Anyone got any experience with ebikes?

[DrF]

As title really looking at building a ebike of some sort to get around the obscene traffic on 3 mile drive.
2 hrs per day sitting about in the heat has drove me to it, it can be cut down to 10/15 mins on bike loads of road can be cut out.

There's a deadly steep hill on the way, steep enough to make the local diesel cars start puffing so I assume that's going to be my biggest issue all that power for my "plus size" ass

Decent batteries seem to be the biggest limiting factor, the cost can get out of hand right fast.

Any one got any experience in this sort of thing?

[exxos]

Get a push bike , all problems solved

[Petari]

Get a push bike , all problems solved

Not everyone is so full with electricity like with all kind of electro stuff surrounded exxos

[exxos]

Get a push bike , all problems solved

Not everyone is so full with electricity like with all kind of electro stuff surrounded exxos

True, but will solve traffic issues and "plus size" ass

[DrF]

Get a push bike , all problems solved

Pfft
Says the man who's need for speed is unending :p

True, but will solve traffic issues and "plus size" ass

If woman can be plus size then so can I, equal rights and all that

[KyleB]

Got one mostly finished, needs a few bits like a proper battery case building but that's no problem.

With the kits you can either go motor in hub or at the crank. I prefer the crank motor type because they keep all the weight centered, and you can use your gears with them. Hub motors tend to make your wheel very heavy, need more power to get up the same sort of hill (they've got no gears), and need torque arms (sold separately) to stop them from twisting out of the dropouts. Plus if I do something daft and snap a bunch of spokes I can still just use a normal wheel.

So your options for crank motor kits there's basically only two companies making anything good, and three products to consider.

Bafang BBS02, 750w/1hp, or BBSHD, 1500W/2hp. Very nice slick products, when you fit them they look like the bike came that way. BBSHD is apparently much more tolerant of being driven in anger.

Cyclone-tw 3000. Taiwanese, 3000W/4HP. Not slick, not pretty looking, but fast and very cheap. Appears to be an industrial motor re purposed with some steel brackets. Uses ordinary bike cogs and chain re-purposed with some simple adapters. Up to you to find somewhere to fit the controller box, tidy up the wiring etc. One of the key components is unashamedly a big cabletie. Will do a wheelie at full power.

What actual power and top speed you get depends on battery voltage and how many amperes the controller will take. More volts is higher top speed, more amperes is torque, acceleration. The Cyclone has a 40 amp controller, I've got a 52v battery, so I get 2080w, and a GPS verified top speed of 33Mph. Of course this is power draw, not power at the wheels.

When it comes to batteries you can either get them fast from european sellers at a high price, or slowly and cheaply from china. I got mine from EM3EV, who are a very highly rated chinese company. Took a month from order to delivery. Think I paid about 700 quid for a 52V 30Ah battery.

And with the batteries, anything under 17Ah capacity is going to be a hard plastic case that attaches where a water bottle normally goes. Dolphin case is the most common type like that. Big ones like my triangular 30Ah are wrapped in a sort of rubber sheet material, and came with a specially fitted waterproof bag that fits in the middle of the frame with velcro.

Probably most important thing before you do something like this is that you know your way around a regular pushbike first. As in, can take one totally apart to the smallest bits and put it together again and have it work properly. But don't do what I do and buy some old wreck from a car boot sale, because by the time you've finished replacing all it's worn out bits you could've bought a new one for same money.

[DrF]

Ah, some good info there, some new paths to explore, thank you

This inner city traffic is a joke the amount of fuel/time being wasted must be unreal, I have noticed a lot of Teslas around here lately I now have a idea why

[KyleB]

You live near a load of techy rich people? Here in the netherlands the model S is a popular taxi, I think for tax reasons. It's expensive to buy brand new petrol cars here.

[DrF]

You live near a load of techy rich people? Here in the netherlands the model S is a popular taxi, I think for tax reasons. It's expensive to buy brand new petrol cars here.

Fairly well off people not so much tech people, more industrial here. Prob more to do with the tax reasons as you say, UK is getting heavy on diesels and petrol emissions and round here we are having some very contriversal clean air zones introduced with charges to keep out older cars :/

[IngoQ]

UK is getting heavy on diesels and petrol emissions and round here we are having some very contriversal clean air zones introduced with charges to keep out older cars :/

Interesting, same is happening here in Germany. Diesels were HUGELY popular here, because auf lower taxes on the fuel mainly, but also because direct injecting turbo diesels were earlier accessible than direct injecting turbo petrol engines. Many people chose them because of lower fuel consumption and better torque.

And then VW (and probably all other diesel engine manufacturers as well) were caught lying about the fume cleaning and suddenly it went south. We already had so called environment zones, mostly within bigger cities, where older diesels were not allowed. But of course there were so many exceptions, that it had practically no effect. I work in Brunswick, and albeit being not the biggest city, the EU fine particle threshold is hit almost every day. And now cities slowly staring to ban diesel engines all over, but with again so many exceptions and in so small areas that it will most likely have no effect. And while I am typing this, a bus with running diesel engine is standing in front of a traffic light directly under my windows for 5 minutes.

This could all be solved years if not decades ago, by starting to build infrastructure for alternative engines, be it electric or hydrogen. If you want to see successful lobbying in action just look at car manufacturers in germany or europe...