Electric Bikes - My Bike at Night With Extra Hub Motor

Here's a picture of my bike at night with an additional hub motor. Right now I'm waiting for some lipo batteries I ordered but, with the batteries I was able to scrape together I would say the results were very good. The only negative right now is that the bike is a lot heavier.

At 36 volts the bike is not much faster but has a lot more torque. That makes for good hill climbing and I have a few steep roads around my house which is nice. It's still early but the efficiency at 36 volts seems to be good like Sangesf found using dual hubs.

At 48 volts the bike pulls pretty hard. :D I mean I had to hold onto the grips so I don't get left behind. It was a lot of fun but, I quickly ran down to the low voltage cutout so I have to wait for more battery. I post more when I do.

We want details please, pretty please.

Looks like a good solid E-Bike.

What motors are those? Crystalyte? Nine Continent?

We want details please, pretty please.

Sure, this is an older Marin Palisades Trail mountain bike I had sitting around and I decided to experiment by putting an Amped Bikes hub motor kit on it. It's a direct drive hub motor and the battery is a 36v 10ahr lifepo4. The kit worked well and I rode it several times on 20 mile bike rides with no problems but the speed was limited to about 10-12 mph. So I wanted to experimented some more.

I then installed a 12 mosfet, infineon controller which is good up to 100 volts max and to increase battery voltage, I added a pair of Turnigy lipo batteries in series with the lifepo4 battery. The 2 lipos are paralleled with each other to give me 10ahrs and these I then placed in series with the lifepo4 battery to give me a 48v 10ahr battery. This worked well and would give me up to 30 mph in speed which is good! I still had to pedal on some of the steeper hills around my house but I was ok with that. Charging is more complicated but I won't get into that now.

Then I noticed other guys with dual hub motors in the forum here and I had to try that too. So I bought a rear direct drive hub motor and a 2nd infineon 12 mosfet controller. For batteries I put the 36v 10ahr on the front hub and the 2 lipos in series for a 36v 5ahr battery on the rear hub. Performance was good with a top speed of 17 to 18 mph but with a lot more torque. I could now climb the steeper streets around my house with no pedaling.

Then I took 2 more smaller lipo batteries that are 14 volts each that I had laying around and added one to each battery pack in series to make two temporary 48 volt packs just to try it out. That really made the bike come alive! I took it out on a busy 35 mph, 4 lane road and I could easily fly along keeping up with traffic and that was going uphill! :lol: The only problem was I quickly ran my 5ahr packs down to the low voltage cutout and I had to return home via my 3rd propolsion source, the pedals, and that's uphill all the way. :cry:

What I learned though is that the pack with all lipo batteries provided more power but, ran out more quickly. The pack with the lifepo4, which is a very good battery, has more resistance and therefore was less powerful and still had half a charge left. So I order more lipo batteries and I will remove the lifepo4 battery and will make up a larger, single lipo battery to power both hub motors. I'll let you know how it goes... :D

Looks like a good solid E-Bike.

What motors are those? Crystalyte? Nine Continent?

They are Amped Bikes hub motors which as I understand are 9x7 direct drive motors similar to what Crystalyte or Nine Continent offers.

I am getting ready to order a kit. Probably an ezee no battery rear gear. Also a 48V ping 15ah. The doner is a Trek 7300. I plan to use a thumb trottle. Still undecided on whether to add the brake lever shutoffs. I have brifters now.

I live in a very flat area but I hate riding into the wind. At present I look at this system as an equalizer. The battery is probably over kill but can you have too much battery when riding on the road? I'm rather excited about the new Crystalyte HS35's. Hopefully they are a bionx killer without the battery BS that goes along with bionx. I'd be willing to bet if the Trek Ride+ series takes off they'll take bionx over. Don't get me wrong the bionx seems like a nice system. But the way they do business it's like you're just renting it from them. (I have some weird ideas sometimes.)

Oh I forgot. What chainring/cassette combo are you using?

Nice bike. I can see why you're undecided about the brake levers. I don't know if I would want to give up the brifters.

As far as the HS35, that looks like a nice motor. It's large enough to give you some power but is designed to give speed too. The interesting thing is that it's a sensorless motor. You may have to pedal first to get going but that's no big deal.

I'll check the chainring later but the cassette is a 6 gear version that came with the hub motor which was ok with me since the bike originally came with a 6 gear cassette. The clicking is sure loud though. Maybe that will get quieter as it breaks in.



