10,203 Watts from the Crystalyte HS3540!

I plugged in my Cycle Analyst into the Crystalyte sensorless controller and saw this! Understand that the bike wasn't moving, the motor wasn't spinning, the bike was sitting in front of me!

I posted this on Endless-Shere and got a note from Justin Lemire-Elmore about troubleshooting the problem. It seems that the APM connection on the Crystalyte controller may not be 100% compatible with the Cycle Analyst!

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=49425&p=729903

Spoke nipple driver for cheap!

In trying to true my new Crystalyte wheel, I've read about a needed tool which can speed up the truing process.

A nipple driver. It's essentially a screwdriver with a rotating shaft and a bend in the bit that allows you to spin the handle and spin a spoke nipple on to the spoke.  These are typically very specialized tools that cost a fair amount ($30 or more!)

I was looking for a less expensive alternative and went to my local hardware store when I found it!

It's a Klein Tools Rapi-Driv©. The hardware store had it for $12.99! Much better than most bike shops want for a similar tool!

I ground down two of the sides down so that it fits in the slots of the nipples and a quick test shows that it works beautifully! It really makes building or truing a wheel very fast and easy!

My long weekend ride on the Tidalforce S-750C (for Crystalyte motor)

I took my newly configured Tidalforce S-750C bike out for a long ride on Saturday. It was a lovely day and I had worked on the bike Friday evening. I had to hook everything up including my old Bosch Fat Pack cells configured for a 2S3P configuration for 74V 6Ah. This motor rocks in a big way. Fast and fairly quiet, although it growled a bit at startup and lower speeds. Once you got up to around 15mph, the wind noise drowns out everything else. Top speed was 42.6mph and the range was 14.6 miles which is a great number for 6Ah of power.

It's divided into 3 parts. If you watch all three sections, You'll notice that I lost power twice. This is fairly easy to do when you have so many Anderson Powrepole connectors clipped together. If this were my final configuration, I would definitely tape all the connections together and secure the silicone wire so that it didn't try to pull the battery leads apart.

Here's a photo of the semi-final configuration of the bike with the Crystalyte HS3540 motor.

Here's part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Ashima Airotor 160mm installed on rear with Avid BB5 disc caliper

I installed the Ashima Airotor on the Crystalyte HS3540 motor last night. You can't really see the gold center portion very well and it looks a bit undersized for the job. I think I'm going to purchase a 200-203mm rotor to see if that fits the motor a bit better. I will need an adapter for the Avid BB5 so that it will fit with the larger rotor.

here is the Avid BB5 installed without the rotor on the motor.

Here's the rotor and Avid BB5 mounted.

 Another angle of the Ashima Airotor 160mm with the gold center and the Avid BB5.

Family Portrait of Electric Bike Motors

I have the Crystalyte 3540 (I believe) motor mounted on the bike and I had my Tidalforce as well as E-bikekit motor sitting nearby so thought I'd take a picture. As you can see, the Tidalforce is massive in size compared to the two others. It is truly built like a tank. The quality of the castings is very high on the Tidalforce. In second place is the Crystalyte. It is very solidly built and similar to the Tidalforce motor, is very quiet. In 3rd place is the E-bikekit motor. It's well made, but has pressed panel side covers (I believe) and doesn't quite match up to the other two. However, it is (by far) the least expensive motor and a great entry level motor. I know because this type of motor was my first electric bike motor and I'm very fond of it. It also does amazingly well when run at higher voltages, which is surprising considering it's low cost!

Anyway, here's the picture.

Did some work last night...

I worked on my Tidalforce S-750C build last night. It doesn't look very different but,

Removed the Tidalforce console, brake levers, throttle
Installed the folding pedals
Changed the tire and tube
Installed the Thudbuster LT seatpost
Installed the ebikes.ca taillight
Mounted the controller which fits very nicely under the Topeak rack
Switched out the brake levers
Installed the thumb throttle
Installed the Mirrycle mirror
Routed the brake cables and throttle wires through the frame

Pics here:

Videos of the Crystalyte motor/controller setup and a speed test

I did a video of a tour of the motor/controller/battery/APM/throttle as well as an unloaded speed test of the combination using my old/saggy/tired (less than fully charged) Bosch Fat Pack batteries.

Here's the setup:

Here's the unloaded speed test of the motor:

This motor/controller combo is quite amazing in that it can reach 66 mph unloaded!

Pix of Crystalyte 35 series motor on my Titanium S-750 frame

I'm still testing out the new motor so am trying it out on my Tidalforce S-750 frame. Here are a couple of pictures. I've simply installed the motor into the rear dropouts and tested it. I haven't actually ridden it yet. It's snowing here in Washington, DC...

Correction! Crystalyte 35 series motor versus the Tidalforce motor

Correction:

I mistakenly called my new motor a "5" series motor when in reality it is a "35" series motor. Forgive me, I must have been dreaming and wished it so! anyway, back to the show!

I put both motors side by side for a comparison shot...

Crystalyte 35 series motor/controller/batteries for my M-750X build

The motor/controller/batteries for my M-750X build came in yesterday thanks to Scratch1973. It's quite a kit for the price. I checked all 3 batteries and they were out of balance. Two of the packs are somewhat damaged but it looks as if they are held in a metal outer case under the thin shrinkwrap plastic cover. They do not have balance leads which is surprising. So I'll be disassembling the packs, adding the JST-HX balance wires, testing each cell of each pack, and reassembling it perhaps into a different configuration.

I liked that the battery had a pre-charge resistor. This eliminates the possibly huge ZAP that happens when you hook up a large voltage to a controller.

Here are the pics.