Anonymous Electric Bike

JZMotorhead · #1 11-08-2009, 04:06 PM

I've been looking at electric bikes and hub motor kits for a while, but haven't made the plunge of actually buying anything. I was buying some tires from a guy this weekend and saw a hub motor powered electric bike leaning against a car in his yard. I asked about it and he said " You want it? you can have it". Soooo, I now have a rusty Next New Spark 3000 with dual suspension, no battery, and no specs on it. I tried doing a search on the bike on Next's site and some other sites and couldn't find any info on it. I checked the motor and the controller, no markings or model numbers on them either. Anyone ever heard of this bike, motor, battery or have any info on it?
Thanks,
JZ

**Bikeguy Joe** · #2 11-08-2009, 08:05 PM

I am bumping this one....can any one help here?

**Dave31** · #3 11-09-2009, 01:07 AM

Welcome to the forum JZMotorhead, glad you joined us.

I have never heard of that bike and could find nothing as well, hopefully someone else will know something about it.

wheelbender6 · #4 11-09-2009, 09:20 AM

Welcome to the forum. I am gas guy but have been looking at electrics.
Try to ID the hub motor itself. A manufacturer and model no is needed.
You can take the motor info to one of the electric vendors and I'm sure they can figure out the rest.

azbill · #5 11-09-2009, 09:41 AM

welcome

can you post pics of the hub ???
I have built a few (grubee, crystalyte and golden motor)
it might look familiar
the main drawback with electric is batteries
(cheap ones have limited range, and the next grade up is a big investment)

JZMotorhead · #6 11-09-2009, 09:57 AM

Thanks for the quick responses!
I'll post some pics of the motor and controller soon.
So far it looks like a brushed motor (only 2 wires to the hub) and the controller is set up with cutoff switches on the brake lever. There is also a small VR attached to one of the connectors coming off the controller. The bike is a single speed, I have a couple of other bikes I might consider swapping the components onto if I can sort out the battery requirements.

JZ

jimraysr · #7 11-09-2009, 10:26 AM

Bill, looking at your bike and trailer emotion, I had a thought. Get the grandkids to crank a generator like the GIs did in the South Pacific? That could be easily recharged at Jack in the Box or the Golden Arches. )

You are right of course, battery power is limited on all vehicles. I have a friend who lived in Flagstaff with a Prius and his engine would have to kick in after pulling one hill. That is a pack of 1.2 volt 7AH cells making 210V approx.

Power density is the problem plus clean cell storage. (Look at my 6 Golf Cart Batteries in our motor home) Gel Cells have clean storage advantages and weight disadvantages. Ni-Cad is better, but still weight. NiM-H better but still the weight. Then Lit-Ion are the highest energy density, but way out of sight on cost. Lith-Poly are the cost leader in this field, but haven't seen them in any usable size for E-Bikes so far. Here is a paragraph on them from Wikipedia which is not copyright protected.

This type has technologically evolved from lithium-ion batteries. Ultimately, the lithium-salt electrolyte is not held in an organic solvent as in the lithium-ion design, but in a solid polymer composite such as polyethylene oxide or polyacrylonitrile. The only problem with this design is that doesn't work unless heated to above 50 to 60 degrees Celsius. The battery that is currently available is a hybrid design correctly referred to as a Lithium-Ion polymer battery. The flammable electrolyte is still present but held within the polymer. The advantages of Li-ion poly over the lithium-ion design include lower cost manufacturing and being more robust to physical damage. Lithium-ion polymer batteries started appearing in consumer electronics around 1996.

I thought as long as the battery question had been raised I would put in my 2 cents.

Jim

fasteddy · #8 11-09-2009, 02:04 PM

Jim, I'm about to go up and drop $1,500 on a hub motor and top end battery pack this week.
I feel confident that within a month there will be an announcement that there is a break through in battery technology that make batteries cheap,cheap.
This will only happen if I purchase the hub and battery set. In a way I feel it's my duty.

Steve.

jimraysr · #9 11-09-2009, 07:16 PM

I understand that. That is why I only buy from stores that allow 30 return, no questions ask. Fry's Electronics, Sam's club and COSTCO to name three. Thank you for saving all of us a lot of money. If you have it, flaunt it! 8O) =

Jim

Quote:

Originally Posted by fasteddy

Jim, I'm about to go up and drop $1,500 on a hub motor and top end battery pack this week.
I feel confident that within a month there will be an announcement that there is a break through in battery technology that make batteries cheap,cheap.
This will only happen if I purchase the hub and battery set. In a way I feel it's my duty.

Steve.

**Bikeguy Joe** · #10 11-10-2009, 09:23 AM

Just be advised of the dangers/special handling of Li-Po batteries.