Commuting - Electric assist in the rain

I am going to start commuting to work in a couple of weeks, about 3 miles one way all on bike path. I have an electric assist Brushed Hub Motor Kit with a 5500mah NIMH, installed on my Giant Sedona. Does anyone have an opinion/experience with using motor assist in the rain? What problems might I run into. New to the forum, lots of great info here! Thanks

We had quite some rainy days here in San Diego around late winter/early spring. That was unexpected.

I got my electric assist last Febryary and I've ridden it in some heavy rains for at least 20 minutes and they were fine. I'm using SLAs, and I've had my motor very wet in several occasions. The battery and controller was spared because I basically shielded them a bit, but they were not dry(especially the controller). The fenders helped alot.

I did read about some controller malfunction because the water somehow got into them, but I never found out if they were using fenders or not, or where they had the controller mounted.

Oh yeah, welcome to the bikeforums.net! How are the NiMh working for you? How much were they?

I am going to start commuting to work in a couple of weeks, about 3 miles one way all on bike path. I have an electric assist Brushed Hub Motor Kit with a 5500mah NIMH, installed on my Giant Sedona. Does anyone have an opinion/experience with using motor assist in the rain? What problems might I run into. New to the forum, lots of great info here! Thanks

Shouldn't expect any problem in the rain with a hub motor. I remember a thread a couple years ago over ARBR wherein the North American Crystallite distributor confirmed that Crystallite motors will operate under water. Another poster witness one comming out of the water.

Friction drive systems such as Zap SX, Zap DZ, ETC Express (now Zap Express), Bikit, EV Warrior slip on the wheel in the rain. I've heard of persons in the BC area also having ETC Express units fail to even run in the persistant rain of that region.

5500 mah at what voltage? (12/24/36/48 X 5.5AH = 60/120/180/240 W-hr which is the amount of energy your battery pack holds)

I'd expect for 3 miles one way you can go round trip even if that system is as low as 24V.

I thought he mistyped it and assumed he had 55 ah which is alot of battery life!

You can seal up a Crystalite hub motor with some silicon to make it even more resistant to water than it already is. At the very least, seal in the area where the wires enter the body of the motor.

Also make sure that the controller, throttle and battery don't get wet, they are far more vulnerable to moisture than the motor is.

Heh, electric assist. I've always wondered about that. Never bothered to see if anybody actually created those. Guess it makes a joke i made to afriend that more funny.