Ridin the ebike fall/winter edition

deacon · #1 11-17-2009, 12:27 PM

Since this part of the forum is less used, and since I do ride ebikes exclusively, I thought it might be a good time to start documenting how we use the bikes. No not some generalize summary but a day to day chronicle of what we ebikers do with them.

Today, I got my battery trailer unplugged from the charger hooked it to what used to be my faux trike, and took off for the mall. The mall is only a mile away, but it is on a heavily traveled road. The first half mile is through my neighborhood streets so I kept the speed down to a little over what a well conditioned bike rider might do, about ten miles an hour or so.

Since I intentionally didn't leave my house until ten a.m. the roads were pretty empty. When I turned onto one of the main drags in town, I had to go about a quarter mile. I did a right turn onto the road but swung into the left lane at the left edge of it. To give the cars a chance to pass me on the right. I turned left after that quarter mile and it was safer to get on over from the start than to try to cross two lanes of traffic while it flowed around me.

I made the left turn on a red light since my bike will not trip the leading green light. Another tenth of a mile or so and I was in the parking lot. It was about that far again to the entrance. I parked the bike beside the handicapped space. They always have enough room left over at the end of the row for a bike.

Inside I walked three complete laps (Up and down) of the mall for a 2.25 mile walk on hard concrete. I passed some early morning shoppers but not many. The local mall is dying. It started before the recession but the downturn has acerbated the situation.

I spoke to the lady from the salvation army who was selling Christmas card to raise funds. Then I rode the bike home. The ebike was a joy to ride compared to the gasoline bike I used to ride. At full throttle the bike is about 3/4 the power of the gas bike, but it is sooo much easier to start at a stoplight, especially going uphill. Seems like most of the stoplights in town have an uphill start. I know it can't be much more than half, but they all seemed to when I rode the gas bike.

I got home and found that I had lots of energy left. I should have, the total ride was about two miles. I was pulling a trailer with the equivalent of a 19ah battery pack. I think this might become part of my fall/winter routine.

So where did you go on your ebike today and in detail please. It helps me find more efficient ways to plan my ebike trip. I wish, instead of HIGH POINT NC, I lived in FLATVILLE. If I did the ebike would not be so challenging to use for real life things.

jdcburg · #2 11-17-2009, 04:13 PM

OK Deacon I’ll bite. I took my 350 watt fwd 3 speed to work today. Tuesdays I start later (8 AM) so I can ride in the daylight. It was cold (28 F) but luckily no wind. It’s about 7.5 miles, some up but mostly down and level. Takes me about 40 minutes. I pedal a lot but use lots of e power toward the end so I’m not too sweaty when I get to work. I bring a 6 amp charger and charge the 2 12v 12ah SLAs at work. they take about 1 ½ - 2 hrs to charge. It was a short day – we finished about 1:30. Then I rode to my other job to check my schedule. It’s about 8 miles, mostly level but bucking a headwind all the way. It was warmer (48) but with the headwind I’m glad I was pedaling to keep warm. Still fingers and toes were chilly. After a few minutes there, I rode to the barber shop and waited for 20-30 minutes for my turn. I was concerned about waiting because I was leaving the batteries resting discharged for that time, which they say is bad for SLAs. It’s about 2 ½ miles from my second job to home, mostly uphill, and the barber shop is about halfway. When I got home, the batteries read 12.10 and 12.20, so I guess they weren’t totally discharged. I put the charger right on them and they should be just about charged up by now - jd

deacon · #3 11-17-2009, 05:20 PM

they say 11.75 is where you need to get them onto a charger right away. They do say never leave them half charged but I think that is for like days not hours. Still I don't know any of that for sure. I charge mine everyday and leave them on the charger when they are finished.

deacon · #4 11-21-2009, 08:27 AM

I rode the ebike to the marina last night. I am still struggling with battery issues but that is covered in a different thread.

It was a nice day with just a slight chill. I took off and chose my route as carefully as I could. Even so there were still a lot of steep hills along the way. My wife followed along after me to be sure that I made it okay. Being a woman, she informed me how great the bathrooms at the marina's guest house are.

Believe it or not there were fishermen out there. I was chilled from the bike ride so it made me cold just to look at them. I have found that a lightweight nylon shell, as the last piece of clothing, helps a lot with the bike wind. Mine is big enough so that I can wear all the layers I want under it.

All in all it was a nice 6mile ride.

deacon · #5 11-22-2009, 03:12 PM

It was an interesting day today. I rebuilt my trailer since i have decided to use one at 24volts as well as the 36volt one. So I built on it all evening yesterday. i took off for what should have been a routine test.

On the first try the rhino drive fell off. Well not really it has a three point hook up. One of the points failed and it rolled off the back of the bike, but not quite off completely.

