should serve as an inspiration if someone thinks about how to attach the additional batteries to a sp140 trike. For example, 1 battery in the back and the other two on the side of the seat. so it is possible to leave the suspension always the same. no matter whether batteries are in the saddlebags or not. in my example i use my batteries from the e-foilboards for very long and far distance flights. for normal evening sightseeing flights i leave my bags empty. in the pictures you can see how i made it very simple and extremely easy. a saddle bag made off foam mold and full carbon weighs around 400 grams and can withstand much more than is necessary. the battery is secured by a velcro strap. you can also e.g. make from aluminum sheet or weld angles from steel. depending on what you can do easier in his hobby workshop.
the advantage is not only that you don’t have to change the center of gravity with the trike. it also interferes only minimally with air resistance due to the flat position on the side.
Honestly a trick is the best solution to extend flight time with current technology. Between the three batteries, how much does your unit weigh? Are you able to break the 2hr flight time mark?
my trike is built extremely solidly, withstands rollovers and therefore protects the pilot very well. my personal attitude is to only fly with a trike if it is very safe. just screwing wheels to an eppg is not enough for me. I’m telling you that so it’s understandable that my trike is relatively heavy with a weight of around 38 kg without the motor and batteries.
in the basic version it weighs around 90 kg for around 45 minutes flight time with slow wings (40 km/h)
with additional batteries it then has 118 kg (compliant for my country)
and I can fly with it for about 80 minutes at 40 km/h or 50-60 minutes at 50-55 km/h
the additional saddlebag batteries are already 5 and 6 years old, so they don’t have as much power anymore. the weight increases again by around 25 kg, which can legally fly as a “cargo”.
I can fly with it for around 100 minutes with the trimmer closed at around 50 km/h. or around 70 minutes at 60-65 km/h depending on the trimmer position and altitude.
it would certainly be possible for 120 minutes with a large, slow wing at 40 km/h, for example. 40 square meters that is approved for up to 250 kg.
my current preference is to fly 60-70 minutes at 65 km/h to get many kilometers. this is what i enjoy the most because the wing i’m currently flying (dudek boson) is very similar to a small ultralight airplane at 65 km/h with the wingtip controls.
for next year i am building a trike that is fully aerodynamically faired and made entirely of carbon. in the future i would like to fly 100 km one way in a line or 130 to 140 minutes when flying slowly. this trike then gets a 160 cm three-blade propeller and a geiger motor with mgm controller.
it is a single project. I just want to stay on the subject of saddlebags for batteries in the posting. You can find more information about my projects on youtube and facebook. Thomas Brandstetter
hi, I have a maximum of 13 kw/h available. about 12-15% remained in all batteries as a reserve and so as not to damage the batteries. that is, I only fly up to around 3.10 volts under load.
each battery has a simple analogue voltage display which i have clearly visible as a small instrument.
the trike itself has an isie overall display that shows everything you need, such as voltage, speed, kw/h consumed, ampere hours, engine running time, etc.
each battery also has its own isie cockpit, where the inductive current is measured and the voltage is displayed, as well as the consumption in kw/h. also the temperature of the battery.
with the jetibox profi, i record all the data from the gps and TAS with the pressure tube for the speed.
all this is extensive and of course you don’t need everything to fly. for me it’s a hobby and interest to achieve the maximum efficiency of setups. the isie cockpits are left over from a competition in 2018 so i can put a lot of things to good use here.
each battery is separately connected to the esc. I wanted to say that.
The polar (gliding angle) of the sink increases with weight. thats the one thing. you lose efficiency because the trim speed of the wing increases and thus the square of the drag of the entire system. Another point is that there are limits to the rescue system (in my case I can only fly legally up to a total mass of 260 kg for my rescue parachute.) but would like to have reserves in terms of weight. Depending on the wing, there are also limits depending on the country, whether it is 5.5 G or 8 G approved. (no exact numbers). **
I hope the translator works what I want to explain
**. simply put: light and strong flies long and well. even 20 kilograms more mass can often be recognized by a 0.1-0.2 more sink rate with the trike. That’s a lot to make up for with motor power.
it means that each battery is individually connected to the esc and that there is enough cable thickness available. of course they are all connected in parallel and in operation at the same time. anything else would be impossible and would lead to the destruction of the batteries because they are individually completely overloaded during strong, fast ( 60 -65 km/h ) xc flights with sometimes up to 12-14 kilowatts of continuous power on my trike.
I am building a trike with the sp140. I would like to be able to manually switch between 2 batteries, the sp 3.5KV version. That way if the battery bms has an issue or I go to low on voltage, I can manually switch to another battery. Using 6awg cable, Anderson 50amp connectors, total length about 8 feet, wire calculators say this is OK for 100 amps (10kw at 100v). Any issues anybody see? Should I go to 4AWG and/or larger 175amp Anderson connectors? Thank you.
I’m no expert, but I would go #4 and 125AMP, but unlike you, I would always use them in parallel. The #4 125 ends should crimp on to #4 just fine. Gently cruising with a 26M Spyder, I pull over 50 AMPs. If you glance at your throttle amps from time to time, you can probably see and feel if something is off.
Better safe than sorry.
Bill
