The eBike thread

unkel

ted1 wrote: »

If you don’t want to pedal , get a motorbike.

Need to have a license for that, pay motor tax and have insurance. And wear a helmet. And can only ride on the road, not on cycle paths. I wouldn't be interested in any of that.

And for the record. I have cycled all my life. I am physically strong and a lot fitter than average for my age

I agree with Mad_Lad that 30km/h is a reasonable max legal speed

krissovo

unkel wrote: »

I agree with Mad_Lad that 30km/h is a reasonable max legal speed

+1 from me, even though I can just about get to 50 on mine at the moment I would be perfectly happy with a 30km/h restriction.

After 17 surgeries on my knees, just about hitting 50 and living in a valley surrounded by hills in every direction a ebike is my only option these days.

ted1

ted1 wrote: »

If you don’t want to pedal , get a motorbike.
The m 102kg and manage it everyday without an engine.

Regarding handling skills. The majority of people I pass in ebikes are not like regular car or bike users. They generally have poor road awareness and skills. It may be the demographic of being either extremely unfit ( good to see them getting exercise, I’m not knocking them ) or elderly and mightn’t have cycled in a while , 25kmh is a good top end.

I like to pedal. unfortunately I can't be on the bike much at all these days because I work shift and have small Children to take care of and live in the country with roads too narrow for 2 cars to pass ( yet have 80 Km/h limit ) so taking the Boys out is not even a remote possibility with no proper cycle lanes, you'd think being in the country would be bliss for cyclists but it's far from so.

Anyway, the odd time I can get out I am not fit any more and I want to go out to have fun and not have to kill myself, I can still put in good effort with a lot more power and use pedal power only for hills etc and pedal on more level ground, this is how I did it when I had 3 kw of power and lost 20 Kg in 3 months ! I'm not suggesting 3 kw should be available in legal bikes but 250 watts is ridiculously low so is the speed limit.

I think 1 Kw is a good enough power limit for heavy bikes an heavier riders.

I think the best thing about the ebike I built was the throttle , giving my knees a break was great , but on a legal bike with pedelec system you get 0 break on hills and if you slow down at all or reduce the pressure on the peddles you're screwed.

Canada allow 32 Km/h Speed limit, 500 watts and think throttle also.

USA between 20 and 28 Mph , Throttle and 750 watts

E.U 250 watts and 25 Km/h

E.U Ebike laws are just too restrictive as usual. 32 Km/h would be just perfect.

unkel

I bought an eBike today, this RWD one:

Linky


Also 36V and officially the controller is rated for 7A (to stay within the 250W max) and it is a pedelec, so 100% road legal. Peak is 15A though so I guess it outputs about 600W. Not as fast as my kit bike, but I like it a lot and I got it at an insanely good price. Battery has degraded a bit, but I did about 7km today on it at full output before it cut out. That's fine for me. Might upgrade / replace the battery at some point

The lunatic in me then had a great idea. Make an AWD eBike :eek:

So I took the kit off my old bike and tried to fit it to my new eBike. Even though the wheels of my kit are 26" and the eBike has 27.5". The wheel fitted, I sat on it and the wheel size difference didn't feel crazy, but unfortunately, the wheel wouldn't fit without badly chafing the brake pads for the disc brake. So that's a no go

So my conversion kit is for sale here:

Linky

And my old mountain bike for sale here:

Linky

krissovo

Looking forward to the AWD beast...... I will make some pop corn in anticipation.

Would you not get more cash with a converted bike out of interest?

I am going to sell my conversion, its a nice base with a surely frame so I am debating whether I take off the conversion and sell separately.

unkel

krissovo wrote: »

Looking forward to the AWD beast...... I will make some pop corn in anticipation.

Read above again, it didn't work out, couldn't get the wheel to fit without chafing the brakes

krissovo wrote: »

Would you not get more cash with a converted bike out of interest?

My thinking is I would get more by selling separately. A lot of people already have a bike they can use as a donor, they wouldn't want to spend more than they need. And a kit has appeal to people (like you and me) as it is a new challenge, a project, an emerging hobby. Sure money buys you anything but there's no challenge in that

unkel

Anyone want to guess how much I paid for that eBike today?

krissovo

250

krissovo

unkel wrote: »

Read above again, it didn't work out, couldn't get the wheel to fit without chafing the brakes

Sorry, my dyslexia kicked in and I read something totally different.

That’s a shame, might be an idea to get the motor re-spoked to a compatible wheel. Rothar did something similar with a 2nd hand wheel and its was less than €40 if I recall.

unkel

krissovo wrote: »

250

Less!

krissovo

unkel wrote: »

Less!

That’s some serious value, the “Battery Off” while riding must have been putting people off.

€180?

unkel

Less!

