Not Quite an Electric Bike

........but the tech is the same.

I just bought a Bladez 500 watt scooter for $25. I figure I can at least get a good deal on the 2 battery packs that came with it. Both 24volt 12ah packs. Well, turns out I can only salvage 2 of the 4 batteries. The owners never put it back on the charger since last August.

They told me the last time they hooked up the battery pack, it "fritzed" on them and disconnected as soon as they could and haven't touched it since. I opened it up and found a loose red wire that looks a bit singed. This floating red wire is part of the power lead that hooks up to the battery and I don't know where it's supposed to go. Here's a pic.

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There's a couple of male spade jacks open on this black box. See that big red wire? There are 2 jacks, one on each side. Other then that, I can't find anywhere else it could go. I'd just stick it on, but don't want to damage the thing any further for testing.

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Any ideas?

Yeh, it goes to the controller. Just can't figure where. The point may be moot since there's also a scorched area right in the middle of the controller. It's probably fried and won't make a difference anyway. I have 3 36 volt controllers coming in from TNC and may give one of those a try. Meanwhile, I'm leaving the batteries on the chargers for at least 24 hours to see if any of them will come back to life. So far, there are at least 2 batteries that won't keep a charge over 10.5 volts. The other 2 read a minimum of 12 to 13 volts. The latter 2 may have some promise.

If all else fails, this thing is worth rebuilding. It's one of the most sturdy electric stand up scooters I've see to date. It's got these humongoid tires, about 3" wide, and has disc brakes. Should come in handy down at the rifle/pistol range and archery range for restroom breaks.

Exactomundo.

Well, I found a lug on the controller where that loose wire used to be connected to. I stretched the clip and hooked it back up, made sure the switch was in the off position and promptly did this.

Yeah, fried that connector and melted all the metal clips. Those new controllers should be here by tomorrow.

One battery wouldn't charge over 10.2 volts and my 2amp charger rejected it. The other 3 are marginal at just around the 13 volt mark, give or take a few tenths. I'll probably take out the best of the lot and add it to my backup supply and make a new 24 volt pack just for this scooter.

deacon said:

you can not run a 24 pack with a 36v controller. It will not allow the motor to turn it is a battery safety feature. If you want to run a 24v system you need a 24v controller,

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Okay, gotcha. The 36 volt controllers are supposed to be from my present 24 volt bikes, which I want to convert to 36 volt. I can always use one of the 24 volt controllers from one of them. Thanks for the headsup, Deacon.

deacon said:

now you are talking move that stuff around. That always works for me. I would never recommend this to anyone else but I can run either 24 or 36v through my controller. You never know when they are going to change the specs though so I cant say that the controller I bought last month is still the one they sell today.

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Got my YK42-3 controllers in on Friday. Hemangous things easily 3 times the size of a standard 24 volt unit, and they have more wires than the TNC pic shows. Instead of one red lead, it now has 2 along with the 1 green and 1 black for the power hookups. It also has a brake disconnect wire and the usual 3 wire throttle lead. It also looks like these are now rated at 1000 watts instead of the posted 800. These are also way easy to hook up. Spade connectors is all you need for the power hookups. The throttle and brake disconnect leads can easily be adapted to existing connectors. It also features undervoltage protection at 30.5 amps, +-.5 amps.

I decided to put the scooter on hold and get my commuting bike set up first. Here's a pic of my rig.

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Since I was looking at more torque and speed, I went with my Ezip frame. It's heavy as all get out, but it doesn't flex and wobble at speed like those Huffy cruisers do and I can still kinda step through instead of having to swing my leg up and over. It also looks massive as the handlebars top out at
45".

I mounted the aftermarket Currie rig, since the original Ezip is now on my wife's bike. The bag on top of the rear frame holds 2 12volt 12ah batteries. On the other side is a small Walmart backpack with 1 12volt 12ah battery. Wired them all up and took that puppy out for a test ride. DANG!!! This bike can haul b--t. Only problem was it started to "stutter" at the higher speeds. Came back and found way too much slack in the chain. It also picked up a high pitched whine which I think is coming from the controller, if not the motor. Not loud or irritating. Just there. It's now to late to take it out for another spin so will wait till I finish my chores tomorrow.

This combo looks like a keeper. It needs just a litte bit more tweakingI just have to come up with another way of carrying the batteries. I plan on mounting a child seat on the rear rack so the battery pack has to go somewhere else. Maybe just leave it and continue using the kiddy trailer to pick up my foster boy from daycare. Yeah, what the heck. Only takes a few seconds to hookup. No big deal.

zabac70 said:

Try to "stuff" (hang) batteries under backbone of the bike. Much better handling (lower center of gravity).

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I hear you, Zabac. I have almost a whole sheet of 1/4" plywood in my garage and will probably build a pack that will hold the 3 batteries in that trianglular space in the frame. A work in progress.

Finding the time to build it is another story. Meanwhile, like they say here, "She go!"

deacon said:

be careful getting on and off that beast. One of my falls came trying to climb on a bike with batteries on the bike at that same place.

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Thanks Deacon. So far, I can handle the extra weight and can tip the bike over far enough to easily straddle the bike. This will probably get easier once I drop the weight lower and more towards the center of the bike.

deacon said:

I meant to ask did bumping that motor up to 36v make as much difference as I claim it does?

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Oh yeah! Big difference. I like it! I still have to test ride it again as there was too much slack in the chain the first go'round and it "stuttered" on the high end. Probably skipping teeth. I no longer have the original chain tensioner bolt as I installed a hitch for the kiddy trailer. I did manage to fit a long 1/4x20 bolt to help minimize anymore movement when torque is applied. It's temporary as I'm planning on moving that hitch. I want to get the original 3/8" eye bolt back in there to keep the chain tension on the tight side.

Oh, to explain. The aftermarket motor mounting plate uses a 3/8" eye bolt over the wheel axle nut and through a slotted flange on the mounting plate for chain tension adjustments. That bolt's gone, to accomodate that kiddy trailer hitch, and the motor can easily shift under torque and create slack in the chain even when the axle nut is dogged pretty tight.

Now that I have more batteries and more power, these little things make a big difference in performance. Stuff I didn't have to worry about with the weaker 24volt system because there's less torque. I think I mentioned this above somewhere's, but I did switch to the heavier Ezip frame as the frame flexes way less than the cruisers I'd been using previously. In this matter, I had to go with practicality over cool factor. With more torque and speed, it's just safer this way. The bike's a tank, but the ride is more stable and I feel safer on it.