My Experience Converting an ICE Trike to a DD Hub Pedalec

Well I was able to complete my DIY conversion of an ICE Adventure RS Trike to become a Pedalec trike capable of climbing the 2 mile 1500 ft hill that my home is on top of.

This series of posts is my attempt to document what I had to do to make it happen, mainly focused on the elements that were most difficult for me. Plus pictures!

To give some context; I'm a software knerd. I'm not particularly mechanical. I haven't done much with fixing / hacking bikes since my early 20's which is like 40 years ago. So I'm effectively a noobie for everything, not just the motors, batteries, controllers, but all the bike stuff too.

Also want to say that I'm really glad that I got all the electronic and drive components from Grin Tech as they were always helpful when I got stuck. I love all the support they give to the community and they developed the key electronic components I was using. They also took care of lacing the motor to the rim and related stuff. Folks on Endless-Sphere and BentRider were an even bigger help and a huge inspiration as well!

I did get pretty close to my original goals for the components for my ICE Adventure Pedalec conversion. The main differences are:

• Crystaltye H3540 with statorade instead of EDGE 1500W Motor
  • Discovered that more recent Crystalyte H35 series is basically the same as the Edge 1500W. Has 35mm Stator Laminations, Solid Aluminum Stator Core. Plus Grin Tech will ship them already injected with Storade Ferrofluid.
• Went with two 52V 13Ah (for a total of 23Ah and 50A continous power output) batteries in parallel instead of a single massive 72v battery
  
  I also ended up getting a bunch of tools as I didn't have too many metric or bike related tools anymore. Just figuring out what tools to get was itself a journey.
  
  Here's the components I ended up using:
  
  • Direct Drive Hub / Wheel
    • Motor: Crystalyte M3540R motor with Solid Aluminum Stator Core, 0.35mm Stator Laminations, Statorade
    • Cassette: 9 Speed SRAM Cassette, 11-32 Tooth
    • Rim: AlexRims DM24 20 inch Rim
    • Tire: SCHWALBE 20x1.75 inch Marathon Plus HS 440 Wire Tire
    • Tube: Slime Smart Self Healing Schrader Bicycle Tube
    • Main Torque Arm: TorqArm_V4
    • Secondary Torque Arm: TORQARM_V2
  • PAS Sensor: Thun 120LBottom Bracket Torque Sensor
  • Battery Stuff
    • Batteries: 2 - 52V 13 Ah Downtube Battery with Panasonic GA Cells, 25A Rated
    • Cable: 12 Gauge 'Y' splitter with Anderson connectors for parallel connecting batteries
    • Charger: CYCLE SATIATOR 72V 5A Charger
    • Clamp for Mounting Batteries: 1.0 inch Holder Clamp Aluminum Tube Clamps Mount Bracket horizontal Bar Clamp kit for work light Bar
  • Controller Related Stuff
    • Cycle Analyst: Cycle Analyst V3 Direct Plug
    • Aux Control: Two Button Up/Down Digital Aux
    • Throttle: Thumb Lever Throttle
    • Temp Sensor: JST-SM Male to Female Extension Cable for Thermistor to CA3
    • Motor Controller: Phaserunner V2.0 Compact Field-Oriented Waterproof Motor Controller
    • Remote Power Switch: Waterproof Motorcycle 7/8" Handlebar headlight Switch
    • Heatsink for Phaserunner (Found at surplus store)
  • Brakes
    • E-brakes: 2- Magura MT5e 4 Piston Hydraulic Disk Brakes
    • Rotor: 2 - Magura Storm HC 180mm Disc Brake Rotor
    • IS Mount Adapter: 2 - Magura QM12 Quick Mount Adapter
    • Bleed Kit: Magura Small Bleed Kit
    • IS 160 Rear Brake Mount Bracket for moving BB7 to rear: 20 IS Avid CPS Mountain Bike Brake Mounting Bracket
    Misc
    • Mini Cockpit T for mounting controls: 2 T-Cycle Mini Cockpit T
    • Wire Route Kit: Cable Bundling Kit, includes Spiral Wrap, Zip Ties, and Velcro Sleeves
      • The main thing of value in this was the Velcro Sleeves. But I hope to replace them with F6 Split Sleeving. Zip ties you can get at Harbor Supply really cheap. The Spiral Wrap was useless.
    • JST SM Connectors: Bag of Small Plastic Inline Connectors (12 pairs)
      • This turned out to not be optimal. I needed more of some kinds than others. I ended up ordering more complete sets from Amazon:
      • Hilitchi 520Pcs 2.5mm Pitch 2 3 4 5 Pin JST SM Male Pin Header Crimp Terminals Connector Kit
      • XLX 560Pcs 2.5mm Pitch JST-SM 6/ 7/ 8/ 9 Pin Male / Female Connector kit
      • Hilitchi 560Pcs 2.54mm JST-XHP 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 Pin Connector kit
    • JST Crimper: IWISS SN-2549 Crimping Tools for AWG28-18 PH2.0/XH2.54/Dupont 2.54/2.8/3.0/3.96/4.8/KF2510/JST Terminal Crimper
    • Anderson Crimper: IWISS Powerpole Ratcheting Wire Crimper Tools for 15, 30 and 45 Amp Anderson Cable Connectors
    • Sleeving for finishing cabling: TechFlex F6 0.50 inch split sleeving 25ft
    • Tool for inserting wiring into sleeving: Wire Loom Cable Insertion Tool for 3/8" to 1/2" - Model CM08
    • Bottom Bracket Tool: Park Tool Shimano/ISIS Bottom Bracket Tool
    • Crank Puller: Park Tool Compact Crank Puller
  
