Here is an article that you will absolutely never see on any other normal ebike blog site. For the last year or so I have experimented extensively with charging ebike batteries with an inexpensive Variable Voltage Power Supply (also known as a lab power supply). This article is about how and why I have done it and why you should probably never ever do this.

Most ebike chargers charge batteries to 100%, there are a few exceptions like the Luna Advanced ebike chargers which allow you to charge to 80% or 90% and the Grin Cycle Satiator which allows you to charge to any voltage but they are the exceptions to the rule. All lithium chargers that I know of charge with a Continuous Voltage Variable Amperage style. This means that the power supply puts out a continuous amount of voltage and the battery sucks up whatever amps it can tolerate for the state of charge it is in. This creates a charging profile which charges at maximum amps up to about 75 percent and then slowly tapers off to zero. Typical ebike chargers have some built in protections like

• If there is no voltage detected they will not start charging (unlike almost all lead acid battery chargers)
• It will shutoff if there is a over-voltage condition on the battery
• It will shut off if there is a short
• If the polarity is reversed most lithium chargers will not charge

A lab power supply has none of these safety precautions which makes it extremely dangerous to use, especially if you are running with a BMS that does not have a high voltage cutoff or charging a battery without a BMS. If you hook up a lab power supply to a battery with the polarity reversed the battery and the lab charger will play tug of war and eventually one of the two will be destroyed, probably in a fiery display. Basically don’t do this.

I bought a variable voltage power supply because I bought a large 80lb LifePO4 battery from China that was all sorts of messed up from shipping and I decided to waste about a hundred hours of my time trying to fix it. I needed to charge individual cell groupings at odd voltages and so I just broke down and bought this 5 Amp Lab power supply on Amazon for $79. There are other 10 Amp Lab power supplies that are a bit more expensive. After a while I decided to try to charge my ebike batteries with it and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Although you can use the alligator clips to connect to XT60 female connectors, this is not recommended. If you have XT60 male connectors on your battery you really should not use the alligator clips because if you accidentally touch the two contacts (very easy to do) then you will make lots of sparks and damage the connector. You can buy a spare set of probe wires for $10 and wire on a permanent XT60 or barrel connector (positive tip polarity) which is the safest thing to do. If you do this make sure to double check the voltages to make sure you don’t mess up and reverse the polarity before plugging in your battery.

With a variable voltage power supply you can charge an ebike battery to any voltage quickly and easily. Just set the target voltage you want on the power supply before hooking up the battery and then plug it into the charge port of your ebike battery. Want to charge to 80%? No problem. What to charge it to 50% for long term storage? No problem. The possibilities are endless. Make sure you know what the nominal voltage of your pack is and the maximum voltages to safely charge is before you hook up the power supply.

Now the downside, you don’t want to set the voltage of the power supply higher than the maximum charging voltage for the pack you are charging. Batteries charged to even 101% of maximum can be extremely volatile and can overheat or explode. NEVER rely on the High Voltage Cutoff(HVC) of your BMS to protect your battery. If you set the dial wrong or your cat bumps up the voltage by rubbing its body up against the dial while charging then you can have real problems on your hand. Never leave lithium batteries charging unattended, the safest place to charge Lithium batteries is outside your house or in a woodstove.

Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD. I am recommending against using variable voltage power supplies to charge ebike batteries, but for people like me who spend their life tinkering with lithium packs (and know what they are doing) you totally can do it and it works pretty well in a pinch.

Ride On.

I thought I would save a few dollars on getting a 5kWh LifePo4 battery for my wife’s off grid home. Little did I know that this decision would cost me over a hundred hours of my time and take almost a year to get working properly. This article is a tale of my woes that stretched over the better part of a year and how I finally got the battery to work properly after replacing the BMS and one of the damaged cells. This story is not for the meek of heart so here we go.

It all started with Aliexpress

Aliexpress is owned by the same folks as Alibaba with the one big difference is that it looks a lot more like ebay and it is designed for people who just want to buy a couple of a particular thing instead of a couple of thousand of a particular thing. I got online and started shopping, I didn’t want the cheapest battery, but I also didn’t want the most expensive. I settled on a 24v 5kWh LifePO4 battery with a claimed charge/discharge rate of 250 amps. I have enough experience with chinese companies to know that a claimed charge/discharge rate of 250 amps really means a charge/discharge rate of 100 amps, but all I needed for our solar system was 80 so that was fine. The battery was about $1400 shipped so I paid the money with paypal and then the battery shipped. Because I bought this at the time of the shipping crisis it took well over 6 months to get here. I notified the sellers and they would send me a shipping manifest in chinese which I fed into google translate so I could follow my battery across the sea.

The battery arrives, but is smashed from shipping

I got the battery which showed 22v of voltage but would not charge or discharge. There was small plastic pieces in the box, there was no arrow showing what side was supposed to be up on the outside of the box and the 80lb battery had clearly been shipped upside down. They told me to take the battery apart to check the inside, but the top was glued on. There were handles on the top so I hung the battery from the handles and then heated up the glue around the rim of the box and used a screwdriver to open up the steel battery box and cutting my finger pretty badly in the process. Once the box was apart I could see what had happened. The battery was shipped upside down and one of the spot welded aluminum pieces on the first cell had broken off. That is why it was showing voltage (it was touching the battery) but why I could not charge or discharge because the connection was not good enough to pass any real amperage through.

