Review of E-bike Electric Conversion
 

My review of the BD36 E-bike conversion kit sold at BatterySpace.com This electric bike conversion combines the state of art E-bike technology that uses a directly driven Hub Motor. This allows you to change almost any bicycle into a personal electric transportation vehicle. Save energy, protect the environment and save your money while having a lot of fun. High power brushed hub motor that has a top speed of 25 MPH.

Features and Parts:
600W brushed Hub Motor laced to standard rim and comes in different sizes. I chose the 26” wheel for my mountain bike/commuter.
Here is a list of the pre-wired parts: lighted variable speed thumb throttle, controller unit and keys switch. This model comes with a seal lead acid (SLA) rechargeable battery pack, (12V, 7Ah). This battery pack is heavy. If you will have to brag this in every time you need to recharge it may become a burden to you.
The kit comes with a smart charger that has auto turn-off feature. Basically a plug in and forget charger so you don’t have to worry about over charging or connecting the charger to a timer. The average charging time is between four and six hours.
The bike rack is a little cheap looking but does the job. It would be nice if it were black anodized aluminum touring rack so that you could easily use it without the battery pack strapped to it.
The entire kit weighs in at about 36 pounds and is supposed to be able to carry 300 pounds. This motor is supposed to last 8000 hours

Installation
The web site says that it is “Easy to install within 30 minutes”. Give yourself at least an hour.

The hub requires that the spacing between fork arms be 4 inches. This appears to be the perfect width to fit the hub, I didn't have to enlarge my fork at all.

The hub has a special groove on the side opposite the wires that fits snuggly into the fork. It appears to be designed to prevent the hub from spinning freely in the fork, which would have a dramatic impact on the wires coming out of it. Again, this fit correctly in the slot on my fork. A suggestion to avoid confusion would be to put a "rotation" arrow on the hub. These hub motors are not recommended for bikes with front shock forks, or bikes with front aluminum forks. Shock forks can flex too much, and aluminum forks are generally not strong enough to handle the hub motor torque. So stick with good solid cro-moly forks.

Fitting the throttle on your handle bar maybe a challenge as working the operation may interfere with thumb and index shifters. You may have to move the brakes and shifters half an inch away or so from the throttle to allow all the items to operate correctly. The problem with that is that the all important brake lever can now only be operated easily with my index finger (it is too far away from my other fingers).
Riding Suggestions:
Always start peddling your bike before giving electric power to avoid over discharging the battery and to save battery life. Never give power under stopped or braked conditions, because this may also damage the battery. Your maximum travel distance is dependant on how you control your power consumption. Remember that this is a power-assisted bike, and designed with the intent that you continue to peddle when riding uneven roads, or up hills. Riding this way will save battery power.

So, um, if I can hit 27mph without the drive, how fast can I go with it? Or does it just make general cruising easier?

Wait untill you run out of juice at the bottom of a hill. You WILL run out of juice one day. That's when most people convert back to a regular bike. You have much more range on a regular bike. And the more you use the regular bike the more your range increases.

Not necessarily, I have had a torque arm break 6 klm down hill from home and rode my single speed 35 kg chopper back home (yes it did hurt). I still ride the same bike regularly as the motor allows me to ride a s/s bike in a very hilly area without destroying my knees (they are great in gales as well), a couple of provisions though, I use a max of 200watts, top speed on both my electric assists is 20 kph on the motors and they are never ridden on motor only but are often on pedal only, under these conditions range is phenomenal. I also ride a stack of non assisted bike as well.

My range is 130+ miles. :D On my single speed bike.
I can easily carry that bike up a flight of stairs.

I use my E bike Just for going to work 9.2 miles I get there in 30 minutes and don't sweat a drop.

Imagine over 18 average and not a drop of sweat get to work fresh as a daisy. I ride almost 200 miles a week on my unassisted road bike with my bike club and we almost never average 18 and when we do average between 18 and 20 I a tried sweaty mess.

I get the equivalent of 300mpg actually better because my boss lets me charge the batteries at work.

So don't bad mouth the concept as transportation. The E bike has the smallest energy usage for any powered or assisted method of transportation

Great cardio workout!:rolleyes:

Read:THE EBIKE FAQ

:rolleyes:

My ebike uses the very similar BL-36 kit (no longer available). My advice is to change to a twist grip throttle. The thumb throttle had me begging for mercy pretty quickly. I got mine at www.ebikes.ca. It's a good source of parts, batteries, hub motors, technical information, etc. Shipping to the US is no problem. (I'm not affiliated, just a satisfied customer.)

I've yet to run out of juice on mine... the thing just keeps on going and going and going...