Apache Thunder

I currently have nothing to mount anything back there other then my battery box. That and installing panniers may interfere with how my battery box is strapped to the rack. Sure I could probably make something more proper to put the battery/speed controller in (planning on putting the speed controller in it's own box, but need to wait till my next paycheck so I can additional connectors to have a second pair of wires going from my battery to the speed controller box) but I haven't found anything that fits my battery to it's exact dimensions thus can't really put it inside the the frame were most folks seem to be putting their battery in now a days.

spirit733t

@ apachethunder

hey man, yes heres some suggestions, theres a magic shine at 1000 lumens

https://www.amazon.com/MagicShine-MJ-...rds=magicshine


or for something more powerful which as it happens I am going to buy (1600 lumens)

https://www.amazon.com/MagicShine-MJ-...rds=magicshine

@ ebikefl

a big yes and will be buying the magicshine 1600 lumens for english £80 , though I would love to have the lights that are in my avatar picture, they are hope R8 2000 lumens, but they are very expensive at a meaty £400 ish

https://www.cyclestore.co.uk/productD...categoryID=105

also for a rear light i will be buying thisvery powerful for a rear light)
https://www.evanscycles.com/products/...light-ec031874

spirit733t

hi again, just a quick reason why bigger rotors have better stopping power ( from a physics student, but in theory a good answer)

https://www.bikecircle.com/forums/sho...ake-rotor-size
according to this answer, the 203 mm rotors would give an increase of 26% stopping power?

spirit733t

OK fair enough bud, Im personally am going for the old classic retro look, with my thin steel frame and and brook saddle.

just need that motor, getting close towards it..

I may also get that JANND rear rack that ebikefl recommended, looks solid.....

and to finish off the retro look, these brook panneirs.. :-)

EBikeFL 

You won't be able to see that rear light with the cargo cache installed which blocks anything on the seat post.

I think I can save you some money by suggesting getting this rear light instead: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o01_s00_i00
It has an attachment for the bike rack which I found out was a little too big so I first installed the P-clamp and then the attachment for the rear light and it works great.
I just purchased one and will be ordering another today. I plan on installing one on each side of the bike rack so it looks like I'm a police car from far off which is what some of the reviews have said. Car drivers said they slowed down when approaching the flashing rear light because they thought it was a police car.

1600 lumens!!! First it was SiXiam with the 20Ah battery and now you want to beat my 1000 lumens light with a 1600 lumens model. It's all good.

EBikeFL 

Those are nice but what about these: https://www.bikebins.com/
They are made over there in England.

EBikeFL 

The 44mm rear brake disc adapter setup costs with the CNC shop here in Florida will start at $250. I will be working with the shop on the prototype after which I will be testing it out to make sure it does the job of securely holding any 44mm disc be it 160mm, 180mm, or 203mm using my 180mm Ice Tech rotor.

I will be setting up a "group buy" on bikeforums.net for any of you interested in using the new adapter. The more buyers we have the lower the individual costs for each of us. If the final costs get to be $360 (for example) for setup and manufacturing of one dozen adapters including my prototype then the cost to each of us will be $30 not including shipping.

If you've been thinking about a Papamotor kit or have one on order then you would benefit greatly from getting in on the group buy. The greater the quantity of new adapters ordered from the CNC shop the cheaper it will be per adapter. If you miss this group buy, I don't know what the costs will be to get another batch of adapters made so you could end up spending a lot more because there could be less buyers the second time around.

I'll keep everyone posted on the performance of the new adapter. I would like to have a working prototype by this coming Friday depending on the schedule of the CNC shop, of course. I'll test the new adapter for a week or more, if I'm not satisfied with it's performance and then put the final order in for a quantity determined by the amount of requests.

The group buy should start hopefully on Monday the 27th of August if everything goes as planned.

Apache Thunder

Those bins look nice and all, but they are quite large and I'm going for a more minimal look for my bicycle. There are some reflectors on the battery box itself. If I get a rear light, I will likely mount it directly to the battery box. There is already two screw holes from where the speed controller is mounted.

spirit733t

@ Apache Thunder

hey man, please read my post above about the magicshine front lights, they seem a good price for over 1600 lumesn ;_)

EBikeFL 

Those bins are not for you Apache Thunder they're for Spirit733t.
He's over there in England and the bins are made in England.

