Deacon's DIY Electric Bike Forum!

I am hiding out today. Mama is highly perturbed at me. I don't understand why just because there was a minor accident yesterday.

First of all it was cold yesterday here. I mean bone chilling, mind numbing cold. Since I couldn't ride I decided to start work on a frame to hold a motor onto the full suspension bike which I tend to ignore. I got some angle brackets and put the welder to them. Now by the time I got everything welding my hands were aching so I ran into the house before frostbite set in. I weld just outside the back door on a brick walk.

What I didn't know was that a splatter had ignited a leaf. The leaf ignited more leaves. Unbeknown to me, I had a fire going against my back door. The neighbor just happened to be going by the back and stamped it out. I didn't hear her knocking to tell me about it, so she went home.

The fire was smoldering inside the wall by the time my wife smelled it. I told her not to worry she probably just smelled where I had been welding. That was before I checked to find smoke coming out of my door frame. I pried the frame loose and tossed a couple of gallons of water on it and all ended well.

Except that my wife now is sure I need to be under constant observation. I think a true retirement home was mentioned a few times. It's not like I did it and went to bed. We would have found it when the house FINALLY got warm.

Besides a fire loss is the only way I would ever get the value of the house. It sure as heck won't sell for what it is worth now.

Well I am so glad your house did not burn down Deacon! I have caught many things on fire while welding so don't feel bad.

fairracing31 said:

Well I am so glad your house did not burn down Deacon! I have caught many things on fire while welding so don't feel bad.

Click to expand...

My big mistake was walking away without letting the metal cool down and taking it inside. If I had waited just that long I would have seen the fire. I was just so cold I rushed inside to warm my hands. I will never do that again. I was so cold when I put the rod to the meal, I should have warmed up before I tried to weld it.

Next time lol

I have a reasonably successful motor/drive on the conversion bike. I had planned for a conversion for the suspension bike but I lost the engine I had bid on. So I'm on to trying a different plan. Plan R actually.

This is more about Ebay than bikes today. Sometimes people amaze me. You can buy a new scooter motor on ebay with shipping for about thirty bucks. So when a used engine comes up I bid a little over twenty on them including shipping, if I am looking for a motor at all. Usually I get it for a little under that. Today as happens now and then I got over bid on the motor. Which means this person is willing to bid probably as much as he could buy a new one for. I'm out of the bidding for it now.

The same is true with many things on ebay. Lots of them you can drive to a hardware or other retail store and buy cheaper than on ebay. People just amaze me.

Yesterday I pulled one of my old motors out of the trashcan, literally from the trash which gets emptied seldom in my shop, to try one more time.

The motor is 350 watts and has the sprocket from the rear of a coaster bike welded onto it. On the drive axle I have about a 1 1/2 sprocket. The combination with a two inch castor wheel turns the front wheel pretty good. I have no idea how long the sprocket will stay on the motor but I'm going to give it a try tomorrow. or at least the next time the weather cooperates. It is too cold to even glue the sandpaper on the drive. I wanted to try that again since there are fewer rpms on this motor than the WW

I think I managed to salvage the 500 watt motor. I welded a coaster rear sprocket on it. The I mated it to a 1 1/3 sprocket for the drive axle. I got it all matched up so it should be a good little motor. I'll give it a test ride tomorrow.

I also put the sandpaper on the drive wheel so its about as good as I can do. I'm going to test it on the suspension bike but i'm getting really to not like that bike. It is way too heavy for an ebike.

the motor I thought I had saved, the chain stayed on about half a second. I have decided for sure to trash all those motors and stay with the #25 chain and sprockets. The first thing I need to do is to firm up the 300 watt engine and put on the larger wheel. Need to see if as little more speed will help. Also need to do something about those bearings. they need to be set up better. I might just go with a 3/8 drive axle if the one on there is bent.

That's today's plan b ... Plan a was to ride them both and I only got the #25 bike to work. So I'm going to start trying to improve it and look for a cheap 500 watt to build as well.

I had some time to kill while waiting for some jbweld to setup, and I had the parts laying around so I decided to test a drive I was curious about.

I had a 350 watt electric scooter motor with a spocket from the rear of a bike mounted on the drive. Since I welded some bars onto the suspension bike reviously, all I had to do was to tie the motor to it, and run some chain in order to see if I could run an electric motor right to the chain drive of the pedals.

It worked long enough to convince me that it would work. I had the chain jump off but only after I had decided to abandon the test. Here is what happened.

I pedaled off to break the inertia of the bike. I threw the switch and the motor started. It made pedaling easier on the flat surface. It probably made me pedal a little faster than I would have ordinarily but not much. When I got to the hill the help was less than it would have been on a friction drive.

I don't think 350 watts is enough power to make a difference when rigged that way. Someone might test it over a greater distance and with a stronger motor and get better results.

I have a pretty good hill right at the start of my test track and it didn't do well enough to convince me to pursue it.

the advantage is when you turn the motor off it freewheels. That is an advantage in that you don't need a clutch. Unless I am mistake this is the same as having it chained directly to the rear wheel. It just didnt have the hill climbing ability I need around here.

Someone smarter than me might figure a way to run it through a mountain bikes gears at least the rear set if not the front ones.

Before I give up and buy a ekit, I wanted to try just a couple of more things. I rigged the 300 watt engine up to a chain to turn the smallest of the three chain rings on the mt bike. I have no idea which would be best, but it lined up that way so I'm starting there.

