skipper847

at the begining of the week i asked whever Urban Mover Motion Electric Mountain Bike for £799 is worth it but some one said why dont you buy a bike and make a electric bike your self for cheaper. Sorry forget who it was. I have been thinking all week and decided i would try and build one my self. But where would i start. I live in the UK so i would buy the stuff i need from the UK like the batteries and bike but where do i start. so is there any decent uk web sites where you can buy spare parts to make you own electric bike.

Thanks for any advice.

Edit
I will be using my normal old mountain bike at first to practice on then i will proly buy a newer bike if i can do this.

chvid

I think it is a greate idea to build your own if you can, as you will understand your bike and be able to fix it later if there are any issues. And you will save a LOT of money and get a higher performing bike, in general.

This is possibly the finest ebike parts site - www.ebikes.ca. I recommend that you read the information on the web site, for general information about hub motor conversions, and try out the simulator for different motors and battery types, in relation to required power levels and top speed and torque requirements. They also supply a wide variety of parts, including the famous "CycleAnalyst" which is an excellent device for monitoring the state of your ebikes power consumption and energy consumption. Although they are "in the colonies", you may find that they will ship to the U.K. The support you will get is excellent from them.

Major questions you need to answer...

Hub motor or "through gears" chain drive (hubbies are easiest for beginners). Chain drives are complicated and often difficult to realize with custom freewheels and chain tension issues etc. And they may be less reliable in wet conditions and much louder. I'd go hub motor as a start.

Front or rear conversion? I think front is simpler for a beginner and gives better weight distribution on the bike, without having to build a "mid frame" battery carrying solution.

Will my hub motor fit into my dropouts? (ebikes.ca has engineering diagrams for their motors_). Standard is 100mm on front and 135mm on back for inter-dropout spacing width.

Pedalfirst(start immediate) or sensorless (pedal first) controller?

Throttle or PAS? a.ka. pedelec. PAS means pedalling is not optional.

What voltage should I run at? (Governs top speed).

Type of hub motor (direct drive or geared?). Geared are lighter, smaller, and more efficient, but often can't run sensorless, so may have two additional points of failure - the Hall sensors found in the motor, and the gears breaking down under conditions of excessive continuous power.

Where to put the battery. On rear rack or in the triangle. Rear conversions are "back heavy" if you put the motor and the battery on the back. Not good handling. I like front conversions with battery on back rack for most simple conversion for beginners.

Torque arms - can your fork accept them. There are different types. Should have for peace of mind.

Thankfully, cheap bikes are often hi-ten steel with steel forks so they are often better for converting than high end bikes.

Braking power? Disk brakes are nice with the additional weight of an ebike that you need to stop, and the increased brake wear.

Must have regen? Or not. Not that important in my mind. I don't miss having regen on my various conversions I've done. Regen entails some complexity to interface with battery in some cases, such as rewiring with diodes. Not worth it for beginners.

Is your fork suspended or alloy? Not so good, if front conversion. Prefer steel or cromolly. Ok if back, but need torque solution.

Wiring and connectors...you may wish to familiarize yourself with "How to solder an Anderson connector" (Google it). These are great DC wire connectors. They are a bit mysterious at first but are easy to use. Soldering them is easier than crimping them, without a special crimp tool. I just torch them and let the solder flow into the end of the connector. Very secure.

WWW.BMSBATTERY.COM and www.PINGBATTERY.COM are also key sites.

Witt78

You said you paid 799 **Pounds** ?? (Forgive me, I'm an American. They don't teach me those things in this country. =\)

That's what? Say... $1000 - $1200 US Dollars? That's really not a bad price AT ALL for a pre-constructed electric bike. That said, I do agree with Chvid. If you want to do this right, take several weeks to study and read all the information you can. www.ebikes.ca is full of information and high quality hardware. This forum is great. The "V is for Voltage" site is great.

There is a wealth of general electrical information here... https://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/general.html
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If you are going to build your own e-bike, I would actually recommend you build two. Build a cheap one first. Small motor, Sealed Lead Acid batteries. This will teach you a huge wealth of information and only cost you $300 or so.

Then you can buckle down with your new found knowledge, and build your dream machine.
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I just happen to be building my dream machine right now. =P I made this video last night for Jethro, but it's bike building tips, so I figured I'd post it here too.

jethro56 

Welcome Luke to the Dark Side. Before we can help you It would be best if you discuss what the mission of this bike is. Witt78 appears to be searching for speed. I have range at moderate speeds as my priorities. I live in Flat Central Illinois so my torque requirements are more about my weight. I'm a Clyde and don't see dropping below 90Kg. What kind of hills do you travel?

chvid

Hey Witt, thanks for the video...I agree that the elitepowersolutions batteries *with balancers are a nice solution. I should correct you that you said the Ping consists of a lot of small round double A like batteries....it is in fact consisting of flat pouch cells, held together under compression with the outer duct tape...some of the ping clones like vpower do consist of the small round cans like double As. Having said that, the pings are still tricky to do surgery on, if you ever need to. I like the idea of the eps solution. I have two pings and have found them reliable. Unfortunately, the eps do not ship to Canada so I may need to ride my trike down to Washington from Victoria to pick some up some time. Glad your goldenmotor experience didn't put you off the "ev grin" - you will love having a decent ebike. Cheers.

Witt78

The Golden Motor is fun, so long as you don't go more than 6-8 miles. =P But once you heat that internal controller up, BLAM! It cuts out.

Here is a short video of the older E-Bike that I'm riding right now. (Until the speed demon is done) Don't ask me why the video is sideways. I filmed it with an iPod, and sometimes the software can't keep up with the potentiometer.


^^ Look how rusty my chain and freewheel are!!!! LOL

Witt78

So the Ping batteries use the flat cells and not the cylindrical cells? Interesting. I wonder what the capacity of the individual cells are?

