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Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: Doctorbass on October 13, 2017, 12:32:28 AM
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Charger pan for Diginow 3.3kW modules
Hello guys I decided to make a custom built aluminum charger skid pan for locating my Diginow supercharger modules under the battery where the actual oem charger is. I was inspired by Terry that one built for his 4 modules, however the orientation of the modules make that pan to be wider by about 2-3 inch witch is perfect for the purpose that he want about traveling, but for people that want a little more sport mode and get the Zero to keep good tilt angle i think a narrower charger pan is preferable. So i decided to build my own version.
There is numbers of advantages of locating the Diginow charger under the bike (instead of in the tank area) .
- It allow you to get the powertank option AND ALSO be able to charger faster with the Diginow modules with minimal apparence.
- The lower CG make the bike easier to handle at low speed
- It keep the great look of the Zero instead of having your nice bike look mad max with all those strapped cahrger everywhere on your bike..
- The charger have a permanent location and dont require you to proceed to a cabling job every time you need to charge
- The Diginow modules are in a safe place protected by 3/16" thick aluminum armor
The goal is to fix these properly to the motorcycle, keep suffisent protection under the it and sink the heat on a larger surface. I plan to relocate the SCv2 original heatsink on the side of the pan to keep adequate clearance from the ground. These heatsink can be cut in half and installed on the side of the pan. The 3/16" thick aluminum on both sides should conduct enouhg heat to fully charge the battery without any cutout.
The pan is designed to be capable of taking up to 3x 3.3kW modules ( 10kW) and is in aluminum 3/16" thick. It have 10.25" wide witch is about the same width as the battery.
It will bolt directly on the Zero frame in the existing screw insert ( threaded holes of the frame)
The minimum fee to get these fabricated is 200$ and at that price they can make 4 of these. That come to about 50$ each.
Because i will only need one unit, I will be offring these 3 extra in the FOR sale section soon.
I have the full CAD drawing and .dwg, .stp and .igs files if you want these.
The only thing you need to do is to drill holes on it to install the charger modules and to fit it under the Zero frame.
Here is the drawing of the pan alone ( i also added a drawing of the unfolded metal sheet with 3 units on it):
Pm me if you are interested.
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Had i have two or three scv2's i would have been in on it. But i have a 6.9kw evtricity
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Very nice, Doc. You could still use the powertank if you're not concerned about losing the stock charger. Personally, I want both chargers since I almost always just plug in overnight, but it's always good to have options.
The only concern I can think of is, is it still sturdy enough to use to jack up the bike? The original pan is, I've done that several times. It's a very convenient lifting spot for the jack.
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Very nice, Doc. You could still use the powertank if you're not concerned about losing the stock charger. Personally, I want both chargers since I almost always just plug in overnight, but it's always good to have options.
The only concern I can think of is, is it still sturdy enough to use to jack up the bike? The original pan is, I've done that several times. It's a very convenient lifting spot for the jack.
That's a good questions.
Lifting the bike:
The original pan is in plastic.. and the charger pan i suggest is in aluminum 3/16" and will be strong enough to lift the bike as well.
Power tank:
My 2017 SR does have the powertank and i want to keep it as well. Locating the charger under the bike instead of in the tank help keeping the center of gravity lower and it also leave the tank free of use for storage or powertank.
Charging overnight ( at normal power):
I confirmed with Diginow that the SCv2 modules can be powered at 120Vac and the GOOD NEW is that these draw 13A so they can be connected to a regular 15A socket. as well it dissipate way less heat so no fan is required as the single unit wil have teh entire pan to dissipate all his heat, as well a sthe thermal mass of the two unused modules that will sink heat and add to the total surface area.
In summary, using one SCv2 module can replace the stock Zero charger and apparently do a better charging job tan the stock one.
Doc
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I tend to ride in the rain and/or snow a good bit. How weatherproof is this setup? I'd hate to spend the money on SCv2 and then drown it the first time I go through a big puddle in the road.