There was a bigger problem with this battery construction. The positive battery terminal was installed flush against the metal case top. There was supposed to be a plastic bushing to keep the lug from touching the case but there was none. I looked in the box thinking maybe it had broken, but no it just was not installed. Then I saw that the plastic piece had been installed on the other side of the lug leaving the powered lug up against the metal of the case. It had shorted out a bunch of times while being shipped (there was a lot of soot from the arcing) and I’m sure the BMS just kept cutting out preventing a fire from starting. When I looked at the construction it seems like they installed that lug higher because it didn’t clear the aluminum welded busbars (they were up too high). Is it any wonder why planes carrying lithium batteries from China burst into flames on a pretty regular basis?

Retapping the damaged cell

I did some research on tapping the LifePo4 cell to reattach the aluminum bus bar. it seemed like the trick was to not allow the drill to go too deep. I bought some Metric taps online and then set about to do the deed. It was relatively easy and I managed to get the busbar that had broken off reconnected properly. The key is to not over-tighten the bolt that holds the busbar down otherwise you end up stripping out your tap. The next problem I had was the cell that had the broken busbar did not want to charge at the same rate as the others. I thought maybe if I bought a lab charger and just charged that cell individually I could get them all to be about the same level. Unfortudently, it never worked out that way, the cell was slightly dented and it just couldn’t keep up with the other cells on the battery. This could have been due to a damaged BMS but was more likely to just be a damaged cell. I decided to replace both the cell and the BMS just to be safe.

I bought a LifePO4 BMS from overkill solar which claims 100Amps continuous charge/discharge for about $130. My take on this BMS is that it seems to actually be able to do what it says (in the BMS settings it actually says it can do 120 Amps). It comes with a Bluetooth module that allows you to monitor the battery in realtime. This BMS was the best investment I have ever made and if you have Lithium batteries that you use with a solar system that are stored inside you should not skimp on the BMS. Replacing the BMS was relatively straightforward, and programming it with bluetooth was a snap.

The next issue was getting a replacement LifePO4 cell. I had to measure the existing cell dimensions and get a matching cell online. I opted to get a cell with a welded studs on it because I trust that more than the crappy aluminum tapping I had done on the other battery. After looking for a long time I managed to get one that looked decent from Aliexpress for about $140. I ordered it and it came in about a month later. I installed the new cell without too many issues other than the stud on the top added a couple of mm to the height so I had to carefully bend the aluminum busbar then drill it out so the stud could fit through it. Once it was together and the battery was duct taped together I put it on a test charge cycle. It seemed to do really well, I wasn’t interested in waiting for the cell balancing to bring the cells to the same voltage so I used the variable voltage lab power supply to get the voltages of all the cells with .02 volts of each other. After about 100 hours of labor and a lot of blood sweat and tears I finally had a battery that worked.

Moral of the story?

Don’t buy lithium batteries from China. Even if this battery had not been damaged in shipping, because the positive terminal was touching the metal case, this battery was literally a death trap and fire hazard. It is clear to me that whoever assembled this battery knew absolutely nothing about electricity or they never would have made such an obvious mistake. If I had to buy a LifePO4battery today, I would just get an EG4 server rack battery from Signature solar. The price is about the same and the quality is probably 1000 times better. Lesson learned.

Ride On.

For the last 3 years I have really enjoyed riding my Ludicrous enabled Luna X-1 Full suspension ebike. After much use and abuse the rear freehub finally blew out. This is a common problem on higher power mid drive ebikes, but one that is easily remedied by relacing the rear wheel with a DT Swiss rear hub which uses a fantastic steel ratcheting system that is incredibly reliable. This article is about the issues I had when doing the rear wheel relacing and some direction on how to relace a rear wheel and also why I decided to swap the cassette, derailleur, shifter and chain from a 12 speed to a 10 speed chain.

The DT Swiss hubs can be hard to find and there is about a million different versions of them. I have bought about $1500 worth of DT Swiss hubs from bikeman.com and every single one has worked in the ebike I retrofitted them too. Generally I buy an ebike and run it till the freehub fails then I buy a DT Swiss hub and relace the wheel to get the bike back to ridable condition. Every single one of the high power mid drive fatbikes I ride including my Christini AWD are all fitted with the DT Swiss hubs at this point. Here is the cold hard truth, if you are running between 2000-4000 Watts through your drivetrain and plowing through deep snow your freehub will eventually self destruct. The lightweight and expensive aluminum ones will die faster but even cheap steel freehubs will eventually fail. The only hubs I have found that do not fail at those power levels is the DT Swiss ones with the Star Ratcheting system.

In all my DT Swiss conversions I have been able to use the same spokes that came with the original wheel. This makes things a lot easier and faster, just make sure that you keep the spokes on the different sides of the wheel separated because they are generally slightly different lengths. With the X-1 the spokes were extremely thick (12 Gauge?) and did not fit through the holes on the DT-Swiss hubs. I measured the length of the spokes with a spoke ruler and averaged the difference between the two sides and bought a set of 36 cheap spokes on Amazon that were 253mm for just $13.99 available here. Most wheels in the US only have 32 spokes so that leaves me with 4 extra spokes for future breakage. This includes the nipples as well. 38 cents a spoke is quite a bit cheaper than my local bike shop, but if you don’t have a spoke wrench and don’t want to deal with Amazon, you can wander into your local bike shop with the spoke that you have and they will try to find something similar or cut it and thread it if they have to.

