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Thought I'd post some info on my build - Actionbent T1 goes LIPO w/ 9 continent Motor

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Thought I'd post some info on my build - Actionbent T1 goes LIPO w/ 9 continent Motor

Old 05-25-11, 04:15 PM
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A few more pics from last year. It is amazing how many more places you can get to once the trike is electrified.

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Old 05-25-11, 04:42 PM
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I love the turn signal bar rob! I know it's in your thread on Bentrider, but do you mind sharing where you got the scooter parts/lights?
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Old 05-25-11, 05:18 PM
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The following is extracted from the Bentrider thread "Electric Assist for Trice Q":

The custom light strip is a "Turns and Brake Flexible Array" from Radiantz. The strip has a 9" (230mm) long red section in the middle that is dual brightness - bright for brake and dimmer for running. Each end has short segments of amber LEDs for turn signaling. The overall length is about 13" (330mm).

The horn is a cheap $4.00 stud mounted with a spare reflector mounting bracket.

Reed Switches for brake shutoff are the Meder Electronic type MK6-6-C, DigiKey part number 374-1065-ND.

The handlebar switch for lights, horn and turn signals is part number SWT-30 from ElectricScooterParts.com.

The turn signal flasher is a special low-current version for LEDs. It is part number ELFR-1 made by Custom LED Signals.

The DC-DC converter ordered is a 100W (7A) 36-75V In, 12V Out Power One part number SSQE48T07120-NABNG. It is no longer available but there are similar alternatives. Voltage for the nominally 8V P7 flashlight is provided by a Castle Creations BEC.

The relays used were a mixture of 12VDC coil relays from various sources. The only double pole is the brake relay which activates both the brake light and the throttle cutoff.

In this particular case, the total current draw with all 5 relays activated is 142mA. The current draw for all the lights at 12VDC maxes out at about 2A with a strong P7 headlight.

Most connectors used are Deans Micro 2 and 4 pin polarized. These are very small connectors good for currents up to about 10A.

The enclosure is a typical project box with mounting flanges.

Before receiving the DC-DC converter, I used a 3s LiPo for the lighting system without the DC-DC converter.
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Old 05-26-11, 10:24 AM
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Very clean build you have Rob. Eventually I might nab some of your ideas for my own turn signal/brake setup.

Well last night was eventful and not all at once.

Cut the LVC boards in half very carefully, and took them to my brother to solder wires onto them. When doing that, he found that one of the boards had fried two of the main traces. He fixed those, but when I got home and connected a battery , the third main trace on the board fried.

I've since ordered some balance adapter cables from progressive RC. I'll miss out on the LVC function, but I've set the Cycle Analyst to shut down at about 3.3V per cell, so hoping I'll avoid over discharging anything. I'll still be balance charging every charge. My brother is going to look into fixing the boards again once he's moved and settled into a new job.

Did some work on the controller plate - cut down the CA mounting tube to just barely fit the CA, and rounded the corners on the plate to make it less scary.
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Old 05-26-11, 11:00 AM
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I set my CA @ 42V or 3.5V/cell. If I really need to go lower I can stop and lower the value some more.
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Old 05-26-11, 11:04 AM
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Originally Posted by jethro56
I set my CA @ 42V or 3.5V/cell. If I really need to go lower I can stop and lower the value some more.
That's about as low as I recommend going without parallel cell group voltage monitoring. High current LiPos hold a high discharge voltage and then drop off a cliff. There isn't a heck of a lot of energy left at 3.5V anyways...
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Old 05-26-11, 01:07 PM
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Originally Posted by rscamp
That's about as low as I recommend going without parallel cell group voltage monitoring. High current LiPos hold a high discharge voltage and then drop off a cliff. There isn't a heck of a lot of energy left at 3.5V anyways...
Good point. I based mine at 3.3 just because it was still above the 3.0 LVC cutoff of the boards I was going to use. Next time I have it all setup I'll change it to 3.5.
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Old 05-27-11, 11:22 AM
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Here is a better pic of the brains of the setup and the plate they mount too.
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Old 05-27-11, 11:54 AM
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We have similar locations for the CA. Something I found, corkscrew, is the width of the CA can be an issue. This depends on your legs, how you pedal and the spacing of your pedals. I decided not to go with the larger CA just because of this. My legs and/or my clothing are starting to catch on the smaller CA...
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Old 05-27-11, 01:14 PM
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I noticed that as well. I'm hoping that since it's now mounted farther ahead and closer to the tube, that I'll be ok. Just haven't re-attached my seat to check yet.

Def made me reconsider the large screen lol.
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Old 05-28-11, 07:20 AM
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I really like my CA but I don't spend alot of time looking at it while riding.
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Old 05-28-11, 03:59 PM
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Holy Hell! I just took my first test ride under electric power. This is going to be too much fun.