I getting ready to order a kit. Probably an ezee no battery rear gear. Also a 48V ping 15ah. The doner is a Trek 7300. I plan to use a thumb trottle. Still undecided on whether to add the brake lever shutoffs. I have brifters now.

I live in a very flat area but I hate riding into the wind. At present I look at this system as an equalizer. The battery is probably over kill but can you have too much battery when riding on the road? I'm rather excited about the new Crystalyte HS35's. Hopefully they are a bionx killer without the battery BS that goes along with bionx. I'd be willing to bet if the Trek Ride+ series takes off they'll take bionx over. Don't get me wrong the bionx seems like a nice system. But the way they do business it's like you're just renting it from them. (I have some weird ideas sometimes.)

Oh I forgot. What chainring/cassette combo are you using?

Chainring / Cassette

The bike I'm building now, I plan on converting into a low ratio single speed. The way I ride my existing bike, I really don't pedal at all unless I need to get more torque to the wheel right away. (To ride through a ditch, or accelerate from low speed)

I figure a single speed conversion will get rid of the annoying ratcheting. Prevent me from being in high gear when I need torque now. Make the bike a lot less clunky. Clean up my handlebars by getting rid of the shifters.

I'm waiting on my rear wheel motor to do the conversion. Obviously I can't go fooling around with the rear cassette until I have it. =P

Chainring / Cassette

The bike I'm building now, I plan on converting into a low ratio single speed. The way I ride my existing bike, I really don't pedal at all unless I need to get more torque to the wheel right away. (To ride through a ditch, or accelerate from low speed)

I figure a single speed conversion will get rid of the annoying ratcheting. Prevent me from being in high gear when I need torque now. Make the bike a lot less clunky. Clean up my handlebars by getting rid of the shifters.

I'm waiting on my rear wheel motor to do the conversion. Obviously I can't go fooling around with the rear cassette until I have it. =P

That's not a bad idea going with a single speed. That would make the bike cleaner. Right now my right shifter is in the middle of the handlebars because I have a bulky throttle in the way. I need a throttle without the led lights.

Well, I made up a 55v 10ahr battery out of lipo batteries. Fresh off the charger battery voltage is 61 volts which gives me a top speed of 30 although I haven't calibrated my CA meter after switching to the larger balloon tires yet. Performance is about the same as I found earlier with the test batteries, but now I have longer range.

On test ride #1 this weekend I went 11.5 miles and used 7.8 ahrs with light pedaling. That was with climbing over a mini-mountain range from 280 feet above sea level to 420, then down to 45 feet and back up to 280 feet with a few hills in between. I averaged 43 whrs/mile.

On test ride #2, I went downtown to race some cars. It was really something to pull away from a stop light hitting 25mph or more before I could hear the gas powered car engines laboring hard to pass me. :lol: I went from 280 feet above sea level down to 155 and back again and averaged 52 whrs/mile on a 6.4 mile trip. I weigh over 250 so I need a few more whrs than most guys.

Overall, I'm happy with the results. :D



Bike: 20 year old Marin Palisades Trail MTB
Motors: 2 Amped Bikes direct drive 500w
Controllers: 2 Lyen Infineon 12 fet with regen enabled
Batteries: Turnigy Lipo 15s 2p
Charger: Icharger 1010B
Power Supply: 8 golf cart batteries connected to two 125w solar panels
Tires: Big Apple balloon type
Dashboard: Cycle analyist direct plug
Sponser: None yet. Sure could use one. ;)

Awesome! I'm still waiting for my 48V 10aH LifePo4. I hope I get better watts/mile than you or I'll be ordering from HK sooner than I expected. I just want to stagger out the Grins for as long as I can. Did you order from the U.S. warehouse? How long is the delivery wait?

Awesome! I'm still waiting for my 48V 10aH LifePo4. I hope I get better watts/mile than you or I'll be ordering from HK sooner than I expected. I just want to stagger out the Grins for as long as I can. Did you order from the U.S. warehouse? How long is the delivery wait?

I ordered from the US warehouse and it took about 5 days. Not too bad...

BTW: They sent me an email about "B grade" lipo batterys. Does anyone know how well they work? The ad says they have higher internal resistance and last only 60 cycles at max discharge?

It would be a LOT clearer if you posted the shot correctly. It is a daytime shot inverted to a negative image, not a night time shot. Most of the questions below would have been answered from the daylight photo.

