Not Quite an Electric Bike

If the rear triangle was flexing do you think adding bracing 1/2 way foward toward the seat tube would help?
 
corgi1 said:
If the rear triangle was flexing do you think adding bracing 1/2 way foward toward the seat tube would help?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. As it is now, the motor is mounted perpendicular to the frame so it oscillates side to side. Pics in another post in this thread. The motor somehow needs to be mounted horizontally or close to it. The aftermarket motor plate doesn't really allow this. The original Ezip mount is horizontal.

Hmm. I gotta look at that Stonehaven again. The rear frame just might have enough space to accomodated the mounting plate tension bolt flange. If so, I can mount it horizontally and give that a try. If anyone else is going to try this, the aftermarket mounting plates from places like TNC don't have any flanges. It's just a flat plate. The only thing is you'll have to add washers so the plate doesn't touch the frame. This can cause the plate to warp and throw off the chain alignment.

Back to work...........zpt
 
Nope. Can't adjust the chain tension between the motor and freewheel. Aaaah, crud. None of the bikes I have will work properly. :-|| Huffy Stonehaven, Huffy step through cruiser, Route 66 comfort bike, Next full suspension mountain bike and that Ezip frame. Out of the lot, the only bike that fits me is that Huffy cruiser, but it falls down when loaded down with battery weight. I'll probably hang on to that one and get a rear kickstand and get rid of the rest. Get'em up and running with salvaged parts and sell them off on our local Craigs.

I took out my Point Beach from the storage shed. I was going to use it with my DAX motor kit, but the hub motor fits perfectly. Since I'm doing electric rght now, the gas tank, chain tensioner and rear wheel with the sprocket came off as did my chrome springer.

I mounted a center mount "Y" kickstand and it works perfectly on this bike. I had to remove the rear rack to install a wire rack so I can hang my battery packs. Installed all Shimano gears, brakes and levers and a comfort bike handlebar. The bike is coming together and is starting to look good, but it's not a step through and will have to swing my leg up and over to mount it. For now, it's okay, but I dread the bad days. Will keep my eye open for a good cruiser step through on our local Craigs. I'm tired. Will continue tomorrow. Will post pics later.
 
Holy smokes! Literally! zpt rotfl Yeah, I hates hub motors just for this reason. I keep getting the wires crossed. Damned senior moments. Now I gots 2 black fingers.

Okay, I'm just about to give it up. Hub motor runs good on 36 volts, but gets smelly hot and I still have that stumbling problem. Seems, if the motor is rated for 24 volts, it's best to stick to that. For me, anyway. Both my 24 volt motors, the Curry gear drive and the hub, both stumble under load at almost WOT unless I pedal like heck. On the top end, it smooths out and just keeps going. My block ain't long enough. :D

SO!.....a new order is in order. :p 2 24 volt controllers and 1 36 volt, 450 watt Curry geared motor. The wife and daughter are just fine with 24 volt systems. Me, I need the 36 volt oomph for those long hills.

In a previous post, I mentioned something about the frame oscillating. Well, now that I found the hub motor to do the same, I'm thinking it was the stumbling of the motor that caused the frame to flex back and forth. So for me, 36 volts was just too much for my 24 volt motors. Others may have better luck and I hope they post their experiences.

I'll just bide my time for that nimh battery pack Deacon's working on. :D
 
The 36v runs fine in the friction drive I run. I think the currie motor will take the excess without heating, I can not say for any others. I have a hut for 250 24v I run at 36 it has a nasty sound when it runs but it seems to run okay. I just never use it. I don't like hub motors.
 
deacon said:
The 36v runs fine in the friction drive I run. I think the currie motor will take the excess without heating, I can not say for any others. I have a hut for 250 24v I run at 36 it has a nasty sound when it runs but it seems to run okay. I just never use it. I don't like hub motors.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Curry runs cool compared to the hub. At 36 volts, the Curry puts out some torque and pick up can be quick. The hub is still slow off the start and needs the pedal assist if I want to get up to speed quicker. Once there, it keeps going. I'm guesstimating with both, I'm hitting between 30and 35 mph on the flats. Good enough for me. Hills are way easier as well. I just can't do it with all that stumbling, though. I'm going to try the Curry on the PB and see how it works. Maybe different bike? I dunno. If both motors did that stumbling, chances are it'll do it again. <sigh> Try anyway.
 