Just kidding. lol

Hey, have you posted a picture of your bike here? Let's see it again.

kd5ete

Howdy EBikeFL. My led lights on the control handle went out on me this morning after i went over to a friends house to show him the bike. I just got thru looking at the wires & foound that the little green wire that goes to the power indicator led lights was loose & had wiggled loose from the port hole in the little black connector box. It is the small green wire along with a gray wire on a small 2 port connection.You can look at the papamotor manual to see which wires i talking about.I got both wires plugged back together without electrocuting myself. Lol.anyway,thought i'd share that bit of info in case you wanted to hook your up or at least check to see if thats the problem.Have a great weekend.. Later Gator

EBikeFL 

Thanks, kd5ete. I don't have my e-bike put together yet since I'm waiting on the CNC shop to finish the new rear brake adapter. As soon as it's back together I'll check the connections.

How about riding at night...have you done any? What front lights are you using?

kd5ete

ride a little at night on the weekendsafter midnight so there's no traffic on the road. I bought me a Cree XL T3 bicycle light.It is a 1200 lumins light with a high beam,low beam, and a strobe action and believe me high beam is very bright.The light is an LED.I bought it off of ebay from a fella in the U.K. put it on the strobe mode when i go to work & coming home from work during the day.So far i haven't got run over.lol.But i sure like the brightness of the light.Cree make one that is 1600 lumins but i think for the money,the 1200 that i have will suffice.If i were going alligator huntin,i might get the extra power of the 1600 but i don't need to see 2 miles away,just what's in front of me.lol

SiXiam

Well I was definitely wrong about doubting my battery order.

Take a look at this:

Less than 36 hours from Hong Kong to my house!

I have all of my parts that I need for the build, except the PapaMotor. It was last in New York a few days ago.
I should be able to start putting this all together next weekend!

I do need to order a few more things to make the build a little prettier and I'm still leaning towards using one of those red metal tool boxes to store the battery in.

EBikeFL, If you still need those disc pics I'll take them when I start tearing everything apart. My stock ones are 180mm.
To answer your other question: No, I don't really plan on riding at night. Not counting early winter darkness of course.
The guys over at candlepower would be the best source for anything lumen related.

I'm not sure if this was addressed earlier in the thread, but what's a good secure seat post clamp?
I'm currently using a hose clamp. The bike shop (from my ebay order) never sent me a replacement clamp. They said they did after mine was missing, but oh well. I wanted to get something better anyway. I guess I should order a u-lock (or chain) while I'm at it. The best option seems to be storing my bike in my companies garage. I'll have to check in see the best place to secure it in there. Its just a single car garage they use for storage. They always keep it unlocked with the door closed.

Rain pants also! Going to need them, especially given my fender install problems.

EBikeFL 

I think your battery has severe jet lag.


You'll probably see it on Monday.

Yes, please post a picture of the back of your 180mm disk with the largest diameter clearly marked just like I did on my Ice Tech rotor earlier.

You know it never occurred to me about riding during the early winter darkness. I guess if you're going to ride your e-bike year round you'll have to purchase a bicycle light(s) at some point.

Thanks for the website.

Use the pitlock system where ever you can on your bike (https://www.pitlock.com) including your seat post. Here's the seat post clamp I used which worked perfectly with the pitlock lock: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00
Make sure it's the right size for your bike before ordering.

YES!!! You've invested a lot of time and money into your e-bike; you don't want to have it stolen. This is the model I have:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...hs_product_img

If the company you work for has other employees interested in riding to work perhaps the company will pay for a decent bike rack.

Here's the rain pants and hooded jacket I have: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i01

Both the top and bottom also come with a rain pouch to store each one and I used a permanent marker to mark one of the pouches with a "J" for jacket so I know which pouch had what in it.

I'm very excited to see your e-bike slowly taking shape.

Spirit733t...you're next!!!!!

spirit733t

hi all,

good to see sixiam is so close to having the kit, please do keep us updated with pictures of your build..

unfortunately some of my family members are having financial difficulty so I said I would help out, this means Im gonna be even more delayed in my purchase of the papamotor kit,

but hey seeing you guys, talking about it discussing improvements and solutions is really fun for me.. you guys are my e- bike brothers...

even though i dont have teh kit im already thinking about my next bike purchase and obvioulsy planning on converting that into an e bike too..

Im looking for a cargo bike, so the next bike will be my big carrying capacity cargo bike,

I really like the Surly big dummy and of course the Kona UTE... this will be my shopping bike.. but that's gonna be far off in the future, but hey its exciting planning ahead..

all the best

spirit733t

@ sixiam,

oh yeah forgot to add, here in England when you insure a bike.. you must buy a lock that has a thing called SOLD as secure rating either( bronze, silver and gold)

so if your planning on insuring your bike, make sure you buy a lock that the insurance company recommends.. that way it be less hassle for you if the worse comes to pass..

