Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post up a thread for your EV. Progress pics, description and assorted alliteration
whimpurinter
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by whimpurinter »

Hi Jonescg :)

My previous Suzuki GSX1100 EFF handled ok but a bit slow.
My previous Kawasaki 1100 GPZ handled better but of course these were always big bikes.

The Vectrix is quite amazing in that when you wave your arms from one side to the other while turning one way to turning the other, it is as light as a feather. Early on, I realised that this was a low centre of gravity speaking :)

I'm not questioning anything that you've said.
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by zeva »

bladecar wrote:Do you notice any of the high weight when riding the Honda?

Can't say I notice much, but (a) it'd been over a year since I'd ridden the bike as a petrol burner before doing the conversion so didn't have a clear memory of it before and (b) I'm not much of a connoisseur of motorbike handling! That said my whole battery pack is only about 20kg anyway..
jonescg wrote:Would you be looking at a stepped squarewave or a pure sinewave controller?
It's pretty straight forward to support both in firmware, but sine is better in most cases. I've run Motenergy BLDCs off Kelly controllers before (which are trapezoidal / stepped square wave) and they do make quite a racket. I've read that the motors run a fair bit quieter / smoother off sines e.g using a Sevcon.
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EV2Go
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by EV2Go »

From your battery pic on the first page I can't see that having a high COG at all. Most modern sports bikes like mine have a roughly 17-18 litre tank and that sits above the frame, where as a large percentage of your batteries sit between and below the frame rails.
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EV2Go
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by EV2Go »

You would be lucky to have half of that 20kgs in same spot..

Image
whimpurinter
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by whimpurinter »

Firstly, I'll say I'm really impressed with these eb's and I wish I could build them as well.

After I wrote about cog, I thought about the fuel in the tank.
Because you're commenting, I'll defend my diesel :)

If you compare the ebike to a big petrol bike, it's like taking all that weight away from down below (that would be the sump, crankshaft and gearbox) but leaving some reasonable amount up above in the tank/head area. I know the electric motor is down below but it is relatively light.

I was really thinking about how low the cog feels when on the Vectrix. It has some batteries up around the shin area but the majority are below or around the feet area.
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by antiscab »

On my vectrix the centre of gravity is somewhat higher than stock due to the batteries I am using sitting higher

I find my vectrix handles significantly better that stock with the high CG in turns

In general low CG helps at low speeds
high CG helps at high speeds
at least on two wheels
Matt
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2007 Vectrix - 50k km
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EV2Go
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by EV2Go »

That's a good point you make antiscab. I rode a friends ZX-300 the other day and comparing it to my ZX-10R it handles very similar, but there was a distinct lack of weight up top, and that can be almost disconcerting. It felt almost too light, yes it was nice and nimble around the streets but I don't know if I would have the same level of confidence at any kind of speed.

I think the point bladecar is making is valid, it really isn't about if there is a lot of weight up top or not, it is about being relatively balanced top to bottom.
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Richo
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by Richo »

I like how people just ignore the point.
zeva wrote:Does anyone have a good source for such things, preferably to suit 520H motorbike chain?


This comes to mind.
http://www.evalbum.com/1144
I vaguely recall asking ACmotor about this which led me here:
Renold Chain Sprockets
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jonescg
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by jonescg »

You can probably get away with 428 chain. Same as postie bikes. Sprockets Oz sell a variety of blanks, and you can always get the likes of WA Gears to make any custom sprocket.
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Richo
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by Richo »

These people have a table showing up to 63 teeth.
http://www.ctaaustralia.com.au/products ... t/DCFAKLMG
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
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Richo
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by Richo »

Last edited by Richo on Mon, 13 Jul 2015, 11:07, edited 1 time in total.
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by Grinhill »

I'm sure Ripperton would be able to do a custom one for you, he's done plenty of sprockets.
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Richo
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by Richo »

zeva wrote:I've decided to use the bike as a test bed for AC motor controller development
Hopefully for 50kW+ Image
The sub 50kW sevcon controllers seemed reasonably priced to not bother this market.
Ignoring the sub 100V limitation of course. Image
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
Help prevent road rage - get outta my way!
zeva
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by zeva »

Well, after sitting in the corner of the workshop in pieces for more than a year, the electric NSR is back up and running again! I had planned to convert it to AC, but decided just to get it back together with the motor I had (Motenergy ME0709), and fix some of the old shortcomings.

