alas poor Tesla

deacon · #1 (**permalink**) 11-09-2009, 01:36 PM

WEll I have built Gas kit bikes, I have built weed whacker bikes, I have built chainsaw bikes, I have built e bikes out the butt so I feel like I am qualified to say this. Pound for pound I love the ebike better BUT and you will note it is a big butt. There is the battery and everything associated with it problem/.

The good about the ebike for me. You turn the throttle and it goes, and with much less vibrations to beat itself apart. No clutch to worry about. If you have it wired right it is going to go. They have good torque when you pull away and good speed when the torque is no longer needed, if you have the right sized motor power setup. It's like gasoline bike engines, the bigger the motor the better the performance.. The better the performance the more energy it sucks up. In the case of the ebike, the amount of energy available is finite. You can't pull into the local power company and filler up, then dive away five minutes later. To sum it up I hate to do it but I'm going to bail on the ebikes.

Alas poor Tesler I knew him well, but he did not smile kindly on me.

So why after all this time you might ask. To be honest I have a terrific drive system. The Rhino friction drive is probably the best drive I have ever built. The problem is the batteries. Put them on the bike and it is a death trap balance and weight wise. The trailers I built were okay but they always left something to be desired. I love the faux trike, but even that doesn't have a sense of strength to me. I have to wind down the other pieces of junk I have been working on. Then I should sell some of these E scooter motors I have laying around. I have some controllers as well that I will never use.

I expect to be building something else real soon. Maybe I can find a small gasoline engine to power the Rhino drive system. Anyway there will be no new experiments from me for a while until I decide where to go next.

momentummotorgroup · #2 (**permalink**) 11-09-2009, 03:40 PM

you mean "Tesla",as in Nikola Tesla, father of AC current, right?

deacon · #3 (**permalink**) 11-09-2009, 04:16 PM

yes Add spelling to my other faults. Spill Chick didn't pick that up.,,,

PS.. I am about half calm after a morning of pure frustration, I might finish the bike I have in the works before I move on.

TheE · #4 (**permalink**) 11-09-2009, 08:08 PM

Well, if you've got a lot of money there's always those LiFePO3 batteries...

deacon · #5 (**permalink**) 11-09-2009, 10:07 PM

I don't have the money for them but I do have the lust for them.. Or at least something better than them.

pre-war Schwinn · #6 (**permalink**) 11-15-2009, 01:21 PM

weight versus distance SLA's can be had for free on Craigslist and you can charge up at any strip mall with a water machine they usually have outlets out doors.

deacon · #7 (**permalink**) 11-16-2009, 12:22 PM

My new feeling of resentment. Yesterday I miscalculated my range and wound up having to get off my ebike and push it up the worst hills then ride it home. Later I found that my second set of batteries had become disconnected which explains my error in range guessing.

What my resentment was, is that while I pushing my bike up a nasty hill, a 50 cc gas scooter like those I chose not to buy, passed me just zipping along. My resentment lasted only till I got the bike and battery pack home. I have it all redone now and look forward to giving it a try just as soon as the charger finishes with it.

While rewiring the circuit, I found that there was only one of the six batteries which had disconnected itself. It should not have made that much difference. I obviously just misread my range. Too much riding it like a scooter and not enough riding it like a bike. But I hate riding it like a bike. It is too fast to really do that without a lot of effort, but I suppose I'm going to have learn to slow down, if I plan to get any range at all.

pre-war Schwinn · #8 (**permalink**) 11-16-2009, 01:06 PM

I use thes simple packs to gain the edge on the low budget.
if they are good ones the distance on a curry 24 volt 2008 mountain version with low air pressure and 60 pound groceries is 24 miles

deacon · #9 (**permalink**) 11-16-2009, 07:18 PM

I have never come close to that amount of mileage on a ebike.

pre-war Schwinn · #10 (**permalink**) 11-18-2009, 01:12 AM

Honestly a sla is ok if it has time to trickle charge. in my chrome case center mounted in the frame are 3 SLA's I bought second hand from a friend who gets castoffs I also slipped another SLA on top and a 48 volt scotter two amp charger.
this battery arrangement is a healthy 40 pounds aslo the electric stinger has heavy chrome extras that weigh it down I even have a 16 t freewheeel instead of 22 I never pedal except for the steeeep hill coming home it kills all of th efun out of a bike that is why I selected power assist.
Initially the stinger is shipped 24 volt rear mounted ananda Hall monitored threee phase 250 wat and reaches 15 mph. this could kill a little kid so that is where they drew the line. Inside that chrome v twin is another slot. if a battery is added the the mix its 36 volt 20 mph with really resposive control and a crowd pleaser. the Schwinn design was Ground breaking (but) there were flaws in the actual production Hub Motor assembly . either cheap glue on the Hall sensors or cheap insulation that heated beyond tollerance or some minor screw up the cancelled the entire program at 250 built. they closed the book and took atremendous Loss. Why? failure to communicate. the chinese screwed up and thought everything was just ducky. Huge loss of faith huge failue to comply and tradgic forclosure on real american starup business's
All that changed when the money stopped they fixed the problem it was so easy remove the feather touch controls and put a dum dum start up rythem in the black bos to get the hub under way.
cancel the restrictions and let it run ball out. that is the new motor I put on my schwinn and it pulls over 200 pounds 12 to 15 miles easily. I had a streamile stipper first off but missed the flasy big is better lookds it came with.
I can get ten miles on the simple APC SLA changeout two years that have to be thrown out or given away every main frame computer and emergency system has them. they are the reliable SLA good enough to be used in medical facilities that is why even two years later they are still fine they rested in a bank of well managed back up systemsand were babied then thrown out.
I will send you some thery are 12 volt 9 amp APC SLA's a well made storage battery two of these that are cleared are on the right side switch of the curre and two more on the left sid swith ten mile out and ten mile back I bought a big old commuter charger Currie Produced in 2000 second had from a local guy who rode a currie for nine years to and from san gabriel it is a 5 amp well protected charger that cant fry if it is misused and it will top them off in an hour. I split the leads to two red and two black and pull off the main wires and plug these charge wires in their place this isolates them from the contrller. I is a bullet proof every day workable solution to SLA power
I spent no more than a hundred bucks designing this system and buying the bats 5 bucks a piece from a scavenger the 30 bucks for a Currie Professional 8 year old Unit and good pair of strpper and some tape