Trike seems to handle better with the low slung weight. MUCH harder to lift a wheel while cornering!

Don't have the chain drive setup yet and averaged about 35wh/mile.

Still need to finalize everything, but then I should have some more pics.
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Old 05-28-11, 04:30 PM
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Originally Posted by corkscrew
Holy Hell! I just took my first test ride under electric power. This is going to be too much fun.

Trike seems to handle better with the low slung weight. MUCH harder to lift a wheel while cornering!

Don't have the chain drive setup yet and averaged about 35wh/mile.

Still need to finalize everything, but then I should have some more pics.
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Old 05-28-11, 07:34 PM
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Originally Posted by corkscrew
Holy Hell!...
I think that's "Holy Heck".
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Old 05-29-11, 09:21 AM
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Originally Posted by rscamp
I think that's "Holy Heck".
Ha! Didn't mean to offend, but in my defesne - being a family friendly website it still didn't filter it out.

Spent some time last night building the battery packs into a more permanent configuration. (Was lucky my Parallel balance adapters arrived yesterday!), and wrapped each set of 4 bricks with heat shrink tubing. Got them store charged at 60% as one complete battery now. Also did a bit of cable routing to clean things up a bit. Tempted to shorten the throttle, CA and ebrake lines, but don't feel like reattaching all those little wires! Currently have the excess bundled and zip tied under where the seat will sit.

Also did some work on the chainline. Removed another foot or so of chain tube and relocated my power idler (It's on a terracycle 2" idler mount). Things seem to be a bit better routed now, so we'll see. I said I didn't have a pedal drive above because the previous chainline rotated the idler mount and made my idler pop it's c-clip and bearing! (Nothing like cruising past some kids with a big smile, only to have them bring over your idler minus the bearing "One of your parts fell off!" *facepalm* ) Hoping it'll work now with all the changes I've done, figure it was a matter of overtorquing on the chain line, since I don't have the shifters installed yet.

Once payday or a boon shows up, I may have to find some reed switches for the e-braking. I have my two locking levers setup for the front discs, and have the regen lever mounted separately. Would be nice to trigger regen and a brake light with both of the promax levers. (Yeah yeah, Promax, but I couldn't find another set of dual v-brake levers with parking brakes!). Then I have to find a better place for the thumb throttle. Where I had it interferes with the rear shifter line, so something will have to be done there.

I ordered a 700x50 Big Apple tire last week too - I'm crossing my fingers that it will fit, as with all the weight and speed I could use more suspension. (Vs the 90psi Vittoria Randoneur that's on there now)..

One other thing - how warm are these motors supposed to get? After the 15 minutes of riding around (OK so I wasn't babying her), the motor was fairly warm to the touch. Makes me worried because yesterday was overcast and only about 50 degrees F. I may have to drill the covers on the 2806 or install a fan or something. Then maybe get a 2807 with closed covers to swap in for winter riding.

Last edited by corkscrew; 05-29-11 at 09:26 AM.
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Old 05-29-11, 11:01 AM
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Your watt hours per mile is very high...about triple what mine is. Are you not pedalling at all? That would explain the heat, if you are over 1000 watts continuously. I usually well under 500 watts, often under 200 on flats. But I do only average maybe 23 miles per hour. I haven't noticed any heat.
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Old 05-29-11, 11:28 AM
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Originally Posted by chvid
Your watt hours per mile is very high...about triple what mine is. Are you not pedalling at all? That would explain the heat, if you are over 1000 watts continuously. I usually well under 500 watts, often under 200 on flats. But I do only average maybe 23 miles per hour. I haven't noticed any heat.
There was very little pedaling on that ride. I don't have my shifters set up yet, and starting off from the high gear stressed my idler and torqued it off it's bolt (popped the c clip right off too)! I've since tightened it down and I'll have shifters installed by the next ride.

To be fair too, my LIPO pack is probably pushing @ a higher C rate than your pings.

Hrmmm....only need one more battery to convert to an 18S3P system... wonder what that would do too my range vs the 12S4P I've got now.

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Old 05-29-11, 12:55 PM
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You will probably get about the same range, with a somewhat faster speed conferred by the higher voltage, the extra watt hours being <mostly> consumed by wind resistance.
Since I see you are tending to use the vehicle in "non-hybrid" mode. I'm more of an "I love pedalling" type so our watt-hours per mile patterns aren't very comparable. I like to go a bit slower and pedal all the time, which gives me awesome range with the 1400 watt hours of energy that I have, when running parallel packs. I'm still a bit surprised by the heating you noted. Anyway, I'm glad you are happy with the performance. I found that the Terracycle dual idler screwed right into the existing AB idler mount, and I upgraded my idler. Wasn't too impressed with the Actionbent one. I got the low end "Sport?" idler..

