Free yourself with a real electric bike for under 1 thousand dollars

[JohnPhoenix]

The name of this forum is Electric Bikes.

That's what I have a real electric bike - not an electric scooter or electric motorcycle. The U.S Government says an electric bike is a bicycle with an electric motor on it that does not have a motor more powerful than 750 watts. There is no drivers license or insurance required for these and depending on where you live you can reach speeds between 20 to 30 miles per hour and drive them in the bike lane or side of the road of any street except for an interstate system and other major streets where bikes are not allowed.

My bike consists of a 100 dollar mens full suspension mountain bike with an electric front wheel hub motor, a voltage regulator and is powered by 4, 12 volt 20 AH sealed lead acid batteries - bought in kit form and installed by me - cost 600 dollars. It will reach speeds of 25 mph and has a range of about 10 miles without pedaling - with pedaling to make it a "pedal assist' bike it has a range of 20 miles. Takes me everywhere I wanna go in town.

On the streets due to traffic and red lights etc I can normally beat most cars going 35 mph to their destination. I love the look on people faces when I zoom past them if they are in grid lock :-)

I plan to purchase a LiFePo4 battery for 600 dollars. This Lithium Iron Phosphate battery will be half the weight and size of my current battery pack and it will allow me to get a full 20 mile range at 25 to 28 mph.

I'm 43 and love my bike. I go everywhere with it around town and can carry about 60 lbs extra weight for going to the store and back. I weigh 140 lbs.  This bike is greener than my other gas motorbike or cars - in fact only the wife drives the car now. I have let my drivers license expire and have no thought to renew that evil document.

I urge everyone to get a real electric bike. Save that license and insurance money for something better. Stop spending your money on Gas from the petrol cartels. Electric Bikes are Fun to drive and you can pedal for exercise if you want to. It's a win win! We only use the car now if there is something we have to do we cannot do with the bike.. and that's not much.

[SkyWatcher123]

Hi john, thanks for sharing. Glad it makes you happy to cruise on your electric bicycle.
I have a 36 volt 350 watt front wheel hub motor i picked up a few years back, though I don't like the drag it has when trying to peddle without it turned on, still pretty good though for cruising around.
By the way, you only need a drivers license to drive when in a commercial capacity, not to travel, which traveling is what most people are doing.

Its called the common law right to travel, where as if you are a taxi driver, you are in commerce and would need a drivers license then.
Maybe they just forgot to inform us of these things, or maybe they didn't want us to know, you decide.
peace love light

[kidsonroll]

Fundamentally, an e-bike is just a regular bicycle with an electric motor to provide additional assistance. You can pedal normally and just use the motor to help out on hills and headwinds, or use the motor all the time just to make riding easier. The experience is entirely different from riding say a petrol scooter or motorbike. Here the electric assistance is perfectly smooth and silent and it complements rather than supplants human power.

[Paul-R]

Braking is an issue with electric bikes. What is needed is a KERS system
to use braking to generate electricity to top up the battery:
http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/understanding_the_sport/8763.html

[Magluvin]

Just thought Id post it here...

I have an electric bike with a 48v 500w brushless 3 phase motor and controller. Been ridding it for about 9years now. The only problems Ive had with it is the 3 hall sensors in the hub motor. It is described how to replace them on several vids on YT.

What would happen when one sensor goes bad is the motor starts cogging heavily from the missing magnetic switch time. The first time it happened it just happened and I replaced them all just incase. But this time it happened and I turned it off and peddled. After it cooled, it worked again.  So now I have good reason that it is the heat of the motor that degrades these hall sensors. Looking for high temp, if any, at this time.

I had a little stash of the halls needed but used them up. They are just bipolar quick switching. All I have in stock are linear halls for other projects.  So I did a test on the bench with a good bipolar I took out of the bike and one of the linear.  The bipolar showed the quick switching from 0v to 5v, using 5v in, and the linear had shown an output swing from  just under 2.5v down to 'near' 0v with say N pole approaching and from near 2.5 to 'near' 5v swing with south pole.  So basically it did the same function of 0v for one pole and 5v for the other pole, just not fast switching with the linear, and another problem, the linear went high with say N pole and the bipolar went low with N pole.  Soooo, I just reversed the faces of the halls to face inward, giving me my reversal. Now I had to make changes in the connections on the small pcb to make the connections correct due to the flipping of the halls. So I just desoldered the output wires of the first and last sensors and switched them. Then I just flipped the pcb over and done.

Put it together and TAH DAH, no worky.

So I peddled it home. Peddled back to shop today to test things. Throttle wires were getting power, gnd and throttle up signal, hall wires were showing near 5v on the + and output of all 3, of which there was no big change when the magnets changed as I moved the wheel.

So I opened the wheel and made sure the gnd wire was connected, as if it were not, I would get those same readings back at the controller where I checked first. But was ok.

Found the halls didnt have enough clamp to pull down 5v at the controller. Hmm. Sucks.  Then thought to put buffer transistors on the little hall board to boost the clamp. But then I thought, lets just try a resistor across the center pin(gnd) and the output. Started and ended with a 1kohm. The low voltage was near 1.45v and the high was right at 3.5v.   Lucky guess as another value resistor would have thrown off the switching center timing.  Put the wheel back on and it works great. 

Sometimes we can do anything with a little thinking.

Here is a guy that shows basically what to do.  But I thought my story was worth posting.

http://visforvoltage.org/forum/control-systems/1693

Mags