The Electric CB750 Project

liam said:
really keen on watching this one develop. make sure to link details and suppliers if you could, there's a lot of thrashed out bikes around that look to me to be begging for a electric heart.
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This is a good idea.

A great place to start is Ted Dillard's EVMC2 blog. He has a series called "Stuff I Learned" which is a great crash course on electric drive tech.

http://evmc2.wordpress.com/category/stuff-ive-learned/

Lennon Rodgers also compiled a great little site for his (very inexpensive) build.

http://electricmotion.org/

In terms of suppliers, there are a lot of great ones out there.

http://www.cloudelectric.com/Default.asp (Although I heard they might be requiring a membership nowadays.)

http://www.electricmotorsport.com/store/ems_ev_parts.php

http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/

And lastly

http://evalbum.com/

That one is important so you can see what kind of results people are getting with various configurations of parts, and so you know what kind of performance to expect.
 
I got a chance to do some work today before becoming a slave to homework. I took the grinder to the center stand mounts and various other tabs for the oil tank, etc.


As you can see there is a bit of surface rust but nothing a bit of sandpaper won't take care of. After smoothing over the parts I used the grinder on, it's going to get powdercoated black. I have a minor bit of fabrication to do. I'm making a battery tray out of angle iron, real simple. The other piece I have to make is a plate to mount the electric motor to the original engine mount.


IMG_20110219_125950.jpg



Here's my tank and tail on my friend's CB750 frame. Looks pretty cool


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Do any of you CB750 guys know what this tab is for? I forgot, it's been well over a year since I took this thing apart. Do I need it or can it get sawzalled?


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Lastly, here's a royal enfield a friend is keeping in the garage.


IMG_20110219_130044.jpg
 
my dad's been at me to help him build an electric vehicle of one kind or another. I've got enough of the motorcycle parts to build. I'll be keeping an eye on this to see how this turns out.
 
Took a few minutes to CAD up my motor mount plate. I'm making a test one tomorrow out of 1/2" ply or MDF to check for fitting.

motormount.jpg
 
Okay guys, getting things prepped for powder coat. I'm smoothing over the areas I grinded down and wanted to give the whole frame a good sand to get rid of some surface rust. What grits should I use to get a good result with good adhesion?
 
Im sorry to hear that you lost your father, you also have my condolences. The thought of building an electric bike has been rolling around in the back of my mind for a few months, eco friendly and even friendlier to the wallet. Currently I am building a complete opposite 2-stroke smoker... With those specs of 31hp on that electric motor(and alot more torque), you should be able to scoot around pretty well. Im very interested to see how it all comes together. A while back I was watching a show where the guys built an electric racing gokart that hauled ass, and they used a series of old cell phone and laptop batteries all wired together for the proper voltage. Cell phone and laptop batteries charge fast and discharge slowly compared to cheap lead batteries, maybe make your own battery cell. They also had a few high voltage capacitors that would give them short sprints of power, kinda like electric NOS, lol. Anyhow, ill be watchin!
 
JoeTee said:
Just thought about wrapping the tank and rear seat with flexible solar cells, to help charge the bike while riding or parked. Would not get a full charge, but atleast alittle something. Besides, the concept is bad ass. here's a link to the stuff, might be able to find it cheaper:
http://www.amazon.com/PVL136-UniSolar-Flexible-Solar-Laminate/dp/B002MWFFWM
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There's a guy named Tony Coiro who is a student at Purdue. He built this guy.

3515.jpg


Unfortunately the added weight of the solar charging system offset any benefit. When satellite grade cells get cheaper I am totally excited to see what kind of creative implementation will happen. Imagine a bike that fuels itself for free?!
 
I just checked out the motor that you are planning on using. $850.00!! damn, did you find a better price?
 
nice, to bad you couldn't find a killer price on some lipo's. I have a couple of electic rc airplanes with lipo packs, they are compact, charge pretty fast and hold a decent charge.
 
LiPo really isn't too expensive on HobbyKing, but I'm sticking with an SLA pack until I debug my electric system. I'd feel hell of a lot worse for toasting a LiPo pack than a Lead Acid pack. When charging large LiPo packs seems less intimidating (I'm sure some of the other dorks on the electric forums will figure it out) then I'll make the upgrade.
 
Okay woooooh change of plans. I did some more work with my electric motorcycle spreadsheet and was disappointed about the lack of performance from the lead acid batteries. So I went back into my 3D model and started playing around with different chemistries, seeing what I could fit into my frame. I settled on these.


SkyEnergy_40Ah.jpg





These batteries will literally triple my range and last atleast 10 times as long (recharge cycles), but cost about 3 times more. I'd be able to get around 30 miles to a charge no problem, but less if I ride like a hooligan. The batteries would fit into the frame like so:


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The pack is about 11" wide, which I don't think should affect riding position very much. Keeping the pack together in a block makes mounting the pack simpler and lighter.


Each cell will have one of these guys.


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Those work as a battery management system, meaning they prevent overcharging and over-discharging and some basic cell balancing/thermal monitoring. You buy a relay that turns off the charger when the cells read over a certain voltage, preventing overcharging (and fires). It also prevents me from over-discharging and damaging the cells.


The good news is they last up to something crazy like 3000 cycles, compared to the 300 of lead acid batteries.


And you can keep an eye on all of it with 3 of these.


CellLog-8M-5.jpg





This is getting kind of crazy
 
MOAR!

This bike is going to be awesome! 30miles still kind of sucks but that is what my commute to work is. What kind of speed would you have to maintain to keep the rage?
 
Juggernaut said:
MOAR!

This bike is going to be awesome! 30miles still kind of sucks but that is what my commute to work is. What kind of speed would you have to maintain to keep the rage?
Click to expand...

Yeah, 30 miles is a bummer, first upgrade I'm going to make is a faster onboard charger. Right now mine is 3 amp, but I can get a 15 amp that will charge the pack a lot faster. But the pack is only 78 pounds, all of the electric drive components together comes in at 175 pounds or so.

Electric bikes (from what I've read) get drained above 50 miles per hour pretty quick. I don't really know what exactly to expect.

School is like 2 miles away and I could go as far as I need to in the city. The motor mount is standard, and the battery tray can fit a variety of batteries, so I would consider this kind of an upgradeable/swappable bike. But for right now the battery format I chose is very reliable and much more user friendly than the more volitile lipo batteries.
 
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