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[Erasmo]

Well it took some time but the longest SC install in the history is finally taking shape!

Adaptation of the top case bracket:


The trunk mounted on the bike:






Yes I know it is really big but that way it is future proof and I can still use it as a top case.

[dukecola]

Good job, looks nice. I didn't have luxury of moving my case forward as I always have a passenger there.  All my pics were removed by photobucket because they want me to pay for their service.  If you need any for venting/securing ideas, PM me and I'll send you them

[Electric Cowboy]

Woah awesome!

[Erasmo]

Good job, looks nice. I didn't have luxury of moving my case forward as I always have a passenger there.  All my pics were removed by photobucket because they want me to pay for their service.  If you need any for venting/securing ideas, PM me and I'll send you them

Will do, I'll upload them to Imgur to share in this topic.

Woah awesome!

Still have to do al the internal stuff but we're getting there... Too bad I couldn't make the tours I had planned this summer but if the weather is right I might head south or even attempt an Iron Butt run if it works out on the charging/riding front.

I am very happy with the new mounting plate, it is much more sturdier than the standard Givi solution.

[Erasmo]

I would like some thoughts from you lot.

The shop that was going to install the SC kinda took their hands off it after installing the case because they weren't happy with installing in water cooling in such tight spaces without documentation. So at this point I still have a very good installed top case and a bag of SC components.

I originally purchased the SC so I could commute on my Zero, because I had to charge halfway and perhaps a second time in the winter to reach work. Due to it's expected many usage per week year round I then opted for the most balls to the wall option with a  4 unit water cooled setup.

Between ordering and now I had a chance to move much closer to work an can actually use my bicycle to commute. The Zero is now more or less for fun rides and longer distance errands which are much rarer. Now that DB has tested the efficiency and the SC turns out to not produce that much heat at all I'm wondering if it would be wise to retrofit my unit with fans for air cooling because water might be a bit op after all in my new situation.

This would create a much simpler installation and take up less space which I can use for cargo. By the time the SC has to throttle back due to warmth the bike is pretty much full or the battery itself is getting hot anyway.

I'm curious about your thoughts concerning this.

[gyrocyclist]

Base mounting plate for the modules. .019 Aluminum 2024-T3. Drilled and ready to mount modules. I will be drilling vent holes in the base plate and the bottom of the top box that will be directly above the Givi top box universal mounting plate. The elcon's fans will draw cool air into the box from below and push the hot air out the top. Ultimately I want to be able to charge with the top box cover closed, not propped open. I'm still searching for the perfect vent grill.  Um, I can't see your pics. I get a gif that says something like "update your account to enable 3rd party hosting." Does anyone else have that problem and/or can tell me what I need to do to view the pics?

If you want to charge with the top case closed, there is also a water cooling option available.

I have my top box in this position. I do tend to clip it with my foot when getting on though.

Can you show a picture?

Yes, I've seen the watercooled version, but I'm trying to keep weight down.  Actually what I think I'm going to do for top vents is mount two J1772 female inlets with guts removed on the lid of the case above the fans. This way, when not charging, can just close the cover and make it waterproof. All the other vents I've looked at are not waterproof, especially if mounted horizontally. The female inlet might be perfect.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Putting even 15lbs for 2 units at 6.6kW in the top case was never a good idea.

For comparison, I’ll show my tail structure built from Happy Trails SU racks and an aluminum box structure:



This is extremely sturdy and distributes the load of a lot of luggage around all mounting points.

On my outbound trip leg (850 miles from SF to Seattle), the 2 SCv2 units sat cushioned in a duffle bag on the passenger seat ahead of the box.

This made the riding dynamics worse, by making the bike swing with tail momentum when changing lean angle, and pulling the Cg back. I had a much better time on the inbound leg after I bought Tank panniers and strap mounted them over and around the battery compartment.



These happen to be a new Touratech product but probably have some existing equivalents. The point is that once fastened properly, each case held one v2 unit comfortably against the drop bars, and riding dynamics were much better.

So, this is what I suggest and I strongly recommend against further tail installs of chargers.

*moderator edit* added width to img tags

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Also, I am not surprised that watercooling is overkill. The SCv2's perform fine with just air cooling unless you really need optimal performance in hot summer weather.

I do regret that I don't have advice yet on protected cable routing to the accessory charging port. The units as mounted were spares and set up so I could move the bags off the bike next to the port and hook them up dynamically. I practiced this but wound up using my tank charger (SCv1 connected through the controller battery-side terminals) primarily and didn't have enough multi-plug opportunities for the v2 units, at least on this trip.

[Doug S]

Brian, nice work on the bike. The thing that most catches my eye is the tank pad...I need one! My kevlar jacket really rubs my tank raw. Where did you get that?

Water cooling of electronics is, in my opinion, pretty hard to justify. Let's be clear that water doesn't actually do any cooling (except in the rare case it's allowed to evaporate and carry some heat off that way), it just moves heat from one place to another. For instance, in an ICE, the coolant just moves heat from the engine head/block area to the radiator. That has advantages and disadvantages, with the primary advantage being the opportunity to put a thermostat inline so the engine runs at a much more consistent temperature. In terms of sheer cooling power, an air-cooled engine often is less affected by hot weather than a water-cooled engine! Water-cooling does give the opportunity to use a huge radiator so there's lots of surface area to dump heat, but in the end the same amount of heat still has to wind up in the atmosphere. It's the shedding of heat into the atmosphere that's the usual bottleneck.

