alas poor Tesla

deacon

deacon

minor bike philosopher
WEll I have built Gas kit bikes, I have built weed whacker bikes, I have built chainsaw bikes, I have built e bikes out the butt so I feel like I am qualified to say this. Pound for pound I love the ebike better BUT and you will note it is a big butt. There is the battery and everything associated with it problem/.

The good about the ebike for me. You turn the throttle and it goes, and with much less vibrations to beat itself apart. No clutch to worry about. If you have it wired right it is going to go. They have good torque when you pull away and good speed when the torque is no longer needed, if you have the right sized motor power setup. It's like gasoline bike engines, the bigger the motor the better the performance.. The better the performance the more energy it sucks up. In the case of the ebike, the amount of energy available is finite. You can't pull into the local power company and filler up, then dive away five minutes later. To sum it up I hate to do it but I'm going to bail on the ebikes.

Alas poor Tesler I knew him well, but he did not smile kindly on me.

So why after all this time you might ask. To be honest I have a terrific drive system. The Rhino friction drive is probably the best drive I have ever built. The problem is the batteries. Put them on the bike and it is a death trap balance and weight wise. The trailers I built were okay but they always left something to be desired. I love the faux trike, but even that doesn't have a sense of strength to me. I have to wind down the other pieces of junk I have been working on. Then I should sell some of these E scooter motors I have laying around. I have some controllers as well that I will never use.

I expect to be building something else real soon. Maybe I can find a small gasoline engine to power the Rhino drive system. Anyway there will be no new experiments from me for a while until I decide where to go next.
 
Last edited:
Re: alas poor Tesler

yes Add spelling to my other faults. Spill Chick didn't pick that up.,,,

PS.. I am about half calm after a morning of pure frustration, I might finish the bike I have in the works before I move on.
 
Re: alas poor Tesler

Well, if you've got a lot of money there's always those LiFePO3 batteries...
 
Re: alas poor Tesler

I don't have the money for them but I do have the lust for them.. Or at least something better than them.
 
weight versus distance SLA's can be had for free on Craigslist and you can charge up at any strip mall with a water machine they usually have outlets out doors.
 
My new feeling of resentment. Yesterday I miscalculated my range and wound up having to get off my ebike and push it up the worst hills then ride it home. Later I found that my second set of batteries had become disconnected which explains my error in range guessing.

What my resentment was, is that while I pushing my bike up a nasty hill, a 50 cc gas scooter like those I chose not to buy, passed me just zipping along. My resentment lasted only till I got the bike and battery pack home. I have it all redone now and look forward to giving it a try just as soon as the charger finishes with it.

While rewiring the circuit, I found that there was only one of the six batteries which had disconnected itself. It should not have made that much difference. I obviously just misread my range. Too much riding it like a scooter and not enough riding it like a bike. But I hate riding it like a bike. It is too fast to really do that without a lot of effort, but I suppose I'm going to have learn to slow down, if I plan to get any range at all.
 
View attachment 15968 I use thes simple packs to gain the edge on the low budget.
if they are good ones the distance on a curry 24 volt 2008 mountain version with low air pressure and 60 pound groceries is 24 miles
 
