ammodave

I ordered an ebike kit (front hub motor, battery, etc.) from BMS Battery several wks ago and got all my parts today but with no instructions of any kind. I was expecting some awkwardly translated guidelines but got nothing. For starters, does anyone know which side of a Q100 motor the wire comes out so I don't mount it to run backwards? Can anyone recommend an online tutorial that might get me started? Lots of wires! I'm trying to keep it as clean as possible. Do I really need the brake lever switches in my build?

chvid

I've got my Q100 mounted with wires on the left side of the bike (facing forward). Did you get a battery with the kit? I have put Anderson connectors on my battery, and on the controller, to connect them together, and the little red wire is soldered to the main red wire that connects to the battery. If you put a switch on the thin red wire it becomes an "on off switch", as the little red needs to be connected to the big red one connecting the battery. It will run fine without the brake switches (yellow blue?) on the controller. There is a wiring diagram pdf on the bmsbattery site, for the KU63 or KU65 controller. The motor phase wires and halls plug right into the controller connectors - same colour to same colours. It's pretty easy once you've got the wiring diagram. The throttle and pas connectors are two different sizes but look similar so you will have to sort them out - they each have three wires. The throttle is typically red/black/white, or red/black/green. The brake levers just shut off the controller, even if the throttle is applied - a useful feature for safety, but not essential - they are the law in British Columbia. I just trim off the blue blue cruise control, and the white/white speed limiter wire connectors and tape them, but don't use them.

ammodave

Yes, I ordered the 36v bottle battery. I think I've about got it figured out but I don't know what the PAS is or how to mount it. The parts all "look" good but a few rudimentary instructions would have been helpful. Anybody got a pic of the PAS mounted?

chvid

PAS is "Pedal assist" aka Pedelec sensor...which needs to turn to get power. I wouldn't bother with the PAS, just the throttle. The PAS can be a hazard if you need to get moving quickly - for example if you are in the wrong gear. And it doesn't kick in right away - 2 second delay? after you start rotating the crank. Most people don't bother with PAS unless it is a legal requirement, if they can just use a throttle. The PAS requires you to install the round ring around your crank axle - I haven't done it. The rotations of the crank axle trigger the controller power, after a delay. There is better full intentionality with just the throttle. The ebrakes will override either, I believe, certainly the throttle. The PAS doesn't sense torque which is what it <should> sense, unlike a bottom bracket torque sensor like the THUN. Perhaps mount the PAS for appearances but leave it disconnected or so poorly connected rendering it useless, but legal. Most of the PAS types seem to live in Europe, but few US or Canadian people use it as it is better without it. Don't worry - you'll be a happy camper in a day or two when you get things going...got a torque arm? The Q100 isn 't torquey, but its always good to have for peace of mind...I think the main mod I made was changing the connectors on the battery to match those on the controller, and soldering the little red to the big red where it enters the connector on the controller positive battery connector. The little red, if it "sees" full battery voltage will constitute the "on" signal - a switch on the little red wire constitutes and on/off switch.
You might also want a fuse on the battery main red wire - for example an automotive fuse holder, set to say around 25 amps. The controller will put around 15amps at max throttle/zero speed. I generally solder on the throttle connections, disposing with the supplied connectors, for more failure-proof connection. You might consider the same with the halls - lots of little pins, any of them not connecting and the motor will run poorly if at all. The phase connectors are good enough. Also, leave enough slack on the motor wires so you can remove the wheel to fix a flat, with a "drip loop" - ie. motor wires pointing down to the ground as they emerge from the axle, so moisture won't run down the wires into the motor via the axle. If it rains a lot, its nice to cut a six inch piece of inner tube and tape it around the battery connection on one side so moisture is shielded away from that connection.

chas58

geeze, lots of good information there. Thanks!

chvid

The minimum install is to get the battery connected to the controller, with proper connectors, connect the phase and hall connectors, and supply a connected throttle.
That will get the bike up and running. Ebrake levers are gravy, as are torque arms (a good idea) on this small motor. All the rest - the cruise control, speed limiter, PAS, and three-speed switch stuff is optional. I've done three of these installs and you can probably get the bike running well in under two hours.

