All the parts needed to get going arrived last week. This build is on a Catrike Villager. Spent about 14hours in the garage doing the initial install and test.
Had 3 issues: Fitting the new tire on the new rim, fitting between the dropouts and mounting the torque arms.
I haven't changed a tire on a bike in 40years, I could not believe how exhausting and frustrating is is to swear that much, set aside the effort to work the tire onto the rim and get it perfectly centered. Getting it on the rim was a snap, but centering it was total nightmare. It pulled to one side or the other, and then it turns out the stripe wasn't exactly concentric so that threw me off for a bit. After about 1 hour, finally got the tire centered (used a mag base and dial indicator to be sure).
Fitting between the dropouts was the next issue. The nut on the cassette side plus one washer on the other side wouldn't fit between the dropouts. It was about 3-4mm too wide. I replaced the nut with a washer, BAD IDEA! When I tighten it all down the wheel wouldn't spin and the washer started to turn on the axle. Luckily it was a softer washer and it really didn't twist far (just enough to bind it), no damage to the axle. Opted to grind down the nut about 1/2 its original width...worked like a charm.
Next, on to the torque arms. As pictured in the Grin instructions, they wouldn't fit. Turned them around (after getting some advice on bentrideronline.com from Xray, confirmed by Justin at Grin) they actually fit fairly well. The secondary arm didn't fit flush to the frame tube. It actually tips up a bit on the free end. I put a piece of rubber under it, so it wouldn't scratch the paint, kept the axle nut a little loose and tightened down the tip end hose clamp. That lever action pulled the main arm up, pulling the axle up into the dropouts. Worked the same on both sides.
Another poster looked at my pics and mentioned that I could have used one of the M5 cap screws to attach the main arm (both sides lined up). While they do line up nicely, I was a bit hesitant, I didn't think that one tiny M5 screw could take the force from the torque arm. Two posters on bentrideronline.com confirmed that they have used M5's successfully. I hate the way two hose clamps looks, so I might give it a try one side at a time just because I am super paranoid about ripping the heck out of the aluminum frame.
Replacing the brakes, mounting the display and throttle just took a little planning for wire runs, but nothing like putting on a tire...other than I ran out of mounting post space, ended up ordering more mounting posts from Amazon. I like all the electronics...details at the end.
That was about 12 hours of work to this point, but everything is mounted, tightened and connected.
Connected the battery (36v17.1Ahr EM3EV) and powered it up...all the smoke stayed inside the controller so I'm good at this point. As I have learned as a EE for over 40years, every electrical component has smoke inside when the smoke comes out, they are broke
.
I initially connected the Bluetooth dongle to the controller so I could tweak a few things. I have a second Samsung Note5 after trading up to the Note9, loaded both the Golden Motor App and the battery
BMS app. I used the GM App to check the battery voltage, set the acceleration to 60 and the dialed back the top speed (left over paranoia about ripping the motor from the dropouts).
Flipped over to the
BMS app and hit the throttle...the motor is spinning...woo hoo it worked! No grinding, rubbing, excessive heat or out of round issues, cruise worked, brake cut out worked...ready for a test ride.
I reconnected the BAC-601 display, at this point I'm thinking that using the Note5 for
BMS was a better choice and the display for everything else was a good idea. I have a cycle computer with GPS (iGSport50E), so really don't need to log trip data, just see instantaneous wattage and set PAS levels. Off to the street.
Everything worked, almost, as expected. Throttle response is nice an smooth, top speed was about 17mph as predicted (tweaked the top speed down to 250 vs. 380) cogging wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be but I really couldn't feel the effect of the PAS even at level 5...I still don't totally understand what it does, but I did realize that if I set the cruise for say 8mph (my normal flat surface speed is around 12mph) that when I hit a hill the wattage display went from 0 to upwards of 350 as the bike slowed below 8mph. Again, I don't get the PAS thing, did the cruise just kick in when I got down to 8mph or is that the effect of PAS. While I was on a flat at 12mph or more the wattage display stays at 0 along with the
BMS monitor showing 0 amps being pulled from the battery...someone needs to explain the PAS thing to me in detail.
Enough for now, its dark and the mosquitos are out. Time to safely charge the battery (came about 30% charged) for the first time.
Next day, garage still standing, no smoke and the battery is at 100%.
Now for a distance test. I plotted out a 10mile course, mix of flats, small steeper hills and a couple of gradual longer climbs. Wow, trike'ing is now on a whole new level for me. I can skip along at 15mph vs. sub 12mph, get all the exercise I need, get up the hills I could not get up before and ride for way more distance. Everything I expected and more. My goal was to motorize the trike to open up more variety in my course choices, as I just couldn't get up hills without feeling like I was going to collapse at the top (62years old haven't biked in years, my road bike is awfully uncomfortable at this point in life, getting back into it so my cardiologist will stop nagging me).
After the 10mile run, I used about 10% of the battery. I truly was doing 90% of the work, only used the motor for hills and once or twice on the flats just for the thrill. If that's accurate, this is a 100mile build again way more that expected.
Second day, setup for another 10mile run. This time the battery is at 90% from the day before. Got the same results, battery down another 10% after 10miles. I'm not banking on 100miles, but 60-80miles...might be realistic depending on the course.
On the test rides, found that the chain rubs the battery when shifting into the smaller chain rings, so the battery has to be mounted somewhere other than the boom. Ordered the TerraCycle battery mount (under seat) for the Villager, should be here tomorrow.
So, originally I didn't want to have to have phone setup for the Edge, I wanted to use the phone either for the Wahoo app or
BMS (I'd use the bac-601 for the Edge). Now, I'm thinking that the phone is the way to go, since the
BMS didn't have a data logger. Using the GM App (with the bluetooth dongle), you can log the controller behavior for the trip. Takes a bit of data manipulation, but I can correlate the controller/battery performance with the .gpx file from my cycle computer and see how the controller/heartrate/cadence behaves along the course. That result can be compared to ebikemaps.com (awesome website) where you can plan a trip then compare the actual results vs. the plan...allowing me to accurately predict how the setup will perform; really just give me the peace of mind I can get somewhere and back without running out of power.
There are a few tweaks yet that I have to go back and do:
Read about PAS and set it for my style.
Move the battery.
Add Reverse switch.
Clean up the torque arm install.
Mount my 7" android tablet along with phone - can monitor both the battery on the phone and run the GM App on the tablet (or watch Netflix on a ride).
Clean up the wiring
Find the time to ride every day.
Finally...thanks to Gary at Golden Motor Canada - emails and phone conversations set me in the right direction, Justin at Grin who confirmed my setup for the torque arms, Xray at bentrideronline.com who gave me the best advice on the torque arms (way to have a knack for the obvious Xray) and Marc S./Bentonrecument at bentrideronline.com who pointed out a cleaner torque arm install technique and the folks at EM3EV who gave me really good advice the battery selection.
All in all couldn't be more thrilled with the entire experience...wish I would have done all this years ago.
Attached are a few pics for reference...and comments if your inclined
ron