Why I went from a 12 speed to a 10 speed drivetrain

Although I was happy with the 12 speed drivetrain that shipped with the X-1, over the course of 3 years of use I did have 2 chain breakages. The fact that I couldn’t use the highest gear without it skipping on the X-1 also meant that it really was only an 11 speed. I have standardized on 10 speeds on all my other snow bikes and I have been happy with the amount of chain breakage that I have to endure. It’s still more breakage than with an 8 speed system, but I can get a larger cassette and often I can find an SRAM X-9 derailleur which from what I can tell are the most bulletproof derailleur you can get for the money. If you know of one that is better, please let me know in the comments below. The problem with switching the number of gears is you have to replace everything, that means the chain, the cassette, the derailleur and the shifter. If you neglect to replace any one of those parts the system simply will not shift properly. The good news is that you can use a short or med cage derailleur instead of the long cage one. It is also easy to find solid steel cassettes that wear much better under higher power loads than the alloy ones in 10 speed. I find that the best cassettes to use are the ones that have a bunch of the gears tied together so that they don’t dig into the freehub because of the power of the motor.

Although relacing rear wheels is a PITA I feel like its the price you have to pay for running mid-drive ebikes in the 2000-4000 Watt range. Most of my other electric fatbikes are running the BBSHD v2 Ludicrous controller which is a stupid fun 18 FET controller that once you start riding with, its hard to go back to anything else. As far as relacing hubs there are some great YouTube videos on how to do it (this one is my favorite). You don’t have to be a super hero to relace a hub, the hardest part is getting the spokes to be the right length and if you are replacing an existing hub chances are you can reuse the existing spokes or figure out what the right length for them will be by guestimating.

Truing your wheel by sound

I don’t use a truing stand or anything fancy like that when truing up wheels. I use to just put them on and then take a ziptie attached to the frame and cut off so I could see when I spun the wheel which side it wobbled to. My last 2 wheel rebuilds I have not even done that, instead I do a system when I adjust the tension on the spokes by sound. Initially I tighten down the spokes with about 2 mm of thread showing then I go around the wheel and tighten each spoke one turn at a time. As the spokes start to get tight I pluck them like a really thick guitar string and then tighten or loosen the spokes based on the tone of the spoke. Just using the sound method I can get the wheels within 1 mm of being true every time. I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it like this, but it’s what works for me.

I hope to get many more years of usage out of my C-1 with the new hub and 10 speed drivetrain. Of all my ebikes the X-1 probably gets the most usage, so it’s not surprising that the freehub on it failed. I’ve found on high power mid drives that eventually pretty much all freehubs will fail. Don’t despair, just get a DT swiss and relace that puppy you’ll be good to go for years to come.

Ride On.

Today we’re talking about something near and dear to our hearts: saving cold hard cash. Specifically, how the US Postal Service can save a ton of money by switching from 40 year old Grumman LLV death traps to e-bikes. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “The Postal Service is a government entity, they don’t care about saving money.” Well, you’d be surprised. You see, the Postal Service is actually a business and like any business, they want to cut costs wherever they can. And let me tell you, switching to e-bikes is a surefire way for them to do just that. Not only will they save money on fuel and maintenance, but they’ll also be doing their part in saving the environment. So, strap on your helmets and let’s dive in to how the Postal Service can save some green while going green.

Fuel and maintenance savings for ebikes compared to gas powered vehicles are insane

The Post Office is still using those gas-guzzling Grumman LLV’s to deliver the mail and those things are about as efficient as putting a drag chute on a submarine.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Those Grumman LLV’s have been delivering the mail for 4 decades, what’s the problem?” Well the problem is that they’re not just outdated, they’re costing the Postal Service a fortune in fuel and maintenance costs. But don’t just take my word for it, let’s do some math.

The Post Office has a fleet of thousands of Grumman LLV’s and each one gets around 12 miles per gallon. That means they’re spending about $0.33 per mile on gas. Now, let’s compare that to an e-bike. E-bikes have a cost per mile of less than 1 cent. That’s a saving of over $0.32 per mile. The USPS 208,000 vehicles drive more than 1.1 billion miles each year, using 114.3 million gallons of fuel. If you assume $3.50 a gallon for gas that means they burn through over $400,000,000 a year, if they could swap out even a small number of their mail delivery vehicles in urban areas with ebikes they could cut that number by up to 97% for the fuel savings alone.

But it’s not just the fuel costs that are killing the Postal Service’s budget. Those Grumman LLV’s are constantly breaking down and needing maintenance (when they are not bursting into flames). The maintenance costs for e-bikes are much, much less than ANY gas powered mail delivery vehicles on the market.

It’s time for more than just greenwashing

One of the biggest environmental benefits of e-bikes is that they produce zero emissions. Unlike traditional gasoline-powered vehicles, e-bikes don’t release any pollutants into the air. This means that switching to e-bikes would greatly reduce the Postal Service’s carbon footprint, making them a more sustainable organization.

E-bikes also require less energy to manufacture compared to traditional vehicles. According to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, the manufacturing of e-bikes requires about 90% less energy than the manufacturing of traditional vehicles. This means that the Postal Service would be reducing their environmental impact not only through their use of e-bikes, but also through the manufacturing process.

Furthermore, by switching to e-bikes, the Postal Service would also be supporting the development of clean energy. E-bikes are powered by electricity, which can come from renewable sources such as solar, wind, and hydro power. This means that as more e-bikes are used, more clean energy is needed, which would help support the growth of renewable energy sources.

How to get there from where we are at now

While the potential cost savings and environmental benefits of using e-bikes for mail delivery are significant, there are also some challenges that the US Postal Service would need to consider when implementing this change.

One of the biggest challenges would be the cost of purchasing and maintaining the e-bikes. While the Postal Service would save money in the long run, the initial investment in e-bikes could be significant. Additionally, the Postal Service would need to ensure that they have the infrastructure and resources in place to properly maintain and repair the e-bikes.