ammodave

Thanks for all the good tips. I don't think I'll bother with the PAS. Anything special I should know about using the charger? It didn't come with any directions either. I'd hate to fry something before I even get started. FWIW the battery reads 42v on my meter right out of the box.

chvid

42 sounds about right for a "36 Volt (nominal)" battery...I'm not sure what the terminal voltage will be, but it should be very close to what is listed on the charger as the charging voltage. You can just plug in the charger and let it go until the light goes green on the charger, assuming it does that, and shuts down. You may hear it turning on and off intermittently, as often there is a fair amount of balancing going on at the end of the charge cycle for a while. Is it a lithium iron phosphate (LiFPO4) chemistry or a different chemistry (lithium manganese type for example)? If you are changing connectors on the battery be VERY VERY careful to do the leads one at a time, so that they are NEVER shorted. Never allow two stripped battery wires to exist while you put a new connector on one of them, flopping around. I imagine your bottle battery is ready to plug into the controller already? I run those 36V controllers on 48V nominal batteries which are 58.2V when fully charged, overvolting the controller. These controllers have 63V rating on the capacitors and I haven't blown any by overvolting them and running them for hundreds of miles. I just leave my chargers plugged in all the the time, no issues so far, and connect the battery to the already plugged in charger. You must be excited to get it going? I'm doing the exact same install in a couple of days, on a Cannodale Hooligan which is crying for assist, except I'm running it on a 48V 10Ahr Headway pack from bmsbattery.

chas58

Those BMS bottles are not LiFePO4, they are Lithium Ion.

I am thinking of building a couple of bikes and am curious about the experience.

Why are you running a 48V battery on a 36v system?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of a Q100 system. I am attracted to them for price and size/weight/stealth, and of course I like to pedal too. Roughly I would like to make something like the Specialized turbo for a fraction of the price and I am looking at a couple of bikes (one road, one mountain) to build with the BMS cute Q100 system. With a cheap motor and expensive batteries, I can put motors on a couple of bikes and transfer the battery to whichever bike I am using at the time.

What do you use the Q100 for? How would you describe the riding experience? If you have done several bikes, you must like them!

chvid

Right...I have many ebikes now, several LWB AND CLWB recumbents - Sun EZ!, Sun EZSport, Rebike, and Vision, a Catrike and Actionbent trike - and 2 folders/BMX types (Raleigh 20, Cannondale Hooligan), 2 semi-recumbents (Giant Revive), and a hybrid. I've tried all of these motors: Crystalyte 404, 405, 406, Nine Continent, Fusin Geared, Bafang BPM, Cute Q100, a Conhis and a geared brushed unit. A bit obsessive really, but I was planning on delivering some ebike seminars after I retire, and I wanted one of each type for comparison purposes. Some are heavy direct drive motors and others are the geared types. I would say that each has its place, but you can't beat the smaller geared hubs for the most "roadbike-like" experience - quiet and light weight and really stealthy when concealed behind a disk. On the larger bikes oriented toward comfortable distance touring I like the C400 series (not available anymore) or the 9C direct drives. I've got the 9C on my trike - its great. The larger geared hubs seem to be considerably noisier in general as the gears clatter inside the motor. I've put the Q100 on two 700C roadbikes for friends that wanted a very normal bike-like experience. They also don't tax the batteries very much as they only draw maybe a max of 700 watts. With a big pack and one of the small gear motors you would be good for well over a hundred miles on a good recumbent, in comfort. They are definitely for pedallers. I do pedal all my bikes all the time as much as I can, as I like to get a good workout yet go long distances. I've take the trike up to 90 miles between charges. The Q100's are great for lightweight commuting - quiet and torquey enough to smooth out the biggest hills (which are steep in Victoria, but not super long). If you have long distances of steady climbing, you could overheat them. The kits they come with are very easy to install as well.
Some motors I haven't tried include the Mac and the BMC geared. I do have an EZEE motor on a Vision USS recumbent - a lot more motor than the Q100. The Q100 is the least of all the motors but I really like the minimalism of them - and the light weight, as I have shoulder tendinitis and hate lifting heavy things. I totally enjoy all my bikes - I'm thinking of a daily lottery to figure out which bike to ride, as they each have their niche whether high comfort distance touring, or urban rat-bike style, or slick commuting. Call me bike crazy - this hobby is far too addictive. I've decided to make it a personal mission to help people with their ebike problems, as a way maybe of getting people out of their cars, who are not necessarily young, or have disabilities or physical issues.