Last edited:
Honestly a sla is ok if it has time to trickle charge. in my chrome case center mounted in the frame are 3 SLA's I bought second hand from a friend who gets castoffs I also slipped another SLA on top and a 48 volt scotter two amp charger.
this battery arrangement is a healthy 40 pounds aslo the electric stinger has heavy chrome extras that weigh it down I even have a 16 t freewheeel instead of 22 I never pedal except for the steeeep hill coming home it kills all of th efun out of a bike that is why I selected power assist.
Initially the stinger is shipped 24 volt rear mounted ananda Hall monitored threee phase 250 wat and reaches 15 mph. this could kill a little kid so that is where they drew the line. Inside that chrome v twin is another slot. if a battery is added the the mix its 36 volt 20 mph with really resposive control and a crowd pleaser. the Schwinn design was Ground breaking (but) there were flaws in the actual production Hub Motor assembly . either cheap glue on the Hall sensors or cheap insulation that heated beyond tollerance or some minor screw up the cancelled the entire program at 250 built. they closed the book and took atremendous Loss. Why? failure to communicate. the chinese screwed up and thought everything was just ducky. Huge loss of faith huge failue to comply and tradgic forclosure on real american starup business's
All that changed when the money stopped they fixed the problem it was so easy remove the feather touch controls and put a dum dum start up rythem in the black bos to get the hub under way.
cancel the restrictions and let it run ball out. that is the new motor I put on my schwinn and it pulls over 200 pounds 12 to 15 miles easily. I had a streamile stipper first off but missed the flasy big is better lookds it came with.
I can get ten miles on the simple APC SLA changeout two years that have to be thrown out or given away every main frame computer and emergency system has them. they are the reliable SLA good enough to be used in medical facilities that is why even two years later they are still fine they rested in a bank of well managed back up systemsand were babied then thrown out.
I will send you some thery are 12 volt 9 amp APC SLA's a well made storage battery two of these that are cleared are on the right side switch of the curre and two more on the left sid swith ten mile out and ten mile back I bought a big old commuter charger Currie Produced in 2000 second had from a local guy who rode a currie for nine years to and from san gabriel it is a 5 amp well protected charger that cant fry if it is misused and it will top them off in an hour. I split the leads to two red and two black and pull off the main wires and plug these charge wires in their place this isolates them from the contrller. I is a bullet proof every day workable solution to SLA power
I spent no more than a hundred bucks designing this system and buying the bats 5 bucks a piece from a scavenger the 30 bucks for a Currie Professional 8 year old Unit and good pair of strpper and some tape
 
Last edited:
I have a hub motor with replaced controller sitting in a corner of my shop. I hate the little thing. It is rated 250 watts I have a 36v controller and power supply which helped it a little but I just don.t like it. I run a 600watt scooter motor with a 24v controller and 36v power system that can really hum.

I have a second bike set up the same but with a 36v controller and it doesn't have the same speed but does have the same torque. I have no idea what that is all about.

My battery consumption is awful. I live in a town with mostly hills up and down all the time. I have run 12ah and 7ah and find that the two together seems to do okay. I drag mine in a trailer. When I buy next I will probably go back with 20ah sla but not till the ones I have are toast.

Also I need to keep working on trailers. They all seem to do okay but the wheels always lean in. I know I'm supposed to support them on both sides but I hate how that looks and also I hate the width of the trailer that way. I'm thinking I should try some lawnmower wheels with ball bearings the axles would be thicker.
 
Last edited:
Maybe it's because I live in a town full of hills, or maybe it's my fat butt, or maybe the drive isn't as efficient as i thought, but my battery consumption is awful. I haven't tested it with the 19ah setup that I have on the bike now, but I will just as soon as the weather is nice. Based on previous battery consumption it should do about eight or nine miles. I would love to see it do more, but I'm expecting about 6six.
 
I have noticed a 12 volt 18 amp battery available in the typical replacement battery catalogs. this 28 amper will accept a charger at 10 amps that is equil to a auto shop charger capability. I have a sears 3-10 amp charger at home and I do use it on sla bats when I first recieve them I usually get second hand cast off batterys which if a spark is detected at recievement will gharge up in an hour. then I use it hard and mark the best one. this I use on a bike. the others are paired up according to ability to hang in there on a course I marked out around a local reservoir near my house it is a bike routea nd ther are hot lookingjogger girls to wave to. I can sneak up behind a jogger and thehit full throttle swish by yelling "You can do it " and they will usually flip out fromm laughing esttically at my easy rider approach to exercise cigarette hanging from mymoutha nd hitting 35 in the straighaway then its climb a steep hill then a steep drop if i go around again all the way I put a big + on that battery and consider it usefull
 
You really need to go to Lipo. I get over 20 miles on a 7 pound battery at 20mph with no pedaling.

You cannot judge the usefulness of E-bikes by the fact that you are using the heaviest battery available.

The big problem with E-bike batteries is cost. However, Lipo (not Lifepo4) are getting MUCH less costly. Still, expect it to cost $300 or so for a decent battery and another $100 for a good charger.

I do not mean to sound critical. However, you do seem to be making a sweeping judgement of E-bikes based on your specific poor quality batteries.
 
I think that batteries have to improve in performance and COST before ebike will be received for general use. The average guy who can buy a scooter with gasoline engine (no gas included) for about the same price as an Ebike (no battery included) will pick the gas scooter right now. And most of the general feelings of MOST people about Ebikes is based on the performance of the bike they can afford, not the best bike around.

