Making an electric bicycle (looking for advice)
 

I love riding my bicycle and I only work 5 miles from where I live. I was wondering if there is a relatively simple way to convert a bicycle to have an electric motor on it. It doesn't have to go particularly fast, maybe a top speed of around 20 mph. I am just looking for a way that could get me to work more quickly then my own power can do that does not require me to use my car since the commute is so short. I would also use this to get to the grocery store and around campus since I live in such an urban area.

If you know of any tutorials or links to kits or instructions I would really appreciate it, I have found a few but none really go into much detail about setting up the speed controller and making the drive train / the drive train is too elaborate for my means of fabrication.

Also, there is an electric bicycle club at my college which I am going to look into tomorrow but I figured that you guys might get me a head start on this since it's a pretty small organization on campus.

I would expect to see Lazarus jump into this thread. He just went through the same series of questions you asked, and has started using his newly converted e-bike.

Obviously it's a great way to get around if you're concerned about efficiency but want to be able to use 2 wheels outside of your normal comfort zone (distance or speed wise).

I know you don't need convincing, but did you see this thread? Test: 250w electric bicycle efficiency = 1512 MPG equivalent

NoCO2. Welcome to the site. I just went through the same thing as Metro stated. I have varying commutes lengths and was looking for some way to close the gap between biking and the car. I went with the a conversion kit that has a plug and play more or less. I not very mechcanicaly inclined so it worked out well for me. If you look on the EM blog under Laz cycling log it will give you more detail.

I'm 160 pounds and with the motor only it tops out at 22 mph. I use it as an assist and not just as an electric bike so I've easily gone 25 miles and the pack still has a lot of life in it. With moderate effort I can cruise around 20 mph and taking it easy 17 mph or so.

Here's another thread on making a e-bike

That's great, I weigh about 200lbs (give or take some depending on what I ate that day) so I could probably expect between 18-20mph from what it sounds like using that kit you used. I am mechanically inclined, but honestly a bit lazy so something that just bolts on would really be ideal since I don't have time these days with all my schooling to do much else other then study and work and occasionally tinker with things on the weekends.

wildernessenergy.com seems to be down or something right now, I will check it out when they are back up though.

The speed would also depend on what kind of bike you put it on. I have it on a road bike. If you put it on a mountain bike it would be slower due to weight and tire size. I was hoping it would be a little faster but it does cut my commute time down considerable on shorter, less then 10 mile, commutes.:thumbup: I'm also pleased with the battery life. Although I do not just run on battery power only I have yet to dig very deep into the batteries with recharge time less then 1 1/2 hours.

I would be outfitting my Trek 1000AL road bike with it, more then likely. The bike is made from carbon fiber and aluminum so I don't think weight will be that much of an issue...

Is there another place I can get this kit from instead of wildernessenergy.com? It has been down since yesterday.

There seems to be something wrong with their web server setup. (Looks like someone made a typo - when you go to wildernessenergy.com, you get redirected to "widernessenergy.com", which of course doesn't exist.)

But if you go straight to their index page, it seems to work:
http://www.wildernessenergy.com/index.php

Just do a search for wildernessenergy conversion kits or even e-bike conversion kits. There are a couple of others out there. The kit adds about 45 pound on the bike and with the battery pack mounted high on the seat rack it takes a hit on low speed stability.

Fixed it thanks. I though I checked that?

I know it's running on dead dinosaurs, but there's lots of bike engines, too. The upside of them is most deliver over 150mpg. Some are also terrifyingly fast: over 40mph with the right gearing.

Also try Googling "Dave's Insane-a-cycle", a homebuilt jobbie that breaks 50mph with an Etek motor. It destroys about two chains a year, if the writer is to be believed, and I think he is.

Yea, 40+ mph on a bike is a bit scary. I have the road bike I do because I used to do distance cycling in high school and on one of my routes there was a hill that could propel me to speeds approaching 45mph if I helped out gravity in my highest gear ratio.

