EBikeFL 

So you never carry your battery charger with you?

EBikeFL 

Today was the first day with my new setup and 10 minutes after I park some girl walks up and starts taking pictures of my e-bike with her iPhone. My e-bike gets more dates than me.

EBikeFL 

My bicygnals indicator front bracket has broken on the left side of the clasp. The plastic bracket isn't strong enough to handle constant removal and installation of the front light as well as the vibrations when traveling at 30+ mph.

SiXiam, make sure you use the velcro straps on the front light. When you remove the light; try to keep the tab which slips through the center of the light bending back towards you while pushing forward on the tab portion to dislodge the light from the bracket. I hope that makes sense.

I've got an email to Bicygnals to see if I can purchase just the front bracket.

The Bicygnals lights are great but the brackets are not strong enough being made out of plastic.

EBikeFL 

The British Bicygnals website does have the capability to order parts for their lights. If you click the American flag in the top right hand corner you get sent to an American vendor who doesn't have the spare parts ordering option.

I purchased the front bracket for less than $16.00 with shipping to Florida.

EBikeFL 

Just finished riding in the rain with the Maxxis Hookworm tires. Boy, am I glad I had them on. I took over the far right hand lane and just used the thumb throttle because the PAS didn't seem to work. I hope it was just the water interfering with it. I had two of the 1W Portland Design Works Radboot tail lights on with the strobe setting https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o03_s00_i00. There's no way you couldn't see me from 1/2 a mile away. The Papamotor started to act up too. It wanted to accelerate with the thumb throttle NOT pressed or the pedals moving. I'm sure the water was playing havoc with the sensors. My e-bike was in a two hour downpour before I got on the road.

Hopefully, everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

Oh, I had a policeman follow me for a few miles. I only noticed him when I had to turn left and he kept going straight.

EBikeFL 

Well, the problem with the PAS was a loose PAS connection at the controller. It appears the acceleration without any thumb throttle or PAS use was due to a flooded Cycle Analyst; in fact, I had to drive today can you believe it. I really was looking forward to riding my e-bike. I took the CA completely apart and dried out the components, then sprayed the electrical board with an electrical only cleaner. I then used automotive weatherstripping and completely made the CA water tight. You could now completely submerge the CA and water wouldn't get in.

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that the Ping battery and the Papamotor controller had gotten into a fight inside the cargo cache. I've since segregated the two so the controller will no longer do damage to the Ping battery. I've posted a picture below of the damage.

I also mentioned putting some kind of edge guard on the Ping battery. Well, I found the perfect solution: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00

I've posted pictures of the Ping battery before the edge protection and what it will look like after the edge guards are in place. I'll use a thin layer of epoxy to adhere the edge guards to the Ping battery.



Stay tuned...more to come.

spirit733t

hi all.

hi ebikefl, thanks for all the useful info.. thats like a log of issues and solutions..

would you agree the kit is actually very reliable as long as you waterproof all connections and sensitive areas..

does the motor it self seems mechanically good?

see you all

EBikeFL 

The Cycle Analyst is not part of the Papamotor kit so any negative results from it shouldn't put the Papamotor kit in a bad light. I did notice that the Anderson connectors are starting to get loose or are not holding in the closed position. I believe Dhoward had mentioned he had a different style of connectors at the battery to controller connection. This is a result of routinely taking off and snapping back on the connectors when removing the battery from the bike to be charged. I believe the black ground wire's Anderson connector from the Ping battery has started to get loose over my normal commutes and also contributed to the e-bike wanting to take off without me.

I have found a solution to this and am in the process of implementing it now. I will post the solution and results very soon.

The Cycle Analyst mentioned in its user manual what needs to be done to make it watertight. I should have listened to the suggestion. My CA has three wires coming from the back of it but the connector on the back has holes for six wires. The day I flooded the CA it was having problems staying in the upright position (CA now has a better "robust" connector on their website) and slipped 180 degrees exposing the three open holes into the CA's housing.

I have not had any water related issues with the Papamotor controller only because it never sees water in the cargo cache. The Papamotor hub motor has performed fantastically so far and I have had no issues with it.

spirit733t

thanks for all this info.. sometime in the future I will try and collect all the comments being made and put it into some form of document, so then we can use it as a guide, FAQ, problems solutions kind of thing.. this will also be good for our future plans, and i will even have nice pictures in the guide.

ebike how do you protect all the wires and connections, do you have any form of waterproof kind of thing?

it seems the kit is good and reliable but needs a bit of work to get everything secure protected and connected well, but the general main hardware is good quality...

ebike are you using the 400 L rear dinotte light? if so how does it compare to other rear lights.... and what about front powerful lights.

how is the battery going, it is proving reliable and easy and safe to charge?

and I hope sixiam is getting underway with his bike,

take care keep up the good work

EBikeFL 

I think that's a great idea. Something similar to open source code where people can submit changes/additions. It will definitely need to be broken down into the various sections, i.e. lights, tires, rims, etc. and have hyperlinks to all the various vendors. The vendors and their products need to be rated as well. It shouldn't take several weeks to find all the right components if you want to build your own e-bike.

