Electric Bikes - For anyone that installed hub kit

I have a question from all of the experts here.
I need to put a kit (probably one of the goldenmotor front wheel kit) on my beater. I have to commute roughly 15 miles to the train. Once there it will be locked to a bike rack or in a bike locker.

So is there a way to making the controller\batteries together in the rear bag with one quick disconnect? I'm afraid that if i leave the controller behind it will not be there when i return at night. I presently put the bike on a bus rack in the am and pedal home. But with the rise in fuel costs i find that i have to wait 2-3 buses which could take an additional hour of time to catch a bus that has an open slot on the rack. I tried riding easy in but i still get to ripe smelling plus at 4:00 in the am i'm really not in the mood.

I can't wait to bypass the bus portion all together (i hate the bus !)

thx jim...............

You can't take the bike on the train then? That was how I used to do a lot of my travelling about when I was younger. Ride my bike to the station and then take it on the train. I'd get off at the station nearest to where I wanted to go and then ride the rest of the way.

I am not an expert but the short answer is yes you can. Not practical (on my bike at least, but yes you can). The problems I see are (a) mounting the controller where it will stay cool with a quick disconnect mounting that won’t fail while you’re riding. I’d be concerned with the heat in a bag. (b) The size and weight of the batteries when you tote them and (c) charging your batteries at work. 15 miles may be pushing the envelope depending on your weight and the topography of your ride. And in my case the controller has a 5 or 6 foot wire harness that is strapped along the frame (usual installation procedure) to the motor which makes it difficult to remove. Some quick disconnects would be required. You also want to make sure your battery pack is welcome on the train and doesn’t look threatening.

My disclaimer is I am not familiar with Golden Motor kits and I only have experience with one Wilderness Energy kit that I recently installed.

My kit has 2 connections at the controller (actually 3 but I only use 2); one connection to the battery and one to the throttle. It also has a wiring harness that extends to the motor itself (see above). It is easy to disconnect one or both connecters but I would be concerned about durability of daily connections and would probably change them.

My kit is 36V SLA’s which weighs 24 lbs and is configured @ 4”x7”x12” (roughly). Better chemistry weighs only 4 to 7 lbs for the same power and range. A 24V kit is smaller of course. My battery bag has room for the charger (Soneil) but not the controller which may be subject to overheating if permanently installed in a bag.

I don’t recommend this but here is a video of batteries in a backpack. Looks like a suicide bomber.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsbOD09doRI

What kind of batteries are those in the video (the ones that fit in a backpack)?

They look small and light.

Anyone know where to get those? You could probably put those inside the frame tubes...

Saltydawg,

those batteries on youtube looked like packaged D-cells, regular battery cells like you'd see in any big box store. (in either shrink wrap or plastic pipe).

As far as heat is concerned, one option would be to have the controller in a mesh pouch, or secured by straps, on the outside of the same bag which carries the batteries. The bag (or hard plastic case?) could be a backpack or it could be placed on top of or on the side of the rear rack.

With regards to battery heat, my battery is from www.yesa.com.hk and their batteries (and probably others with the LiFePO4 chemistry) don't even get warm from use, so they don't need to be packed somewhere that allows heat to dissipate.

Saltydawg,

those batteries on youtube looked like packaged D-cells, regular battery cells like you'd see in any big box store. (in either shrink wrap or plastic pipe).


Can you actually power an e-bike with off the shelf D-cells though?

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h95/salty_dawg3/batteries.jpg

If those are D-cells, what kind of output do you think they provide?

Saltydawg--

whether or not a pack of D cells is appropriate (in terms of how many amps it can put out at a time) will depend more or less on the C rating of the cells and the number of amp hours the pack stores.

For example, my pack stores 10 amp hours and is rated at 1C, and to get the number of amps it is rated to put out, you multiply 10 amp hours by the 1 from "1C" and get 10 amps. If it were 2C i'd get 20 amps, 2.5C=> 25 amps.

With small cells such as D cells you can change the number of amp hours to almost anything that you want just by changing the number of cells-- triple the number of cells in parallel (http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aparallel) and you get triple the number of amp hours. (you will also need to multiply the number of parallel cells by the number of series sets you use , 2 series 12 parallel is 24 cells total, in order to get the number of series sets you need.

A common C rating for d cells might be 1C, a common "what you can get away with" might in fact be 2C. You might see D cells with 5 amp hours, so you could probably get 10 amps out of them.

Jim- I received the GM front wheel kit a few weeks ago and was pretty disappointed. The wiring looks too thin and ready to break in some places, the connectors are cheesy and cheap looking, and the whole thing came all jumbled up in the box, obviously the result of a long trip, but also from careless packing and minimal packing material. I'd look at other brands...

David

Get a brushed hub motor and forget the controller...