Another challenge would be the logistics of using e-bikes for mail delivery. The Postal Service would need to ensure that the e-bikes have the necessary cargo capacity to handle mail and packages, and that they can navigate the terrain and roads in the areas where they operate. Additionally, the Postal Service would need to ensure that the e-bikes can handle the demands of daily mail delivery, including the ability to carry heavy loads and handle inclement weather.

Finally, the USPS would need to consider the regulatory environment for e-bikes. Different states and municipalities have different laws and regulations regarding the use of e-bikes, so the Postal Service would need to ensure that they are in compliance with all relevant regulations. In NYC this could prove particularly challenging since it doesn’t seem like NYC can actually figure out how they want to deal with ebikes.

Everyone else is doing it, we should too

You know what’s crazy? Other countries have already figured out that e-bikes are the way to go for mail delivery, especially in urban areas. Take Denmark (my wifies alma-matter) for example, the postal service company PostNord has been cruisin’ around on e-bikes for years now and they ain’t looking back. They’ve seen the efficiency, cost effectiveness and the ability to navigate tight streets in the city. In fact, they’ve saved so much money on fuel and maintenance, they’re practically swimming in it.

But Denmark’s not alone in this e-bike revolution, the Netherlands is also getting in on the action. PostNL, the Dutch postal service has been using e-bikes for years and they’re reaping the benefits too. And they’re not the only ones, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium have all jumped on the e-bike bandwagon for mail delivery.

It’s clear that these countries have figured out that e-bikes are the way to go, and if the US Postal Service wants to save money and reduce their environmental impact, they should take a page out of their book.

But let’s not forget, these countries have had success because they’ve put in the work to make it happen, they’ve planned and implemented this change effectively. And that’s the key, proper planning and implementation. So, let’s not just copy what they’re doing, let’s take what works for them and make it work for us.

When you look at mail delivery (or any package delivery really) there are a lot of situations where ebikes make way more sense than using a traditional gas or even electric powered van. You don’t have to find parking, they can park on the sidewalk, you don’t have to worry about getting stuck in traffic, you can easily get around quickly, especially in congested cities. Although ebikes won’t work on every route or in all weather, they could easily handle a large percentage of the mail and packages the USPS delivers every day. Will it ever happen? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Bottom line, e-bikes for mail delivery is a game changer, and other countries have already figured that out. It’s time for the US Postal Service to join the party.

Ride On.

One of the most often asked questions about any electric conversion is “what controller should I use?”. Controllers are the last remaining voodoo in electric systems, and they are not easy to understand. I have picked up a few bits and pieces over the years, but to be honest, I have to trust in the opinions of other people who are more experienced than me when it comes to controllers.

Our custom builds article (click here to see that) shows several examples of ebikes using RC controllers, which for some reason are called “Electronic Speed Controllers” or ESC. They are tiny compared to the amount of peak amps they can flow. However, they typically could not provide high amps for long, since they were never designed to power an ebike.

These expensive tiny controllers used proprietary software, so…in 2014, a Swedish electronics engineer Named Benjamin Vedder designed an “open source” ESC-style of controller. This meant that anybody could build one from scratch and could also program it with free shared software. You could even alter the software to improve it or add new features. This type of controller is a Vedder-ESC, or VESC.

The first ones were very small for operating a powered skateboard, and similar devices. However, it is easily scalable to any size, and “3shul Motors” is a company in India that has slowly increased the sizes of their VESC models to the point where you can now get one that uses 126V and provides a peak of 1400 phase amps.

I have been hearing about VESC-based controllers for a few years, and I kept an eye out for conversions that used them, and now I am featuring two of those builds here below.

__________________________________________________

Alien Rides’ converted 2019 KTM

Kevin at “Alien Rides” is located in the San Francisco area. They started out building and servicing small electric vehicles, and fortunately for us, he decided to use his experience to convert several dirt bikes to electric, and share the results.

The CL700 VESC from 3shul is shown at 2:42 in this video, where Kevin does a great job of explaining all of his component selections.

I could type out some of the big points, but Kevin G does a good job of packing this short video with great information. Here’s the snapshot:

Donor Frame: KTM 250

Battery: Custom 126V / 30S pack

Motor: QS 138/70H

Controller: 3shul CL700

__________________________________________________

Rivv’s Honda 450 Conversion

Endless-Sphere forum user “Rivv” lives in Quebec, in eastern Canada. He hasn’t posted a video yet, but fortunately he did take a lot of pictures of his excellent conversion of a Honda 450 to electric.

Both of these builds use the QS motors that we noticed were getting popular (for our article on QS motors, click here). The feature that ties them together is that they both also use the 3shul Motors VESC, model CL700. This model seems to be a sweet-spot between fit-able size, good power, and affordable price.

Just showing a picture of a controller is not very exciting because they are all pretty much a “black box” that is filled with voodoo electronics. One thing that caught my eye about Rivv’s conversion was the high quality of the build, and the great pictures he took and posted.

QS announced that they will start carrying a model of motor soon that is this larger 180/90H size, and it will include the factory geared reduction that is similar to the motor that is one size smaller, the 165/70.

As of the time that Rivv built his conversion, the big motor didn’t have a factory reduction option, so he decided to build a DIY reduction “jackshaft”. By reducing the output RPM’s he would be able to use common rear wheel-sprockets to adjust his wheel-speed for different conditions, rather than using a custom large diameter sprocket that had a direct chain from motor to wheel.