The cargo cache is the main protector of electrical components. Everything that is susceptible to liquid damage is inside the cargo cache. This has another benefit, it leaves the bicycle frame uncluttered and looking more like a bicycle. This is the main reason why so many people are stopped in their tracks as I pass by...their eyes see a bicycle but I'm moving so fast their brains tell them it can't be. This, by the way, happened today.

Yes, I don't think there's any e-bike vendor that has gotten it all right. Of course, that will change when I start building e-bikes.

No, I'm using two 1W lights I listed earlier. I find it's a lot easier to remove and attach them when they are needed. I only ride about two days of the week at night so I don't need permanent front or rear lights. I've confirmed that the front DiNotte light (XML-3) is being reflected off the front fairing. Some of the light is getting through and onto the street in front of me but a good portion is also reflected back. I have a solution in mind but it will require a longer cable extension from DiNotte.

The Ping battery is fantastic! I wish everything could be as reliable as the Ping battery. In fact, the only bad thing is having only one.

He's probably riding around as we speak. I guess he's too popular for us now. His last post mentioned he was looking for a new job.

EBikeFL 

What a rush!!! I just got finished riding about 15 miles at night. Absolutely beautiful riding weather! Earlier, as I was charging the Ping battery I had three people take photographs of my e-bike from various angles. One person stopped and spoke with me as I was putting all the night riding gear on. I mentioned all the money he could save...fuel, parking fees, car maintenance, car insurance, etc. and he was in shock. He then asked me where the motor was and I asked him to guess and point to it. He guessed three times wrong and I finally pointed the motor out. He was in shock again. If that doesn't tell you how stealthily the e-bike is built I don't know what will.

I had a scooter pace me while I was at 31 mph and he just smiled. He must of had a 50cc scooter, he took off and was probably doing 45 mph. I sure wish I had a "shock and awe" button that would catapult me to Stealth Bomber speeds for a short period. I would've loved to see his face of me pedaling away from him.

There you go Spirit733t...you don't want all this attention. Just forget about purchasing a Papamotor 48v 1000w kit. Did I mention I'm falling in love with my Maxxis Hookworm tires.

julie0217

Hi Warren,
I'm so happy to know E-bike can bring you so much fun.
Your thread helps E-bike fans too much.
Thank you for everything:-)

EBikeFL 

It is fun but I'm also making several car drivers very upset. They get to the traffic lights ahead of me and sit there idling their engines and then I catch up to them...all without using any gasoline. You can't imagine the feeling of not being addicted to oil any longer. Oil prices can't touch me anymore...at least for personal transportation costs.

I love my e-bike so much I just came up with a poem:

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
My e-bike is so fast
Watch as I blow past you

Alright, maybe it needs a little work.

spirit733t

ebikefl you on fire man haha

its all good, I will get mine soooon..

all the best

EBikeFL 

I think Kd5ete is rubbing off on me.

I passed school kids on bicycles this afternoon and you should have seen the looks on their faces. They stopped in their tracks and watched me go by. Their faces had the expression of someone telling them they could have any toy in the Toy's-R-Us store. I remember the days when I was getting close to having a driver's license and thinking about the cool cars I could afford and one day drive. I wonder if in the future kids will be dreaming of what model electric bike they'll be riding.

wrusry

EbikeFL,

Perhaps you have covered this before, but how do you prevent your battery from being stolen when you are parked. You have mentioned pitlock as well as your u lock, but I don't think I have read about how you secure the very expensive batteries.

Thanks.

edit: I went back and looked at post #34. So, would this be correct?: your cargo hold has a lock and is permanently (through epoxy?) attached to the rack. And the rack is fixed to the frame with pitlocks? If so, that sounds pretty secure.

EBikeFL 

The cargo cache has a lock on it. It makes the would-be thief think twice about trying to get at the battery. I also park in high traffic, very visible locations so anyone trying to steal something off my e-bike realizes there's lots of eyes on it. Last of all, I carry the battery with me when it needs to be recharged which is at my main riding destination. My arms get a nice workout lugging the battery around.