Edit: I should add that water does have a very high heat capacity, so it can absorb a ton of heat without the temperature rising too much. Drag racing engines have a couple of quarts of water in each head which isn't circulated at all, it just absorbs enough heat to keep the head from overheating during one burnout/race down the track. Doctorbass has pointed out that since our chargers only run for a fairly short period of time, that might be all that's needed to control the heat it generates.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Brian, nice work on the bike. The thing that most catches my eye is the tank pad...I need one! My kevlar jacket really rubs my tank raw. Where did you get that?

Those are Zero’s own TechSpec tank grips, which have been available for almost a year.
S/SR: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_2&products_id=240
DS/DSR: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_2&products_id=241

[Ndm]

looking at the pictures your tank center piece seems to be swollen/forced up, i thought the scv1 was made to fit neatly under the tank cover (if that's what you have under there)

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

looking at the pictures your tank center piece seems to be swollen/forced up, i thought the scv1 was made to fit neatly under the tank cover (if that's what you have under there)

My DS tank is a custom setup. I split the plastic centerpiece from my original tank, then took a clean centerpiece and just physically joined them without performing plastic welding like the factory does. So I can pull off the centerpiece any time I like to ventilate the charger or (more commonly) check the wiring for chafing and possibly debug the controller box. I also leave the rear retaining bolts for the tank plastics removed so I can pull all three pieces apart and re-arrange them or work on them without removing the seat.

I can't stand removing the seat on my Zero, and it's worse now that I'm supporting a lot of cargo on a multi-point system partly using upgraded seat bolts. I never want to torque or remove those seat bolts if I can help it. I hope to get to a quick-release latch soon, in my oh-so-copious free time. I use the DigiNow dongle to reprogram the MBB, and I have a self-resetting 15A fuse for my accessories circuit in case that goes while I'm out traveling and can't be bothered to remove the seat.

So, in short, this is just a symptom of having engineering test optimizations.

It's true that the DS tank offers very little clearance around the retaining bracket for the SCv1 (or the Power Tank for that matter), but that doesn't result in swelling.

[Erasmo]

Putting even 15lbs for 2 units at 6.6kW in the top case was never a good idea.

For comparison, I’ll show my tail structure built from Happy Trails SU racks and an aluminum box structure:



This is extremely sturdy and distributes the load of a lot of luggage around all mounting points.

On my outbound trip leg (850 miles from SF to Seattle), the 2 SCv2 units sat cushioned in a duffle bag on the passenger seat ahead of the box.

This made the riding dynamics worse, by making the bike swing with tail momentum when changing lean angle, and pulling the Cg back. I had a much better time on the inbound leg after I bought Tank panniers and strap mounted them over and around the battery compartment.



These happen to be a new Touratech product but probably have some existing equivalents. The point is that once fastened properly, each case held one v2 unit comfortably against the drop bars, and riding dynamics were much better.

So, this is what I suggest and I strongly recommend against further tail installs of chargers.

*moderator edit* added width to img tags

You make a good point, I've ridden with al the components in the case and tight corners were something I had to do gentle, although it was do-able. Might also be that my riding skill had to warm up a bit after being bikeless since the summer.

I can't squeeze the SC's between my fairing, the current idea is to put them in panniers on the side, 2 units on each side. This should lower the centre of gravity a lot and distribute the weight more evenly.

Brian, nice work on the bike. The thing that most catches my eye is the tank pad...I need one! My kevlar jacket really rubs my tank raw. Where did you get that?

Water cooling of electronics is, in my opinion, pretty hard to justify. Let's be clear that water doesn't actually do any cooling (except in the rare case it's allowed to evaporate and carry some heat off that way), it just moves heat from one place to another. For instance, in an ICE, the coolant just moves heat from the engine head/block area to the radiator. That has advantages and disadvantages, with the primary advantage being the opportunity to put a thermostat inline so the engine runs at a much more consistent temperature. In terms of sheer cooling power, an air-cooled engine often is less affected by hot weather than a water-cooled engine! Water-cooling does give the opportunity to use a huge radiator so there's lots of surface area to dump heat, but in the end the same amount of heat still has to wind up in the atmosphere. It's the shedding of heat into the atmosphere that's the usual bottleneck.

Edit: I should add that water does have a very high heat capacity, so it can absorb a ton of heat without the temperature rising too much. Drag racing engines have a couple of quarts of water in each head which isn't circulated at all, it just absorbs enough heat to keep the head from overheating during one burnout/race down the track. Doctorbass has pointed out that since our chargers only run for a fairly short period of time, that might be all that's needed to control the heat it generates.

Yes water cooling is an edge case, but since I wanted to charge pretty much daily in all weather conditions I chose it so I could charge with the top case closed.
Aaand now I have moved an can pretty much walk to my work

[Erasmo]

Small update: Had a talk with Brandon/Electric Cowboy and retrofitting air cooling is possible.
I also had a chat with the folks at http://www.stahlkoffer.com/ and they're interested in making bespoke double bottom panniers to fit everything. I've saw their products before, really good stuff and highly adaptable.