The pic above shows a plastic 3D-printed dry-fit housing that Rivv made to test the size and shape needed before he ordered an expensive CNC aluminum housing to be made.

Here is the custom CNC aluminum reduction housing, along with the sprockets and chain. The 17T and 11T sprockets provide a 1.54:1 reduction

Here is the Motor, the aluminum reduction jackshaft housing, and a plastic cover.

Here is a pic of the jackshaft from above. Rivv has a lathe, and other machine tools in his workshop, and this build has made good use of them.

__________________________________________________

The VESC

There’s not much to say about QS motors and 3shul VESC’s, other than some very experienced people seem to like them, and I have not used them yet.

Much of what I do is “crowd sourcing” knowledge, and I read a lot. I have been seeing people mention using the 3shul VESC controllers, so I was happy to find a couple of builds that had pictures to show.

Controllers can be mounted in any position, especially if they are potted like this one, which means the components inside are completely covered with a mass of waterproof goo, which also provides shock protection. Rivv mounted it upside down under the seat, and added an extra aluminum pad to help absorb heat spikes.

__________________________________________________

The Battery Pack

Another thing that really impressed me about this conversion was the custom 26S / 107V battery pack (107V when charged to our recommended 4.1V per cell). He decided to use the high-amp cylindrical Molicel P28A cells in the 18650 format.

Rivv drew everything first in CAD

Even with a computer model, it never hurts to use “Cardboard Aided Design”. Here, Rivv built a foam box to verify his battery box dimensions. For roughly the last ten years, most dirt bikes have used the “twin Spar” design of frame, which makes conversions much easier for us electrical builders. The old style had a single top-tube, like a bicycle…and that restricted the battery shape and size.

Rivvs plan calls for a HUGE pack using 14 cells in parallel (14P)

Rivv ordered these custom bus-plates to be laser-cut, and they turned out fantastic. Motorcycles draw high amps, and copper busses have low resistance. Plus, they also act as a heat sponge, to level out the heat from amp spikes.

Here, Rivv is adding grooves to aluminum plate for the protective battery box

This is one of the largest battery packs I have seen on a conversion. It provides high volts, high amps, and long range.

__________________________________________________

LINKS

3shul Motors (Click Here)

Alien Rides, US dealer for 3shul (Click Here)

Alien Rides video channel (Click Here)

Alien Rides facebook (Click Here)

Rivv’s build discussion (Click Here).

__________________________________________________

Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, June 2023

I have to confess that I am no expert when it comes to controllers, and when I find someone who has a lot of experience and is honest about the benefits and drawbacks of any given model of controller, I want to hear what that tech has to say.

There are some very good products out there, but if every manufacturer says that their controller is the best, and never tells you why (or they fail to mention any particular weaknesses that it may have) then we can’t make an educated choice.

The reason these tech details are important is because some of the issues are something that we can fix ourselves, and other issues are completely integrated into the design. Plus, most builders don’t have an unlimited budget, so an affordable component that is “fixable” might sometimes be the best option.

I recently stumbled across a youtube channel where they do teardowns of popular EV components, and they spell out the raw data on the guts, both the good and the bad. It’s by Richard, and called “EV Components review (De-bodgery)“

I found his channel looking for info on controllers, and he has quite a few of those. The one in particular that caught my eye is the good review on the Votol EM-150. I pay no attention to someone who says “this is good”, unless they can show me how its different, compared to the one they say is bad….or…I am annoyed of they only tell us the good parts, and leave out glaring weaknesses.

His tear-down is a 20-minute video of the Votol EM-150 being pulled apart and described. I’ll place a concise index at the end of the article of the pluses and minuses, with the video link at the bottom.

______________________________________________

First, the cover

This may be boring and unimportant, but the cover is not made from the common ABS plastic, its made from 30% glass (fiber) filled polyester. This is the same type of stuff that’s used in the bodies of high-end cordless tools.

The colored silicone-rubber insulating grommets are only held in by friction, and do provide some water resistance from splashing or a light rain, but this tech removed them, smeared some clear silicone on them and re-inserted them for a much better seal against water.

The screws that hold the cover onto the frame of the controller get a down-vote for passing through the aluminum heat-sink plate and screwing into plastic. It works, and it holds OK, but if you remove the cover and re-attach it a few times, I don’t think these self-tapping screws would hold as well over time. Other controllers in this price range have brass inserts and machine screws with lock-washers, so they could be cycled dozens of times with no problems. I’ve never had one of these in my hands, so it may be possible to drill out the posts a hair, and epoxy-in some brass threaded inserts.

Richard also pointed out that the edge-seal on the cover is quite good.

______________________________________________

The Electronic Components

This controllers brain is the “Central Processing Unit”, and this one uses the STM32F103 from ST-Microelectronics, which is a name-brand CPU. This CPU is powerful enough to handle “Field Oriented Control” / FOC, but…this controller does not use FOC, apparently because that would require upgraded hardware, including an individual shunt on each of the three phase wires.

One of the things that caught my ear is when Richard mentioned that the FET’s are high-end FET’s rather than hot-running generic units. They are the MDP10N027’s from Magna Chip. He even mentioned that these are his favorites, and he has used them many times on his personal projects.

In the pic above, notice the legs are skinny at the tips, and fatter near the body of the MOSFET, because this will be mentioned again soon.

The MOSFET’s are the “on/off” switches that send power to each of the three motor phases in turn, at just the right moment. The name stands for “Metal Oxide Semiconductor, Field Effect Transistor”. The amount of amps a controller can flow is largely dependent on the size of the MOSFET’s, and the quantity of the MOSFET’s. This controller uses the TO-220 format, and it has 24 FET’s, so it uses 8 FET’s per phase.