Last edited by chvid; 05-29-11 at 12:58 PM.
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Old 05-30-11, 08:56 AM
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Originally Posted by chvid
You will probably get about the same range, with a somewhat faster speed conferred by the higher voltage, the extra watt hours being <mostly> consumed by wind resistance.
Since I see you are tending to use the vehicle in "non-hybrid" mode. I'm more of an "I love pedalling" type so our watt-hours per mile patterns aren't very comparable. I like to go a bit slower and pedal all the time, which gives me awesome range with the 1400 watt hours of energy that I have, when running parallel packs. I'm still a bit surprised by the heating you noted. Anyway, I'm glad you are happy with the performance. I found that the Terracycle dual idler screwed right into the existing AB idler mount, and I upgraded my idler. Wasn't too impressed with the Actionbent one. I got the low end "Sport?" idler..
I've only ridden in "non-hybrid" mode the once, simply because I got excited. I'm hoping to get outside again today and finish things up. Also, once I'm commuting to work I'll be going much slower too.

I replaced the idler with a toothed one from terratrike, and then put it a few inches behind where it mounted before, and a bit lower also. So far so good, was able to cut off a lot of chain tube and it seems to not be blowing up when pedaled.
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Old 05-30-11, 10:03 AM
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Corkscrew: If you can touch the motor you're OK.
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Old 05-30-11, 02:22 PM
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Originally Posted by jethro56
Corkscrew: If you can touch the motor you're OK.
Good to know!

Anywho, here is where she sits as of today, after an 11 mile test ride averaging 25.4 Wh\mile.

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Old 05-30-11, 03:09 PM
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Nice looking build.
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Old 05-30-11, 09:57 PM
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One thing you can do, if you find the handlebars are too far to the rear, and your elbows are conflicting with the seat, is chop the handlebar where it is connected to the one piece handlebar/stem, and put some cheap bmx stems on, so that the handlebar can go through the new stems, enabling fore/aft adjustability, I needed a couple of shims from the LBS to do this. inside the stems. It is nice to move the handlebars to the best fore/aft position, or change their "in/out" position toward or away from the seat, laterally. This is a common mod, explained on the AB group on Yahoo. My handlebar was too far to the rear, as supplied. I'm wondering if you have encountered any low speed shimmy with no hands - I needed to put an o-ring (well lubricated) inside each headset, on top of the bearing, to dampen the steering. I found that running at higher pressures was the best, with Big Apples at 50psi producing considerable shimmy. I'm running 70psi Marathon racers now. The o-rings and the different tires solved the shimmy issue. May not be an issue on your frame though. I found a toe-in of exactly zero was my best setting for handling - even a minor adjustment of one turn of the tie rod from the optimum position is noticeable in the "feel". I use an old "rabbit ears" tv antenna for precise toe measurement. Works great. Those little adjustments add up until the trike just feels perfect.
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Old 06-01-11, 11:36 AM
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Originally Posted by chvid
One thing you can do, if you find the handlebars are too far to the rear, and your elbows are conflicting with the seat, is chop the handlebar where it is connected to the one piece handlebar/stem, and put some cheap bmx stems on, so that the handlebar can go through the new stems, enabling fore/aft adjustability, I needed a couple of shims from the LBS to do this. inside the stems. It is nice to move the handlebars to the best fore/aft position, or change their "in/out" position toward or away from the seat, laterally. This is a common mod, explained on the AB group on Yahoo. My handlebar was too far to the rear, as supplied. I'm wondering if you have encountered any low speed shimmy with no hands - I needed to put an o-ring (well lubricated) inside each headset, on top of the bearing, to dampen the steering. I found that running at higher pressures was the best, with Big Apples at 50psi producing considerable shimmy. I'm running 70psi Marathon racers now. The o-rings and the different tires solved the shimmy issue. May not be an issue on your frame though. I found a toe-in of exactly zero was my best setting for handling - even a minor adjustment of one turn of the tie rod from the optimum position is noticeable in the "feel". I use an old "rabbit ears" tv antenna for precise toe measurement. Works great. Those little adjustments add up until the trike just feels perfect.
The handlebars are comfy enough for me - and for extended running the mirror mounts count as an extra hand position.

No shimmy or shake for me either, maybe due to the fact that all my tires are @ 80psi currently? (Will change, assuming the 700x50 big apple fits when it arrives tomorrow).

My economy is getting better - 10 miles yesterday with pedaling almost the entire time netted me 17.5 watt/hrs per mile. This morning was on the roads, average speed near 30mph, with pedaling averaged 22 w/h mile.
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Old 06-01-11, 11:47 AM
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Originally Posted by corkscrew
My economy is getting better - 10 miles yesterday with pedaling almost the entire time netted me 17.5 watt/hrs per mile. This morning was on the roads, average speed near 30mph, with pedaling averaged 22 w/h mile.
Sounds normal. It is good to be normal.
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