PatrickGSR94

After a week of waiting on my order (excruciating, let me tell you ), my first ever e-bike kit showed up at my office on Tuesday! As expected, I started working on the install immediately after work. I had already started removing parts on Monday evening, like the crankset, front shift cable, and everything on the left side of the handlebars.

For those who haven't seen my utility bike, I'm converting a 2006 Marin Pine Mountain steel MTB frame, which I built up to be sort of a Dutch-inspired upright-riding utility bike. It's big, and heavy. I outfitted it with mechanical disc brakes, a steel Nashbar height-corrected fork, 2.15" Big Apple tires, Topeak rack and SKS fenders. Other Dutch-style bits include a double kickstand, spring steering stabilizer, and swept-back Metropolis handlebars with Ergon grips. I use the bike to haul a custom cargo trailer made from an InStep kids trailer, to make runs to the grocery store. I've ridden the bike to work a couple of times (31 miles round trip), but it's DOG slow compared to my road bike commuter. So I'm hoping this BBS02 setup will make grocery runs quicker, and also provide more commuting options when I don't take the road bike.





So I started Monday evening by removing the front derailleur cable, then the chain, and the triple crank. Finally the square taper bottom bracket cartridge came out. I only just built up this bike about a year ago, so it wasn't too much trouble getting the BB out. I also removed the down tube bottle cage to make room for the battery.







I bought this BBSxx stabilizer bar from California E-bikes, but I wasn't sure if I can use it or not. I tried mocking it up with a full size cutout of the BBSxx motor unit. This bar would make the motor unit hang really low. Not too sure about that.



That's all for Monday's work. The only other thing I had to do before mounting up the motor unit is to find a shorter screw for the bottom of the BB shell that holds the plastic cable guide. Local hardware store to the rescue with a metric Philips "truss head" screw in 5x0.8 mm thread that was only 8mm long.

PatrickGSR94

On Tuesday the big box arrived! I couldn't wait to get home and start messing with it!



I started messing with it Tuesday evening, and as usual with these sorts of "custom" projects, I ran into a couple of snags. First the motor position. I only had about 1" to 1.5" of rotational clearance between the motor sitting against the downtube, and it sitting against my double kickstand. I thought about using a couple of perpendicular hose clamps to hold the motor up against the downtube, but I can't do that unless I have some sort of rubber spacer, due to the rear derailleur shift cable running down the downtube. So I wasn't sure how I was going to make it work. I may try to use that stainless steel brace, cut it, and drill a hole in it to secure it with a P-clamp around the chain stay.

Lowest position:


Highest position, without touching the shift cable:


My next issue is the battery mounting. One issue is that the bottle cage bosses are JUST BARELY too low on the tube to allow the bottle battery cradle to bolt straight in place. I'm going to have to fab up something to bolt to the bosses, which will then bolt to the battery cradle, unless someone else has any suggestions.




This is with the bottom of the cradle touching the seat tube as in the picture above. Bosses just barely too low. Dangit!


Another possible issue is that this bike frame uses non-round tubing. The top of the downtube looks like it has a rounded edge instead of just a curved surface, which doesn't match up at all with the curved mounting surface of the battery cradle.


I figured I would have to wait until at least this weekend to address the battery and motor mounting issues, so I decided to get the cockpit components mounted up. I removed the headlight mount and GoPro camera mount on either side of the stem, mounted up the color display mount bracket clamps, then put the headlight bracket back on. Not sure what to do with the camera mount. I need to get a K-Edge camera mount which is 1000x better than the GoPro handlebar mount.


Next I removed the left Ergon grip and Shimano 3x8 front brake/shift pod. I installed the control button pod, the front e-brake handle (I'm keeping the rear Shimano brake/shift pod on the right side), and I decided to go ahead and put on the thumb throttle. Finally I installed the Ergon grip back in place, and tightened everything down. Lastly, I installed the front brake cable into the e-brake handle and got the front brake re-adjusted. The handle itself doesn't really feel as "crisp" when applying the brakes as the Shimano unit did, but I suppose I might get used to it.