That is my thinking.

When the batteries cost about the same as 100 tanks of gasoline in a gas bike and run about fifty miles up and down hill with no pedaling, then you might well have something. In the meantime I expect they will remain limited to those with a lot of money, or those with minimum need. I have a minimum need of transportation, so they are suitable for me, with the much less efficient sla batteries. Those batteries make the bike cost efficient, if not performance efficient for me.

But please tell us the rating of your lithium battery pack, and the area you are using it as I am always interested in learning more.
 
Last edited:
I did test the 19ah setup and I got six miles and the batteries were still performing though not at top performance. I think there was about another mile at low but usable performance left in them.

I have built but not tested a larger trailer. The new trailer should be enough to drag along a couple of sets of 18am battery packs. Effectively giving me enough range to run around the neighborhood with ease. Until I test them I won't know for sure. Since I haven't bought the next generation of batteries yet, I will be testing the trailer with my old 24v set. I can run 36volt which is my preference for the new pack.
 
Deacon, if I lived in a more free state (im in NY where any bike with a motor was considered a "Motor vehicle" until this yr. when they made e-bikes legal), I would never consider an e-bike. Why did you go down that path?
 
To be honest they are less trouble to maintain than the gasoline bike. In my circumstance the motor runs or out it goes in the trash. On the gas bikes it was fiddle with them constantly. I fiddle with mine because I want to do something different and that's okay. It's when I have to do it because the darn thing won't start that got me going.

Now add to that the fact that I live a mile and a half from downtown, two miles to the home depot, half a mile to a grocery store, and a mile and a quarter to the mall where I walk, not shop.and the bike seemed to be a logical.

Add to that the fact that I have a brain tumor and had seizures for a while. At that time I was told by my wife, and doctor, that if I continued to drive they would call the highway patrol. The seizures have gone, but I can't maintain spacial memory very well. I lose track of the position of things I saw a moment before. Traffic is a nightmare for me. My eyesight is also effected as well as my hearing.

The ebike is considered a bike, not a moped, or even regulated like the mopeds. Since they are different, when they require registration and driver's licenses for motorbikes, I hope they overlook the lowly ebike.

My license is up for renewal next summer, I have no idea if I can pass the eye test or not. I don't need a driver's license for the Ebike. It also won't go fast enough to do very much damage. I am truly a menace behind the wheel of a ton of steel rolling down the road at fifty miles an hour or so.

My ebike is fifty pounds of steel going fifteen miles an hour. I think most anyone can get out of my way. I try to check everything twice before I make a traffic move. I mess with bikes only for the illusion of independence. If I want a hamburger, there are ten fast food joints within my 3 mile radius.

It is my opinion that an ebike (considering cost and performance) is best for people like me. Ones who live within a few miles of all the basic services. In the Burbs I don't think at the moment they are satisfactory at all. I know I can get an argument on that but a $2k bike just doesn't seem that it would sell often, when compared to a 1K gas scooter.
I can build a lower performance Ebike for a hundred bucks and put another hundred into the batteries ect.... So for the price of a China Bike, I can build an ebike to do the minimum. that makes it a reasonable choice for my needs.
 
Last edited:
Deacon,

My recumbent uses a 48 volt, 10amp-hour lithium battery pack. I get around 13wh per mile at 20mph or less. If I go faster, that number is not so great. :)

I agree about cost. That is always a big factor. I am at the Ferrari level with my E-bikes currently. Heck, right now I am building an all carbon fiber, full suspension Velokraft VK3 E-bike worth nearly $10,000. That bike, however, will most likely be sold to a wealthy client of mine. I have also built insane 20hp, 60mph tadpole trikes. So, again, I am at the ultra high-end of this. That being said, however, cost per mile of use is really not that bad if you go with a decent quality lipo pack and use it properly. You will get many miles out of it before replacement.

I do feel your pain on the cost side. I am blessed on my end because I earn an income with my E-bike projects.

Matt
 
I have seen some really nice bikes, trikes, motorcycle and even small commuter cars lately on line. I have really high hopes for them. If they can find a large enough niche, we will all benefit.

I think a one hour charger would be good thing even for me. I ride my bike to the mall to walk for about an hour. It would be nice to find the bike almost fully charged when I finish. This cold weather does a number on the batteries. They drain really quickly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top