simplecj

I recently finished my design project. We were designing battery packs for an electric motorcycle!



Teammates Heather and Stan prepping batteries.



~1200 A123 Lithium Iron Phosphate cells, used/tested; cost ~$6000.



Battery module - 13.2V - 18.4 Ahr - about 600 max amps continuous! That's incredible power in a small package. Would cost you over $600
For our motorcycle we will have 32 of these modules all in series! That's 422v nominal!


We're hoping that this pack will help set record speeds!

rmh

Where are you guys going to run the bike?
Drag strip? I can't think of any place in Cedar City which has room -unles yo u take the highway north, when no Highway Patrol is watching.
I am running A123 in my electric powered models - now going to setup a ZDZ1300 motor with a HV 45 CC controller - a measly 30 volts -(I am almost ashamed to mention this piddling voltage )-

simplecj

I haven't heard from the guy who's building the bike, but I believe he's shooting for a run in the electric speed competition in June at Mirage (???) Salt Flats in California in June or a Bonneville comp in August. Hoping to break 200 mph!

rmh

Mirage - dry lakes old speed site from long ago
Wish him luck

BocaBen

$5 per cell when you buy 1,200, not bad!
I like seeing them in the plastic bag. I treat mine like explosives, trying to avoid shorts by individually wrapping them. Any explosion so far?
What kind of charger will you use to charge the 32 modules?

Good luck, keep us updated please!

simplecj

We got the cells used, they were in questionable condition when we got them for $5 each. We had them tested in California in their original configurations, then brought them back and spent HOURS and HOURS going through all of them snapping off the tabs and grinding the surfaces flat.

These cells are completely stable and have metal casing to protect from minor impacts. They are far from explosive! [8D] We actually did completely short a cell out when we were dismantling the original packs, the only thing that happened was that the cell got really hot and the voltage went to zero. They are designed to short out internally instead of exploding if that was even possible. This chemistry DOES NOT allow explosive reactions, that's why they are so great for electric vehicles! Who would want to sit ontop of a huge pack of regular LiPo batteries when they could ride safe with LiFe's??

ALSO, when they are all loose cells, there's no way to short them out by themselves! Think about it, how would you complete the circuit with two loose cells and nothing else??

We grouped them in bags of 32 for each module we intended to build, it looks kinda getto, but it worked well and helped us know exactly how many modules we had cells for. We needed at least 32, we ended up with 35!

Then we took them all the way to Boulder Colorado to use a special spot welder to weld on the new interconnect materials.

The motor system has an integrated charging system, but we're not sure about the specifics because the manufacturer wouldn't ever get back to us about it. I had recommended finding a charger that could balance charge the whole pack by charging each individual 13.2v module (32 total balanced charges overall). We did find a couple heavy duty chargers that can handle this many cells, but again, the specifics on how that would work with balance charging is uncertian. Alot of big chargers only charge on two leads. At this point battery management is not extremely important because they will not be used over and over and over again, this is more of an experimental set. If it works, our client will be able to get the funding to buy more cells (probably new ones) and hopefully a proper battery management/charging system.

warheadforever

Well that is very neat! I can't wait to see the result.

simplecj

I guess due to money problems the motorcycle was put on hold. The original motor/controller system that we were planning to use costs about $25,000 and it's on back order anyways. We had located a couple units that weren't being used but apparently we didn't get them.

SOOO, now the bike still isn't built, I don't think the battery housing has been built either, and now we're changing to a water-cooled AC induction motor from a different company.

I may very well be continuing with this project into my senior year, but who knows. Do I want to waste my time and have my efforts go no where because my client can't get his end of it pulled together?? I guess it's not his fault, there's a million things to consider and it all costs alot of money....

warheadforever

I know what that is like.........

kelvintwt

how do u guys get them at just $5 each? i got mine at almost $30 bucks SGD..

simplecj

Well, it's not like I was some dude just trying to get some cheap cells. My dept chair had some connections and purchased them from a hybrid vehicle company, they were some test packs for remote comm stations. One of my teammates actually drove all the way to Denver to pick them up cause you can't ship anything in that large of a configuration. We got them in like 12s16p arrangements.

ALSO, in case you didn't read.. they are USED cells that we received in very questionable condition. We had to have all of them tested before using them. And we bought over a thousand cells, that's why they only cost us about $5 each.

Even for new cells, $30 is a rip off. You should be able to find them for more like $15 to $20 new. ...and what is SGD??

simplecj

Hello friends!

Kent Riches finally got back to me about our electric motorcycle project!

In mid November Kent and his team finally pulled together the final components and completed an amazing ground-up build in about 8 days, just in time for the El Mirage event on November 16th!