P.S. thanks for fixing the link for me, I was wondering what was going on. Also, it appears you have to be a wholesaler to get it right from wildernessenergy so I did a google search and found an online retailer. Is there any real advantage for the brushless versus brushed motors? I know that the brushes have to be replaced occasionally, but considering I know how to replace electric motor brushes from my experience with RC cars I can't justify the price difference unless there is a performance increase. The replacement brushes are only like $10.

If you shop around online you can find a deal. My understanding is that the brushed motor provides more torque and not as much speed but the range is reduced. But for a five mile commute it probably won't matter. Putting this setup on a road bike fork you need to be careful and not break the fork with the torque the motor provides. You also need 10 mm spacing on the fork and most newer bikes are 9mm. I only engage the motor once up to speed which also lengthen the usable distance.

When you look for these kits check the controller and batteries. Some come with a 36 amp controller and 12v 7amh batteries. Some kits have 50 amp and 12v 12amh batterries which means more speed and more range.

I was looking at the 40amp version of the kit with the 36v battery pack. I think I'll probably go with the brushed model because I don't have a problem replacing brushes occasionally and I didn't know it needed 10mm...that will cause some problems, I may need to hit up the local thrift store for a good used mountain bike and convert it to have road tires or something.

I used an electric bike kit from Golden Motor.

Have been pretty happy with it. I think it was a little cheaper when I bought mine.

In a lot of states, electric bikes are supposed to go no faster than 20 MPH under their own power. So a lot of manufacturers design them to go that speed.

My cheap frame didn't have any suspension on it. Pretty scary when I would get it over 30 mph going downhill.

People also didn't expect me to be going that fast on a granny-cycle. Cars would pull out right in front of me all the time.

That's a big part of what led to me doing the electric motorcycle - suspension and street cred.

Electric bikes are fun - definately do it!

Awesome site bennelson! I just bookmarked it. I like that they have a rear wheel version and that their 500W version is as much as the 400W version at the other site. I'm going to keep looking to see if I can't do better then that, but the rear wheel kit is really what I want, I hate those front mounted motors.

Ok, just some quick questions.

I'm looking at that most recent site, the goldenmotor.com site. Here are my questions:

What is "pedelec" option I see that I can get?
What is the difference between their "standard controller" and their "Regen Braking Controller"?

Pedelec requires the rider to be pedaling in order for the controller to send the juice to the motor.

I don't know the details of Golden's approach, but some e-bikes (BionX comes to mind) actually measure rider effort (strain gauges?) and motor output changes in tandem (nice pun!) with the rider.

Regen causes the motor to act as a generator under braking, which puts some electrical energy back into the battery when slowing down. Since bike riders in general don't use their brakes nearly as much as hybrid car drivers do, I'd question spending more to get an e-bike with regen.

ok cool, that more or less helps me there. the regen would be good if a lot was downhill but here it's pretty flat so i don't see it giving any real advantages.

I have a motor from Electric Rider choosing the Phoenix Cruser, and am extreamly happy with it, it's beefy, and gives a solid push when you hit the throttle, the person who owns the insane a cycle apparently works for electric rider, a friend has the same phoenix motor on a cat trike and is able to pull a bob trailer full of produce up hills at 25mph, we both have the 36v DeWalt lithium battery packs, best price I found was on Ebay for around $100 each new, but the price is slowly droping, and they have a warenty.
I've talked to other people who bought motors from goldenmotor.com and liked them, untill they rode other electric bikes.
I also used to own a ZAP electric bike kit... still own it in fact for 14 years, it still works, 12mph for about 10 miles, everything still works it just needs a new battery, I might be willing to sell it.

Ok, well I measured out the exact distance today from my apartment to work and it's only 4.3 miles which is actually less then I thought originally by almost a mile so that's good to know. I like those Electric Rider kits, the only gripe I have is the price. I'm looking to stay under $400-$500 because I'm not putting this on a very nice bike and knowing me, I'm going to tinker with it and likely upgrade gradually to something faster and better. Right now I really just need something that does between 20 - 25 miles per hour and gets me about 10 - 20 miles on a charge (so I'm not constantly recharging). I would eventually like to see myself get the Pheonix that does 30 mph but right now that's well out of my price range.