Okay, here we go... I really do like the orange color better than the blue-green. I got the bike running the way I like it so maybe I should have it painted. :D Note that the wiring is tied up better now than as shown the pictures. I'll try to update these later. :rolleyes:

With my two Lifepo4 36v batts on a 140lb bicycle I'm able to get 25-26mph top speed..
Wondering why you only got 17-18mph when you tried it...
FYI.. On two 48v 20ah batts I hit 42mph
Only one got me 37mph on rear... Wondering why youre getting crappy speeds with a much lighter bike than mine.

Yeah, I noticed that I'm getting less watt-hours per mile than just about everyone else out there too. Right now I'm focusing on my Cycle Analyst (direct plug model) because I couldn't get the mph to match my gps speed no mater what wheel circumference I entered into the CA. In reading up I found I need to enter the shunt resistance for my controller as well as the number of hall effect transitions in my hub motor. Does anyone know off hand the shunt resistance of a Lyen 12 fet? How about the hall effect transitions of an Amped Bikes 9x7 direct drive hub?

Thanks for pointing out the crappyness. I needed to get off my butt and fix this anyway.

www.ebikes.ca (http://www.ebikes.ca) is the developer of the cycle analyst. They're a good company. Send them an e-mail.

With my two Lifepo4 36v batts on a 140lb bicycle I'm able to get 25-26mph top speed..
Wondering why you only got 17-18mph when you tried it...
FYI.. On two 48v 20ah batts I hit 42mph
Only one got me 37mph on rear... Wondering why youre getting crappy speeds with a much lighter bike than mine.

You got me wondering until I put my motor in the simulator I found at ebike.ca . I have a 9x7 motor which has more thrust at lower speeds and drops completely to zero around 35mph. At 30mph each motor produces only 8 pounds of thrust. That's just enough to counteract wind resistance and really explains why I'm seeing only 30mph for a top speed (See graph below). The good news is that I get to 30mph hella quick. :D I have to lean forward and put weight on the front wheel or it slips on take off. It sounds cool but people kind of stare. :innocent:

For fun I put a 9x5 motor (maybe like yours?) in the simulator and top speed was just over 50mph. The thrust was 10 pounds lighter at lower rpms and ,of course, power consumption went higher too over most of the curve.

I also tried my 9x7 motor with a 72 volt pack in the simulator and my top speed went up to just over 50mph. I have extra batteries to do it so I will have to try it. I was waiting to make a decent torque plate for the back anyway. It will be fun. :p

That's not a bad idea going with a single speed. That would make the bike cleaner. Right now my right shifter is in the middle of the handlebars because I have a bulky throttle in the way. I need a throttle without the led lights.

Single Speed Conversion update...

Okay, my motor is being shipped here in a day or so. Therefore, since I don't yet have my back wheel, I can't do the conversion. HOWEVER...

I was able to take my shifters and control cables off my bike. I was left with front and back derailleurs with no control or cables. I then took a screw driver and seated both adjustment screws on each of the two derailleurs. This made both the derailleurs rigid. They won't move at all.

Low and behold! My chain lays right where it should be! I can even jump on the bike and pedal backwards as fast as I can. The chain WILL NOT foul.

I'll probably still end up doing the conversion just to do away with a little bit of weight, but it's much less urgent now. My gears work fine. =P

Single Speed Conversion update...

Okay, my motor is being shipped here in a day or so. Therefore, since I don't yet have my back wheel, I can't do the conversion. HOWEVER...

I was able to take my shifters and control cables off my bike. I was left with front and back derailleurs with no control or cables. I then took a screw driver and seated both adjustment screws on each of the two derailleurs. This made both the derailleurs rigid. They won't move at all.

Low and behold! My chain lays right where it should be! I can even jump on the bike and pedal backwards as fast as I can. The chain WILL NOT foul.

I'll probably still end up doing the conversion just to do away with a little bit of weight, but it's much less urgent now. My gears work fine. =P

That's good you're keeping the back derailleur on. An engineer friend of mine who designs bicycle parts said it's an important safety feature. It allows "give" should anything (like a finger) get between the chain and chainring.

Well, disregard some of the earlier data I posted here. My Cycle Analyst was set for a 1 mohm shunt resistor when I really had a 2.4 mohm resistor and my motor pole setting was off by 3. Net result: my power consumption is only half what I thought is was. When my CA read 60 watt-hours/mile I was really getting 30. When my battery showed empty, it was only half used. This is actually great news for me but, I should have been careful of the CA settings! :notamused:

30wh is more like it