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I tend to ride in the rain and/or snow a good bit. How weatherproof is this setup? I'd hate to spend the money on SCv2 and then drown it the first time I go through a big puddle in the road.
Those Diginow modules are IP67 so they can take water splash easy as these are fully poted.
Here is the info:
Fully-sealed and water-proof, protection class IP67(Effective against dust tight and Protection against Immersion, up to 1 m depth).
5. Automotive-grade seismic rating.
Ref:http://evcomponents.com/customized-chargers/elcon-tc-hk-j-3300w-charger.html (http://evcomponents.com/customized-chargers/elcon-tc-hk-j-3300w-charger.html)
Also the reference for IP67 rating meaning:
http://www.resourcesupplyllc.com/PDFs/WhatDoesIP67Mean.pdf (http://www.resourcesupplyllc.com/PDFs/WhatDoesIP67Mean.pdf)
Luke and Terry have 3 and 4 units under their bike and never had problem with Terry traveled thousand miles with these.
Doc
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Great job doctorbass. Cant wait to see what it looks like on your bike. I have been looking at the diginow but havent pulled the trigger yet. Are those chargers you linked to the same as the diginow ones? Just without all the connectors they provide.
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Can one SCv2 replace the FX stock charger? Wire in like stock? Hmm...
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Great job doctorbass. Cant wait to see what it looks like on your bike. I have been looking at the diginow but havent pulled the trigger yet. Are those chargers you linked to the same as the diginow ones? Just without all the connectors they provide.
These chargers on the link are similar but does not have the mods and program to work on the Zero. The one diginow sell are built to the requirement for the Zero and communication with it.
Doc
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Can one SCv2 replace the FX stock charger? Wire in like stock? Hmm...
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I jussest you contact Electric cowboy to get more info he will be glad to confirm to you if it is possible. But i think yes these shoudl work.
Doc
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What's your place to dissipate the heat from 3 units charging at the same time?
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What's your place to dissipate the heat from 3 units charging at the same time?
3 options:
- i will relocate the oem heatsink of the SCv2 on the side of the charge pan aluminum plate.( i will cut these in two half of the height of the pan. the aluminum plate is 3/16" to be able to conduct enough heat from teh bottom of teh pan to teh side where the heatsink and fan will be. I will use 3" fan IP68
-Time has proven to be effctive.. the SCv2 units cut at 90 celsius so before they reach that temperature and the faster i charge the less they can reach that limit ( Terry and other are using that method)... the SCv2 temp raise slowly but never reach the limit because the charge end before.
- If none of the above work i will be able to put some water in the pan when weather is too hot. The heat the water will take and the fact that the level could surround half height of the scv2, and have great thermal contact, should be effctive.
-finally if none of these work i will be able to install liquid cooling... but i dount i could need that.
Btw i should receive the pan today or tomorrow from the laser machining shop.
Doc
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With regards to option 2 — I can tell you that I used to reliably reach thermal saturation points with 3 units in the tank area. Weather wasn't extremely hot (usually 65-70F), MY16 SR, charging from low states (~20%). I would hit thermal cutbacks on chargers around 80%, so about 30-40 min in. If I would start from lower SoC, I would hit it sooner, but I'd have to be around 40% SoC in order to get full charge before cutbacks. Additional factor that you won't have in your setup is exposed area of pan as opposed to enclosed space in tank area where convection is just not that good. I've fixed the issue completely since then though by adding exhaust fan into tank area.
Option 1 is very interesting though and might just work.
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I got the charger pan/skid plate today!
They did an awsome job. As well that's the first design V1.0/proto and might be subject to minor modification to better fit and match better with the actual fairing. but actuallt that version will do the job right.
The 3/16" thickness is an incredible armor/skid plate and will very well protect the charger !.. yes.. protect up to 10kW of charging power!! 8)
The little 12V wires that are present on the heat sink side will be extended to the side of the unit by a machined chanel they the aluminum of the unit.
Some reported doing it with a dremel too but i prefer clean machining job as i have acces.
I also might get these black anodized to better hide under the bike.
