Diy electric bike from equad?

irishpowerjunkie

irishpowerjunkie

Member
Am contemplating building a ebike from a cheapish mountain bike I have and getting a squad or one of those ebikes for kids that are made for off road use. Was wondering has anyone ever considered or done it. My plan was shifter style using sbp freewheel crankset and motor mounted so drive is all from one side. Has anyone any idea how hard it would be to extend wiring for say throttle? Is there a premade extension I could get or is it case of cut and solder?
 
Right thanks. Do you think obviously other than gearing what I should be capable of with 36v 500w motor to a 12ah battery pack? plan is more for range than speed but some would be nice, any idea of rough gearing I should aim for?
 
Well, with SLA batteries 12ah around 30 minutes @ 20mph. Lithium batteries same ah about 3 times more range. I don't know why but its true. I'm not really sure about the gears all mine are hub motors.
 
I have built a few mid-mount e-bikes and they are all shifters.
Thats the way to go, with gears you have power wherever you want it.
 
KCvale said:
That is the BIG question. $
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Plan is to spend at most around 800-850 including tyres, tubes, maybe battery and everything. Have already got bike for 20. Its a Apollo paradox dual suspension dual disc 7 speed. Plan on changing up brakes to hydro setup front and rear, will be long term project as have house repairs going on that take proirity, was looking at replacement batteries lithium 12v 15ah for motorbikes at 80 or so euro a price so give maybe 300 for replacement batteries if I want to increase range, and then sbp freewheel crankset haven't looked at prices but I know there a bit costly
 
If you've got $850 you can buy a factory bike. This one is $850 shipped, and the owners group has 7500 members

https://sondors.com/collections/nor...original-us-canada-only?variant=6559062261799

I didn't notice you're in the uk. That raises the price of shipping a little bit. This is what our owners map looks like in your part of the world.

eu.jpg
 
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biknut said:
If you've got $850 you can buy a factory bike.
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That is less than my typical performance E-bike.

This customer supplied the bike, it was a $3500 Specialized.

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I made it a KW shifter.

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Though just comfortable e-bike 3-speeds were popular, I sold a few bike like this-speed.

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And then was the customer that wanted a 'fast eclectic recumbent trike' using this trike.

$1700 Sun EZ USX HD 21-speed recumbent
It turned out well.

2_E-trikeR-1280.jpg


E-bikes are cool, you just need to pay attention to battery charge ;-}
 
Well that's not a lumpsum but totalled up maybe, baseline i am looking 300 plus freewheel pedals and around 100 for hydro brakes, will fabricate motor mount myself
 
Just priced up for freewheel system, it comes to 125 minus postage so I baseline at around 500 or so with hydrobrakes and still need better tyres and tubes
 
irishpowerjunkie said:
Well that's not a lumpsum but totalled up maybe, baseline i am looking 300 plus freewheel pedals and around 100 for hydro brakes, will fabricate motor mount myself
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You won't even FIND a decent battery and charger for $300 bud, not LI and you don't want to use Lead Acid, even Sealed LA, they just don't hold enough juice for the weight.

The 50V was a ~1KW LI in the specialized was ~$1K delivered with a charger.
I actually had to buy 3 to get the price that low.

The cool part about electrics is you can put them in a bike that wouldn't like a gas engine like this.

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I just don't think an e-quad is going to cut it for an electric bike.
 
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Kc I appreciate the input but the eqaud I was looking at are brand new chain driven and come with every thing has SLA battery and charger and everything needed to move, not expecting huge range or speed straight up, I was looking to upgrade in long run
 
irishpowerjunkie said:
Kc I appreciate the input but the eqaud I was looking at are brand new chain driven and come with every thing has SLA battery and charger and everything needed to move, not expecting huge range or speed straight up, I was looking to upgrade in long run
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If this is your first electric at least you'll get to taste what it's like, but in 2 years or less you can consider all your investment to be a total loss, because that's about as long as you can expect it to last.

Now days prices on factory bikes are so low it's a waste of time trying to beat them when you're only trying to save money. You'll spend more in the not so long run.

If money was no object, and you were trying to build a high end bike, then diy makes more sense.
 
biknut said:
If this is your first electric at least you'll get to taste what it's like, but in 2 years or less you can consider all your investment to be a total loss, because that's about as long as you can expect it to last.

Now days prices on factory bikes are so low it's a waste of time trying to beat them when you're only trying to save money. You'll spend more in the not so long run.

If money was no object, and you were trying to build a high end bike, then diy makes more sense.
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Biknut not to disagree but for example the sondors fold or x here costs 1,229 dollars including delivery, I know that may seem cheap but I simply don't have that to throw away, and to be honest after talking to guy who sells them about what I wanted to do he said that most of the actual problems with the squads is the batteries themselves are not properly taken care of and they have a longer shelf life than use so they are not at best even by time there sold
 
Right change of plan slightly a escooter will be the donor as the equad motor looked a bit wide for what I had intended, it has a 250w 36v motor, whole costs 200, but can change controller and motor for not much to either 500, 1000 or 1600w in same shop for relatively little, what would be good gearing for a 26" 7 speed for hill climbing and reasonable top speed around 30 or so?
 
irishpowerjunkie said:
Right change of plan slightly a escooter will be the donor as the equad motor looked a bit wide for what I had intended, it has a 250w 36v motor, whole costs 200, but can change controller and motor for not much to either 500, 1000 or 1600w in same shop for relatively little, what would be good gearing for a 26" 7 speed for hill climbing and reasonable top speed around 30 or so?
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This is my favorite 7 speed freewheel for eBikes

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DNP-Epoch-...ckel-Plated-/302677662274?hash=item4678fe9a42
 
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