Well... I didn't think I'd ever be makin' an ebike thread - but here I am heh
A little background on this first I s'pose, I've been tinkerin' away on a suspended hybrid/tribrid tadpole trike on & off for about a year now: The Bent Zombie Tribrid Tadpole Trike & it occurred to me that it's electric drive was not only untested, but I was not terribly familiar with ebikes - the only one I'd ever had was years ago, a 12v SLA friction drive 'Zap' setup that was honestly a bit ridiculous, anemic to say the least it's woeful lack of power combined with it's incredibly limited range wasn't complemented by being a friction drive.
Fortunately, I held no grudge against the ebike concept because of it lol, even then I knew full well that wasn't a realistic system for anything other than the novelty factor.
Still, I figured I needed some time on a "real" ebike to see what I was getting into with the tribrid, I didn't have enough experience to know if it would be even worth the bother or what the problems may be - combined with the fact I needed a replacement commuter & winter beater I picked up a Mongoose Snarl mountain bike w/dual disc brakes to test out the electric drive (come winter it'll get an in-frame 2 stroke ofc).
The bike itself is surprisingly good for the price ($250) with beautifully fat, nicely lapped weld beads, 100mm travel forks w/adjustable preload and ofc the disc brakes, which while generic - actually have a centering adjustment feature. The rims themselves are unsurprisingly just the typical single wall alloys w/14ga spokes - those will be replaced & I've ordered some low cost ($22ea) fatty double wall rims w/that in mind: Weinmann Disc Bull Rim 26 x 2.00 36 Hole Black along w/another pair of my favorite cheap ($17ea) tires: Cheng Shin C1218 street tire, 26x2.125 - which w/a harder compound than you'd expect w/semislicks & very thick tread area, have proven to be very puncture resistant, durable tires that handle great.
The only actual disappointments w/the Mongoose 'Snarl' (other than it's silly name ofc lol) is it's kickstand is about 3/4" too short even w/o the added weight of motorization (it's b'cause of the long travel forks) & the stock seat is by far the most uncomfortable thing I've ever sat on - I suspect a splitting maul just might be worse, but I'm not going to experiment w/that to see & I just stole the comfy sprung seat off my old Stokvis for now.
BTW, while mine is a 26" (for the hub motor & wheel I already had), the Mongoose 'Snarl' is also available in a 29" if you're interested, I did a quick test fit w/a in-frame 2 stroke and it seems to fit w/o issue (knowing it's aluminum w/an oversized down tube ofc), but I should mention that w/these forks, even the 26" is a somewhat tall bike & you may not want the 29" if you're "vertically challenged" - I'm a hair over 6' and even the 26" is taller than I'm used to.
Anyhoo, on to the ebike stuff heh - to mount the Golden Motor 'Magic Pie' 48v 1000w hub I had to open the drop outs just a hair for it's oversized axle... not so much even "widen" them but smooth them just a little to allow the flat-faced axle to slide up & in there (prevents torque rotation). The only problem w/that is as the axle is slightly larger the disc rotor doesn't quite go all the way up into the caliper anymore, it's about 1/16" short of the edge of the brake pads which will cause uneven wear w/a "lip" developing on the pad. I'll hafta fix that ofc... but I'm going to wait till I've my new rims built. I'd already made a rotor spacer for the tadpole as it's caliper (Avid BB5) was too close to the hub - coincidentally & very fortunately the spacer jus' happened to be perfect for the Mongoose's caliper too so I didn't hafta mess w/that anyway.
I then stole my poor Schwinn's rear rack, which I'd already modified w/vertical supports to the dropouts (it was a seatpost clamp only design), bolted it up to the Mongoose (just needed one spacer for a support to clear the rear caliper) with a set of M-Wave Double Day Tripper Bicycle Panniers ($25) for the 48V 15AH LiFePO4 battery packs to go into. The M-Wave panniers are lined with plastic panels so while they're not "collapsible" the panels serve to spread the weight evenly. I'd custom ordered the LiFePO4s to be split into two battery packs for the tadpole, which has worked out well for this too - I just can't see having 16lbs mounted to the top of the rack like I'd hafta if it was a single pack... even split into two & mounted lower the handling w/the weight back there is noticeably... different - not bad, but defo different. I s'pose I'll get used to it, I'm just glad it's not the 30+lbs of SLAs lol
Then it was jus' a matter of routing the wiring & handlebar controls & I was ready for the first test ride - which went well for about 45 minutes, then things started to go badly... very badly. I started loosing connections, the throttle, the main power leads & the hub (internal controller) started beeping error messages - sometimes, when it felt like it... and it just kept getting worse until I had nothing at all.