I had a 24V Currie kit installed by Electric Sierra Cycles in 2002. Made that recumbent trike "sing"- faster accelaration, flattened hills, boosted distance a lot. That trike is slowly wearing out, but the motor is not wearing out!

I have another recumbent trike (the one in my avatar), and from 2005 to 2007 added more and more until it was becoming heavy. I again had Electric Sierra Cycles install a 36V hub motor December 2007.

I think the Currie was before the 20 mph law and the newer Electric Sierra motor was after; since that old Currie doesn't seem to have governers or controls that the E.S. does have. That older 24V takes off in a hurry, and seems faste than the 36Vr; but neither one is a "slouch". Both have been a blast!

(pictured: TerraTrike with Currie,- the black'spot"near the back wheel/battery under seat- and E-Pod- all mechanicals inside- pre molding)

countersTrike

Those trikes are such a neat idea. Any idea what it would take to make one of those legal for street use? I would love to have one of those to go from here to work in, however, where I live the only road to get from here to work is a 55mph 6 lane divided highway basically, but it has a sidewalk so I was planning on riding the electric bike, for that portion of the ride, on the sidewalk and then once I got to the 35mph 2 lane roads I could get back on the road like normal. If I got one of those I wouldn't be able to go on the road in the 55mph zone because of the sheer difference in speed but it, being 3 wheels, probably wouldn't fit on the sidewalk...is there anyway to make one of those trikes that could go, say, 40mph? that would solve the speed difference issue and allow me to use it to get to work...or is there a law that prohibits it?

That enclosed one now has a rear light, turn signals, molded-in (permanent) top, side windows, a larger two-tone flag (like the other pictured trike) much higher gearing (to out-power the motor- like an overdrive) but it is still a bicycle as far as a license.

That means 20-25 mph max! That is on 35 - 40 mph streets. Strike 1

Neither trike has suspension. I was going too fast and did not see an upcoming driveway to get onto the street. I missed it, flew right off the edge- went airborn a couple of feet- and when the trike slammed back on the street: I swerved across two lanes. Suspension would have avoided that. Strike 2

Also concerning suspension; not every road is smooth as glass. Without it, the vibration causes a fair amount of noise. I hear lower noise of traffic, horns, sirens, construction, etc.; but I cannot hear my stereo or news without stopping. Not good! If I shut all windows and vents I may turn right into trouble without hearing it. Strike 3

For many years a trike held a 62 mph record, so 40 - 55 mph is possible; scare the "tar" out of almost anyone- but possible! :eek: _____ :D

I have been VERY pleased with these small vehicles. Although about 3' wide and varying lengths- I feel extremely safe; but if there is a 55mph highway nearby- I am the first one in my car :)

countersTrike

Thanks for the advice, I guess I'm going to be sticking to the bike for now at least so I can hop on the sidewalk/grass when needed to avoid traffic. I wonder how hard it would be to convert one of those to have some suspension from say...one of those small race cars and then get it a VIN and tag so that it could be on the road legally. I would hate to end up in the same situation as those guys who built the pedal powered car.

The easiest way to get a VIN is to already have one. That is why I am CONVERTING a vehicle to electric.

Check out my motorcycle registration.

Another thing you might be interested in is the Bug-E electric trike.

Ebike question?
 

