Electric Bike Conversion Kit or Electric Bike?

Latest iteration of the commuter - BBS02 crank drive. I love it.

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Ooh new toys!

Do you think you really need the front shocks on a electric bike. Seems hard to find one with out and a lighter bike generally. I note that many on this thread used a bike with forks even when building their own.
 
OspreyO said:
Ooh new toys!

Do you think you really need the front shocks on a electric bike. Seems hard to find one with out and a lighter bike generally. I note that many on this thread used a bike with forks even when building their own.
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Ebikes (esp the naughty ones) are generally ridden at higher speeds, hence suspension forks being beneficial. Same reason that you'll see people building ebikes speccing hydraulic brakes as well.

iF you're building a legal ebike - i.e. 250w 17mph max assist, then no, suspensions forks probablay aren't worth it - I originally had carbon forks when I used the little Tongxin motor.

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Glaucus said:
what tyres and inner tubes you guys using?
I didn't even think about rim width, anyway got to get a new tyre, and as the wheel is well not easily removed.
is there any really good tyres and inner tubes for anti puncture.
also does this stuff actually work?
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/panaracer-flataway-tyre-liner/
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I used to run a road bike a few years ago and got tired of getting numerous punctures with the usual road slick tyres.

Used something similar to this and it worked a treat, got zero punctures while I ran the roadie.

Obviously was heavier but I thought it more than worth the trade off.

That being said, now I would buy something like the tyre posted above, with puncture resistance built in.
 
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Well finally got all the components on the handlebars, god there's not much room.
Tried charging the battery up for the first time. Thought it looked good, but going over with the meter and the first bank of cells hasn't charged :(, not sure what's wrong, cabeling looks right. Will have to try and test the BMS somehow tomorrow. Everything else was fine, charged and then stopped when it should have.

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if thats in response to me, its working, but nothing but issues.
Chinese BMS aren't worth anything, gone through a number of them and none work. Trouble is there is no uk stockists (or at least not that i have found)
latest one works but its rated for 30amp, but trips out more like <10, so cant be used to power the motor.
i also cant get the power assist to work, but now its sunny and warm might have another look.

for going to local shops its fine, but its not what i had in my mind. range is due to one bank of cells not being balanced and haven't got round to trying to balance them yet. The broken BMS unbalanced it in the first place. Really should solder up an ouput on just 9 banks, and use the bike to discharge those to the level of the 10th bank. That's probably the easiest way.
however if its damaged the 10th bank then its pretty much ***** it would be a huge amount of work to remove those 10 cells and replace them.

should really do some fault finding this weekend.

however it easily does short range and at over 20mph. it bogs down a bit at 12-16mph then gets a fair more grunt back.

if i did it again, I would go 750w and get a rear carrier battery. however i couldnt afford it back then and cant know. Your looking at £350 for a comparable battery (well if mine worked properly)

what i want to know is the BMS on these assembled batteries also all ******, do a lot of them just have no BMS. or have they got a decent supplier from somehwere.
 
Just be out for a bit of a joy ride.

Now i have it back out and looking at it again, does anyone know how to diagnose the pedal assist issue, any idea what signal/voltage or any other way of testing the sensor? so at least i can narrow it down to the sensor or the control box, i'm assuming the placement is fine as it says within 2-3mm and its pretty much bang in the middle of that range.

also rewired the battery to miss out one row of cells, and it still pulls reasonably well but tops out at 16mph, once I've done enough miles to drain them down to the same state i'll put them back in and see if the other bms fried them or just unbalanced them. .
 
What controller is it? Some of them have to have a link wire joined or programmed to enable pedal assist.
 
i sorted that issue out in the end, it wasn't close enough, i took it down to the 2mm it suggested as the minimum distance and worked, probably should have tried that early.

in the process of balancing the battery now. Hopefully have that done in the next day, i think it was the one cell of unbalanced cells destroying the range, now i've bypassed them for the moment, the range has massively improved. Done 16miles with virtually no peddling and that's only take them down to 3.7v. need to do a few more miles to get them down to the same as the bypassed ones.

so this project might actually come good.
could also do with booking it in somewhere and getting the gears properly indexed.

these should be a great social enabler and i don't know why they aren't more popular, they are super cheap transport with good range and no license/tax/insurance like moped. Certainly enough range to greatly increase job search area and getting to shops etc
 
Glaucus said:
di don't know why they aren't more popular,
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Because people in this country have a weird obsession with treating cycling as a sport primarily and ignoring cycling as transport or consider ebike cheating because you don't work up a sweat.

Can you imagine drivers getting ridiculed because they've commuted to work in an automatic car, air conditioning, power assisted brakes and steering? Where are the shouts of “that's not proper driving!"?
 
amigafan2003 said:
Because people in this country have a weird obsession with treating cycling as a sport primarily and ignoring cycling as transport or consider ebike cheating because you don't work up a sweat.

Can you imagine drivers getting ridiculed because they've commuted to work in an automatic car, air conditioning, power assisted brakes and steering? Where are the shouts of “that's not proper driving!"?
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I think relative cost comes into it as well. A decent pre built e-bike (the sort most people are just going to want to buy and ride) is the same cost as a cheap second hand car! Add in the fact that our roads aren't particularly accommodating to cyclists and peoples perception of the British weather and there are a lot of factors to consider before taking the plunge.

I had a look at the off the shelf offerings in Halfords the other day and I must say I thought they looked like some proper pieces of kit. Nothing like the cheap MTB + Chinese kit + £350 pre built e-bikes of a couple of years ago.
 
even if you could afford a cheap car many cant afford to run it which is the far bigger expense.
Although any people do look down and take the mic out of people with automatics.

imo a lot of it is down to lack of imagination and being stuck in a rut, as well as a lack of government support and advertising.
 
amigafan2003 said:
Because people in this country have a weird obsession with treating cycling as a sport primarily and ignoring cycling as transport or consider ebike cheating because you don't work up a sweat.

Can you imagine drivers getting ridiculed because they've commuted to work in an automatic car, air conditioning, power assisted brakes and steering? Where are the shouts of “that's not proper driving!"?
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Assist stops at 15.5mph. So for me, unless I'm climbing then it's of no help as my average speed is higher than 15.5mph.

Also have to wonder how electrics + water holds up in the long term. Battery/connectors/cable and the computer interface (plus motor)
 
hornetstinger said:
Assist stops at 15.5mph. So for me, unless I'm climbing then it's of no help as my average speed is higher than 15.5mph.

Also have to wonder how electrics + water holds up in the long term. Battery/connectors/cable and the computer interface (plus motor)
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That's why the current market seems to be OAP's and those who are pretty unfit but benefit from a e-bike for getting from A to B, in this country at least.

I am intrigued by them though and would love to give one a go. I can imagine an E-MTB being great fun.
 
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