Votol rates this controller for 150A of battery current, and 470A of phase current, which is 58A per FET. This is a reasonable rating, and it is inline with the factory spec for this FET.

[If I’ve said any part of this wrong, I apologize in advance]

______________________________________________

The Circuit Board

Normally, a circuit board is another boring component that is ignored, because…what could possibly be different or better about this one? Richard pointed out that this board is a sandwich of insulating plates, with an aluminum layer in the center. One of the reasons this was invented was to inexpensively provide some heat-spreading, and in some designs its enough to eliminate needing a separate heat-sink. It’s a “Metal-Core Printed Circuit Board” / MC-PCB. This begs the question, do any other controller models use a MC-PCB?

Votol’s engineers selected this type of MC-PCB, which is brilliant! Of course the controller has a fat aluminum baseplate as a heat sink, but this aluminum PCB-core is a middle-man that prevents localized hot-spots from forming.

______________________________________________

The Battery Plus and Minus Buses

These buses are another area where the Votol shines.

According to Richard “…this one piece of copper has more material than is in all the reinforcing in like a KO-Pro, or a [Sur-Ron] F-Spec power stage. Because this is…two and a half millimeters thick, and it’s one big piece, and it’s not like little sections and pieces and stuff kind of stuck down haphazardly. No, this is a custom-made part….”

In the pic above, in the foreground is the battery minus bus, a thick blade of copper.

In the pic above, Richard points out a gap that could have easily been avoided and it would have made the long section of bus and that short piece into all one piece. It does work as is, but it would have been a little better if those two were one piece, instead of them being connected by a trace on the underside of the PCB.

One of the few areas that Richard felt is lacking is the DC high-frequency filtering. The ceramic capacitors were small, and there were not enough of them. Apparently it’s adequate, but it would have not cost much to dramatically improve, which would eliminate the static “noise” that rapid switching produces. The low DC bus current is smoothed-out quite well and any ripple voltage is very suppressed.

______________________________________________

The Underside

Once you flip the PCB over, you can see the large solder-covered copper pads with the through-holes that allow the fat Phase-wire connectors to be bolted to the controller. These posts are made from fat chunks of copper as shown here being held between Richard’s fingertips. Each post is connected to the controller PCB by four bolts, so it will not rotate or come loose.

______________________________________________

The MOSFET Legs

In the pic above, Richard uses his screwdriver tip to point out how long the legs are on the MOSFET’s. The legs are tapered, and if you use the tips as a connection, they are rated for 50A, but if your design allows them to be mounted in a way that connects them at the fatter end of the leg, then the legs are rated for 70A.

This doesn’t limit how many amps you can flow through them, but it will make them run a little hotter than necessary. It’s not really something a builder can fix in their garage, because the backs of the MOSFET must attach to the heat-spreader, to connect to the heat-sink. If the heat sink was designed a little differently, the MOSFET’s could have connected at the fat end of the legs.

______________________________________________

The Conclusion

Every controller design has compromises with its pluses and minuses, and Richard has mentioned that this Votol design is overall better than the KO-Moto and the Sur-Ron F-Spec controllers.

The Good:

Fat copper buses

Aluminum sandwich PCB to prevent hot-spots near the components

Name-brand CPU and FET’s

Fat copper posts to attach the motor-phase cables to, each held down by four bolts

Heavy duty cover that is less likely to crack or break

The Bad:

Silicone gaskets for the phase wires are friction fit, but are easy to add silicone sealant to to improve moisture resistance.

The High-frequency ripple filtering capacitors are too small and there’s not enough of them (It may be “possible” to swap-in better capacitors), but…it works OK.

MOSFET’s are connected at the thin part of the leg. The current layout doesn’t allow the FET’s to be moved closer to use the fat part of the legs

_____________________________________________

Other controllers that he mentioned as being as good or better were the E-Moto, Trampa, ASI, and E-BMX. However, he pointed out the reason for the interest in the Votol is it’s price range, which makes it more affordable than the four brands he mentioned as being well-designed.

I must add that this review does not cover ANY of the programming interfaces, and I don’t know if the Votol is complex to program or easy…or…if the other controllers mentioned are comparably “user friendly”.

Also, Votol has several models of controller that are smaller than the EM-150, and several that are larger, depending on your needs for an ebike, E-scooter, or E-motorcycle.

Richard makes a good argument that the controllers that are as good as the Votol will cost more, and the ones at the same price range are not as good. Thank you Richard for doing this tear-down and posting the video on youtube!

______________________________________________

LINKS

Richard’s Youtube channel, “EV Components Review (De-bodgery)”

Votol Controllers web page (Click Here)

The Endless-Sphere chat forum discussion of Votol controllers (Click Here)

Richards Facebook page (Click Here)

______________________________________________

Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, July 2023

My good friend Laurence Clarkberg is the one who destroyed my life about a decade ago by selling me my first ebike. He decided to build an ebike that could take him and his wife Judy across the country in comfort and style so he built the Sun Pony. I love this build because it reminds me of what is possible if you ignore what everyone else is doing and think outside the box. Watching this ebike go down the road brings me so much joy it’s hard to describe. This build reminds me of seeing Amish time traveling back from the future. Ironically a lot of Amish communities have been embracing ebikes and solar panel\powerstations for charging which I have to admit I totally love.