Hey guys, I'm super new to the forums here... and I plan to stick around.
I'm looking for a little advice. I'm trying to do a super inexpensive electric mod to my lowrider bike. I have a motor from an electric scooter I was thinking of using. It's rated at 6A 100W 24VDC. I'm only looking for a little motor assist, as I plan on pedaling all the time too. I had seen on an earlier post that these were good batteries to use http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp...ROD&ProdID=202 ...so, if I bought 20 of those, and made a pack that would be 24v would I be exceeding the amperage of that little motor? Also, I was thinking of using a switch for the power, and only switch it on when I'm up to speed. I don't think the scooters controller would handle the load.

welcome to the board Barry,
Don't worry about going over on amps. Your motor will only pull as many amps as it needs, no more (you can usually feed it more volts than it says too). What you'll need to watch out for is the rated voltage of the controller. That is the major sticking point for most EV setups, the controller. If you need a bigger/better one for what you're doing you can always find one online. 100 watts isn't too much in terms of power for electric bikes, but you could easily up that by using a 36v controller and running your motor at 36 volts.
Anyway, keep looking around at parts, and reading about electric conversions and you'll be in great shape.

Hey, AndrewJ, thanks a lot for that link to the scooter parts and thank you and welcome to BarrysWorld as well. I was looking for some other batteries as well because I'm thinking of getting the parts separately now after looking around a bit and building a custom battery pack (for optimal space usage and power output) and possibly even go with a more powerful motor or possibly something other then a hub motor maybe moving to a small, 3-5hp motor from an industrial motor supply company and hooking it to the drive train via belt drive or something similar.

I have also been playing around with sketches today for a trike chassis that might accommodate a 5-10hp motor as well as a decent set of batteries and suspension system for adaptation for real world road usage. If I can get a hold of a scanner (and make a larger, more legible sketch) I will upload what I have been playing with. The only challenge I really face is safety, I am confident that if I toy around enough with ideas I will find a suitable way to make it work in the long run, but I have never designed a vehicle that was going to be used in real world, road conditions. The closest I have come is building downhill luge vehicles that approached the range of 50-60mph but we used those on closed courses where things were predictable.

Thank you also for that link to the Bug-E page. I will definitely take a look into those if for nothing more then reference for my own design, I may actually think of getting one if I find out more about them though.

::EDIT::
Also, just to add to my last post a bit, I crunched some numbers for the design I have laid out for the shell (just paying around with dimensions, not really shape yet) and assuming I can at least manage the Cd at or under .30 I can get my target speed of 45mph with just under 5HP which means I might even be able to pull off between 30-40 mph if I can get that kind of motor on my bike...hm...more thoughts to play with.

I also took a look into that scooter site, found some 3-5" suspension assemblies that are not only very cheap but could probably be easily mounted on an existing (or homemade) trike frame...I'm starting to think this could actually work...

::MORE EDIT::

Additional math with the most powerful motor I could find on the scooter supply website shows that with a 1200W motor I will get 1.6HP which will get me about 31 mph assuming no wind and no other resistance that is greater then my Cd calculations of .3 which means that in order to obtain the speeds I was looking for (IE 5HP motor) I'm going to need to find a 3700W motor...personally I don't feel like lugging one of these around...back to the drawing board.

The motor on my cycle is considered an 8 hp Permanent Magnet DC Motor.

It goes 38 mph running on 36 volts with roughly a 6:1 gear ratio.

Has good excelleration, quiet, and fun to ride.

More volts would make it go a lot faster. My limit right now is the space to cram batteries inside the frame.

thanks Andrew, that IS a great link. I think I will bump it up to 36V. I want to stick with the little motor for size reasons. I'd like to keep the electric part of the bike rather stealthy. I think I can make a pack that will fit in the top portion of the frame. it's one of those ol' Schwinn style frames, so i'll fashion it into a tank of sorts.

It's a great link just because the URL is so easy to remember. I've been looking on there on-and-off for over a month and I never had to bookmark it.

Hmmm, what was that site with the electric scooter parts? electricscooterparts.com? Naaah, couldn't be that, it's too easy... :D

Just so you guys know, this is the math I've been working out, I'll just throw my scratch paper verbatim up here for reference.

HP = v/375 [.00256 x Cd x A x (v^2)] -- that's what I have been working off of.

Assuming a drag coefficient of <= .3 for the trike and the frontal area of the trike I made is 5.04'^2 (6'^2 x .84 as per what it says in the aerodynamics seminar posts) and with a target speed of 45mph, this is the equation.

