Electric Bikes - Solar Charged E-Trike

I wanted something to take the place of driving my car on errands. It just wasn't practical to hitch a trailer to my HPVelotechnik Scorpion trike, so the answer was to sell my Tour Easy and get a Sun EZ3 AX. Next came a Wilderness Energy BL36 hubmotor (400w), a Nashbar trailer, solar panels, MPPT controller and mounting racks for the solar and batts. Work is underway on an enclosure for the trike - call it a fairing, although my first attempt will be to adopt a snow blower cab to use on the trike. If that fails, I'll go coroplast, as I'm a semipro coroplast butcher from a decade ago. In a month's time, I've put on over 400 miles on the rig, ridden it to a basic PV course given by the Will County Forest Preserve District (Illinois) and a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new trail (200 yards of a 26 mile trail - huah!).

All was well until I rode in the rain, thus discovering that the controller was FAR from waterproof, let alone resistant, so, upgrade to a Crystalyte Phoenix 3640 system (amazing how I can justify getting a more powerful system because the old controller doesn't like water) which will allow me to keep up with cars on the road. Total rig weight is 150#, I weigh 240#, so getting on the Scorp seems like riding on a cloud. Picture attached below is Rob (exec. dir. of Chicago Bike Fed.), his son and Diane, also of CBF posing alongside the rig, athough they WERE checking it out just a second before.

Did you add a larger basket to the back of the EZ3? I put one together for someone this summer and I don't understand why a trike doesn't have a larger area for hauling stuff. I decided to put an Xtracycle on my Rans Stratus because I like the Xtra so much on my old moutain bike.

Click on the thumbnail photo for a larger pic. I used thetwo sets of seat strut mounts to attach - 1. seat struts (rearmost set), 2. mounts for trailer, 3. aluminum angle stock attached to both front and rear strut mounts which holds battery (s) box, MPPY charge controller and vert. struts for solar panel. In place of battery box, you could mount a basket or use a Rubbermaid container bolted onto the angle stock for waterproof storage.

Ya Hooie! The C'lyte X503 arrived Friday last, but, the 26" fork my lbs sold me as 1 1/8" X 250mm turned out to be only 1"! Durn mech. had the caliper in his hand and measured, so, either he doesn't know how to read a caliper, or he was determined to get that fork out the door. Went back Friday aft. and he ordered a new fork, so we'll see. Trike rides real nice with 26" rears, can't wait for the 26" X5 to go on. cadillac ride!

The Crystalyte controllers are only water resistant out of the box, some stores seal theirs using silicone before shipping them out though (I know thats a common practice from Power in Motion here in Calgary)

If your controller hasn't got a silicone seal on it, adding it is easy and makes it run in a torrential downpour :)

Ya Hooie! cadillac ride!



from this to this :D

Is that a home made body? Fine looking, in any case. New fork arrived today, decided to use a 1 1/8" Cane Creek " headset, only to find out that Easy Racers and Sun decided not to make life easy for owners. The freakin' head tube is something like 1 3/4" id, no way the CC set is gonna work, so now, I gotta thread the steertube of the fork. What a PITA! And, it is raining, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't/wouldn't go out for a ride because my fairing/body/enclosure is not finished! BOTHER!

Is that a home made body?

No, but this is home made...... sneaky way to hide the hub motor!

Got it all together, rode it, bailed on the throttle at 25mph! At 60y/o and insulin diabetic, I just don't heal the way I did when I was young and needing speed to prove masculinity. 26" wheels make for a smooth ride, but that X5303 hub is so heavy, sometimes it has a mind of it's own! Gotta get better batts - maybe from Ping, and a Cycle Analyst!