What is nice also is that all the cables will be very well protected!! and teh room around all 3 charger units will be used as multiple chanel for these.
Here is some preview:
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Awesome work. I'd like to see more ventilation tho. With holes at lowest and highest
points (assuming kickstand, there's a natural angle) you'd at least get some convection
flow.
Anton's got some experience fitting 3 chargers into a tank area and the thermal
challenges that putting chargers in a closed space entails.
Terry and Liveforphysics bent a plate to hold the chargers under the bike, like you, but I
think they left the front and back open, so got more airflow that way.
I think L started with insulation between chargers and battery but ended
up with a blower to send a low volume high velocity sheet of air through.
L has six SCv2 units though, he trimmed the motor vanes to make it fit : - )
And he has a battery pack he couldn't tell us much about until the 2018 models
came out. : - )
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Awesome work. I'd like to see more ventilation tho. With holes at lowest and highest
points (assuming kickstand, there's a natural angle) you'd at least get some convection
flow.
Anton's got some experience fitting 3 chargers into a tank area and the thermal
challenges that putting chargers in a closed space entails.
Terry and Liveforphysics bent a plate to hold the chargers under the bike, like you, but I
think they left the front and back open, so got more airflow that way.
I think L started with insulation between chargers and battery but ended
up with a blower to send a low volume high velocity sheet of air through.
L has six SCv2 units though, he trimmed the motor vanes to make it fit : - )
And he has a battery pack he couldn't tell us much about until the 2018 models
came out. : - )
thanks togo,
Cooling will be better as i will install heatsink and blower on the sides of that pan... plus the added metal mass of the pan that will slow down the temp increase ( 4 more pounds of aluminum). Too much holes in the pan would make easy water intrusion and high pressure during running the bike. I wanted to avoid that and keep charger protected from high sprayed water pressure and dirt. however i will also install internal blower to add air flow around the charger and cables.
I will post more update over the next days.
Doc
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Thank you, clearer now.
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I also forgot to specify that the orientation of the chargers in teh pan are different than the one from Terry and Luke.
Those choosed to install 4 chargers so they had to make a wider pan as you can see in the picture below, showing the charger pan from Terry (witch a a nice job btw)
In the pan design i choosed, the charger take is 9.5" and 10.25" overall width dimension and include hiding/protecting the cables inside wide while the 4 charger setup of Terry take 10.6" wide and 11" wide overall and let cables exposed to teh sides.
As i know Terry charging setup is perfect for the use he is doing and he built it according to his requirement
I was inspired by him and decided to do similar but to make a charger pan that many could use on their Zero and feel the units are safe and protected and require less care.
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Awesome!
Craig Vetter looks impressed. Hope he's recovering well.
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I've been too busy to check the forums, but I'm glad to see this! I don't personally get excited about replacing the stock equipment, but this is really well designed and it's always great to have real drawings to reproduce the work.
Do I understand right that this actually preserves ground clearance? 3.437cm (1.353in) is less than the 1.73in depth on the Calex charger. If it's 3.437in, that'd be a significant loss of ground clearance... and I see that the charger depth is 66mm (2.6in) which indicates the latter. :/
Unfortunately, if I install a Power Tank, it'll displace my SCv1 and not the SCv2's. But $50 is worth spending if I can get those SCv2's installed permanently, and then put all my spare/adapter cables in the tank panniers I acquired for my SCv2's.
Maybe I'll put the Calex charger elsewhere as backup? I'll PM for clarification.
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I too am excited about this design. I'll be adding a powertank to my '17 SR as soon as they're off backorder so a charger in the tank area is not an option. If the pan is no wider than the frame, lean angle shouldn't be compromised too much.
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I too am excited about this design. I'll be adding a powertank to my '17 SR as soon as they're off backorder so a charger in the tank area is not an option. If the pan is no wider than the frame, lean angle shouldn't be compromised too much.
