Yamaha RD50MX project

An area for all you bikers who now run your two wheeler on battery power, scooter owners to.
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Jeremy
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Postby Jeremy » Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:24 pm

Ahhh, nice to see you're here as well Jozzer! You got off lightly with the DVLA, I think. It seems to be entirely down to pot luck as to whether or not you get put through the mill. If you hit lucky, and get someone with more than one working brain cell then you seem to stand a reasonable chance of getting it sorted quickly. If you don't, then it seems that you're doomed to answer daft questions for weeks.........

I think that there is a lot of merit in getting a tame motorcycle mechanic to scribble something, as you did. For some reason they seem more likely to trust their word.

Nigel, I'm near Salisbury. Happy to meet up if you're nearby.

Malcolm, the spot welder took a fair bit of hit and miss to get right. The main snag is that welding test pieces isn't representative of cells and the cells are different from one end to the other (the Headway positive caps are thicker than the negative ends). All told it's not too fussy though and I now have a feel for how to tweak the voltage as the electrodes warm up and for different thickness's of nickel (I doubled up in places to improve the current handling capability.

If anyone wants to make one, then I would be happy to help. You don't need the fancy handle operated electrodes, in fact I've done away with them for the Mk2 and just gone to a couple of hand-held pointed copper rods with insulating handles. The hand-held electrodes make it much quicker to use and also allow better access. I have a few of the big thyristors spare if anyone wants to build a replica, as I bought a job lot of them on eBay.

Here's a pic of some of the welds that this rig produces:

Image

I finished off the battery racks today and mounted the Alltrax controller. I'm pleased with the result, as it is a lot narrower than the previous attempt, so will look reasonable when it's finished (I hope). I also ordered a BMS from Gary Goodrum over on the Endless Sphere forum. This will provide individual cell monitoring during discharge, with a low voltage cell warning that I'm going to use to switch the controller to half power (using the half power reverse input). This BMS also controls charging and automatically limits each cell to around 3.69V before shunting current around it. The best bit was that a 16 channel kit was just over £62 including shipping to the UK, which seems pretty good value. Here's a link to the shop that sells the kit: http://www.tppacks.com/proddetail.asp?prod=EBKE%2DBMS%2DKit

Does anyone know where I can buy some really big heatshrink sleeve? I want to sleeve the battery sub-packs, but the only place I can find that does big (as in around 130mm diameter) heatshrink is ebikes.ca in Vancouver. A UK source would be great.

Jeremy

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Jeremy
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Postby Jeremy » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:24 pm

An update. Today was a good day, not only did I finish the battery packs last night, but the man from the local DVLA office came around to "inspect" the bike. As usual, the local DVLA office went out of their way to help, unlike their comrades at Swansea who are, frankly, numpties.

The chap was very interested in the bike, reckoned he'd be looking at more before long and after a quick check of the frame and motor numbers went away happy.

I've been promised a new V5 showing the motor as electric and the fuel as electricity within ten days. The taxation class won't be changed until after I've had it MOTd, when I need to pop back to the local DVLA office to tax it and get the taxation class changed to the tax exempt electric vehicle class. The chap from the local office didn't know why it was done like this, other than it was yet another mandate from Swansea.

From talking to the chap today, I can offer the following advice to anyone doing something similar. Write to the DVLA saying that you are doing some major changes to your vehicle and would like a local office inspection. Swansea will then tell your local DVLA office to get in touch with you (you can't call them, as they have no incoming phone lines and Swansea insist all contact goes through them......). Once you've made contact with your local office the problem should be cracked, as it's only Swansea that's populated by numpties, as far as I can see.

Jeremy

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qdos
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Postby qdos » Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:02 pm

Great news Jeremy. Which DVLA office do you use as I have to go to one very shortly and it's always good to know where the decent guys are at.

Would be good to have a chat sometime if you are free. Give me a call on the number in the magazine if you can.

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PHEV
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:50 pm
Location: Peacehaven/Brighton

Postby PHEV » Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:55 am

Aye, that's great news Jeremy! Any chance of some video's?

I think I still have the name and direct number of the guy at swansea who sorted mine out, I was very gratefull and flattered him outrageously to butter him up for next time!
I won't post it here, but if anyone needs it PM me and I'll dig it out:)

Did you have any joy on the heatshrink? I've been looking for a UK source for ages too:( Justin only stocks a couple of sizes at ebikes.ca.
I have some of the larger two sizes he stocks if you just need just a little, i'll gladly post some on to you..

