what a difference a year makes

It was about a year ago that I returned to building E bikes. I started out building ebikes when I first wanted a motorized bicycle. Then I had a short affair with Chinese kits. Then a fling with weed eaters and chainsaws.

When I returned to work on ebikes it was very, very lonely here. Now thanks to changing attitudes the forum is hopping. I am glad to see it happen, so welcome to everyone of you next generation of builders. You are only slightly ahead of your time.

Well we are all here to learn, I hope. See one, do one, teach one.

My wife reminded me last night how long I have been working on friction drive electric bikes last night. Last night was the anniversary of her retirement. I rode the hub motor to her retirement party. So I have been riding ebike exclusively for about a year now. The friction drive came later so about nine months for it I think maybe a little longer.

In that last year the number of people and posts in this part of the forum has really grown. There is a lot more interest in the bikes now. The two main styles of interest is the chain drive which without a doubt the currie is the most popular platform.

Then there is the hub motor and there is no real standard there. They are all over the place. From the brushed, to the brushless the types and wattage vary widely. I expect they will shake down to the brushless, but for my money it would be the brushed were I going to mess with them again.

Then there are batteries. I love SLA batteries if they had more range and less weight I wouldn't even consider anything else. Actually I think the weight is the big deal with them. If you could get enough ahs on the bike, you probably could manage them pretty well. They keep talking about SLA batteries with huge weight reductions but nothing ever happens. All the experimentation is with exotic chemistry. probably because we are willing to pay exorbitant prices for them. A lightweight SLA probably couldn't be sold for the price of a Lithium.

My project for the day is to troubleshoot My existing nimh battery. I have a sub cell that has low voltage. I think some connections are bad or one of the aa batteries is bad. Being just low voltage a connection within a subcell is my suspicion. It's always something.