I'm putting a Q100 on a Cannondale Hooligan on the weekend. That will be a very sweet ride - super lightweight and tough, yet torquey with the Q100 as the bike is so lightweight.

I standardize all my bikes to use 48V packs, using either 36 or 48V controllers, and set the luggage arrangements on each bike so the packs can be easily moved between bikes - typically zip tying on a steel wire office tray onto a rack, or zip tying a wire basket to a mid-rack, and then tying the pack into the tray or basket at "runtime" with a cord that I leave attached to the tray. The recumbents have the best setup for carrying batteries -lots of room low under the seat, on a mid-rack. I've got the Pings in waterproof polycarbonate boxes which have handles, and are easy to remove and carry from bike to bike, or remove for charging. 48 is about right for the speeds I'm aiming for - typically high 20mph range. Don't want to go faster really - and still need high enough gearing to pedal at speed - which is a problem on the 20" wheel bikes getting the gearing high enough.

So many bikes, so little time...Great hobby! And I love the riding - Victoria is an awesome city for cycling, with the Galloping Goose trail

chas58

Sounds like what I am after. You over-volt them to get more power/top speed?

My two bikes for this project are 19lbs. I'm hoping to get road bike speed out of the mountain bike, and just more fun out of the road bike.

They both are single speed, so I'm going to have to figure out the best gear ratio. Any ideas? I typically ride on 42x16 gearing (more or less) on the road.

What battery are you using for 90-100 miles?
That hooligan would be a great ebike!

The mountain bike has a std rear drop out size, but the road bike is fixed gear (although SS is obviously possible too). I know they make single speed Q100s, I just have to see if BMS will sell me one (I gotta think in china the vast majority of bikes are single speed).

Yep, you do have an addiction, but I figure for me it is better than throwing $$$ at cars or something more expensive. I used to do all riding on a mountain bike, and just swap the tires for the purpose, but then the expansion started: I needed a reliable commuter bike, a tandem bike, a beater bike, a velodrome bike, etc.

chvid

If I just had the Q100 motor, I probably wouldn't overvolt it -normally the extra voltage will increase the speed of the motor, but since it is geared the motor gets "power-limited" so you won't get much extra power out of the motor with any increase in voltage. It's just because the first motors I aquired all were just right for me at 48V speed wise, and I've made my packs removable for swapping between bikes. There is a good discussion of this on endless-sphere - the extra motor speed from the higher voltage won't give you much more bike speed, as the power gets "saturated" - the speed is power limited rather than voltage limited. This is rather different behaviour from a direct drive motor. User "motomech" on the sphere pointed this out to me, as originally I thought I would get more bike speed. For the ninety miles I use two 48V 15Ahr Ping packs running in parallel through a Schottky diode to isolate them. I'm told I don't need the diode as the packs are the same size and chemistry. I found the 328rpm Q100 36V version, running on 48V, will top out around 23mph in providing any meaningful assist. So I imagine the 26" wheeled mountain bike would be a bit slower and torquier. I think you might need a smaller ring on the back - maybe a 15? or a 52 on the front, if you add a motor. On a 20" bike I regularly have issues getting the gearing high enough. A 26" wheeled bike not so much. I regularly run 52/11tooth on my trike with the larger direct drive motor, in the high 20mph range. Thats got a 26" wheel.