I got some cells from headway today too Jeremy, I had to wait for them to be tabbed, but though they didn't tell me, they arrived with boltfit ends!
They've done a fair job on it, just as secure as the lifebatt screwfit, but not so space consuming.
Steve
*Mazda MX-5, 300KW peak, 300v 20KW/h lipo pack, Soliton 1000A controller. 1100KG.
*Ducati SS twin Agni 80HP peak.
*Aprilia RS motorcycle, 500A controller, Cedric's AgniMotor, 96v 6kw/h LiPo pack, 130kg, 90mph.
www.jozztek.com

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Jeremy
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Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Postby Jeremy » Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:22 am

The office I used was the one in Bournemouth (actually it's in Poole, but for some reason it's still called the Bournemouth office by DVLA). The two people I've dealt with at that office have been extremely helpful, which to be honest is the experience I've had with other DVLA local offices when playing about with kit cars in the past (the Carlisle office even let me have what amounted to a "personalised" Q plate for one project, at no cost).

I'll try and take some more pics as soon as the bikes finished - I still have the bodywork to sort out.

I didn't manage to get any big heatshrink, but found a way to protect the cells anyway. I wrapped the packs with thin extruded foam, the cheap white stuff used as laminate flooring underlay, then wrapped that with red plastic tape from Staples. The latter has turned out to be very good, it seems pretty tough and was fairly cheap. I think it's intended to be floor marking tape, as it comes in red, blue, yellow or yellow/black striped.

It's interesting that Headway supplied cells with screw threaded ends, it would have saved me a fair bit of bother if they had been around when I bought my cells. Still, I now have a tab welder as a result, which may come in handy in future.

Jeremy

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PHEV
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:50 pm
Location: Peacehaven/Brighton

Postby PHEV » Thu Aug 14, 2008 12:18 pm

Jeremy wrote: It's interesting that Headway supplied cells with screw threaded ends, it would have saved me a fair bit of bother if they had been around when I bought my cells. Still, I now have a tab welder as a result, which may come in handy in future.

Jeremy


Yes, very useful! I'll know where to send A123 cells if I need the tabbs beefed up! :wink:
*Mazda MX-5, 300KW peak, 300v 20KW/h lipo pack, Soliton 1000A controller. 1100KG.
*Ducati SS twin Agni 80HP peak.
*Aprilia RS motorcycle, 500A controller, Cedric's AgniMotor, 96v 6kw/h LiPo pack, 130kg, 90mph.
www.jozztek.com

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qdos
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Postby qdos » Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:57 pm

Poole's my local one too :)

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Jeremy
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Postby Jeremy » Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:26 am

Kelvin, If you ask for Steve Endersby at the Poole office I'm sure you won't have too much trouble. He's a young chap, fairly new to the job I think, but very helpful indeed. He drove up from Poole to Salisbury specially to inspect my bike.

Jeremy

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qdos
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Postby qdos » Sat Aug 16, 2008 8:23 am

Excellent Thank you very much I have a new vehicle for him to look at then ! I hope the "computer says no" mentality doesn't get to him quickly

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Jeremy
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:35 pm
Location: Salisbury

Postby Jeremy » Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:53 pm

Not much to add to the project, as I seem to be bogged down with getting the bodywork sorted (new combined seat/dummy tank/side panels etc).

I've taken advantage of the lull whilst waiting for epoxy to cure by finishing off the instrument cluster. I ripped out the old rev counter and have adapted a cheap (£35) RC model watt meter to fit. This reads instantaneous voltage, current and power, plus has a rolling display in the lower left corner that gives Ah, Wh, max current, max watts and minimum voltage dip readings. I modded the circuit to accept an external 0.001 ohm shunt, mounted remotely next to the controller. The Ah/Wh display should make a reasonably effective battery pack fuel gauge.

Whilst I was at it I replaced all the lights with LEDs, not that it will make much of a difference. I needed to change the bulbs anyway, as the RD50 used 6V electrics and I'm now running a 12V DC-DC converter (a nice cheap one from eBay, just $25 for a brand new RO Associates 20 amp output Microverter - I bought two, as I couldn't resist getting a spare at that price!).

Here's a photo of the finished instrument cluster (showing dummy data from my bench power supply):

Image

Jeremy


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