Both my bike mechanic chum (who installed the kit) and I thought it fitted much better this way round. The battery casing was very close to the large chainring the other way round and in danger of fouling the chain. There was also no room for a bottle cage on the seat tube which is a good thing to have on a long ride. We looked at the electrical plug and socket connection between the controller and battery and the outer part is now pointing downwards and so seemed to have minimal risk of water ingress. What have we missed - are there other electrical connections between the two components we need to be aware of?

 

Thanks very much; your advice and guidance is much appreciated.

There is only a thin rubber gasket between the black controller top and the metal bit which makes water ingress more likely now that it is exposed to the front and not protected behind the battery.

Both my bike mechanic chum (who installed the kit) and I thought it fitted much better this way round. The battery casing was very close to the large chainring the other way round and in danger of fouling the chain. There was also no room for a bottle cage on the seat tube which is a good thing to have on a long ride. We looked at the electrical plug and socket connection between the controller and battery and the outer part is now pointing downwards and so seemed to have minimal risk of water ingress. What have we missed - are there other electrical connections between the two components we need to be aware of?

 

Thanks very much; your advice and guidance is much appreciated.

 

you could add a couple of M6 rivnuts to the downtube and have the battery installed in the normal way up.

Probably even just one rivnut a notch up from the top one would do the trick.

Also, its difficult to see but have you got a drip loop on the motor axle input wire? Or at least make sure the wire goes below the height of the axle before it enters.

This is mine, you can see the wire exits downwards from the axle. Its not much of an angle but enough to keep water from travelling along the wire into the axle.

I wonder if anyone has experienced problems with their Oxydrive battery charger for the CST HD kit? I just got a fault with mine - no lights and not charging, I thought it'd blown a fuse at first but a fresh fuse did not help. I suspect an internal component has given up the ghost as I had a similar problem not so long ago with a Bosch (power tool) battery charger, apparently a well known fault with these (according to forum/feedback accounts)!

Edited April 2, 201610 yr by baldylox

Update:

Got in touch with Andrew at H7 engineering and he is sending a replacement charger, excellent service again from Oxydrive.

There's probably a fuse inside on the output, maybe soldered to the pcb. I've never opened one of those chargers, but nearly every other one I've opened did have a fuse inside.

 

Switch the charger on before sticking it in the battery, otherwise the inrush will might blow the fuse and it'll cause a spark that can damage the socket.

There's probably a fuse inside on the output, maybe soldered to the pcb. I've never opened one of those chargers, but nearly every other one I've opened did have a fuse inside.

 

Switch the charger on before sticking it in the battery, otherwise the inrush will might blow the fuse and it'll cause a spark that can damage the socket.

Ah, I thought the charging procedure was to plug charger into wall socket, plug charger into battery and then switch on at wall socket.

Just finished the frame swop on my bike and to say it's transformed the bike is an understatement. My main reason for the swop was because my old Specialized Hardrock frame was a 'small' size and it was. I have lived with it for years but I felt the time was right to get it sorted. I had always felt that when I did the swop, I may as well get a suspension frame but with the Oxydrive kit going on last year the choice of frame became harder - I had to know that the battery would fit. This is why I took great interest in Baldylox' build on his Giant Trance - a very nice full sus bike that due to it's suspension layout/shock placement accommodated the Oxydrive frame battery. I then did some research on full sus frame design and noted that the Trance had won many awards and several Best Buy reviews. Good enough for me! I ended up finding a 2012 Large frame on the Bay which also had an upgraded shock (Fox Float RP23) and it was even the right colour. It had some digs and chips in various places but nothing that would affect the workings so I bagged it for £175. On arrival, the first thing I did was strip down my Hardrock and weigh both the frames. The difference would never had prevented me using the Trance, but curiosity got the better of me. The Trance was just 16oz heavier which I was confused at. I even weighed it three times to be sure, but it was right. How Giant have done this I have no idea – the Hardrock is not known to be a heavy hardtail frame by any means, and the Trance has far beefier frame tubing, a bigger headtube area and all the suspension linkages (and shock) to boot. Neither is the Trance carbon. Amazing.