At the base the charge pan is 10.25" witch is narrower than the 12.25" of the bike frame ;)
Also, at the lower area the pan is only 0.625" lower than the original zero pan.. but the charger pan is same height on the entire lenght.. while the Zero pan is getting higher at the end close to the motor.
Doc
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Now let's talk about heat dissipation:
The pan itself represent great dissipation surface.
On the outher pan surface it's 2.7 square foot that radiate on the exterior! (and not counting the inside of the pan)
Each of the SCv2 units have strangely also 2.7 square foot of dissipation, however all fins are not open to the air, these are very narrow together so the heat exchange is not as efficient as a plain surface like the pan is. In that case i would derate that value by about 50% so each Scv2 are about 1.35 square foot of effective dissipation area.
That would be correct to compare the entire pan as 2 of the SCv2 heatsink... but without blower.
The air convection around the pan should also help and be more important than the one on the SCv2 heatsink.
In a couple weeks i will document all that and test that too.
Doc
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Those plates came out fantastic Doc. Great job. Looks like everything will fit pretty good.
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Now let's talk about heat dissipation:
The pan itself represent great dissipation surface.
On the outher pan surface it's 2.7 square foot that radiate on the exterior! (and not counting the inside of the pan)
Each of the SCv2 units have strangely also 2.7 square foot of dissipation, however all fins are not open to the air, these are very narrow together so the heat exchange is not as efficient as a plain surface like the pan is. In that case i would derate that value by about 50% so each Scv2 are about 1.35 square foot of effective dissipation area.
That would be correct to compare the entire pan as 2 of the SCv2 heatsink... but without blower.
The air convection around the pan should also help and be more important than the one on the SCv2 heatsink.
In a couple weeks i will document all that and test that too.
Doc
Awesome stuff, doc. I love your stuff and your analytic way of approaching it. Assertion is nothing without experimentation and analysis. I assume the material will be thick enough to transfer the heat well? (I only ask because experiments transferring heat to the frame to use the frame as a radiative device have not faired well.)
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Yes it will be thick enough.
In total there is about 7 sq inch cross sectional area of aluminum that will transfer heat between the SCv2 to the sides ( 3/16" x 18" x 2)
Doc
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Repeating an offhand FB comment I made, I'd like to outline a follow-up idea for "side-pans" to achieve that "BMW Boxer" idea thrown around for a while.
A similarly-fabricated aluminum box that mated to the side of the frame and supported 2 SCv2 units on each side would also be quite interesting.
The naive approach to mount against the existing 2014+ frame attachment points seems worth bypassing in favor of a way to have the flange-edge brace itself against the inside of the frame square tubing. And then some tiny brackets could still use those existing threaded holes to secure them further, but primarily loading via a large surface area seems worth pursuing.
I'll try to make drawings or a cardboard mockup if/when I get the time.
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Yes it will be thick enough.
In total there is about 7 sq inch cross sectional area of aluminum that will transfer heat between the SCv2 to the sides ( 3/16" x 18" x 2)
Thanks so much for working this out, and especially for setting a nice example of how to put together a project for a Zero with some fit and finish and engineering drawings.
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What's up Doc? Have you installed and tested your design yet? I'm very interested in applying your solution to my bike if yours turns out well.
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What's up Doc? Have you installed and tested your design yet? I'm very interested in applying your solution to my bike if yours turns out well.
Hi
It will turn out well ;)
i'm in the final process of design of the rev 1.0. that,s alot of details to make it sinple to keep cost low and to make it to fit and match the most perfectly the actual Zero body.
you can also follow the FB zero owner group page for more info
Doc
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What's up Doc? Have you installed and tested your design yet? I'm very interested in applying your solution to my bike if yours turns out well.
Heres a direct link to docs post in the group
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159539225675366&set=gm.1496048510464352&type=3&ifg=1
Crunch them closer together, trim the motor fins a bit and you could fit 4 the same way....
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This is awesome. I'm still inclined to stick with three because I'm conservative, and arrange for "side pans" for additional chargers. Maybe even mount the stock charger on the left side somehow and a single DigiNow unit on the right side.