The initial results are more than promising! They made a first pass at 102mph and a second pass at 125mph before the batteries flattened out. What's even more amazing is that they hadn't even charged the batteries since we handed them over last May! While not actually breaking the record of 165mph, 125mph is apparently a record speed for an untested electric bike!

The future for Kent's record breaking electric motorcycle looks bright with plenty of time over the winter to work out battery management systems as well as fine tuning the motorcycle and adding additional monitoring systems.

It seems safe to say that they are all optimistic about hitting their 200mph goal, setting a new world record for upright electric motorcycles as well as paving the way for the real challenge, a 400hp 2 wheel stream liner that is expected to go between 300 and 350mph!

Here's a link to the build thread, you can view pics of the build in progress as well as pics and a video from the maiden trip to El Mirage (Thread is about 6 pages):

http://www.landracing.com/forum/inde...c,4977.45.html

Our Battery Packs:


Here's a good shot of the bike. That gigantic black brick in the front is the battery enclosure, the huge round thing behind it is the motor!

warheadforever

Amazing man, amazing! The carbon fiber on it looks great to! That motor has to be a monster!

snellemin

That thing looks great! Is that a Nue in there?!! LOL

simplecj

The motor is a 200hp (150kW) AC induction motor, custom made for Kent, the thing is actually big enough to probably push 300+hp if he had a controller to push enough juice... I think the batteries are about maxed at 200hp though... so you'd need more added in parallel.

Kent is amazing with carbon fiber and composites! He actually owns a business that makes custom motorcycle fairings! Wish I could remember the website. There's lots of pics of his work, it's very nice! He even has a carbon fiber breifcase he made for himself and it looks like some fancy store-bought case.

snellemin

When will a vid of this machine be available?

I linked this thread on our forum.

simplecj

Here's a link to the video
[link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNpf8MtxAM]Maiden Voyage Video on YouTube[/link]

evdreamer

That was cool. Thanks for the link to the video.

BRUSSER

im trying to build my own battery packs; is there any instructions posted on how to build
your own pack, really appreciated any help i can get.

simplecj

To weld A123's you have to have a special dual pulse resistance welder. I'm attempting to build a single pulse welder right now to build a pack for my senior design project, an electric E-trike! I'm doubting it's going to work because it takes a specific type of weld profile to do this, but what the heck, I'll try anyways. I could always go back to Colorado and use the equipment we used for the motorcycle project, but that's a long way to go for not that many batteries. Perhaps I'll have to find someone closer with the right equipment.

If you have cells that already have tabs on them, you can solder to the tab, but you can't really solder to the ends of the cells.

What makes this all tricky is because they used aluminum on the battery terminals. Aluminum is hard to spotweld and does not solder well. Besides the material, soldering to the terminals can heat the cell significantly and cause damage

Don't mess around with good cells, they're too valuable. I will be practicing with bad cells first! I'll let you know how it works out.

simplecj

I have solved my battery welding problem!!!

11 Farads (from 3 car audio caps) @ 15V using a 210A SCR & Yamaha foot pedal switch!
A123 Cells to .005 stainless clad nickel strips.

The results... awesome! I can build my own packs!!

Dirtnaper

My Feedback: (11)

Are you guys affiliated with the Killacycle in anyway.

Ive seen it run, pretty impressive. Not quite competitive yet but interesting. I believe they are running A123's too. Depending on class it will take 400+ and then some to compete with the gassers. At the rate technology is growing its only a matter of time. However I cant believe some of the #'s the turbo bikes are putting down. Its scary to be in the same room while they are on the dyno.

simplecj

Ya, Killacycle is the only official electric motorcycle sponsored by A123. They wouldn't even talk to us about sponsor ship because we were still in the designing phase. Kent is hoping that breaking the speed record with his upright bike might pull enough weight to get him a second set of batteries for his streamliner project. For the streamliner he will basically double the system he has in the upright bike and shoot for nearly double the speed.

The Killacycle is a drag bike, all muscle, not really meant for high speed other than 1/4 mile runs. Kent's bike is shooting for records in the 2 mile runs... for the streamliner I believe it's about 5 miles they have to go.

Dirtnaper

My Feedback: (11)

Will you be in Bonneville in 09. I have a buddy that's in the 200mph club with a triumph of all things. They have been running a turbo Harley for the last couple of years. It would be a blast to see an electric run. We have been racing cars and bikes for over 30yrs. Im out of the bikes now, I have a wife and kids and don't heal as quick as I did in the early years. I can remember when people would snub noses at the thought of an electric. Now we're all quite and attentive to them.

simplecj

Ya, I'm pretty sure he'll be running in Boneville this summer. I told him to let me know when and where so I could make it to an event. It would be pretty sweet to see (but not hear!)...

Kent is already in the 200mph club, he has a custom streamliner he raced that was powered by a big Harley engine... now he's going electric!