Not sure about the rear Q100s as to what freewheels you could run on it - it comes with a seven I think, but I don't think switching it out for a single-speed freewheel on it would be a problem. I've got front motors only in the Q100 bikes, as I wanted keep my 11 tooth cassette rather than using a freewheel - 11 tooth freewheels are poor quality non-Shimano these days.

You should check the simulator at Ebikes.ca. I believe that they may have added the Q100 to the motor selection list, so you could model it with your bike parameters.

chas58

Yep, that simulator is nice. ammodave, what did the kit cost? I'm assuming there is a fairly substantial hit for shipping, but they don't tell you that until you check out. Anything else needed besides the wheel/motor kit and battery pack?

chvid

I got my kit for the Hooligan today...it took about three hours to get it installed. The issues I had were:

a.) Had to file down the motor axle on each flat by about 1/10 of a millimetre to get the motor into the dropouts. It was a bit tight and I didn't want to file the Hooligan itself.

b.) Had to insert Hall pins from the motor into the supplied empty white connector. The kit has the Hall pins not in the relevant connector, so you can easily feed them through the axle nut and the plastic axle nut cover which keeps water ingress out from the axle. Just stick them into the white connector so they mate with the hall pins coming from the controller. The pins are removable from the connectors by the way, with a small screwdriver if you push in the "ledge" in the pin, and pull it out of the connector. They snap in, through the holes in the white plastic connector - you may need to push the pin in so they snap, again with small screwdriver.

Everything else plugged together, except as per usual, I had to solder on Anderson connectors to the power leads from the battery, (red and small red together) - I have Anderson connectors on my battery. I should crimp them, but for lower power like this soldering the Anderson pins on is fine.

Bingo...motor runs nicely.

Some zip ties and putting the thumb throttle on the handlebar, and putting the controller in a small waterproof sylnylon bag, and taping the controller to the frame - that's about it. The rest is just cosmetic, extra zipties to streamline the wiring leading it along on the frame.

The bike is faster than my top gear now by about 10% - its 44/11 on 20" wheel gearing. Usually I'm fine if I can get these smaller bikes geared up to about 90 gear inches, to be able to assist meaningfully on full throttle.

Its a sweet ride!

I did the nuts up very tight, and I have special spacer washers from ebikes.ca which fit perfectly in the outer "wells" of the dropouts, between the dropout and the axle nuts. I will put at least one torque arm on, but the bike was rideable today - but no gunning the throttle without the torque arm (I never do that anyway). Thats a bottomline policy for any hub motor for me, no matter if it is low powered or not, to have at least one torque arm, preferably too.

A very easy install, with a bit of soldering required in my case - ammodaves bottle battery might be ready to connect to the controller already, as supplied.

I may add an ebrake tomorrow. The disc brake didn't even require adjustment with the the new wheel.

I believe I paid just under 300 Cdn. FOB my living room. Whether it is shipping or whatever, that's just what they cost.

ammodave

The kit was about $500 with the shipping (about $190). That included everything: hub motor mounted on a 28" wheel, battery, charger, controller, ebrakes, etc.. I haven't installed it yet, still making some unobtrusive torque arms.

chvid

Right. I already have several batteries. Thats the difference in our costs. Glad you're doing some torque arms. I find the fender eyelet type to be the neatest. You can buy another model from bmsbattery.com. I had some nice riding today on the Hooligan, and I had to go to a 48T front chainring and improvise a chainkeeper to get the gearing up as I wasn't able to assist with the 42T I had. Much better. I also went to a heavier tire with more cushion - a Maxxis Hookworm on the front and back.

chas58

$190 shipping, impressive. They had an invalid security certificate the other day, so I couldn't get that far in the ordering process to see what I was up against.

chas58

Any pictures?

ammodave

Working several projects at once (new deck, rear sway bar on my MINI, etc.); I'll post some pics when I finish the bike.

chvid

https://www.ebikes.ca/torque_arms/ Hi ammodave...the linked site has some good information on torque arms...I like the "Rev2" type if they will fit. There are also some high quality torque arms for sale on the ampedbikes.com site, which have twelve different adjustable positions and are made of very strong material. A bit more expensive though.

chas58

Nice, thanks.