That's all for Tuesday. I had the 52V 13.5aH battery on the Luna 300W smart charger all evening Tuesday, set to 3A and 100% as per Luna recommendations for initial charging to let the BMS balance the cells. I left the battery sitting on the tile kitchen floor, and after 5 full hours it wasn't even the slightest bit warm. The aluminum battery housing was completely cool to the touch, so that's a good result!

PatrickGSR94

Big progress last night (Wednesday)!

I made an aluminum piece to help stabilize the battery on the downtube, since the downtube isn't round and doesn't mate properly with the curvature of the battery cradle bottom surface. The aluminum bar bolts to all 4 bottle cage bosses. I had to drill 2 new holes into the battery cradle, and the top 2 bottle cage bolts go through the battery cradle, the aluminum bar, and into the frame. It all seems quite sturdy, so much so that I probably don't need zip ties. Those top 2 bolts really need to be longer, so I need to pick up a couple from the hardware store. Since I got this one worked out for the shape, it's a little banged up so I may end up making another stabilizer bar soon. I might paint it some sort of matte or textured black, to match the battery.









And my impatience got the best of me. I didn't really want to use the Bafang mounting bracket with the ridges that appear to dig into the BB shell face, but I didn't want to deal with modifying that California E-bike stabilizer bar bracket, so I went ahead and put everything on, positioned and tightened it all to spec as best I could.



Crank arms and chain ring installed, and torqued to 38 N-m (30-40 is spec), which was a good bit tighter than what I thought was tight enough doing it with just a regular 3/8" ratchet. I've heard reports from some people of the crank bolts coming loose, I wonder if they didn't actually get them tight enough?



I plugged in the wires and harness, and turned it on to test it. I had a little scare at first because it didn't seem to want to turn on. I checked connections, even checked voltage on the battery wires. Everything was good. I looked up the DPC-14 display manual, and then *oops* noticed you have to hold down the button for a second to turn it on, whereas I was just pressing the button normally. Woohoo it works! Display works great, and I touched the throttle a bit and the motor turns the chain wheel just fine!

Next task is to try to clean up the wiring somehow, install the speed sensor on the rear wheel, put the chain back on, and get to riding! I'd like to use some sort of wiring loom to tidy up everything. I like the mesh look stuff, but I'm not sure if I can get that locally. I'd rather not have to order more stuff online, so I might just use that black split loom stuff.

2old

Nice fab job, Patrick. My conversion has a "square" battery, so required a frame bag. Not the best looking, but it hides the wires nicely.

PatrickGSR94

Forgot to mention, I weighed the bike by standing on my bathroom scale, then standing on it again while holding the bike. The bike used to weigh in the upper 30's, and now it comes in at 52 pounds. So the battery and motor added around 15 pounds to the whole kit.

PatrickGSR94

Maiden voyage around the block a few times. WOW WOW WOW!!! It feels amazing! Still have to get used to shifting properly. I'll probably just tug the brake handle like a motorcycle clutch almost. Can't wait to zip around town on this new whip!

350htrr

That is why a pedal assist torque sensor system is worth it's weight in gold, I shift "when I want to", or I don't shift if I don't want to/need to, The system always puts in what ever the % of assist I picked. If it's not enough I up the assist, or I change GEARS, it's easy peasy...

momsonherbike

Fantastic!! Let's see some pics of it outside!!

PatrickGSR94

Yeah, probably have to wait until it's sunny outside this weekend.

I have the cables and wires all tied up for now, but I hope to tidy it up a little more with some wire loom.

kickstart

Looking good!
I found there was a short transition period adjusting to subtle nuances of having e assist, but its an easy transition.

PatrickGSR94

I definitely need a Lekkie 42t Bling Ring. The stock 46t ring has a straight chain line in the 6th cog of my 8-sp cassette. I'd rather get the chain line in between the 5th and 5th cogs.