Knowing all the secondary connectors (throttle, cruise control etc) were cheesy, flimsy little bits with wiggly pins - I figured I had a loose connection somewhere & started my diagnostics. Interestingly, while those connectors are sad, pathetic lil things they weren't actually the problem... or problems as it turned out & thus began my three day headache of sorting out what the heck was going on.
First the main power plug had an intermittent failure on the negative pin (left plug in third pic) an easy fault to find & even easier to fix w/a new, far better connector, I'd already gotten a Delphi Weatherpack (weatherproof connector set) for the taddy's harness so I had a plug handy. The hub then worked fine... for about 5 minutes & then quit entirely again. This was a major setback as it obv wasn't the main power plug anymore I had to do continuity tests on the rest of the wiring - and the ends of those wires are ofc inside the hub, being a "spiffy" internal controller and all. This meant I had to pull the hub itself apart and that's no easy task as the side covers act as the armature's housing (centering & bearing mounts) and ofc it's sealed to protect the internals from the wet.
Searching around online I found only vague references to the disassembly procedure & what I found just couldn't be right - it was suggested that after removing all the fasteners from the cover to "pound on the other side of the axle with a mallet" and that "should free up the other side's cover" ...while I may be an ebike novice, I'm no stranger to electric motors or wheels & bearings for that matter and that recommendation filled my brain with horrid images of bunged up bearings, mangled C clips and other, even less pleasant suspicions. Fearing the worst, I just made my own puller - much like any gear/pulley remover it bolted into the brake rotor mounts and applied pressure to the axle, removing just the cover on the same side.
With the cover off finally many things became apparent - first, I would have done a number on the sealed bearings & retaining clips had I followed that "advice" & second, they were decidedly stingy with the solder... everywhere. Now able to do continuity tests I found that the main junction block (where all the separate wiring joins to become one cable, to then go into the axle) had faulty connections, problematic as it's a solid chunk of molded plastic (third pic, thing on the right). I tried for a while to gently cut it apart, but after succeeding only in cutting me apart I simply removed it and made my own (forth pic), after cleaning up the mess I made of my thumb ofc. Then I resoldered all the internal connections so I wouldn't hafta go in there again. While it isn't mine (I was too cranky for camera crap at that point), the fifth pic shows the internal controller, complete with it's shoddy soldering. Apparently this is common as every pic of the internal controller I found had similar issues, there's more examples here in the Mongo's photobucket album.
A little background on this first I s'pose, I've been tinkerin' away on a suspended hybrid/tribrid tadpole trike on & off for about a year now: The Bent Zombie Tribrid Tadpole Trike & it occurred to me that it's electric drive was not only untested, but I was not terribly familiar with ebikes - the only one I'd ever had was years ago, a 12v SLA friction drive 'Zap' setup that was honestly a bit ridiculous, anemic to say the least it's woeful lack of power combined with it's incredibly limited range wasn't complemented by being a friction drive.
Fortunately, I held no grudge against the ebike concept because of it lol, even then I knew full well that wasn't a realistic system for anything other than the novelty factor.
Still, I figured I needed some time on a "real" ebike to see what I was getting into with the tribrid, I didn't have enough experience to know if it would be even worth the bother or what the problems may be - combined with the fact I needed a replacement commuter & winter beater I picked up a Mongoose Snarl mountain bike w/dual disc brakes to test out the electric drive (come winter it'll get an in-frame 2 stroke ofc).
The bike itself is surprisingly good for the price ($250) with beautifully fat, nicely lapped weld beads, 100mm travel forks w/adjustable preload and ofc the disc brakes, which while generic - actually have a centering adjustment feature. The rims themselves are unsurprisingly just the typical single wall alloys w/14ga spokes - those will be replaced & I've ordered some low cost ($22ea) fatty double wall rims w/that in mind: Weinmann Disc Bull Rim 26 x 2.00 36 Hole Black along w/another pair of my favorite cheap ($17ea) tires: Cheng Shin C1218 street tire, 26x2.125 - which w/a harder compound than you'd expect w/semislicks & very thick tread area, have proven to be very puncture resistant, durable tires that handle great.
The only actual disappointments w/the Mongoose 'Snarl' (other than it's silly name ofc lol) is it's kickstand is about 3/4" too short even w/o the added weight of motorization (it's b'cause of the long travel forks) & the stock seat is by far the most uncomfortable thing I've ever sat on - I suspect a splitting maul just might be worse, but I'm not going to experiment w/that to see & I just stole the comfy sprung seat off my old Stokvis for now.