The new battery carrier I'm building will solve all these issues.

EBikeFL 

Well, I guess I got a driver upset enough to try and run me over. I was on my e-bike in the center of the lane when a driver came up fast behind me on the two lane road blowing his horn. It was raining lightly and I had maneuvered into the center lane to avoid major potholes in the road and was in the center just about to get into the bicycle lane ahead of me. The bicycle lane started about 50 feet in front of me.

The driver brushed my left hand side and almost crashed into traffic coming from the opposite direction. Thankfully, my Mirrycle side view mirror took the first and only hit. It gave me sufficient warning to quickly steer to the right. Ironically, the light 50 yards away was red and the driver had to stop for another vehicle at the light.

I quickly got my cell phone out and dialed 911. I relayed the driver's tag number and vehicle model. The vehicle had dark tinted windows all the way around. Thankfully, I had the GoPro recording and was able to show the police officer the front of the vehicle and how close his vehicle was to me.

Unfortunately, the officer said there's no way to know who was driving. I don't think even with the video there's much the police can do per the officer. Who ever the driver of the vehicle; if they don't get punished they will feel they can hit bicyclists and get away with it.

They say hindsight is 20/20 and looking back on the whole incident I should have taken the GoPro from its perch and recorded the tag number and model of the vehicle...maybe even the entire vehicle. I could have also blocked the vehicle ahead of the driver and bought additional time or pissed off the driver even more.

I'm glad I made it through the hit-and-run alive. My e-bike never complained, after relaying all the information to the officer, I was able to travel safely to my destination and back home again after recharging the Ping battery.

Does anyone know how to find the address of an individual from their vehicle tag? It should be public information, correct?

spirit733t

hey man,

glad your ok though,

cars are a major problem, and it is only through not driving you can now see how aggressive and dangerous cars are, when your driving a car its like your in your own world, but in the real world humans are very delicate and so are bikes..

your only protection is recording these idiots with your camera, make sure to get their number plates.. but at the same time you should cover your self, as it is dangerous and also you must think about the legal implications of riding faster than laws allow..

anyway dude good cycling and keep stealthy and safe

EBikeFL 

Thanks, Spirit733t. If anything happens to me you've got to continue the quest we've started here...to get as many automobile drivers onto e-bikes. Every single day I see drivers getting killed around Orlando and I-95. Since I've been riding I've also noticed the many animals who have also gotten run over. We have over 1 billion cars running on the streets of the world, it's estimated to be close to 2 billion by 2050. There's just no way we can handle that congestion.

Actually, I think my speed saved me. When the driver hit me he wasn't going much faster than me so the hit wasn't hard. If the difference between his speed and mine was greater I would've been sent flying to the right.

The officer was more interested in how I built my bike than the actual accident. I showed him how with the unsnap of the two fasteners I could carry a whole bag of groceries. He said we should all be riding my type of bicycle.

Here's an article I will be sending the officer regarding riding the lane: https://cyclingsavvy.org/hows-my-driving/

The width of the lane where I was hit was less than 14 feet.

We have a new Papamotor e-biker...Brainfarth.

edit:
I just realized if more police officers rode e-bikes they would be more apt to pursue incidents such as mine to the fullest extent of the law. This incident might be a blessing in disguise. Let me see if I can get some time to demonstrate the benefits of my e-bike setup to officers in his department.

EBikeFL 

Got to love the GoPro and VLC media player. Here's a few photos of the car and driver in my hit and run. You can see it's a male driver and he's on his cell phone.

You can see how narrow the lanes are and how he's driving forces the traffic in the oncoming lane to move to their far right.

Also, you'll notice how close he gets to me. Ah...it's supposed to be 3 ft, right?

CigTech

Thats a Honda Accord a 2011 or 2012 not sure from that angle. You know I build Honda Accords at the factor.

EBikeFL 

CigTech, that Honda Accord you helped build almost took my life today.

I did pass another vehicle you don't see everyday on the way back home:

I once thought highly of Ferrari and other high end sports cars. Not anymore. Future generations will come to regard our generation as excessive and wasteful.

CigTech

I always say that making cars and being a biker is like a deer making guns.

EBikeFL 

CigTech, we need to put your expertise towards building e-bikes instead of Hondas. Let's start building your e-bike so you can commute to the Honda factory. You'll need at least two Ping 48v 15Ah batteries we know for sure.

Have you checked whether it's O.K. to charge your batteries at the factory? Where will you park your e-bike?