Three separate motor/battery systems for her pleasure

One of the main thing that makes this build unique is that it has 3 different shark packs paired with different motors giving it triple redundancy. The two mid drives are TSDZ2 systems which work well with this trike because they actually allow you to pedal backwards which is necessary to activate the coaster brakes that come stock with this tricycle. The BBS02/BBSHD have a double clutch system which means when you pedal backwards only the pedals move and the chain does not move. The mid drive batteries are plugged in continuously to the solar panels which each have their own Genasun 52v lithium battery MPPT charge controller from Grin (max charging speed is 8 amps).

It’s all about the Regen

Originally the trike came with a large drum brake in the front wheel, but Laurence replaced it with a Grin All-Axle motor and a separate shark pack. This Direct Drive motor allows the trike to have regen braking to help recover energy that might otherwise be lost going down hills. Laurence did not like how weak the rear coaster brakes were so he custom welded a brake attachment point on the front steel forks. Also the Grin All-Axle motor comes with a large built-in torque arm so you don’t have to worry about the dropouts ripping out from all the torque on the front motor.

Mid Drives paired with IGH

For hilly terrain like we have in Ithaca it is super nice to have a mid drive vs just using a hub motor. The trike came stock with two Nexus 3 IGH with a coaster brake. Without the addition of the motors this trike was pretty hard to get up any hills and was really designed for level recreation trails. With the addition of 2 mid drive motors it can tackle pretty much any hill with relative ease. The top speed is generally around 20 mph with general feelings of safety and well being dissolving quickly when taken over that speed. The DD motor is generally only used on hills with regen being used when going down hills and an extra speed boost when going up hills. The Nexus coaster brake operates when you pedal backwards but is relatively ineffective with a bike this size. The original Trike design was never really designed to go down (or up) real hills and instead of having adequate brakes it just had a sticker telling you not to use the bike on hills (true story).

340 Watts of Solar Panels allow for continuous travel day after day without having to stop

If the sun is shining the panels then generally the amount of power it is generates is about the same amount of power than it uses. When you stop the eTrike you can pull the position locking cotter pins and adjust the panels to be perpendicular to the sun to maximize the power charging in the mornings and evenings when you would generally want to rest.

An eTrike designed for epic cross country trips

When Laurence built the Sun Pony it was expressly to travel long distances in comfort without having to worry about finding places to charge along the way. The tandem seating is nice for long trips where one person can steer and the other person can read or just enjoy their surroundings. The build cost for the Sun Pony all-in is about $5000 which is a decent investment if you consider how much it costs in gas just to drive across the country. It seems like every time I fill up the tank it is right around $100. It makes a lot of sense to have a recreational vehicle that might be 3x slower than driving, but ends up being a much more enjoyable trip. The solar panels also protect the passengers from sun and helps a bit with the rain (although not much). I love the practicality of this build and how it extends first principles thinking to maximize usability while still minimizing costs. Cargo can be carried in large plastic bins strapped down behind the seats. Laurence also has a large lightweight slow vehicle triangle to help warn vehicles to slow down and not try to run them off the road. There is also double headlights and double taillights powered by the ebike packs with waterproof connectors for safety and reliability.

For more info on this build you can check out an article on Laurence’s ‘Wheels of Fire blog’ here. I also shot a short YouTube video with Laurence you can click above with a little more insight about the etrike. Its hard for me to express how much enthusiasm I have for this build. While Hollywood like to portray large, heavy vehicles with absurdly inefficient off road wheels tooling around the wasteland getting crap for gas mileage the reality is that our post-apocalyptic wasteland will most likely be filled with builds more like this one that combine creativity, ingenuity and crazy efficiency.

Ride On, and on and on and on and on, and never stop just because you need to charge…

Looking down at the odometer on my Luna X-1 I realized that I had just turned over 2000km on the clock. For normal ebikes 2000km is not much of a milestone, but considering how I only ride my X-1 on trails and thrash on it pretty hard every day I thought I would do an article on how it has held up and the good, the bad and the ugly about this bike. There is a lot of components I have replaced due to failures or just because I wanted to, there is nothing that I have done to this bike that I have regretted. I bought the X-1 on June 2019 and paid $3305 for it from Lunacycle. At the time of purchase this was the most money I had ever spent on an ebike by a far margin. The X-1 is no longer sold but has been superseded by the X-2 and the X-2.5 which I have not ridden.

My morning routine is always about the same, I wake up and get on my double diaper (chamois shorts) on and head out the door to ride. I go biking before I eat or turn on a computer or do anything else because I know if I don’t get out to ride in the first part of the day, I probably won’t get to ride that day, and the dude cannot abide.

Things that still bug me about the X-1

My biggest complaint about the X-1 is the noise that the steel gear makes. It’s a bit loud, and not super stealthy like the BBSHD with the nylon gear. The newest X-2.5 (available here) uses a peek/carbon gear which should be a much quieter. The other issue I have had is there is a large ring bearing in the front faceplate that occasionally makes a lot of noise. It has already failed once and I could not get the bearing pressed out of the faceplate so Luna just sent me a new faceplate with a bearing in it. Every issue I’ve had with this ebike Luna has been absolutely incredible with helping me get parts for it at a very reasonable price. I would give their service department a 10/10 rating.

The metal piece that the rear through axle screws into has stripped threads so if I don’t tighten it down super tight it gets loose on its own. This has never been enough of an issue to try to fix, but the axle is on so tight that I can’t get it loose on the trails without special tools.