BTW, while mine is a 26" (for the hub motor & wheel I already had), the Mongoose 'Snarl' is also available in a 29" if you're interested, I did a quick test fit w/a in-frame 2 stroke and it seems to fit w/o issue (knowing it's aluminum w/an oversized down tube ofc), but I should mention that w/these forks, even the 26" is a somewhat tall bike & you may not want the 29" if you're "vertically challenged" - I'm a hair over 6' and even the 26" is taller than I'm used to.
Anyhoo, on to the ebike stuff heh - to mount the Golden Motor 'Magic Pie' 48v 1000w hub I had to open the drop outs just a hair for it's oversized axle... not so much even "widen" them but smooth them just a little to allow the flat-faced axle to slide up & in there (prevents torque rotation). The only problem w/that is as the axle is slightly larger the disc rotor doesn't quite go all the way up into the caliper anymore, it's about 1/16" short of the edge of the brake pads which will cause uneven wear w/a "lip" developing on the pad. I'll hafta fix that ofc... but I'm going to wait till I've my new rims built. I'd already made a rotor spacer for the tadpole as it's caliper (Avid BB5) was too close to the hub - coincidentally & very fortunately the spacer jus' happened to be perfect for the Mongoose's caliper too so I didn't hafta mess w/that anyway.
I then stole my poor Schwinn's rear rack, which I'd already modified w/vertical supports to the dropouts (it was a seatpost clamp only design), bolted it up to the Mongoose (just needed one spacer for a support to clear the rear caliper) with a set of M-Wave Double Day Tripper Bicycle Panniers ($25) for the 48V 15AH LiFePO4 battery packs to go into. The M-Wave panniers are lined with plastic panels so while they're not "collapsible" the panels serve to spread the weight evenly. I'd custom ordered the LiFePO4s to be split into two battery packs for the tadpole, which has worked out well for this too - I just can't see having 16lbs mounted to the top of the rack like I'd hafta if it was a single pack... even split into two & mounted lower the handling w/the weight back there is noticeably... different - not bad, but defo different. I s'pose I'll get used to it, I'm just glad it's not the 30+lbs of SLAs lol
Then it was jus' a matter of routing the wiring & handlebar controls & I was ready for the first test ride - which went well for about 45 minutes, then things started to go badly... very badly. I started loosing connections, the throttle, the main power leads & the hub (internal controller) started beeping error messages - sometimes, when it felt like it... and it just kept getting worse until I had nothing at all.
Knowing all the secondary connectors (throttle, cruise control etc) were cheesy, flimsy little bits with wiggly pins - I figured I had a loose connection somewhere & started my diagnostics. Interestingly, while those connectors are sad, pathetic lil things they weren't actually the problem... or problems as it turned out & thus began my three day headache of sorting out what the heck was going on.
First the main power plug had an intermittent failure on the negative pin (left plug in third pic) an easy fault to find & even easier to fix w/a new, far better connector, I'd already gotten a Delphi Weatherpack (weatherproof connector set) for the taddy's harness so I had a plug handy. The hub then worked fine... for about 5 minutes & then quit entirely again. This was a major setback as it obv wasn't the main power plug anymore I had to do continuity tests on the rest of the wiring - and the ends of those wires are ofc inside the hub, being a "spiffy" internal controller and all. This meant I had to pull the hub itself apart and that's no easy task as the side covers act as the armature's housing (centering & bearing mounts) and ofc it's sealed to protect the internals from the wet.
Searching around online I found only vague references to the disassembly procedure & what I found just couldn't be right - it was suggested that after removing all the fasteners from the cover to "pound on the other side of the axle with a mallet" and that "should free up the other side's cover" ...while I may be an ebike novice, I'm no stranger to electric motors or wheels & bearings for that matter and that recommendation filled my brain with horrid images of bunged up bearings, mangled C clips and other, even less pleasant suspicions. Fearing the worst, I just made my own puller - much like any gear/pulley remover it bolted into the brake rotor mounts and applied pressure to the axle, removing just the cover on the same side.
With the cover off finally many things became apparent - first, I would have done a number on the sealed bearings & retaining clips had I followed that "advice" & second, they were decidedly stingy with the solder... everywhere. Now able to do continuity tests I found that the main junction block (where all the separate wiring joins to become one cable, to then go into the axle) had faulty connections, problematic as it's a solid chunk of molded plastic (third pic, thing on the right). I tried for a while to gently cut it apart, but after succeeding only in cutting me apart I simply removed it and made my own (forth pic), after cleaning up the mess I made of my thumb ofc. Then I resoldered all the internal connections so I wouldn't hafta go in there again. While it isn't mine (I was too cranky for camera crap at that point), the fifth pic shows the internal controller, complete with it's shoddy soldering. Apparently this is common as every pic of the internal controller I found had similar issues, there's more examples here in the Mongo's photobucket album.
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