Installed the Magura Twist Grip(s), rewelded the battery tray, and decided to cut the tank

I have been agonizing over whether to cut the gas tank on the SP and render it unreversible (without a purchase on Ebay) - screw it, it is a perfect place to keep the electronics... so it will go under the knife. I also gave the battery tray the fling test and it broke apart - turned up the juice and rewelded it while getting eaten by mosquitos. The maiden voyage has been delayed - maybe later in the week.

Programmed the Alltrax AXE 4844 tonight

I scrounged some DB-9 RS-232 cables and adapters at work today (thanks, guys!) and was able to talk to the controller - pretty awesome!!! Two thoughts I had were (and have had) are 1.) the controller protects from turning on the juice when the throttle is nailed... but what if the 0 - 5k throttle comes open while you're traveling down the road? guess it would go 100% and you would just have to hit the red button - or turn off the key at that point. 2.) My other fear is having the motor lock up electrically. Since you can't set up a permanent magnet motor to "plug" or engine brake - maybe that is not a concern - I'll do more research.

Welded Battery Tray

I welded the battery tray last night and fit it in there - man... it is a tight fit. I had to put a piece of 16 ga sheet metal in there as the shock was digging into the back 2 batteries. This rig should be good for commuting - but since the batteries weigh 96 lbs, I'll need to reinforce it when we go to BIG ROCK again!

Made a motor mount, and rearranged the Batteries

I took the day off work today and made hay on the bike...



The stopcock is pushing down on the batteries and causing the tank to ride up in this picture - apart from that - the bike will look like this when done.



The motor mount consists of a 1/4 x 2 in piece of steel bolted to two of the mounting holes on the face of the motor - the other end of the bar ties into the long bolt going through both sides of the trailing arm - I've put a piece of 3/4 in tubing over the bolt and sandwiched in the metal bar so it is very rigid. I will weld a strut going straight down from the engine to keep it from tilting up when the juice is applied. I bound the engine to the swingarm fulcrum with a tie down ratchet to minimize engine movement - may keep that - may go with a metal band. Just need to make battery trays now and connect the twist grip and controller (and contactor, diode and resistor,) and AWAY I GO. WORK TO RIDE... RIDE TO WORK!!!

The motor mount looks like this...


Also did my first electric burnout (12v / 864ish RPM)

Latest Mockup

I added some 3/4 in steel tubing for the bottom of the frame and to serve as a motor mount. Turned out pretty well.

Making a motor mount

This is the first draft at a 1/4 inch motor mount for an Etek clone I made today.

Mockup II Electric boogaloo

So much for my previous mockup - the bike shrank or something - so I had to reconfigure the batteries into an ugly configuration. Oh, well. I'll put some prettymaker over it later and make it look nicer.

The Etek clone fits into the nook created by my removing the long anchor bolt that used to go through part of the engine case - I've replace that bolt with 2 others to hold the swing arms. I am finding that fabricating a mount is more difficult than I had thought it would be. if I attach a faceplate type of mount on the shaft side - that is not enough to hold the thing in place - maybe when I bolt in the bottom sissy bars that tie in the front bottom of the frame with the area of the swing arm mounts, I can mount the motor to that. Maybe I need to visit a scrapyard and just get a bunch of material to work with and something will speak to me.