I like this part:

chvid

Here's the link to the ampedbikes Torque Arms https://www.ampedbikes.com/images/torque.JPG These ones are tough! They won't take a pipe clamp though unless you drill out the metal between the round holes on the TA arm end.

chas58

chvid - I ride my road bike at about 20-21mph when commuting (25 with no bags if I am in a real big hurry). Do you think the Q100 with 36v would give me a nice power assist? I want the exercise, but wouldn't mind a little extra speed (or on some days less sweat).

Did you take the BMS Q100 36v kit and just plug in a 48v battery? How was that different from the 36v battery? So many questions...

chvid

I think it depends on your wheel size. I'm around 21 mph with the 36V kit, with a 48V(nominal actually typically 50-52V) Ping battery plugged right into the 36V controller, with the 328rpm version on a 20" wheel. I've also rode the 700C 201RPM 36V kit with the same battery, maybe 22 23 mph guessing. You won't get too much extra speed on the flats, but you will be able to get up hills way easier, as the torque increases just about linearly as the speed drops. Its certainly a very meaningful assist. With the 36V battery it might affect your top end, but you could conversely with that battery put some solder on the shunt inside the controlller to increase your controller amps to 17 or 18 amps from the 15amps that the KU63/65 controllers are rated at. That would give you good torque with the 36v battery. They freewheel so nicely that your downhill speed isn't limited in any way, and you build up lots of momentum with the heavier bike to carry you up the next hill. The battery is always a major consideration, and if you change your mind later and want to go to a 48V format for a larger motor or want more power you can do that. I think its worth standardizing on 48v as your battery. The 328rpm on a larger 26" wheel would probably put you into the mid to high 20mph on 48V, but your torque would suffer for hills, and the motor could overheat on long inclines on max throttle. The 328/36V model is probably best suited to the 20" wheel. And the 201/36 to the 700C wheel. These are small motors and can only put out a max of maybe 700 watts no matter the voltage. I haven't had any problems on several bikes mixing and matching the 36 volt (so-called) motors and the 36volt controllers with 48v supply, even hot off the charger to 58volts for a few minutes. With the 36V controllers, your controller low voltage cutoff will be too low to protect a 48v battery, so the battery will itself need to have its own LVC in a bms. I'd recommend the info on endless-sphere on these motors - the labelling is confusing with 24 and 36V versions of the motors, each with 2 rpm/v specs (201 and 328 (actually closer to 270rpm per volt)). I haven't actually tried a 36V battery on these kits so I'm not sure how top speed would suffer. I do like these kits a lot for roady style lightweight freewheeling, with enough power to really make a difference. The kits can easily sustain 500 watts which is worth three of you, and this is a lot on a nice light bike. I have the bigger 48V 15Ahr batteries as well, as I want the possibility of a lot of range, but I do have one smaller 48 10Ahr pack just for urban riding up to 10 mile range there and back type stuff.
You could get two 48 10Ahr packs and parallel them for distance. That would give you a lot of options for redundancy, short range or long-range riding depending on the ride you can carry the right amount of battery. Its nice not to worry about range and not stressing a smaller battery, but its also nice to have the option of a small pack for a small motor/bike combo. That's the beauty of non-proprietary parts - you can mix and match the components on a small fleet of bikes and minimize your cost, and maximize your flexibility whether its fun roady rides or serious cargo hauling. And replacing parts is cheap if something breaks which is always possible. I like the Headway packs as they are very modular, balance well, and are easy to repair with new cell cans. You can also single-cell charge the cells in situ, as well as easily get voltage readings on the cells. And safe compared to Lipo even though heavier. I think my 48/10Ahr pack is around 12 pounds.

chas58

Yeah, maybe the 36v kit with a 48v PING battery and some solder on the shunt would work.
I would be using the 201rpm kit for a 700c wheel.