[pakcman]

Hey CF, long time no talk.

I've been a member of this site since 2011. I learned how to fix up my first bike from y'all (Gen1 B6). In 2011 i was a functioning alcoholic college drop out, working construction and warehouse jobs and tinkering with bikes at night.

Today I am 4 years sober, and starting my senior year of my mechanical engineering degree with a 3.8 GPA while working on an accelerated master's in the same.

Thus, my Senior Design (or Capstone) project, an All Wheel Drive Electric Motorcycle, based off of a ZX7. I have 6 Mechanical Engineering students, and 2 computer engineering students on my team so far.

I will be updating this post with progress on the build, minus any "proprietary" stuff, as I may want to retain this for a bolt-on conversion product.

The timeline is now through the spring semester (April 2019)

The requirements are:
$5000 budget (provided by me)
>60 MPH top speed
>50 Miles of range
All wheel drive
Fully electric.

Optional Goals:

Traction Control/launch control
Selective Drive
Sport/Eco Mode
Custom GUI
More as imagined.

Powering the front wheel will likely be done by Hub motor, the rear wheel can be driven either by a mid-drive/chain combo or a second hub motor, depending on RPM limits of hub motors.


I'm super excited to build this, I cant believe i convince our senior design prof to let me do this.

If any of y'all fighters have any ideas or recommendations I'm very interested in y'alls opinions.

Here's a little somethin' showing y'all how much I love ya.

And here's the bike as she sits now:

I do have the tank and subframe, but I'm looking for...

rear brake assy (hangar, arm and caliper)
Clipons
Steering stem nut
Fairings
dogbones (stock)

So if anyone's got any parts and pieces sitting around, please let me know

More to come,

-paKCman

 

[rex_saugerty]

 

[Mattson]

Subbed!

 

[ROBBO]

This will not be a simple job.Looking forward to this !

 

[XxGRYMMxX]

sub

 

[laxcdn]

Kewl project. I have actually been researching going electric with my build. Will be watching

 

[TURNIP]

I may have ZX7 linkage and dogbones I don't need, I'll check when I get up to the shop.

 

[shinyribs]

First of all, congrats on the sobriety! That's not an easy task. Much respect.

And good luck on your project. This looks like fun.

 

[hooligan998]

Yep. I'm in.

 

[pakcman]

Thanks CFers!

This is going to be sweet, and I'm so stoked to do it.

TURNIP, I'm going to PM you about the dogbones, let me know what you'd like for em.

We'll be doing some tech studies this week, so hopefully by end of next week we will have motors and batteries selected.

One thing I'm looking at doing is 3D scanning the existing chassis. If i could reverse engineer a featured model of the chassis in solidworks that would go a long way to making this project work.

If anyone has any contacts in the Orlando area for anything that may be helpful making this project succeed, I'd appreciate it.

DW!

-paKCman

 

[mcantar]

One thing I'm looking at doing is 3D scanning the existing chassis. If i could reverse engineer a featured model of the chassis in solidworks that would go a long way to making this project work.

Honestly, you'll be better off just measuring and modelling it.
All of the 3D scanners I've played with create a point map, which honestly isn't all that useful for creating solids from. You either end up with not enough data to be accurate, or way too much data to maintain your sanity.
At my work we have a Creaform HandyScan and HandyProbe. They sit in a corner collecting dust... I don't think they've even been picked up in a few years.

 

[pakcman]

Honestly, you'll be better off just measuring and modelling it.
All of the 3D scanners I've played with create a point map, which honestly isn't all that useful for creating solids from. You either end up with not enough data to be accurate, or way too much data to maintain your sanity.
At my work we have a Creaform HandyScan and HandyProbe. They sit in a corner collecting dust... I don't think they've even been picked up in a few years.

What I've done at previous jobs is use a solidworks plugin called geomagic, this lets me import a dumb solid point cloud, reverse engineer a featured model to recognized planes, arcs, and points, and then run an "interference" check to determine how close it is. It's not perfect, but as long as all the mounting holes are decent with respect to each other it'll probably do what I need.

Measuring and modeling is a definite plan b tho.

 

[pakcman]

UPDATE Y'ALL:

Got the bike up in the air, dropped the old motor, replaced steering stem bearings, found the old handlebars (one bent), and adapted an r6 right rearset to replace the missing one. Found the rest of the missing parts on ebay (steering stem nuts, rear caliper, hangar, cush drive rubbers and rear axle spacers)

Now i got a rolling chassis that weighs 140 lbs.

Playing around with a Gen2 B12 tank, not sure if its too slim.

Turns out my school just bought a 60k scanning arm (Faro), I've been buggng our machinist to let me play with it, he's gonna dig it out. So, hopefully I can scan my frame for free for our CAD modeling.