That EPS battery pack I'm going to buy has 20 Amp hour cells in it. There are no parallel connections in the battery pack. It's only 16 individual cells wired in series. Very simple.

jethro56 

Once you get The Mongoose rolling I've read were guys have taken the controller out of the Golden Motors and if there are hall sensors in there removed them as well. They then run a sensorless controller. It requires you to get rolling just a little.

skipper847

Hi thanks for the advice. It looks hard work but be worth it in the end. @witt. I didnt buy the £799 Urban Mover Motion Electric Mountain Bike at £799 as i thought it was abit too much. There are eBikes for around £1,999for the top of range one which is way too much. Sorry i dont now how to convert money either. But £1,999 would be around $2,800??.

Witt78

yeah, that sounds about right on the money conversion...
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As far as the Magic Pie II. I'm not sure what I'll do with it once I get my Mongoose rolling. I've considered getting a new controller for it, however the SLA battery pack on that bike is on it's last 3 months of service life. By the time I get the Mongoose up and running, I'm going to be real tired of spending money on these things. hehe

I think the Magic Pie might become my bad weather bike. =P (You saw how rusty my chain was.)

skipper847

Hi. Ive been thinking further. If i buy a wheel for my bike what already has a built in hub motor and then all i need to do then is buy a batteries and charger could this be possible?. Ive seen this on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSonugqhYuE which looks prety easy.

jethro56 

I see you're looking at your options now.This was the first video i looked at as well. I think you need to examine your requirements first. Buying a kit that installs easily yields maximum pleasure in easing anxiety while installing. The rest of the time you're left with dealing with it's compromises. I know you're excited and eager. Lets start out with a discussion of the mission.How are you going to use this ebike?

skipper847

When i go out on a bike its mainly for the fresh air. I like to do a bit of excersise like pedaling but it does take it out of me. Where i go for bike rides at the moment its on the road which is mainly down hill to get there which is about a mile. When i get there its round some nature reserve so the ground there is grass and some gravely type path but its made so you can go on a bike or walk. Its coming back the problem as going is down hill so coming back you got to go back up it and sometimes i do stop the bike and push the bike up the hill. So a electric assisted bike would make it easier. Also if the bike had a eltric switch so you didnt have to pedal i would use this just to get some fresh air on hot days to cool down (lol).

kero36

I don't think that we need this yet. Hey, we aren't running our bikes with fuel. We do need need electric cars, that's for sure. But we don't need any bikes like this yet. However, who knows, maybe they will become popular in the future and I'll have to buy one

chvid

Kero...you won't ever want an electric bicycle until you transcend your biases and actually ride a good one. That's when the EV grin kicks in! Soon you'll be leaving the spandex crowd in the dust...we can't all be immaculate like the roadies you know.

Allen

^^^^
Check his post in A&S. Pretty trollish there too.

jethro56 

If this is absolutely all you want the system to do then The hill topper may be a solution. I'm afraid it'll just wet your imagination to what a complete package could do. Imagine venturing 5 miles away knowing you can stop pedaling at any time and cruise home in 20 minutes. If the price of the system is all you can afford then your options are limited.

skipper847

Thanks Jethro for the links but i think if i'm going to buy an ebike i will buy a new one and not build my own as its just as much really for more of the better ones. If i brought the urban mover could i at some point upgrade the battery so it will make it last longer and go faster? I no you say max speed in the UK is 15MPH for ebikes but was just wondering .

Ive been looking nonstop but every time i go back to the urban mover ebike from halfords as Ive seen the same one on other websites and its £825+ and even seen it for the same at £1,200 where here is £799. I will also ask halfords if i can have some money off as this person did in a review saying that he said he got money of for saving the environment has he was going to use it going to work.

skipper847

Well im 99% sure that im going to buy https://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...Id_211566#dtab as this one looks more like a mountain bike then the others what are there. I just hope im not wasting £799 but then again i did buy the ipad1 last and not used it so i wasted £600 last year . But i no i will use this. Thanks for all your advice and i will keep you posted when i get one. I would film it and put it on youtube but i hate my self on film. Should i film it when i get it?. hehe.

jethro56 

I wish they would show the other side with the drive or is it a hub motor?

skipper847

Well when i went and looked i didnt no anything about drive or hub motors so im not sure. Im going again next week though to have another good look be for i buy which is still 99% sure of doing. Im getting excited hehe. Just hope we in the UK have a nice summer this year as for the last 3 years its been abit rubbish.

skipper847

just been looking on urban mover website and it says. ‎26V models in Urban City conditions with an 70kg rider is 32km on full charge. I am 45.6KG so i should tripple that distance shouldnt i.

Sangesf

Lol.. You wish!
It's not so linear...

Anyways, from my experience it's generally like this...

24v = 15-18mph average top speed
36v = 21-23mph average top speed
48v = 28-30mph average top speed
(Wind and weight is why there are variable speeds and distances above and below)
10Ah = 13-15 miles Max
15Ah = 19-22 miles Max
20Ah = 26-30 miles Max

Here in the USA, I can get a 36v 250w kit and 36v 20Ah battery for $700usd, which will let me cruise (no pedaling) at 20mph for 21 miles.

If you go real crazy (like me) you can also go with a dual motor/battery setup.
Two 36v 20Ah Batts with two 36v 250w motors gets me 80-85 miles or so at 20-21mph.

skipper847

Hopefully tomorrow if i have time im going to the shop and have another good look at the urban mover ebike be for i buy. I carnt wait hehe. I no the bike comes with a chain and padlock but what else is there for better security for home and when out, specialy when out if you need to leave it any where for any reason such as go into the shops etc. Portable electric fecne perhaps lol.