the end" of this build. Of course it is bucketing down outside.

I did ride it for the first time in pouring rain yesterday. The bike was still rejecting being electrically assisted, the PAS disk now has a square hole (epoxy paste to the rescue) but is slightly (less than 1 mm) off centre so wasn't lining up with the detector... I need to find a mechanical means of attaching the detector to the frame, double faced tape is OK as a makeshift solution but it won't stand the test of time.

 

[trex]

woosh use this cabletie cradle when converting some bikes when there is not much space

You can find them on ebay.
bolt the sensor to the mount and strap it to the seat tube. On the magnet disc side, bolt the disc onto three of those mounts and strap them to the smallest ring.