 

So the process of swopping everything over started to commence and I identified there were a few minor issues. My forks were non-tapered, the rear hydraulic hose wasn't long enough, all the gear cables would need to be replaced, the rear caliper mounts were post type (my old ones were IS), my PAS wheel wouldn't fit and the Trance had cable guides on top of the downtube which would mean some head scratching in terms of fitting the battery securely. Oh and I could not fit my PAS sensor as the BB bearings are pressed into the frame and I really didn't want to remove them.

 

Getting the forks in was thankfully quite simple – I bought a straight to 1.5” taper adaptor then used the regular 1.5” tapered headset kit that came with the frame. A new Shimano gear cable set was bought, as was a new hose kit for the brake and a 203mm post to post caliper adaptor. All fairly simple so far. I then moved onto the PAS wheel – I ground out the centre hole even bigger (I had already ground it out to fit my old frame with Hollowtech crank) so it would go over the pressfit BB but then had another problem in that the clearance for the suspension linkages was tight, real tight. I really didn't want to fit all the PAS stuff on the non-drive side (I prefer the clean looks using the drive side) so after looking at ways around the problem I ended up grinding off plastic in the only area possible (near where the snap ring sits) to make the disc as narrow as it could be. I took off just enough to still allow the ring to be used but after fitting it all back up I was close, but not close enough. I needed about an extra 1.5mm. Lots of head scratching took place at which point I realised that spacing out the drive side by the same amount would unlikely cause any issues with chain line/gear indexing so looking around the trusty shed I found the plastic lid for my zip tie tube...hmm...I cut out the centre with a hole saw to the required outer diameter to fit directly behind the crank, saw it was bang on 1.5mm wide (lucky) then used another hole saw to cut out the middle to fit over the hollowtech crank tube. My Heath Robinson spacer went on first, then the original Shimano spacer which is used to butt up properly against the BB bearing. All fitted back up, voila! Enough clearance! It's still tight, but theres enough to clear the linkage even allowing for a bit of sideways movement in the swingarm. As previously with my Hardrock, I did not find it necessary to bond/attach the PAS disc to the crank – the magnets hold it firm enough, and central too. So with the disc now sorted, I moved on to the PAS sensor. There was no way the original metal bracket was going to fit – even if I had pulled the BB bearings out, the PAS disc was now too far back towards the centre of the bike to allow the stock bracket to line up. Lots more head scratching went on and reading of this site. I found someone (d8veh I think) who had made up a metal bracket which attached directly to the BB tube and carried the PAS sensor. Lots of looking around my shed for some suitable material (I didn't have any metal sheet) led my beady eyes to the bin of all places, where I saw an old rear shelf speaker box for a car...hmm it's made of plastic (so formable) and already had right-angles (which I needed). An hour with a saw, file and Dremmel (my favourite tool ever) saw me with a suitable bracket. It then took me another hour to mould the BB section into a curve to fit the BB nicely, drill a few holes for the sensor fixing/LED and adjust the angle to get up close and personal with the PAS disc. I used double sided numberplate tape to affix it to the BB, checked it operated correctly and job done.

 

Then it was onto the battery mounting plate. This looked to be a right pain, as only one of the bottle bracket riv nuts lined up (they were too low down the tube to to use both) and the cable guides meant the plate had to sit away from the frame. Once again my beady eyes akin to a bird of prey scanned for anything interesting in my decrepit shed. I saw some 1” diameter nylon bar which I had used previously to make up some spacers for another job and thought ah ha! After measuring up I needed about 9mm thickness so I cut two off the bar and drilled 5mm holes through the centres. It then turned into a pain of a job though, as I also needed a recess on the bottom of the spacers to fit over the lip of the riv nuts and I also wanted to sculpt the bottom to fit the curvature of the frame to minimise battery wobble once it was all bolted up. Lots of Dremmel time ensued, offering up, re-dremmeling etc but got there in the end. I could have gone slightly thinner on the spacers but I am happy – theres about 1.5mm clearance with the bottom cable guide. Everything bolted up tight and virtually no side to side movement of the battery. I had to fit a riv nut further up the frame and I looked at trying to fit one without a proper tool which can be done but I was paranoid about making a hash of it and ruining the frame so I bought a tool for £15 off the bay and a pack of 5 riv nuts just in case. Luckily it all fitted fine first time round.

