Dealing with rain on self-build bikes

[morphix]

I had planned another trip this morning as the weather forecast was for a nice bright dry sunny day, however I woke up this morning to the ominous sign of dark cloud and rain droplets on the window... I decided to delay my trip and sure enough by 10am it was chucking it down with no mention of rain on today's forecast. Glad I didn't go as I would of got drenched and my kit is far from water-proof which brings me to my questions..

How many of you with self-builds ride in rain, and is it a problem?

How do you keep your kit dry and have you taken any special measures to waterproof it?

Going to order some much needed parts to finish my bike today, hopefully can get this thing finished by the weekend!

 

[Trevor Holloway]

My Sunlova kit came with a plastic case to fit the controller in, however I will be moving this to behind the seat so the box will have to go so my plan is to fit the controller and connections inside a section of an old trailer tyre inner tube cable tied at the ends and placed into a semi rigid case (possibly a basic camera case).
So far I have not had any problems with rain in any of the connections in five months through the winter.

 

[banbury frank]

Hi You may have a problem with the controller over heating Keep an eye on it

Frank

 

[Scottyf]

I've just wrapped all the cables up in insulation tape and ensured all the connections are heat wrapped. Much in the same way you'd get on motorbikes really. However I'm really only a fair weather rider and will use it in the later spring summer and start of autumn.

As far as kit goes I've just used alot of all weather out door clothes such as a northface jacket, all weather combats. But my bike does have mudguards (Which is strange on bike with a 25 year old riding it as most people my age are ripping it up on MTB's). Gloves I use some oakley MTB gloves I got for a bargin price which seem to be ok but I would imagine someothing thicker would come into play during winter or rain.

The battery is covered with a tank bag which sheilds it from alot of the weather.

I've road motorbikes for 10 years all year round and I can safely say the last 3 years of that I got very tired of wearing all weather gear on commutes.
I wore all wearer head to toe gear plus a huge oversuit to deflect rain that still got through, espcially on the boots.

I now have the option of just not being out in the rain and just choose not to any more.

Light rain and showers in the right gear is fine. But anything more and I'll just happily sit in the car. even if it does take twice as long. Least I have a radio and heater to keep me happy while I'm in the traffic.

 

[NRG]

Hi You may have a problem with the controller over heating Keep an eye on it

Frank

Agreed, controllers need to dissipate a fair amount of heat especially climbing hills in warm weather, best not to wrap them in anything that's going to reduce the heatsink capability of the controller case.

 

[Scottyf]

Stick on some old CPU cooling fins... ;-)

 

[piotrmacheta]

I use heatshrink stuff and shrink the top cable end leaving the bottom un-shrunk and tie-wrap the bottom end. That way the connectors can be split easily by cutting the tie-wrap. The other smaller connectors were waterproofed by cutting a finger off a rubber glove and sliding it over the connector and using a tie wrap at each end.
And I use my bike in all weathers and off-road so it gets really mucky. For the controller I rely on the box being waterproof - which eZee and ecrazyman both are.

 

[Trevor Holloway]

OK plan B :
Diecast aluminium enclosure from Maplin with the controller fixed to the bottom so that the box is a heat sink / cooling surface, positioned in front of the rack mounted battery behind the seat post.
Any comments ?

 

[banbury frank]

Hi don't forget the heat sink paste between the 2 aluminum surfaces also available from maplins

Frank

 

[NRG]

You need to sink heat away from the power FETs in the controller so putting a box inside a box may not help that much unless the fixing point to the second box is arranged somehow to be where the FET's are already attached.

It would be easier to just seal the original controller and put the connectors (as they are on fly leads) in a seperate plastic box or to simply use a light fabric bag or pocket of a bag to ploace the controller in....

See this pic of how I modded my Alien GSII, placing a replacement controller under the rack but extending the leads so they all terminated in the original controller housing....

 

[morphix]

You need to sink heat away from the power FETs in the controller so putting a box inside a box may not help that much unless the fixing point to the second box is arranged somehow to be where the FET's are already attached.

Very nicely done NRG, tidy job. I'm looking to do something similar with my controller but on a smaller scale and I will probably house the battery separately in another plastic box.. Finding a box large enough to take the battery is proving a challenge to say the least.. needs to be 13cm x 10.5cm x 10cm as a minimum, but ideally a cm or two larger all over to allow for some padding.