HP = 45/375[.00256 x .3 x 5.04'^2 x (2025)] -- HP = 4.741 (3538W!!)

Again just for reference in case anyone wishes to see what I did.

I have those exact batteries, the Tenergy "d" cells built in to a 36volt pack and fitted in copper tubes formed in to a rack, and I'm replacing them because they can't handle the load that my bicycle motor puts on them, they are designed for lower loads, they work great for flashlights, not for bikes, check out some place like Ebikes.ca the "c rate" of the packs is how much of a load you can put on it a 5C 8amp hour 24volt pack can handle 5c times 8 amp hours... 40 amp load... my motor is pretty big and has a 40 amp fuse so I suspect it will never see 40 amp load, so that battery pack would be very safe and work well.

thank you! I'm sorry those batteries didn't work out for you. I am glad that you shared your misfortune with us... that way others (like me!) won't make that mistake. That triangular 36v pack looks interesting on ebikes. Is that about what I can expect to pay for a decent battery? I'm cool with making my own too, as I've done that in the past for my R/C stuff. I just have to find some good cells

NOCO,

Get a Crystalyte 5300 series hub motor. they are rated at 750W, but have been shown to handle in excess of 5KW. They are a bit expensive but worth the money. You'll want a 72v controller for the system. I have the weakest controller made for that voltage and I can still run 30mph if I need to. there are people running them above 50 mph.

Check this link
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=2

Should give a good overview of some of the things going on in the homebrew ebike world.

JJ

Thanks for that link jjackstone, the link was great, will definitely be looking into it more as I progress.

This weekend I'm going to start pricing this whole thing out (the trike that is) as I wait to obtain the funds to begin work on the bicycle. Hopefully I will be able to keep the whole thing under $2,000(USD). If I can't keep it under that then I'm going to consider looking for a used motorcycle that I can convert instead. I am also going to start looking for laws that surround home made and kit built automobiles to find out how street legal, if at all the hand built electric trike would be.

I found an interesting electric powered bicycle on the internet. It looks like a good design but it's a one of a kind project, not a kit. Check this link.

http://www.peltzer.net/ebike/

BASIC SPECS OF V1.5
Scott 24 V DC, 1 hp motor (3 hp max)
Gates Power Grip GT2 belt primary drive
1/2" steel jackshaft on custom shaft ball bearing mount - 3:1 reduction
#35 chain final drive to rear wheel - 2.77:1 reduction
8.44:1 overall gearing gives top speed of about 27 mph
2 x 12V Hawker AGM-type lead acid batteries, 13 Ah each; later replaced by B&B 12v 16Ah batteries (also AGM)
4QD "Scoota 180" speed controller - 180A with regenerative braking
24 V charger charges in 2-5 hours typically
pedal in all 18 speeds
batteries and motor removable in 10 minutes
range 15 miles on the flat depending on pedal assist
weight 85 lbs.

Well, I sold my electric bike. I bought a 24v global ebike for $25. I had it running for a little over $100. Top speed was 14mph. It was a fun project but mainly it was a toy. At 90lbs it was too heavy to pedal. Some light training and I could easily outpace it with my regular old trek hybrid. For between $500-1000 I could have upgraded it to make it more usable but I can go everywhere I need to within 3 miles. I felt it would not make economic sense. I also realized the AGM 14.5amp hr pack was horribly heavy. The bike was unpleasant to use for trips longer than 1-2 miles. Range was 6-8 miles using moderate elec assist. I weigh 230lbs, all up weight was 320lbs. I decided to wait a while and let better battery tech mature before I try again. I also bartered a 500w chain drive 36volt 3 wheel scooter for 2 hours work. I was going to do a left side spoke drive on an old coaster brake cruiser. I went as far as getting all the parts and then someone made me an offer for the scooter I couldn't refuse.

check out www.motoredbikes.com it's a forum that is all about bicycle motors.

Later,

Allan Greenblazer