 

First outing yesterday and as I said at the start I am staggered by how plush the bike is. This is my first full sus bike and I can't believe how well it smooths the ride out. Even small stones/twigs are ironed out, despite the fact that when I look down it doesn't look like the shock is doing anything! The extra size in geometry is really helping me too, but the only downside is that I can now feel the shortcomings in the Marzocchi EXR forks which I had previously thought were pretty good. Oh well, onto a fork replacement soon as well then!

 

The OD kit continues to deliver, my only gripe being spoke tension which has been all over the place since new and although I have left it, I now have a wheel that does not run true so I need to get it to a shop to sort it out for good. It's one job I won't tackle myself but not sure where to take it – I can't say I trust Halfrauds but LBS's seem to be thin on the ground these days which is a great shame.

The jerry-built PAS sensor bracket. The heatshrink does run under the tape. I had to extend the wires by about an inch. Can even see my fingerprints in the plastic, I guess it might help if the bike ever gets nicked!

http://i1322.photobucket.com/albums/u561/Planemo1/Mobile%20Uploads/20160819_102517_zps2yw3htag.jpg

 

The PAS disc clearance - it's tight Jim but we can make it!

http://i1322.photobucket.com/albums/u561/Planemo1/Mobile%20Uploads/20160819_102553_zpsqcfbng3v.jpg

 

The plastic 'buttons' I made to space out the battery plate:

http://i1322.photobucket.com/albums/u561/Planemo1/Mobile%20Uploads/20160825_175150_zpsbuek3ns9.jpg

 

And two pics of the finished bike. I didn't realised I had captured myself in the window until I posted these! I did have shorts on...:

http://i1322.photobucket.com/albums/u561/Planemo1/Mobile%20Uploads/20160825_175137_zpsnkhkjgwq.jpg

http://i1322.photobucket.com/albums/u561/Planemo1/Mobile%20Uploads/20160825_175036_zps3qydnjtd.jpg

Excellent work. I made a similar project, where I bought a Giant NRS frame with rear supension unit from Ebay for about £145 and then a Rockhopper Pro hardtail for about £400 that had everything Shimano XT and Rockshox Reba forks, so I swapped everything over to build the Giant. I had a conventional BB with Shimano Hollowtech external bearings, which is much simpler to fit a PAS to. These modern BBs with push-fit bearings always seem to be a problem, but where there's a will, there's a way to fit a PAS. I've never been defeated yet.

 

Nice bottle-holder. I never take a drinks bottle with me. Instead, I'll buy a can of coke in a corner shop if I get thirsty, but the bottle-holder is still very convenient for this thing that I bought. It can hold a tube, puncture kit, tyre levers, multi-tool and CO2 pump:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361682456684?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=631005467718&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Thanks mate, and thanks again for taking the time to post a picture of that sensor bracket you made as it made my solution much easier! Good work on the build you did, there really can be some good bargains on the s/h market which is where my forks will be coming from. I do like my bottle holder and use it a lot as I hate carrying anything, and although mine also carries the pump theres no provision for tools/repair kit so I have to use a seatpost bag. I will look into the one you have, it would be a simpler and less messy solution. Cheers.

Wow what a fab build that you have done and it looks a nice bike

I'm sure you will have lots of fun on it, I do like the oxydrive kit, never had one problem on my hardtail.

 

Enjoy the ride.

Glad you got it all sorted, looks great!

