Deacon's Bike

[deacon]

I stopped by to give an update on this project and made a half dozen comments. See I need to be locked in a room to keep me quiet.

Anyway, I found that somehow by accident all the right parts went into this bike. The old three speed Ted Williams bike frame Is lite and very strong I think.

The crank set is off a girls twenty inch bike, of course I greased it up good before I installed it. It runs out exceptionally. The rear wheel is a new 20" coaster wheel I bought it on ebay.

The tires are all used but the one i put on it now was the front tire of a used bike so it didn't have a lot of wear on it.

I had to rebuild the trailer since the twenty inch bike tires were a hazard. It was way too top heavy. The ten inch lawn mower tires work much better for this project. The trailer pulls very easily for some reason. It is all in all a good little bike before the motor comes in.

I began with a 350 watt friction drive motor. The bike did fine during test until a couple of days ago. I screwed up the bearings in it somehow. I had a 250watt motor laying around so I stuck it on. The one test I made today was just fine. The larger motor has more guts but this one works just as well except for the hill pull. I have to pedal a little harder with this engine but I built it for exercise on the bike trail so it will work fine.

I would call it complete except I ordered a controller and throttle last night. Next week when those arrive I will see if they make any difference. I am hoping they will increase the battery life. As it is now, I can't go slow enough to pedal except on hills. I would like to pedal more and try to stretch out the battery life.

This is also my back up bike for the china girl bike. I figure it can make it to the shopping center and down to the donut shoppe just fine. Those are the most important places anyway.

 

[Dave31]

deacon, I have never used one; and it's only a 5watt trickle charger but it is solar power and you can mount it to your trailer. Dont know if it will give you longer battery life. Just thought I would put it out there.

 

[deacon]

I expect it wouldn't work while in use. The drain would be much faster than charger. However if one were to leave the trailer outside, and used the bike only once a day till the battery was low it might actually have it ready to go the next day. If left continually hooked up, it just might do the trick. now you have me thinking about another experiment. But wouldn't that be cool, to never have to charge the darn thing.

 

[paul]

actually you would be surprised how well they work. i had one for my batery that ran my trolling motor on my bass boat and it kept it charged nicely. solar engergy motorized bicycle sounds kinda cool

 

[Dave31]

They have much bigger ones then that, that 5watt was the second biggest I saw. The smaller one was a 1.8watt I dont know how big your trailer is, you could use the entire size of your trailer for a solar panel. Of course the bigger panel you go the more dollars it will cost. The 5w is around thirty bucks. But I have seen some at Harbor frieght store alot cheaper.
The one from the photo is from northern tool.

 

[deacon]

They have much bigger ones then that, that 5watt was the second biggest I saw. The smaller one was a 1.8watt I dont know how big your trailer is, you could use the entire size of your trailer for a solar panel. Of course the bigger panel you go the more dollars it will cost. The 5w is around thirty bucks. But I have seen some at Harbor frieght store alot cheaper.
The one from the photo is from northern tool.

The best I can figure a sla charger that comes with one of the scooters is 48 watts but it charges in two hours. If you rode the bike an hour, it would need about eight hours to recharge using solar alone. Thats at five watts. Then you run into the over charge problem, but they make a cut off switch for them some come with it some don't.

But there is something else. You can buy one small panel and try it. If it doesn't charge enough you can add another and another till you get what you want. Unlike the wall charger, the size of the batteries you use becomes an issue with solar panels. But again you have the how long will they rest between use. Lots of variables.

 

[deacon]

this is how it looks now waiting for controller and throttle.

 

[Dave31]

Here you go deacon, 400watts of power

 

[deacon]

There is something to be said for that. The movement of the bike runs a windmill that turns a generator that put power back into the battery. It would increase the range some at least.

 

[deacon]

My ebike works very well so I'm going to try to improve it so that it doesn't work at all.

I have a rear wheel drive from a smallish scooter coming. I am going to get a second motor one with the gear and the chain, then connect them in a kind of open box. Then bolt the box onto my bike and hold it down with springs or with fender braces. I will have a chain drive with a large wheel ridding on top of my rear wheel. if this works with my controller and throttle it will be kind of interesting as it will be a much larger drive wheel and will push the bike faster. I don't care about the speed really, but it might also help with the hills to get a faster start on them.

Should also help with the power consumption. Anyway thats the plan.

 

[deacon]

Well I made the purchase.

The bike already has a compatible throttle and controller, so now I have a new motor with gear (The old one has a direct drive wheel attachment) I also have a chain and rear drive assembly including sprocket coming.

I'm thinking build an open box for the drive assembly. Attach the box to the top rear of the bike over the wheel and at the wishbone. then secure it to the bike frame at the axles. There point hook up don't ya know. Then attach the motor to the wishbone with a couple of big hose clamps. Hook up the wiring and the chain and it should run.