M2faux

Excellent write up . I've always been afraid to take on the challenge of this mid drive. Now that I finally see it go together nicely , you've inspired me to take on a mid drive project. Kudos

NoPhart

That is the same reason I made my own. I thought of ordering their's and cutting it up to make the same style I did, but a neighbor happen to have a couple sheets of 1/8" or 3/16" thick aluminum that he let me have, so I went that route. There really is nothing wrong with the BaFang "edge dig-in" bracket as far as function, it just grooves the BB edge.

Nice quick build! Now you know how much power these things put out. Isn't it unbelievable? You will be making quick work of your trailer and grocery runs now!

NoPhart

The Lekkie 42T was a game changer for my first 350W/36V BBS01 for climbing. I even went to a 34T cassette low ring in back too (that's the largest that bikes groupset could handle). I have that slightly used Blue Bling-Ring just sitting here not being used, but I hesitate to sell it because if I ever do a full suspension build I will have to use a chain again...

PatrickGSR94

No prob man, I'm not sure when I'll order one. I left the FD installed, but cranked down the lower limit screw to push the FD cage out, so that it now serves as a chain guide. I haven't even installed the plastic chain guard yet, as I might paint it some crazy color, even though the bike itself is all silver/gray and black.

Chainline pics:

PatrickGSR94

Also having to get used to the offset Q-factor on this thing. I think the right side crank is about 18mm farther outboard from the bike frame centerline than the left crank is, which feels a little weird.

Robert C

This is why I added a Nu-Vinci hub to my Bafang equipped trike. I can smoothly shift through the range without letting off the power. I can also use the transmission to set my speed.

PatrickGSR94

Well something like that might come later. This is a budget build to just convert a bike I already had. The disc wheels themselves on this bike only cost about $40 each complete, brand new (SRAM disc freehub on the back, black spokes, WTB-22 disc-specific rim).

kickstart

I thought long and hard about going with that type of setup as it has a lot of advantages, and seems to be the perfect match for a mid drive, but I ultimately ended up going with a DD hub motor as I was willing to sacrifice some speed, and efficiency for its simplicity, and reliability due to the terrain, and climate challenges of my riding environment.

PatrickGSR94

@kickstart apologies as I know you've posted it before, but what hub motor are you running? I looked at those initially but decided I would only want to go with a BionX kit which was prohibitively expensive for me. Going the BBS02 route allowed me to get into the e-bike game at about 60% of the cost of the cheapest BionX setup, and less than half of some of their higher end setups.

I've done pretty much everything myself on bikes, and built up 2 bike frames from scratch, including pressing my own headset bearings. The one thing I haven't done is built wheels, which I really want to learn to do one day. If I can ever do that, I would consider building probably a Nexus or Alfine 8-speed disc rear wheel for this bike.

kickstart

I went with a Rad Power Bikes Radwagon as I wanted a longtail cargo bike. https://www.radpowerbikes.com/produc...ant=5921448897

It struck the best balance of price and quality for my wants and needs within my budget, with the benefit of being a local company. Not the quality or bells and whistles of a Bionx, but a basic DD hub with over engineered basic electronics where there's little to go wrong.

I typically prefer to put together my own bikes too, but in this instance getting a RTR bike got me the closest to what I wanted. Building a serviceable wheel really isn't that hard, just take it slow, and pay attention to the details.

2old

One thing that I did which (I think) helped when deciding to build a wheel was truing my wheels. Building was pretty easy after that initial exposure, but AIR, I built a trial wheel first to get the hang of it. Never got really fast at it so "buy" most of my builds now.

PatrickGSR94

Yeah I've adjust spokes on several bikes before, and gotten them much more true than they were before I adjusted them. To me it seems like getting the dish and spoke length correct on a rear wheel would be the most difficult thing.

2old

Look at ebikesca calculator for spoke length. The first time I built a rear wheel, I had a "model" (unfortunately not what you think, this was another wheel) to compare. Dish isn't difficult if you have the right machine. I didn't so just kept reversing the wheel in the "machine" to get the dish. Worked out fine.

PatrickGSR94

welp, finally got my Lekkie Bling Ring on last night. Unfortunately now I see that Photobucket has screwed over all its users and now all my pics are broken. Not sure what I'll do about the pics at this point.