A bit less. I paid €170. Came with the 42V lithium charger too. Yeah it was a big risk, I presumed the battery was pretty much dead. The symptoms were there. Battery charges up and shows all bars in the LED bar display (seller didn't check the voltage - I did after I bought it, it's 40.7V, a lot less than it should be). The cutting off as described in the ad was a sign of voltage drop caused by severely reduced battery capacity

When testing it today, it didn't cut out at all while I was riding it with as minimum a pedal assist as was possible. Still got my 7km, with more than 90% of that from the bike and almost nothing from me

The bike itself is excellent though coming from my Raleigh bike. It is very light weight, yet sturdy and comfortable. And disk brakes which luxury I haven't had before on my cheapo bikes

I opened up the battery pack earlier and it is what I expected. Fuse, BMS board, connection to on/off switch, connection to little IC board which controls the leds showing the charge. I'll open up the controller tomorrow, interested to see what's in there

ted1

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Canada allow 32 Km/h Speed limit, 500 watts and think throttle also.

USA between 20 and 28 Mph , Throttle and 750 watts

E.U 250 watts and 25 Km/h

E.U Ebike laws are just too restrictive as usual. 32 Km/h would be just perfect.

I wouldn’t base any of our laws on the states , that place is a mad house and have complete disregard for road safety. Simple things like putting side skirts on trucks to stop deaths is to much for them.

ted1

ted1 wrote: »

I wouldn’t base any of our laws on the states , that place is a mad house and have complete disregard for road safety. Simple things like putting side skirts on trucks to stop deaths is to much for them.

I don't think it's a big deal having 1 Kw of power with the same acceleration limits + another 5 Km/h, it would make a big difference.

The likes of the Bosch/Panasonic ebike limits can of course be adjusted !

An ebike at the limit or close doesn't have a whole lot of power anyway.

A rider riding a proper lightweight road bike and reasonably fit could cycle well past the legal cut off anyway so it's rather a pointless low limit.

unkel

unkel wrote: »

I bought an eBike today, this RWD one:

Linky


Also 36V and officially the controller is rated for 7A (to stay within the 250W max) and it is a pedelec, so 100% road legal. Peak is 15A though so I guess it outputs about 600W. Not as fast as my kit bike, but I like it a lot and I got it at an insanely good price. Battery has degraded a bit, but I did about 7km today on it at full output before it cut out. That's fine for me. Might upgrade / replace the battery at some point

The lunatic in me then had a great idea. Make an AWD eBike :eek:

So I took the kit off my old bike and tried to fit it to my new eBike. Even though the wheels of my kit are 26" and the eBike has 27.5". The wheel fitted, I sat on it and the wheel size difference didn't feel crazy, but unfortunately, the wheel wouldn't fit without badly chafing the brake pads for the disc brake. So that's a no go

So my conversion kit is for sale here:

Linky

And my old mountain bike for sale here:

Linky

Do you know what make/model the motor is in the bike you bought ?

I presume it's a geared hub ? you should be able to hear the difference.

Not a good idea to have two different motor kits , usually People mount the same kit to both wheels, same controller x 2 etc.

unkel

Deleted User wrote: »

Do you know what make/model the motor is in the bike you bought ?

I don't really know. The make / model of the bike is Coyote Edge 650 and was sold by the likes of Halfords and others for around GBP700-GBP900

I'm not going near the motor, but I'll try open the controller later. would be nice to get 20A or 25A out of it (and / or remove the speed limit :cool:), or replace it with one that can. Would that be possible at all?

unkel

unkel wrote: »

I don't really know. The make / model of the bike is Coyote Edge 650 and was sold by the likes of Halfords and others for around GBP700-GBP900

I'm not going near the motor, but I'll try open the controller later. would be nice to get 20A or 25A out of it (and / or remove the speed limit :cool:), or replace it with one that can. Would that be possible at all?

Absolutely, first before you try get more current out of the controller you need to open it and get the model of the FET's, then look up the max current these FET's can supply, this will be peak current so if your Peak current exceeds this they will go up in smoke and you're peddling home.

If all is good then you need to find the current shunt, something like this in the pic below, look at the bottom right of the pic, where the black wire goes you can see the silver link, this is the current sensing shunt, apply here a tiny dab of solder and this will increase the current the controller supplies which will provide greater torque.

Next you got to make sure the peak current does not get too close to this or it will fry and FET or more, usually more.

You will also need to make sure it does not get very hot to touch and don't put the controller in a bag, allow the air to flow freely and that goes for any ebike controller.

You also need to make sure the motor can take the extra power but it should take more, motors can take huge peak power but they can warm up fast, geared hubs are more prone to breaking gears.

The EM3EV Mac upgraded motors have much improved clutch and gears and they can take a lot of power, 2 Kw should be a good safe max.

But whatever that motor you have can take is anyone's guess but I don't think there'd be much harm giving it a few extra amps but watch that current and fet's and it's Peak current that matters.