Its main problem was the battery pack, which I'd assembled from a bunch of old K2 26650EV cells, which performed way under spec and resulted in a 35km range - just too small to be useful. Unfortunately the (conveniently) available space for batteries in the NSR is very small, so I wouldn't have been able to fit many Winstons / CALBs / Headways in the space. But after learning that Matt Lacey had a pile of surplus A123 20Ah pouch cells available, I purchased 44 cells from him to build a new pack from.

It's 44S1P, so approx 140V 20Ah, 2.8kWh, with Aegius termination/connection kit and 4 of my 12-cell BMS modules. Enclosed in a polycarbonate-lined steel frame, with 6mm polycarbonate plates top and bottom and clamping brackets+bolts for compression. (Matt informed me they're meant to have something like 150 pounds of compression to prevent cells swelling.)

It was a pretty labor-intensive little thing to build, but turned out quite well. Below are a few pics showing testing the BMS on the stack of connected cells, the complete pack in its enclosure, and installation in the bike. (Still fits under the hollowed-out fuel tank shell.)

Another shortcoming with the original build was the gear ratio of 3.3:1 being too low, making it hard on the poor little motor. So I replaced the 12-tooth motor sprocket with a 10-turn, giving it a somewhat-improved 4:1 ratio. This yields a motor speed around 2000rpm at 60km/h, which isn't too bad. After a 10km ride, the motor was about 60 degrees. Throttle response is noticeably peppier with the higher ratio too. A 5:1 or 6:1 would probably be better still, but I can't go any smaller on the motor sprocket and might have chain clearance problems with a much bigger rear sprocket.

I also finally got around to replacing the front forks, since the old ones had been slightly bent since I got the bike, which slightly compromised its handling. (Some previous owner must have had a nasty crash at some point!)

Image
BMS testing of assembled stack of cells

Image
Complete battery module

Image
Installing new battery in bike

Image
New 10-tooth motor sprocket
Last edited by zeva on Sun, 20 Mar 2016, 10:42, edited 1 time in total.
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jonescg
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by jonescg »

Nice work Ian!

The kit was from Agnius Mikutavicius. His design thread is here on Endless Sphere: https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewt ... gnius+A123

He'll be stoked that it's finally being used again!
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by mikedufty »

Nice, sounds like you've fixed all the things that bothered me a little on the test ride. Have you figured out what the range is now?
zeva
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Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by zeva »

Range seems to vary a lot depending on speed. On the weekend I pottered about the suburbs at 50km/h and got 10.8km from 10% of the battery (equals 108km range)! But just now I did a 16km loop with half of it at 80km/h, and it used 31% (equals 52km range). I was probably more enthusiastic on the throttle today as well, but still a surprising difference. At any rate, 50km is enough to be useful to me - can comfortably manage a return trip in to the city.
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Re: Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by lerrypage »

Hello Ian!
I bought a ZEVA off-grid BMS in 2016 that still works very well, it only has one problem that it shows a negative value when charging and a positive value when discharging the battery.
I have now integrated the ZEVA BMS into my Victron system and of course it also shows "discharge" when charging and vice versa.
When I swap the wires from the power shunt it powers up correctly but counts down the SOC while charging.
Is there a possibility to change that somewhere?
Thanks!
Josef
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Re: Ian Hooper's Honda NSR150 conversion

Post by justinb »

Apologies for the bumping/hijacking the thread.

You dont have the original Honda OEM engine for the NSR150 anymore? Selling them like hotcakes in Thailand atm just have trouble finding more to send over.

Please direct message me happy to pay 2k+ just for engine.
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