I just can't figure why it would bog down. I have that happen when my friction drive tension is set to slack, The wheel is truning normal it just isnt moving the bike when it accelerates lost it's friction.
 
Took the PB with the Curry motor out for a spin. Same thing. <sigh> I dunno. Just can't figure it. Chain tension could be tighter, but it's not so loose that the chain would skip. (?)

I just talked to "someone" about shift kits that are being sold for gas engines. He told me that these were inspired by a rig meant for an electric motor and didn't see any reason why it wouldn't work! How'bout that? I think I'll just leave the bike as is so I have something to ride, and start planning a Summer project with one of those shift kits and a 36 volt motor of somekind from TNC. Maybe a biggun'. zpt Yeah, I want to use a shift kit for my gas motor also so it's going to be an expensive Summer, eh? dance1
 
deacon said:
Have you tried that with a different controller.
Click to expand...

Hmm. You thinking this particular controller may be wacky? Didn't even think of that. I have 2 more. Maybe I'll try one of the other ones tomorrow. Come to think of it, seeing that 2 different types of motors did the same thing. The only thing in common was the controller and batteries. The battery part is pretty straight forward. What else could an sla battery pack do? LOL Thanks Deacon. I'll give it a try. If it is bad, I won't be able to get a refund, but TNC will probably be alright with an exchange.
 
The only other common feature that might cause it would be the throttle. If you are using the same throttle, I would try chainging that out if the controller doesn't do it. All the electric throttles are crapolla in my opinion. The thumb throttle has done the best for me in the cheap throttle dept. The twist ones are gone in couple of months it seems.
 
Hi Grouchy - I have built 2 ebikes with shifters. The first was a front wheel drive. I took a pair of old 3 speed internal hub bikes and moved the rear wheel from one to the front of the other. I built a rack over the front wheel and mounted a geared down Unite motor from a Razor Dirt Quad. You can read about it at at http://motorbicycling.com/f9/controller-relay-9929.html and Endless-sphere.com &bull; View topic - 3 speed front wheel drive e-bike Those rims were steel so I had essentially no wet weather brakes and I got worried about front wheel lockup with a chain malfunction so I picked up a 24 speed mtb and modified it to work as an 8-speed with both the motor and crank able to drive the chain independently (or together), using dual sprockets and freewheels on the bottom bracket spindle. You can read about it at http://motorbicycling.com/f9/dual-freewheel-front-sprocket-drive-14690.html and Endless-sphere.com &bull; View topic - Dual Freewheel Front Sprocket system . If you're interested I can supply more details - jd
 
deacon said:
The only other common feature that might cause it would be the throttle. If you are using the same throttle, I would try chainging that out if the controller doesn't do it. All the electric throttles are crapolla in my opinion. The thumb throttle has done the best for me in the cheap throttle dept. The twist ones are gone in couple of months it seems.
Click to expand...

Ah, good point. Oh oh. The only throttle I have left is off the Bladez scooter. A heavy duty looking, lever type throttle. Problem is it uses different colored wires. Red, white and black instead of the usual red, green and black. Hmmm. Nah, looks like it's wired different to. Red can go to red, but the other wires are reversed on both ends. (?) I'll figure it out somehow.
 
Hey, I could take the throttle off my daughter's Razor electric dirt bike. That's all I need. She'll come home and go, "Daddy! Why is my electric bike broke?" and I'll say, "It ain't broke. That's what the pedals are for. Go pedal that thing around." laff
 
Hoi, jdcburg, thanks for that. No need for a jack shaft setup and I can use what I already have. A 450 watt Curry geared motor. (^) Only problem is I don't know how much fabrication is involved, but my "workshop" facilities are very limited. Plus, I'd be mounting it to a cruiser so the pedal assembly has to be "updated". It's a Point Beach and I know places like SBP has pedal assemblies for these types of bikes.

Okay. Just looked over that PB. The mounting plate isn't going to work and would have to fabricate one to fit inside the framework. Probably easier to buy a new motor with the same type of mounting tabs as in your vid....Ohhellooo. I have 24 volt Curry motors in 250, 300 and 500 watts from several salvaged electric scooters. HAH! dance1 And with shifting, even the small motor is given a boost.