Here's the pic, Shunt is the link to the right of all the FET's on the bottom right.

unkel

Thanks for the advice! I'll open the controller up when I get home this evening and take some pictures and post them here. It would be nice to get closer to 1kW out of the setup instead of the roughly 600W I'm getting now (and how about that speed limit?). I have no doubt the motor can handle that and I am not worried about the impact on my batteries, but I don't want to fry the controller, unless it is easy and cheap to replace it

I am a bit concerned about what seems to be a proprietary connector between battery pack case and controller. Don't really want to bypass that. I'll post picture of that later too

And of course, worst case scenario is that my €170 eBike is toast and I'll have to sell it for parts. Or start a new setup on it with a crank motor. Can't lose much here

unkel

unkel wrote: »

Thanks for the advice! I'll open it up when I get home and take some pictures and post them here. It would be nice to get closer to 1kW out of the setup instead of the roughly 600W I'm getting now. I have no doubt the motor can handle that, I am not worried about the impact on my batteries, but I don't want to fry the controller, unless it is easy and cheap to replace it

I am a bit concerned about what seems to be a proprietary connector between battery pack case and controller. Don't really want to bypass that. I'll post picture of that later too

And of course, worst case scenario is that my €170 eBike is toast and I'll have to sell it for parts. Can't lose much here

Fet's can be replaced, no problem, just cut the legs of the failed ones and it will be easy remove. IF something else is fried then you will have a lot more investigation to carry out if it's not visibly fried, the FET's will usually have blown to pieces so that's easy spot !

Connectors from the battery can be easily replaced with crimp on Anderson 30 amp power poles.

The rest will take some fiddling about, the controller Throttle and 3 phase leads to the motor might take figuring out and might not work with the same colour config.

Utter Consternation

This is an interesting gadget. It says it's to help your ebike comply with local legislation.

https://eggrider.com/

unkel

Deleted User wrote: »

Connectors from the battery can be easily replaced with crimp on Anderson 30 amp power poles.

Very handy you can crimp those on, but I've been using the 60A rated XT60 connectors for other projects, so I think I'll stick to them.

unkel

unkel wrote: »

Very handy you can crimp those on, but I've been using the 60A rated XT60 connectors for other projects, so I think I'll stick to them.

Whatever works, the crimp on Andersons are dead handy though but you'll need the crimp tool available from Radionics.

unkel

I much prefer crimping and try avoid soldering as much as possible. I buy the XT60 like this and crimp the wires

unkel

unkel wrote: »

I much prefer crimping and try avoid soldering as much as possible. I buy the XT60 like this and crimp the wires

haha that's handy they come with leads, mine didn't when I used them before.

My Anderson connectors failed after first proper rain back in 2017. I just soldered the battery connections after that. I had them packed with grease and they still corroded, probably bad quality. Anyway no more electrical issues with anything since.

samih

samih wrote: »

My Anderson connectors failed after first proper rain back in 2017. I just soldered the battery connections after that. I had them packed with grease and they still corroded, probably bad quality. Anyway no more electrical issues with anything since.

MIne survived just about anything I put them through but you need to know they are genuine, there are a lot of fake poor quality andersons about.

I guarantee the genuine ones are extremely good.

They were also good handy fuses when working with Lipo, if you created a short when making up your pack the 30 amp anderson would vaporise lol , it really was very handy though !

They also survived well above their 30 amp rating. Though in fairness this was peak but I ran 80 odd amps through then peak while accelerating.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

MIne survived just about anything I put them through but you need to know they are genuine, there are a lot of fake poor quality andersons about.

I guarantee the genuine ones are extremely good.

They were also good handy fuses when working with Lipo, if you created a short when making up your pack the 30 amp anderson would vaporise lol , it really was very handy though !

They also survived well above their 30 amp rating. Though in fairness this was peak but I ran 80 odd amps through then peak while accelerating.

That's a good point about the secondary function as fuse. I might order some non-fake connectors as I have a hydraulic crimping tool for another project already so it's a low hanging fruit.

samih

samih wrote: »

That's a good point about the secondary function as fuse. I might order some non-fake connectors as I have a hydraulic crimping tool for another project already so it's a low hanging fruit.

Absolutely a very good safety feature considering what can happen with LiPo.

I believe this is how Paul at EM3EV does to his battery packs, uses fuse-able links along with Tesla and probably many others.

Radionics was where I got all my Andersons but when I checked recently they didn't seem to have them in their catalogue but try again.

unkel

Label on the controller:



This is the controller unit, the battery slides on top of it



The controller with the lid pushed to the side. The right red cable is the main positive (for discharging). The far left black cable the main negative (for discharging). And the second left black cable is for charging.



The inside of the controller. You can see the 3 phase coming out of the controller going into the frame (to the motor)



You can see the cables red / black / white on the right, maybe some sort of switch, the pedal assist switch (switch on when pedal, switch off over 25km/h)?

The cables on the left, connected to the brakes?

What are all the other parts?