My question is... There is a larger sprocket on the rear wheel than the direct drive was thick, so the drive wheel will turn slower, but it is much bigger than the direct drive wheel. 7.5 inches vs 2.5 inches. I wonder if the top speed will be increased. I'm thinking it will, since most of the rpms with the drive wheel got wasted anyway in the scrubbing motion. I'll know in a week.

If this works, it means simply that anyone who can find an old scooter at a yard sale can easily build an ebike. Wouldn't that be a kick in the butt.

If it had the right sprocket I could hook it to the china engine and have the perfect bike. Maybe I can find a #35 gear to replace the #41 gear in he china bike.

 

[deacon]

Ah the beauty of it all.

The eight inch scooter wheel with sprocket, the 250watt motor with sprocket and the chain arrived today. It was so easy to mount I feel stupid for having wasted so much time building drive wheels. I will test it tomorrow if it doesnt rain and shoot some pictures if I can.

All I have to do then is put the new hummer bee paint job on it and its ready.

 

[deacon]

A couple of things I have learned that might be of interest to someone here. I am back to foolin with the weedwacker concept because I'm bored.

You might remember from the ebike I have found that I can make a good friction drive wheel from the rear wheel of a scooter with the sprocket still attached. Most electric motors you buy on ebay came from a scooter and will have the matching sprocket on them... So now I have a heavier duty motor coming for the ebike. I am looking forward to it

In foolin' around with the weed wacker, I removed the cover and put a friction drive wheel on the motor. To do that I had to drill a pen hole in the shaft. The motor really will not sit straight and i'm expecting the shaft to go bad in a few hours like that. So what I did was to buy a caliper today. the shaft is 11mm maybe a hair more. So I just ordered a 12mm ID sprocket for the scooter chain. I think I can make a rig like the ebike housing only mount the gas motor instead of an electric. If I do it right the darn thing should work fine. I might have to shim the sprocket but maybe not just depends. I still want to use that kind of engine for the power source.

If i get the ebike running well this week, I am going to work on the weed eater bike next. If I can work out those two, I'm going to pull the engine from my china bike and sell it on ebay. I rode it about eight miles today and found that it is a bit heavy for me since my balance has taken another hit.

I still plan to motorbike around I just think I might do better with a lighter bike. I would sacrifice speed for stability any day. Of course I can do without the chain issues as well.

 

[Bikeguy Joe]

Pictures and updates as warranted!

 

[deacon]

this is the wheel friction drive unit. I'm going to build another on more or less like it for the weed eater. Attach the weedeater to the frame and run a chain back to the wheel sprocket. I have ordered the motor sprocket already.

 

[deacon]

the new heaver amperage motor came in. I was some better but still wasn't much. If i took it off the controller it got abou 20% more drive power. I guess the controller spreads out the energy from the batteries. On a scooter without pedals that would be good, on a bike that kind of thing isn't much good. Now it might be on one of the hub motors, but on a pure assist motor it doesn't help it actually hinders the performance of the bike.

Anyway that's my take on it.

I have a gear for the weedwacker coming in the next couple of days. I think I'm going to give that engine a shot at the drive wheel I have already made.

Someone who knows tell me if I can kill the engine by throwing in full choke. I hate to hook up the kill switch until I have to.

 

[Bikeguy Joe]

You can use the choke to kill it, but a good kill switch is best.

 

[deacon]

You can use the choke to kill it, but a good kill switch is best.

I checked it out just now to be sure it would still start and the choke did kill it fine. I have the wires for a kill switch just have to take them up front. I found out the centrifugal clutch isn't working at least not the way this thing is configured now.

Im gonna rig a henge and lift action for the assembly somehow. It is getting to be quite an interesting project.

 

[deacon]

I just dawned on me that one of the reasons the ebike runs a bit slow is that there is a gearing effect between the engine and the sprocket on the small wheel that I am using as a drive wheel. It slows the drive wheel down which seems to have been a mistake. It isn't much different but some. Oh well I'll go back to it after I finish with the weed eater engine test.

 

[deacon]

well I got the weed eater going. I just took it a block after that it had shook all the bolts loose. I am probably going to have to buy a real throttle cable cause the short one patched is unreliable. The cable lift clutch likewise is hit or miss.

Starting the engine with a rope is by far the easiest way to start it so far. I'm sure it will drag start after it has run a while but cold the rope over the drive shaft is the easiest way. I still think I would prefer the sprocket and chain to the drive wheel of the scooter but I don't know how that would work out start wise.

As for power with the 35cc engine, it's a lot like the ebike so far. You have to plan on doing some work with it. Of course I only rode it a block before I shook apart. I'm going to make some new plans for it, now that I know it will at least move my lard butt around.