So what do I need to do? Is this a rig I can use just hand tools?

Btw, I remember seeing your post. There's so much information on this forum, I totally forgot about it.
 
That might be your problem red is almost always positive feed. Black is almost always ground. The other one is most likely the green or blue wire of the controller.
 
grouchyolfart said:
Hey, I could take the throttle off my daughter's Razor electric dirt bike. That's all I need. She'll come home and go, "Daddy! Why is my electric bike broke?" and I'll say, "It ain't broke. That's what the pedals are for. Go pedal that thing around." laff
Click to expand...
That reminded me of a friend , who has a son with great passion for toy trains...Boy got huge amount of locomotives and various train cars and tracks...Only , he never got to play with it , my friend took over ("He - meaning his son - is just too small and he will broke it...") :D
 
Nope. Took that controller apart and the actual part that controls the current is smaller than a dime. Thus huge, heavy housing and lever is just that. A lever with a big spring. The controller part is just a little circuit board and a geared wheel. (?) Scratch that. I'll canabilize my daughter's bike later on. Gotta make hotel reservations for our upcoming trip. San Antonio's got a "secret" 3 star hotel for only $48 per night. :D I also gotta get to PT, so not much time today. :(
 
Hi GOF. I used mostly parts from SickBikeParts - their chainrings (sprockets), cranks and the standard freewheel. I had a cartridge BB so I bought their conversion kit for that. All together under $100 with shipping. My dual freewheel setup requires an adapter and a few other parts I had fabricated at the local voc-tech along with an extra-wide BB spindle from Cyclone and an ACS Southpaw LH thread BMX freewheel sprocket. I did it that way so I would have the minimum amount of drag when I am pedaling without the motor. You can read more about it and see pix on the endless-sphere forum post. If you want to do it that way, PM me and I can walk you through it. If you are going to use motor power all the time and just pedal assist sometimes you could do it much simpler by just bolting the motor driven sprocket and the crank drive sprockets (on the BB) together like the 2 smoker guys do. SBP sells a $5 hardware kit for that too. For safety's sake, you still need the crank freewheel so the sprockets can turn without the cranks. The middle road is to put a freewheel up on the motor sprocket but smallest of them you can get in bicycle chain is 15 tooth. The next main issue is getting the crank cadence to about 80-90 rpm under motor power. That's usually about right for power with those wattage motors and also is fairly comfortable for pedal-assist. It's fast but hopefully the motor is doing most of the work. A 3000 rpm motor with a 10:1 gearbox puts out 300 rpm, so you need about 4:1 from the motor drive sprocket to the driven sprocket on the BB spindle. The largest SBP sells is 48 tooth, so a 12 tooth puts you right there. If you go with a 15T freewheel sprocket, you're in the ballpark at 3.2:1. You'll have more speed, less low end power. A smaller crank sprocket will improve the overall power ratio but then you'll have a fast cadence to try to keep up with. If your motor doesn't have a gearbox you'll have to make up a jackshaft. Somehow you have to get about 40:1 overall. It might be easier with #25 chain if that's the sprocket you have on the motor already. Let me know if you have questions - jd
 
jdc, thanks for the info. (^)

Only problem now is the bike won't go fast. (?)
Something ain't working right and I couldn't get the bike to go faster than I can pedal it.
That's it. I ordered a couple of new 24volt controllers from TNC and will switch it all back to a 24volt system. Less weight and I don't really need the range anyway. As for speed....I'll work on that after I get this darned thang running the way it should. Probably talk to jdc a little more about it when the time comes. :)

During this interim, I scored a Felt Armada off a surfer dude living in Waikiki and was going back to the mainland. Nice bike. Problem with this one is it's one speed and there's no way to mount a rear derailleur. Felt sells a 3 speed assembly, but it costs more than I paid for the bike. Sturmey Archer has a 7 or 8 speed hub, but it's going to cost me on switching out the spokes and I think I still need somekind of derailleur to operate it. I'll figure something out as that big space in the frame is just begging for maybe a double motor rig. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top