  A few things I learned about tools:
  • I wish I had gotten a crimper for JST connectors from the beginning. I didn't get all the extra connectors and crimpers until after my first wiring attempt. And I had a lot of problems with the first wiring attempt due to bad manual crimping.
  • Harbor Supply is awesome for some subset of tools
  • Should have gotten a more bike oriented torque wrench or better yet a torque driver that had native metric support
  • I still can't find the socket that is open for torquing nuts around cables and hoses that I saw in some bike video
  • T-Handle Hex Keys are really nice to have. Home Depot has a nice Husky set much less expensive than Park
  • I can't believe that I cant find a walk-in electronics component supply house in Silicon Valley any more
  • I was able to get some odds and ends at HSC Supply aka Halted like heat sinks and multi-conductor wire

Spoiler alert: I finally did get things to work in general and I've now had several fun rides as far as 25 miles or so on several different terrains including several scalings of the big hill to my house. But I am still having some intermittent problems.

Follow on posts will document what it took to go from complete noobie to having a mostly working, powerful DD Hub driven pedalec trike, as well as remaining issues that I could use some help/advice on overcoming. I hope to have most of that done in the next several days.

Putting it all together (Part 1)

Selecting and mounting the Rear Tire
With all the stuff needed to get the rear wheel onto the bike and locking it down with torque arms and such I wanted to get a Tire/Tube combo that would be very resistant to flats. I thought I would be mainly riding on the street and paved paths with something big enough to match the motor. So that all drove the selection of the SCHWALBE 20x1.75 inch Marathon Plus HS 440 Wire Tire and the Slime Smart Self Healing Schrader Bicycle Tube. So far this has generally worked out well other than the issue I describe later.

Found out I need to put in rim tape before putting in the tube. Wasn't quite clear what width and how it should fit. In the end used tape that fit the whole well of the rim, not just the inner well.

Wheel / Motor Mounting
The first thing was getting the on my rear fork. It is supposed to fit a 135mm axle but it just barely did not fit. It might have been because of the 9 speed cassette on the motor. (Went with the 9 speed mainly because my drive train was already all set for 9 speed and didn't want to change the derailleurs or chain).

I had to use a small automobile tire jack to expand it a couple of silly millimeters. I also had to slightly file the fork inner area to square it out. When I first did this I hadn't realized that the rear suspended frame of the ICE Adventure is Aluminum. Luckily I did not have to bend the fork very far!

Once I got the wheel with the motor mounted in the rear, I noticed that the wheel was not centered. At first I thought I had screwed up the fork or the axle wasn't in fully. But with the help of the Bentrider folks (Post: Need help getting the DD Hub/Wheel Centered on ICE Adventure] I discovered I had to learn about wheel dishing.

Actually I didn't really learn that much other I still fear issues around bike wheel building/tweaking. But it seems that ICE uses non-dished real wheels. The conclusion I came to was to do nothing about it. The consensus from the thread and talking to Silva Bikes is that it will work fine as is for now. I may have it de-dished later. Maybe be a winter project for me.

Replacing the rear cantilever "parking brake" with disk brake
This so far is a failure. I had a low priority goal (originally) of reusing one of my BB7 front brakes (that got replaced by hydraulic brakes) as a replacement rear brake. Once I discovered that the rear wheel was offset due to dishing, I had to remove the cantilever rear brake. No matter how I adjusted the old rear brake, I could not get it to fit with the large, offset rear wheel.

I got the IS mounting bracket for the rear 160mm BB7 disk and mounted it and the BB7 from one of the front wheels to the rear fork and move the front brake disk to the hub motor. But everything was so tight already I had a lot of problems getting the motor with the brake to fit in and I ended up slicing up the covering around the motor wires. Also it seemed that the brake / bracket didn't have the calipers in the right place to properly fit on the brake disk.

So in the spirit of just wanting to get things moving I aborted the rear brake project. I had to repair the outer insulation of the wiring motors. Luckily I discovered silicone rubber self fusing tape. That seemed to work well as I couldn't really use heat shink because of the connectors.

I hope to try again at some point. I really miss having a parking brake.

Torque Arms
Getting the Torque Arm on was harder than I thought. I originally got the TorqArm_V4 which mounts with two cable clamps onto the seatstay tube. But the ICE Trike doesn't have a seatstay tube, just some custom tubes with a bunch of seemingly weird protusions. At first I couldn't figure out how to get it to mount onto a tube and onto the axle. Marc S had an example with the TorqArm_V2 so I ordered one of those.

