Deacon's Bike

deacon · #81 (**permalink**) 05-03-2008, 05:59 PM

I stopped by to give an update on this project and made a half dozen comments. See I need to be locked in a room to keep me quiet.

Anyway, I found that somehow by accident all the right parts went into this bike. The old three speed Ted Williams bike frame Is lite and very strong I think.

The crank set is off a girls twenty inch bike, of course I greased it up good before I installed it. It runs out exceptionally. The rear wheel is a new 20" coaster wheel I bought it on ebay.

The tires are all used but the one i put on it now was the front tire of a used bike so it didn't have a lot of wear on it.

I had to rebuild the trailer since the twenty inch bike tires were a hazard. It was way too top heavy. The ten inch lawn mower tires work much better for this project. The trailer pulls very easily for some reason. It is all in all a good little bike before the motor comes in.

I began with a 350 watt friction drive motor. The bike did fine during test until a couple of days ago. I screwed up the bearings in it somehow. I had a 250watt motor laying around so I stuck it on. The one test I made today was just fine. The larger motor has more guts but this one works just as well except for the hill pull. I have to pedal a little harder with this engine but I built it for exercise on the bike trail so it will work fine.

I would call it complete except I ordered a controller and throttle last night. Next week when those arrive I will see if they make any difference. I am hoping they will increase the battery life. As it is now, I can't go slow enough to pedal except on hills. I would like to pedal more and try to stretch out the battery life.

This is also my back up bike for the china girl bike. I figure it can make it to the shopping center and down to the donut shoppe just fine. Those are the most important places anyway.

**fairracing31** · #82 (**permalink**) 05-03-2008, 06:15 PM

deacon, I have never used one; and it's only a 5watt trickle charger but it is solar power and you can mount it to your trailer. Dont know if it will give you longer battery life. Just thought I would put it out there.

deacon · #83 (**permalink**) 05-03-2008, 06:30 PM

I expect it wouldn't work while in use. The drain would be much faster than charger. However if one were to leave the trailer outside, and used the bike only once a day till the battery was low it might actually have it ready to go the next day. If left continually hooked up, it just might do the trick. now you have me thinking about another experiment. But wouldn't that be cool, to never have to charge the darn thing.

**CRUISER** · #84 (**permalink**) 05-03-2008, 06:43 PM

actually you would be surprised how well they work. i had one for my batery that ran my trolling motor on my bass boat and it kept it charged nicely. solar engergy motorized bicycle sounds kinda cool

**fairracing31** · #85 (**permalink**) 05-03-2008, 08:27 PM

They have much bigger ones then that, that 5watt was the second biggest I saw. The smaller one was a 1.8watt I dont know how big your trailer is, you could use the entire size of your trailer for a solar panel. Of course the bigger panel you go the more dollars it will cost. The 5w is around thirty bucks. But I have seen some at Harbor frieght store alot cheaper.
The one from the photo is from northern tool.

deacon · #86 (**permalink**) 05-04-2008, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fairracing31

They have much bigger ones then that, that 5watt was the second biggest I saw. The smaller one was a 1.8watt I dont know how big your trailer is, you could use the entire size of your trailer for a solar panel. Of course the bigger panel you go the more dollars it will cost. The 5w is around thirty bucks. But I have seen some at Harbor frieght store alot cheaper.
The one from the photo is from northern tool.

The best I can figure a sla charger that comes with one of the scooters is 48 watts but it charges in two hours. If you rode the bike an hour, it would need about eight hours to recharge using solar alone. Thats at five watts. Then you run into the over charge problem, but they make a cut off switch for them some come with it some don't.

But there is something else. You can buy one small panel and try it. If it doesn't charge enough you can add another and another till you get what you want. Unlike the wall charger, the size of the batteries you use becomes an issue with solar panels. But again you have the how long will they rest between use. Lots of variables.

deacon · #87 (**permalink**) 05-04-2008, 07:57 AM

this is how it looks now waiting for controller and throttle.

**fairracing31** · #88 (**permalink**) 05-04-2008, 10:50 PM

Here you go deacon, 400watts of power

deacon · #89 (**permalink**) 05-05-2008, 09:32 AM

There is something to be said for that. The movement of the bike runs a windmill that turns a generator that put power back into the battery. It would increase the range some at least.

deacon · #90 (**permalink**) 05-16-2008, 10:06 AM

My ebike works very well so I'm going to try to improve it so that it doesn't work at all.

I have a rear wheel drive from a smallish scooter coming. I am going to get a second motor one with the gear and the chain, then connect them in a kind of open box. Then bolt the box onto my bike and hold it down with springs or with fender braces. I will have a chain drive with a large wheel ridding on top of my rear wheel. if this works with my controller and throttle it will be kind of interesting as it will be a much larger drive wheel and will push the bike faster. I don't care about the speed really, but it might also help with the hills to get a faster start on them.

Should also help with the power consumption. Anyway thats the plan.