Try two the trailer which I had welded together came unhooked. It didn't exactly pass me going down hill but it did get dragged along by the power cord. probably not too good for it. I also had to put the trailer on the bike seat and push the while thing home. I truly was upset by that part of it. It was my own fault. I know better than to trust my welds. I almost always run bolt through a joint as a backup against weld failure. I have discovered that I can weld like materials but different types of steel do not hold for me for some reason. Actually the reason they didnt hold was that I didn't leave any play for the trailer and the stress was just too much on the welds that I made.

On the next attempt the trailer was just all over the place. I went through and simplified everything about the trailer. I completely rebuilt the rebuilt trailer. I went back to the very basic design with only one modification. Instead of attaching to one side of the bike, it attaches to the center of the bike on a u shaped hitch i made.

I test rode it and the trailer seems to work okay but it needs more tension on the rhino drive. That is a rainy day, tomorrow's, project. I should change the rear tire as well. I started with a used tire and have worn all the tread off it with the wheel on wheel drive. One thing I do have is plenty of used tires. I even have a couple of new ones laying about.

deacon · #6 11-23-2009, 10:43 AM

So it's raining today. Not the best time to ride an ebike. that being the case, I decided to make a non essential repair to the 24v rhino bike.

I replaced the rear tire. Something that could have been a real pain, but turned out to take no more than a half hour. You have to understand that the rear end of my bike has been bastardized to pull a trailer. All that extra metal is around the rear axle holder. It could have been an all day job. I promise you that if the day had been warm and sunny so that I could have ridden the bike, it would have taken a minimum of four hours to do the same thing.

It's just the perversity of riding a homemade ebike.

deacon · #7 11-24-2009, 03:10 PM

The test was inconclusive.

It looks as though the range is not effected by the voltage of the battery pack, when the correct controller is used. The 36volt setup has a slightly better performance, but not a huge amount better. The 36v's additional performance more than makes up for the additional weight of the third battery it seems.

However putting 36 volts through the 24volt controller gives a huge increase in speed and pull but eats into the battery life I think. It looks as though the compromise position is to use the 36v controller and the 36v pack. That makes it possible to pedal on the worst of hills and to coast it when it can.

I think that is the way to go. I am going to redo the frame of that bike, then put the 24v bike on the back burner I think. At least that is the plan at the moment.

deacon · #8 11-26-2009, 07:56 AM

I think as a final attempt to see what one of these rhino drives will do on a bike, I will buy a set of batteries to make one of my bikes 48v. I am in this mind set because I can buy a set of batteries in a package deal which almost gives me the forth one.

If I decide to do it, I have a bike with a big enough controller I think. I need to rebuild the trailer system anyway, since my last attempt at a trailer hitch filed miserably. I wonder what it will do since I have already learned that a higher voltage pushed through a small voltage controller gives more speed than the same voltage through a matched controller, it might just hum along. The weight of the trailer is an issue and I can not afford 6 or 7 hundred bucks for a set of lithium batteries.

deacon · #9 11-26-2009, 01:49 PM

I am trying to make hide or hair of this battery thing. It seems to me at the moment that the sla batteries have a reverse downward curve power band. In other words they release more power at the beginning of their drain then go down from there until there is almost nothing left to give.

So I have a high drain motor and controller on my regular bike and it does fine at first, but then goes to night soil after a couple of miles. I ran my regular bike five miles today with a 600 watt motor and a 500 watt controller. I am giving some serious thought to pulling my test bike's 36v 800 amp controller off and replacing it with my 24v 350 amp controller to see how it performs under the same conditions as the regular bike I rode today. It's a pretty easy route to duplicate so it should be an interesting comparison. If it drains at a more constant pace, it might be useful to know that.

At the moment I believe that the range/performance is in the controller. If I'm going to have a low performance bike after a couple of miles, I would just as soon have a low performance bike all along. That my friends might be why the stock bike motor is 250watt and no more than 450 watts. Okay I have talked myself into it.

I also bid on a controller that is about 400 watts I think. I should have somethings to make comparisons with soon. I really do want to get a handle on these batteries. More than just to say, I don't like ebikes because they performance is not up to gasoline standards.

deacon · #10 11-28-2009, 02:01 PM

I rode the two ebikes I have the same distance today with the same battery pack, the only difference was the wattage of the controller. I had to run the 350 watt wot most of the time to made the two mile ride possible. Even so there were moments when it was uncomfortable. Several as a matter of fact.

I rode the bike with the 500 watt controller at about half throttle but giving me the same speed as the slower 350 watt controller. The difference was that I called for max throttle at the times when the ride would have been uncomfortable with the 350 watt controller.

When I got back I found that the battery reserve was the same. So I ordered another of the 500 watt controllers from tnc. This is the controller that can also do the 36v pack even though it is not as efficient I think. Then again maybe it would be if I kept the speed down to a crawl.