I have switched out the rear wheel for a twenty inch coaster wheel so that Is another issue. I'm not sure how it will do.

One thing it looks pretty much as though the inside and outside chain rings are your best bet as a combo. The two chains look as though they need that clearance.

I still don't use a controller so I can only control the speed by on off motions. I have a couple of controllers so if I need a throttle to match the pedal speed I can always wire one on. My issue now is that there is no freewheel for the pedals when the motor is running. It is going to turn those pedals and maybe too fast for me to follow along. I will see if there is anything I can do for the period of time the motor is running. Maybe I can rig a set of pegs on the frame somewhere if it becomes necessary and worthwhile. Seems some of the custom motorcycles had something like that.

Of course this might prove to be a waste of time most of my experiments have been. However if it works it will be a nice little project bike.

I am about to test the next monster ebike. It is based on the motor turning the chainring from an unused small sprocket on the mountainbike crank. I didn't try to make it freewheel so at some point the bike might move so fast that I can't or don't want to keep up with the pedals, so I wanted some foot rest away from the pedals.

To do that I bought a couple of 1/2 pipe nipples. I welded a washer on each end, then drilled a hole in each of the front fork sides about half ways down them. I bolted the pipe nipples on and I now have a simple foot rest.

Since I haven't tested it yet I have no idea how this one will work. Most everything so far has been nothing but a learning experience. So I expect this to be no different.

Mostly I have learned what won't work.

the good the bad and the worse...

Good news is I have a bike that actually works sorta.

the bad news is that it is way off balance. I went back to direct drive since it is by far the simplest of drives. The down side is that the motor has to hang off the side of the bike and the motor is heavy. The bike is extremely clumsy.

The worst came first think in the morning. I set out to test the chain driven ebike plan. It caught fire. I do NOT love the smell of burning electrical parts in the morning.

The switch then the wiring caught fire. I had the chain too tight and the engine was pulling max amps. The switch and wiring just couldn't hold up.

I decided after that to try one more time to make a decent direct drive. If I couldn't get one I was just going to buy a ebike or ebike kit. So now I have the motor drive, I just need to get it balanced. If not, I will be buying a kit or bike.

In the middle of the night last night it came to me. I knew it would right after I bought the kit to turn a junk yard bike into an ebike. So of course at 2am I realize why all my attempts at the friction drive bike haven't worked.

I had it exactly right before I built my first gasoline bike. The problem was it was a total accident so I had no idea why it worked so well then and so poorly now.

When I built my first ebike friction drive I used a motor that had been discontinued on scooter and bikes so it was really easy to find and the least expensive one out there. It was a pain in the butt because it had a pin through the drive shaft and I never bothered to get the right one. I just used a nail so it ate them up.

I figured this time I would get smart and use the one held on by a nut. The problem is that a drive wheel attached to that sprocket is just too much drag and mutilates the sprocket keeper. The keeper is no more than a flat spot in the sprocket's hole. Hardly anything at all.

Last night at two am after I had paid for the kit I realized all i had to do was get the motor with the pin again and weld a 1/2 nut to the sprocket while it was still attached to the motor. I could then bolt on all kinds of cute drive wheels.

I promised myself I would not do any more experiments until I got the kit paid from from saving from not experimenting, so I can't prove the theory for a couple of months, but I'm sure that it is the case.

I hope the guy is still selling those motors then lol...

Can anyone show me a picture of the red hornet hub motor on a 26 inch wheel? And tell me your experince with it? Is it really as monstours as they say?? Ect thanks

I can't help you but you would have more success posting a new thread in the ebike section to get that information you are looking for

Now I'm really ticked off. I said that once I ordered the expensive hub motor, the friction drive would start to work. Well it might have. I tried one last time to salvage one of the motors. Somehow I seem to have got a drive wheel on more or less straight. Will it stay on I'm not sure. It should but then I thought they all would.

This is the first time I tried to weld a sleeve onto the drive shaft of a scooter motor. I have no idea if it will hold or not but we shall see. It it stays together for a couple of test rides. I will give you details of how I welded it.

Figure out one thing and screw up another. I think I have managed to weld a drive wheel onto a scooter motor finally after a dozen tries. I also managed to ruin the motor I think. During the fabrication I did some 'frustration fitting' of parts. I ie three pound hammer. I screwed the bearing up I'm sure but by golly I know how to do it next time. That is the purpose of experimenting.

Im still thinking I screwed up the motor on the friction drive by whaling on it. I rode the bike today and it does okay except the chain keeps coming off it. I think that might be either a really garbage chain or I need to use a mountain bike chain since the front sprocket is mountain bike. The reat is cruiser. I have always used cruiser but suddenly it is hopping off the sprocket. I think off the front one.

For some reason I seem to be about out of decent chain so I'm going to pick up a mt bike chain at the wallymart. Maybe that will fix it.

I found one bad link in the chain I have on it there might be more. That probably is all that it needs is a new chain of either size.

Okay it needs touch up paint on the handle bars and add new hand grips but this is the DIY friction drive e bike. It needs a new motor and batteries but this is how it will look. It does run now. I have to wait till i save enough to pay for the Hub I just bought before I can make the improvements,

I am riding it while I wait for the hub motor to arrive.
.