Welcome to the OxyTrance club

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Hi all,

 

First post but I have been visiting here for some time now and found some real useful information. I have bought an RC kit about 6 weeks ago and fitted it on my wife's Decathlon B-Twin city bike. It was very easy to fit and I was pleased to find that on the left hand side of the BB there was enough space to fit the PAS disc. Everything else was really easy to fit - I just had to file the fork dropouts a bit but in all the entire process took about 2 hours from start to finish.

 

At first the kit worked fine and did everything I expected. it appears to be a real quality kit and is well thought out. But after about 2-3 weeks the motor started to turn off, either that or there is something else causing a loss of power to the motor.

 

So I have completed whatever diagnostics I can think off, there are no error messages on the display console, I have charged the battery fully, the PAS sensor light is on, removed and reconnected all cables and just cannot see what could be the issue. There is no sound or any indication that the motor is under power.

 

I have tried calling Oxydrive, emailed them and also used the contact form on their website. This was over a 3 week period and unfortunately have had no reply. So at this point I wonder if anyone could suggest anything else I could do to troubleshoot this issue?

 

Thanks!

But after about 2-3 weeks the motor started to turn off, either that or there is something else causing a loss of power to the motor.

You're not giving us much to go on. what does that mean? Did the display go off? Did the battery go off? Pleas give more detail.

You're not giving us much to go on. what does that mean? Did the display go off? Did the battery go off? Pleas give more detail.

 

Hi there,

 

Thanks for the very quick response and apologies for the lack of information.

 

The display is working fine and remains on without problems.

The battery is working fine - well it switches on, the integrated rear light works and the display remains on.

The PAS sensor light remains on, though at times I have noticed that it can intermittently turn off for a few seconds.

 

Not sure if I have missed anything?

The magnet disc needs to be about 1 mm from the sensor. Are you sure that you're not touching the brakes? Resting a finger on the lever will trip the switch.

 

If there's a problem with the battery or its connection, the display will go off and stay off until you switch it on again, so you can discount the battery as being the cause.

 

Have you pressed the motor connector together all the way to the guide line?

 

Just a reminder with any kit not to pull the cable-ties too tight because that can damage the wires.

I have checked and the disc is about that distance from the sensor. Since I first installed the kit (and it worked) I have not touched the disc or the sensor, Both are also firmly in place.

 

I would agree that the battery is not the cause.

 

The motor connector I have unplugged and the reconnected all the way back to the controller. I have done the same with all the other cables.

 

I have also consider the brakes as a possible cause and even disconnected the brake cut-off cables. I have also tested the bike on a stand to be sure the brakes are not touched at all.

 

But I cannot confirm or rule out damage to the wires. I did mind this guidance re cable ties in the installation document and tried to be gentle with the cable ties. As an aside I used to work a lot with fragile data cabling, some of it fiber-optic, so have seen the damage a tight bend-radius or cable tie can cause

The motor connector that's about a foot from the motor has a guide-line to show how far to push the two sides together. Did you check that? Does the motor cut out when using the throttle?

The motor connector that's about a foot from the motor has a guide-line to show how far to push the two sides together. Did you check that? Does the motor cut out when using the throttle?

I have gone and checked and the guide line is right up against the other side of the connector. I have also removed the connector, checked all the pins are nice and straight, lined up the arrows on both sides and connected it up again. The two connectors are again seated tightly and the guide line barely visible.

 

I cannot test the throttle as I have not installed it, but if will help can do so?

Thought I'd give a quick update on mine. I forget the actual mileage now, well over 2000. The original bike was old (Specialized Tricross) when converted and its feeling its age badly now.

 

Around January I was getting the 06 error code occasionally. I then was unable to ride until March but since then I've commuted everyday to work and never had another problem having not touched it! Success!

 

I'm still having spokes fail (on the motor wheel) on a regular basis and around half have been replaced but the wheel is pretty wonky now and desperately needs a proper rebuild. The local bike shops won't touch it so at Christmas I might send it away to get it done.

 

Still well happy with it! If you're thinking about getting one, its highly recommended.