Stucky

I used this kit on my '99 Honda Accord and was also pleased with the results. Nice piece of kit, but make sure you put plenty of tape around your headlight(s). I scratched up my bumper with the sandpaper, simply because I was lazy. Mike

Drool.... :wheel:

Time for a quick update! At the moment the team and I are trying to pick out different components. Mainly what we are looking for are a microprocsessor, IGBT 6-Pack (to control our brushless dc motor), a tilt sensor, a LCD, and batteries. We have decided to monitor lean angle and display this information to the rider. The problem is that most, if not all, tilt sensors use gravity as a reference. You can imagine the error we are going to get when you are getting lateral g's going through a corner. We will have to look into that further. Good news is we have a motor! Bad news is we aren't sure if it will work. A professor was using this for some thermal testing, and as of now we know nothing about it; no model number, not datasheets... nothing. The only thing we know is that it is an eCycle brand motor. We are in the process of getting more info. I cannot seem to get this photo to rotate. That is it for now kids!

Yeah I emailed LiFeBatt about sponsoring our meager university project. They said they were all wrapped up, sponsorship wise, in the TTXGP. LiFeBATT is completely sponsoring an entry in the TTXGP. Plus they are providing cells to another 5 entries in the race at this time. So are you for sure competing? If so best of luck! Take lots of pictuers & video. Mike

Good to know! Thanks for the tip BR and Seb. Mike

Yeah I could probably part it out and make double. The frame is slightly bent in one section and it did not come with a motor or title. Luckily this project doesn't require it to have a title. Thanks for the offer anyway... we will need all the help we can get. I'm not sure what sort of micro we will end up going with. We will probably get something from Freescale. We will then design a control pcb and a motor pcb. We'll mount the micro and all the associated input circuitry on one board. The other board will be used for the H-bridge & associated motor control circuitry. (Pansies? pppfffffffttt, :blush: ) Yeah I checked out your website the other night Frodus. I am really impressed on how clean your install was. I wish the VF500F had bodywork to hide all those batteries. Also, I'll have to get back to you about your offer. I'll shoot you a PM and a huge thanks! I have had some wonderful offers from VFRD members, and you all are truly a stand up group of people. The focus of this project is designing the controller. Also since I don't have a title for the frame, it doesn't make a lot of sense to pour money into this. Maybe later on we could gut the components and install them in a registerable frame, but that is out of sight and out of mind for the time being. Alot of our decisions on components are based on cash, instead of performance. What kind of range do you need? Whatever we can get really. Would be nice to get 30 miles. How fast do you want it?Again, however fast we can get. Would be nice to hit 45mph or 50mph. Are you retaining your transmission, or going with just a sprocket and chain? Direct drive using sprocket & chain. For the same reasons you mentioned in your thread (efficiency & complexity). AC or DC motor(AC controllers are complex)?We will take anything a sponsor will provide. However if it was up to me, then we'd be using a brushless DC motor. That way we could use the hall effect sensors to obtain maximum torque at (almost) any rpm. We'll probably end up using a PM brushed DC motor though (ETEK maybe). Do you NEED regen (max 15% back, maybe lower on a motorcycle, but is nice for engine downshift feel)? Controllers with regen are more complicated.Not worried about regen. Simply don't have the time or resources for the added complexity. Whats the budget?Myself and 3 teammates are all contribuiting $250 for a total of $1k. Anything above that we will either have to start bootstrapping or find sponsors. There might be a Xbox360 up for sale real soon :laugh:. Do you want to go with LiFePo4? or Lead (I might be able to sell you a whole set of my brand new lead batteries and ship from a business..... since I might be going lithium)It would be awesome to get some lighter batteries. However we are under an extremely tight budget due to our self funding. If one of the many sponsors I have emailed wanted to donate a handful I certainly wouldn't turn them down. However we will probably end up with cheap, heavy, lead-acid car batteries. Thanks for the input everybody! I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks for the link BR. Man how did I miss that post over the summer? I guess I was studying too hard... As far as battery capacity goes, yeah that is totally secondary. The main focus of this project is designing/programming/building a controller for the whole thing. Besides, with the cash we have, we might have to take our batteries out of our cars for temporary use (only half way joking)!

For those of you who don't know me (everybody), I'm a 5th year senior at Purdue studying Electrical Engineering. Every senior in ECE must complete a senior design project and I have been lucky enough to convince my teammates into developing an electric motorcycle. I spent my holidays searching for a super cheap/free rolling chassis. I was looking for a frame that was almost 100% mechanically sound. This was because our entire team is comprised of EE's, and we don't really have time to rebuild/refurbish an old bike. I posted up a request for any available chassis here on VFRD. Seb and JamieDaughtry were kind enough to both offer me their VF500F chassis's they had lying around. However, I ended up finding an 86' VF500F locally and paid a mere $100 for it. It was in decent enough shape, but I did have to replace the steering head bearings (with some nice AllBalls tapered bearings). The project's focus is to design the controller for the bike. We will buy a micro controller and the necessary hardware. What sort of hardware we throw into this frame is completely dependent on cash. We are desperately trying to get companies to sponsor us, but everyone is aware of the economic times. Anyway, the project is just getting started and there is a lot of work to do. I figured I'd post up some pictures of the project's progress periodically over the next 5 months. So I'll throw the offer out there now: If anyone wants to trek over to West Lafayette come early May, then free electric VF500F rides for all! Also, in the next few weeks we should have a website up and I'll post that link. There will also be some random parts I'll throw up in the Pay It Forward forum. Mike Here is the bike as I got it (sans seat and tail bodywork). I need to find a picture of it rebuilt after I cleaned the whole thing... Mass of parts after the first tear down Very nice AllBalls tapered roller bearings