What I’ve replaced on the X-1

• I swapped out the derailleur, shifter, main cassette and chain with a 10 speed instead of a 12 speed. I kept having chains break and when the derailleur started having issues I just threw it all away and went with a 10sp X9 system stolen from another ebike. The biggest pain with the switch was getting a new shifting cable through the frame.
• The front hydraulic brake failed and I couldn’t get it bled properly so I replaced the whole mechanism with a BB7 cable brake. The original rear hydraulic still works, but I’m on my 6th set of pads.
• At some point the chainring bolts came loose and the front chainring pretzeled. I replaced it with a smaller narrow\wide steel ring and really torqued down the chainring bolts. I also keep an eye on them out of a healthy dose of paranoia.
• The rear freewheel blew out so I replaced it with a DT Swiss 350 Rear hub 12 x 148mm. This cost me $239 and was a pain to relace but was worth every penny. If you’re looking for more info on that swap this article is a must read. The stock spokes with the X-1 do not fit in the DT Swiss hubs so I had to order new skinnier spokes for the build and the final wheel build wheel is slightly offset by a few mm.
• The original Luna pedals that came with the bike I completely destroyed the bearings. There was over 1cm of wiggle on the pedals when I finally swapped them out, I have no idea how they stayed on the bike without any bearings. Could have been all the pedal strikes I’ve had with this bike as the BB is low and the cranks are long.
• One of the lower frame bolts broke recently and Lunacycle promptly got me a replacement even though it was not a replacement part on their website and it was quick and inexpensive.

Things I love about the X-1

I ride the X-1 almost every day for about 5 miles or so and it has become my favorite ebike over the last 4 years. If there is less than 3 inches of snow on the trail it is my goto ebike, more than that and I tend to take out the 5.05″ fatty with a backpack battery. Here is what I love about this ebike:

• Having a built in battery that is somewhat stealth
• Riding something with full suspension
• How lightweight it is
• The 2000W of peak power out of a drive system that is designed for 500W (Ludicrous controller)
• That the motor and mosfets have temp sensors that lower the power of the motor automatically when either gets too hot
• That it fits on my cheap hanging style car bike rack
• The tires are fantastic in mud and snow (Maxxis Minions), most ebike I buy come with crap tires, the X-1 still has the originals on it
• The original bike I bought was an XL (21″ frame) which still feels a bit small for me at 6’9″ but is still surprisingly comfortable

Would I buy it again?

I am knee deep in ebikes with well over $35,000 invested over the last decade. Of all the ebikes I own, the X-1 is my favorite for a number of reasons. The battery is reliable (the original charger still works after 4 years of being left outside on the porch) and tends to give me about 2 hours of riding on single-track with pedaling. I like the torque sensing because it forces me to get more exercise but it still has a throttle for the really steep stuff so I don’t have to adjust the PAS level. I tend to keep it on PAS level 2 unless the snow is deep then I go to PAS 3. I never use PAS levels 4 or 5, but I also really like getting exercise.

In deep snow I have to get one of my more powerful fatbikes, but the reality is that the much bigger wheels and the much more powerful controller means that I churn though battery power much quicker. In order to ride over 90 minutes in deep snow I have to take my 24Ah 52v backpack battery which is a pain and is also quite heavy.

On a recent Black Friday sale the Luna X-2.5 came out and was on sale. I really wanted to get one, but the reality is that my 4+ year old X-1 is still preforming so flawlessly that there really isn’t a reason to upgrade. Luna is shooting themselves in the foot in a way by selling ebikes that work so well for so long and providing such good customer service for bikes that are way out of warranty that there is just not that much motivation to upgrade. I plan on continuing to ride the X-1 until the wheels fall off just like I do with my normal pedal powered bicycles. A typical non motorized trailbike lasts about 10 years for me (of daily use) until I upgrade and it looks like ebike technology has now gotten to the point where you can invest in a quality single-track ebike and reasonably expect it to last about as long even when riding it every day. I honestly never thought that we would get here, but now that we are I feel pretty good about it.

As for my X-1 purchase although this was the first factory-built ebike I bought instead of building myself, I have no regrets and this ebike has exceeded my every expectation.

Ride On.

As soon as I saw this, I knew it would be cool to post it. I don’t know if this sidecar can easily attach to any other available ebike frame, but it exists right now, and it can be found at the website for Mod-Bikes.com

__________________________________________________

Features

As of October 2024, the listed price is around $4300 for both the ebike and sidecar, and their website claims it will be available in November of 2024. Right now, the color selections for the sidecar are black and Army green. It appears as though all models have dual disc brakes, which I like.

For that price, you get an ebike with a 750W rear geared hubmotor from Bafang. The top-speed is 28-MPH, which we approve of, since the side-streets ebikes are allowed to ride on are also populated by 3,000-lb cars that have a 25-MPH speed limit.

The sidecar is detachable, so you don’t have to ride with it attached. According to their website, they have a thumb-throttle, plus “pedal assist” when you want it. I approve of this also. My main ebike is still the cruiser with a Bafang BBSHD from Luna Cycle, and when I am stopped at a red light on a steep uphill, I like to start-out with the thumb throttle, and then switch to the pedal assist for most of the ride.

This combo also uses 3.0-inch wide tires, which I approve of. My Electra Lux Cruiser uses 3.0-inch tires, and I have found that the 4.0-inch fatties are a little squishy when leaning to take a turn. I would not hesitate to use 4.0-inch tires in sand or snow, but for the street, 3.0-inch are my personal choice, regardless of the street ebike model..

__________________________________________________

Their Youtube presentation

The price is in the “early adopter” phase, so I understand why you won’t see a lot of these, but…if it fits your budget and you like it, I haven’t seen anything else like it so far.

Here’s their website (Click here)

Here is their Youtube channel (Click here)

__________________________________________________

Written by Ron/spinningmagnets, October 2024