Also, I accidentally got a (fourth) job at my buddies machine shop, so now I have access to CNC machining, waterjet cutting, and I'm gonna be learning me some TIG welding.

I've been doing some energy equations, and I think that 25-35 kW of power combined will be sufficient for a 6-3.5 second 0-60 time.

We got the bike with a rider on some scales before i dropped the motor. Hopefully the stock weight bias will be pretty close to our after conversion weight bias. I'm gonna be using the stock weight bias to calculate the max torques we can use w/o breaking traction. In reality, we'll be making a traction control system for the motor controllers, so i can get a motor that has more torque than needed.

Next up is motor selection. Looks like, in order to fit a hub motor on the front of the bike, I'll have to machine some custom triples to accommodate the motor width. Good thing i got that new job!

Since one of my handle bars is bent, I've been thinking about making my own. While I'm doing so, is there anything I can do to improve them? Make them from a solid MTL, or a cooler MTL like titanium? We got lots of stuff at the shop. Thoughts?

 

[yantosh]

i only ever made them from aluminium, not educated enough on Ti to comment.

 

[Smoker]

Make them from a solid MTL, or a cooler MTL like titanium? We got lots of stuff at the shop. Thoughts?

Make everything you can out of titanium, as fast as you can.

Take advantage of your good situation.

 

[a_morti]

You'll have plenty to keep you busy 'just' with making it electric. Grab some stock bars, or bolt a dirty bar on it.

 

[pakcman]

Heeeeeeeeey,

So i have been terrible about taking pictures and updating stuff. I'm working 2 jobs to try and pay for this thing and the bike itself is taking about 30-40 hours/week.

So, here is how it sits currently.

Im gonna go ahead and save some time.

"PaKCman, what about ground clearance?"
"It's a drag bike now."
"PaKCman, what about lean angle?"
"IT'S A DRAG BIKE NOW."

But seriously. Between our short deadline and our inaccurate reverse engineering of the frame, our final design has some issue with ground, front wheel and lean angle clearance.
Gen2 will have a revised battery pack, but for now we gotta have this thing done in 2 weeks.

SO, lets just ignore that problem atm.

Front motor is a QS Hub Motor, about 8kW cont, and 12-16kW peak depending on how mean we are to it. Front wheel is a 150/80/17 to maximize our top RPM with the front motor and give us some extra ground clearance.

Rear Motor is a Motenergy ME1616, 20kW cont, 40-50 kW peak. Watercooled. Running a 15/55 530 pitch Front/Rear Sprocket. (3.67 Gear Ratio)

Battery pack is made from 14 Nissan Leaf modules, in a 28S2P config. So a 104V nominal, 115V fully charged pack. Can do 200A continous, 500A peak.

Two motors need two motor controllers, which are mounted under the seat. Subframe had to be rotated up a bit for clearance so it's got some Customfighter Ass on it now.

Front Hub motor required custom triples to accommodate the increased width, and I went ahead and moved the forks forward to help with front wheel clearance on the battery box.

I machined everything myself on a Waterjet and 3 axis manual and CNC mills.

Question for y'all. Can i limit fork travel by adding PVC spacers to the inside of the fork tubes? I can't remember if that works on USD forks. I need to limit maybe 1/2" of travel to keep the forks from hitting the battery box. If not i guess ill add rubber stops to the outside of the smaller fork tube.

Since I'm sure your gonna ask, our power and torque are as follows:
Assuming fully charged, Raw Battery pack output would be 57.5 kW. Given efficiency losses in the motor controller and motor itself, id say a rough number is 46.6 kW or 62.5 HP. Nothing to write home about huh?
BUT, we have torque. Max torque rear motor=130 Nm or 95.9 ft-lb @ the motor. Which means 477.1 Nm or 352 ft-lbs at the rear wheel.
Front motor max torque is 210 Nm or 155 ft-lbs..
Combined max torque would be 500 ft-lbs. Of course, I'm assuming manufacturers claimed max torque is double the actual usable torque. So maybe 250 ft.lbs transmitted between two contact patches.

Honestly, I'm gonna try to get this thing on a dyno to see real numbers. Not sure how to dyno an AWD bike tho...

Gimme your questions/comments/concerns/death threats.

Love y'all.

TL;DR

Bike is there but will have too much torque and handle like balls. GEN2 will require a redesigned battery pack.

 

[pakcman]

Hmmm, photos showing up for anyone else? Cant see them now, worked fine before...

Here's the URLs

https://www.customfighters.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=4514&pictureid=34402

https://www.customfighters.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=4514&pictureid=34392

https://www.customfighters.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=4514&pictureid=34370

https://www.customfighters.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=4514&pictureid=34410

https://www.customfighters.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=4514&pictureid=34416

 

[Mattson]

Showing up just fine here

 

[Junkie]

how much more triple clamp offset did you go with? what will trail be like? I guess the bigger front tire will help.