EBikeFL 

Spirit733t, it's admirable you're helping your family but things are going to get very bad very soon (in the next three months). Israel wants to destroy Iran's nuclear reactors and Iran is bragging that the sanctions against them are not working and that they're still getting their oil sold.

If you think gas prices there are too high now wait and see what they will go to when Israel attacks Iran.

Here's an interesting article on the subject: https://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/neta...-us-elections/

EBikeFL 

Well, Papamotor has the 44mm adapter after all.

I've got two 44mm hole spaced adapters on their way to me as I type. I'm keeping one as a back up since it's a very important part.

I've asked Papamotor to include the 44mm adapter on all US and European orders of their e-bike kits. They will put an option in so you as the customer can choose either the 48mm or the 44mm adapter. If they don't, make sure you let them know when you're ordering that you want the 44mm adapter NOT the 48mm one.

SiXiam, you'll have to check your Papamotor order when it arrives. You'll probably have to order the 44mm adapter as well. If you need the 44mm adapter to make your deadline in order not to ride the bus next month; you're welcome to buy my extra one plus half of my expedited shipping I had to pay, of course.

The group buy has been cancelled.
This is what the 44mm adapters look like (far right, and you only need one):

spirit733t

oh great just what we need another war in the middle east,

wrusry

I appreciate everyone who has contributed to this thread. I have learned much. I have two questions that I haven't seen answered. I have read the majority or the posts, but not all.

1) With the unit "off", how much more difficult (if any) is it to pedal the bike than it is with the bike prior to the installation of the kit. If you ignore or otherwise account for the extra weight of the equipment and the battery, is there any difference before and after the conversion?

2) Has anyone used their bike (Postconversion) as a mountain bike or a real mountain bike-like trail? I love the potential city uses of an electric bike, but I would also be very interested in using it for longer trail riding. It would be a nice alternative for me and my family to dirt bikes. They would be easier to transport, no gas worries, etc. I have searched the web and see that some people do this, but for the most part they look like specialized e-bikes. I would think that to do this, it would have to be the real-wheel version of the kit and not the front wheel.

Thanks in advance for your inputs.

spirit733t

hello wrusry and welcome to the thread,

the best people to answer your question will be the current users, they are EbikeFL ( the expert), kd5ete (Mr happy)
and of course the other guys too.

I am a future but definite buyer and sixiam had just recently made the order,

your questions are good questions and ones that I too am interested in hearing some feedback for..

all the best

spirit733t

@ EbikeFL

hello again, so Carl the fairing guy got back to me and on your advice suggested the following fairing



can I confirm that this is the same one that you have? also do you use p-clamps to secure the unit to your front forks? I gotta say it looks really cool, and uber wind resistant.

and is there any more videos on the way?

thanks all the best

EBikeFL 

Hello, wrusry. Welcome to bikeforums.net.

With the assist off you'll feel the weight of both the 16lb battery and 18lb 48v 1000w hub motor. I've only tried to start pedaling when I was in high gear and then only to trigger the PAS. It was VERY hard. I imagine if you had the bike in a lower gear you could pedal but it would be a workout. The better option is to use the Cycle Analyst and set the max speed to a lower amount depending on how much of a workout you want or to conserve battery energy and extend the range. This will allow you to get up to speed and then use human power to continue riding.

You could use the 48v 1000w on a down hill mountain bike where the rear fork is bolted onto the frame and has a rear shock. You would be putting all the components of the bike under considerable more stress so plan on replacing parts soon. If the trail consisted of a smooth packed dirt path then you would probably be O.K. and the stresses on the bike would be lower.

The 48v 1000w hub motor can hit speeds over 30+ mph so I wouldn't recommend riding at those speeds on a dirt trail. Anything in the way such as a tree root or large rocks could send you airborne. Of course, if you want to test your health insurance I guess doing 30+ on a dirt trail would be a good way to do it.

If you ride the 48v 1000w setup on the street you'll soon realize that you don't need to use your car.

EBikeFL 

I don't know how you beat me to reply posts, Spirit733t! I think you would be dangerous in an ebay type bidding situation.

I can't see either of the two attachments you posted.

Karl has all the clamps you'll need and they're included in the price of the fairing. Be sure to ask for the shorter clamps that are used on the front fork. Ask him for the same setup as EBikeFL but with your modifications to the front fairing to protect your hands.

I'm waiting for the 44mm brake adapter which is as we speak in New York going through customs before posting any more videos.

SiXiam has been very quiet these past few days...I wonder if his kit is together.