Wiring Diagrams

I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the wiring of the bike.  Originally, i was thinking about how the main traction pack wiring was going to work (how each of the sets of cells would hook up to each other), and came up with this:

First wiring diagram

However, once i started down this path, i started trying to figure out where more and more of the parts would go.  Mainly, i wanted to do this because although I’ve tinkered with some electrical appliances and whatnot, i’ve never worked with this much electricity in terms of voltage nor amperage.  So, i’ve got a healthy amount of fear (hopefully enough) about working with this stuff.  As i keep telling myself as i’m working around the batteries “this crap can kill you…so be careful”.

Seriously.

In any case, I drew some diagrams on paper, but it wasn’t working out very well.  So, around september, i started laying out all of the pieces of the project as best as i could in a drawing program.  The first “real” diagram is shown here:

v1.1: The first version of the "real" wiring diagram.

Every time i figured out a bit more, i’d update the diagram…

New tires!

So, the bummer about getting a 25 year old vehicle as a donor, is that there’s a lot of stuff you end up replacing.  In this case, i had to get new tires since the old ones were, well….

Bench Testing the Motor

i’ve been trying to bench test the motor to ensure that:

• Everything works
• I know how to wire things without something going “boom”.

Upon the first try, it failed.  I had most everything setup properly,…

A Visit to EnerTrac Corp.

I grew up in New York.  Out on Long Island specifically, and a good portion of my family still lives there.  As I write this, i’m in NY again because we’ve taken our new daughter Mira to my sister’s house in Rockville Centre to see her great grandmother and other family members in the area.  One extra added benefit of this trip is that Rockville Centre is less than half an hour car ride from Farmingdale, NY.

Why is Farmingdale important?  ‘Cuz that’s where the EnerTrac office and shop is located, and I had been emailing Mark Gelbein to setup a time for a visit to look around, get some instructions about the motor, and generally just say hi.

Josh and Mark Gelbein from EnerTrac Corp.

I showed up on Friday afternoon (Jan 15) to meet Mark Gelbein and also ended up meeting his son Josh who also works at the shop. A family business that’s building stuff that helps the environment.  Nice!

I showed up a bit late because i got lost getting myself to the Southern State Parkway, but

What i’m looking for in a bike

So, i mentioned in an earlier post that i originally thought i’d be able to build a bike for a couple grand.  Well, after thinking about my desires for an electric motorcycle, that cost jumped a bit….ok more than a bit.

What i’m hoping to get in the end is a motorcycle that will:

• go 65-70mph (highway speed)
• get at least 55 miles per charge, but hopefully more than that
• have enough acceleration to beat out your average car from a stop when driving in traffic.  This isn’t particularly hard since most people don’t gun it from the line at a stop light. But my scooter is underpowered so accelerates pretty slowly.

That being said, i decided to throw as much in the way of batteries as i thought i’d be able to get away with. A guy in Florida with the screen name “remotecontact” on elmoto.net started on a project similar to me a few weeks before i got started.  He started with a 2009 Ninja 250 and is planning on using the same EnerTrac hub motor, with 32 Thundersky 60Ah batteries.  that works out to 6.1KWh.

More dismantling

The last couple of days have been working more on the dismemberment and dismantling of the original bike.

I didn’t think i was going to get into the heavy stripping of components yet, but after i got started on removing the rear brake assembly for Mark at EnerTrac, I kept going.

Here’s some additional pictures of parting out the bike.  The first one shows the wheel off but the tank on.  The rest is where we are today: tank, rear brake, fender, parts of the electrical system, battery, both mufflers and the front exhaust removed.  Oil has been drained and progress is being made to removing the engine. Ha, i almost feel like i could change my own oil in my car now…though i probably won’t.

I like the night pics, i have a couple of worklights that i put up.  Since i have multiple lights and a static subject, it lets me test new stuff with lighting.

Rear wheel off. still trying to get to the brakes…

No Tank!

Oil being removed. I almost feel like i could do my own oil change now.