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[Gregski]

I am looking for a basic yet detailed diagram of how to wire an electric motorcycle. What I have seen so far are diagrams of what I would call very advanced designs which leave me wondering if the person who is sharing the diagram with us is showing off or actually believes it can help others.

I like to take baby steps, so I am not interested in how to wire the entire bike with the regular components such as the headlight, horn, tailight, turn signals, etc you get the idea or with the latest in LiFePO4 battery configurations with a nuclear flux capacitor - jk

I am looking for how to wire a motorcycle conversion to make it go under the power of the electric motor with no extra bells and whistles. I know you will ask me for the details, but I believe a generic diagram will suffice for newbs like me regardless if we have and Alltrax or a Curtis controller, basically I am looking for a diagram that goes further than saying well hook up the batteries to the motor and the other end to the controller and off you go.

I know there are the "big" components (motor, batteries, controller), but where does the shunt go, where does the fuse go do I need a contactor, on/off switch, throttle, etc.

Here are more details as an example a 4 battery system of 12 volt deep cycle batteries, in series, hooked up to an Alltrax AXE 48 volt programmable controller, hooked up to the MARS ME709 motor, a fuse, a shunt (if needed), a contactor (what ever that is) what gauge wire to use between which components, etc

[Bogan]

this is the one i used http://www.alltraxinc.com/files/Doc100-081-A_DWG-AXE-PermMag-no-Rev-wire-dia.pdf

and they have a few more for other controllers too if you got reverse or whatever http://www.alltraxinc.com/Doc_Depot.html

hopefully what you are looking for

[frodus]

You don't need a shunt unless you have an Ammeter that measures current. Something like the Cycle Analyst uses a shunt to measure current. Do you need one? nope. You might be mistaking this for a precharge resistor, which goes across the contactor and helps charge the capacitors inside the controller before you close the contactor. If you don't, and the battery is at 48V and the controller isn't "precharged", as soon as you try to close the contactor, a huge surge of current flows into the controller. This isn't good for the capacitors inside, nor for the contactor, as it could weld the contacts together.

The contactor is required IMHO. It's just a big relay, but something that can have hundreds of amps going through it. It's like a big circuit breaker, except it's actuated by a coil. People usually hook this up to the original kill switch and key switch so you can turn power to the controller on/off. Do you need it? no, but you do need some sort of way to disconnect the batteries from the controller. For safety, I'd say use a contactor and hook it to the kill switch. That way it's easily turned off in case of some emergency.

Most of the information is in the controller manuals. If it's not, things like wire gauge are easily found on the web. Look up "ampacity" and "cable" in a search on google. It all depends on how much current is flowing through that cable.

[Gregski]

thank you that is very helpful