And at first, I could not figure out how to get the TorqArm_V2 to work ether. But eventually I figured out how to get both to work (with enough futzing around and a bit of guidance from Silva Bikes in Campbell). So I ended up putting the TorqArm_v4 on the bake side and the TorqArm_v2 on the cassette side of the axle for extra safety.


Torque Sensor
Originally I had gone with the TDCM sensor mainly because Grin Tech didn't seem to have a Thun that would fit my Trike in stock. But then folks on the forum warned me that the TDCM does not work well with Trikes (angle of the pedaler to the pedals/crank). I thought I needed a width of around 113/114mm but after the feedback on the TDCM I noticed that Grin had a Thun 120L and I realized its I only had to worry about 1/2 the difference between 114 and 119mm, just a few milimeters difference. And my chain line probably would move a little out because the the 9 speed cassette on the motor would be a bit more out as well. Turned out it was indeed no problem.

I was a bit fearful of removing the cranks and swapping a bottom bracket (never done it before and if felt daunting). I was also worried about getting the sensor wire out of the bottom bracket. But extracting and replacing the bottom bracket turned out to be a breeze and there already was a hole there so no problem at all! Having the right extractor tools was a major reason it was easy.

Hydraulic Brakes
Originally I was going to wait on the Hydraulic Brakes. But I had to do something to have some kind of e-brake signal go from the brakes to the CA for safety and for regenerative braking. I had always hated my BB7s. It was the one thing I had to constantly tweak on my trike. Plus they seemed to be somewhat funked up and the adjuster knobs were very difficult to turn and one of the inner nuts of the knob was pretty stripped. So I was able to talk myself into getting Hydraulic Brakes even though I was a bit fearful of installing them properly.

I did a lot of searching and decided on the Magura MT5e which has dual pistons and e-brake switches. As far as I can tell, they are pretty sweet.


I did have to make the hydraulic lines shorter. That seemed to go well, until I tried them out. One worked fine. But the other was infinitely spongy and would go all the way to the handlebar when I squeezed it. I assumed that I got air in it so do the whole hydraulic bleeding thing which kind of had me concerned. I had gotten the mini bleed kit (actually a couple figuring I may screw this up badly) and followed the instructions. It was pretty easy to do and not at all messy.

The one weird trick was that you needed to have the lever assembly so that it was oriented so the reservoir port was facing up.

Thats not a problem in a regular bike handlebar. Just loosen and rotate the lever. But on the trike its mounted vertically and so there isn't a way to get it oriented right if its mounted on the trike handle bar. So I temporarily mounted it on one of the T-Cycle T-Bars.

Unfortunately that did not fix it though. After trying bleeding one more time, I decided that I must have screwed up the olives/sleeve nut when I shortened the hose. So I replaced the olive and reinstalled the hose in the lever assembly and it worked!

To be continued...

rberger said:

Torque Arms
Getting the Torque Arm on was harder than I thought. I originally got the TorqArm_V4 which mounts with two cable clamps onto the seatstay tube. But the ICE Trike doesn't have a seatstay tube, just some custom tubes with a bunch of seemingly weird protusions. At first I couldn't figure out how to get it to mount onto a tube and onto the axle. Marc S had an example with the TorqArm_V2 so I ordered one of those.

And at first, I could not figure out how to get the TorqArm_V2 to work ether. But eventually I figured out how to get both to work (with enough futzing around and a bit of guidance from Silva Bikes in Campbell). So I ended up putting the TorqArm_v4 on the bake side and the TorqArm_v2 on the cassette side of the axle for extra safety.Main torque arm.jpgSecondary torque arm.jpg

Click to expand...

Hi!

If you flip the v4 torque arm around, it just fits the thread for the rear fender mount of the ICE Trikes on both sides:



Hence you can throw away the contraption with the clamps.

Parking brake:
Using a 203mm rotor should work. It works with my MXUS hub motor and BB7.



Next tip:
I was never satisfied with the ICE front idler and its chain tube mount. A cheap Alligt idler (ca €20) with a Ginkgo idler cage (€5) works way better:



The Ginkgo idlers are even better of course!

Do you remember what size idler would work best for replacing the ICE one with the Ginko Cage?

rberger said:

Do you remember what size idler would work best for replacing the ICE one with the Ginko Cage?

Click to expand...

I misplaced my old ICE idler. I'm also not sure, if my old 'toothless' ICE idler is the same as yours, or the current ICE idler.

You definitely need a idler cage with 8mm hole. Check the diameter of your idler and choose an idler cage for a similar diameter (58mm, or 64mm?)

I hate to say it but I think your torque arms are reversed...they are pulling the wheel in the same direction as the reaction torque (opposite to the direction of the wheel). They should pull in the same direction as the main direction of travel of the wheel, opposing the "equal and opposite" reaction torque..they might "kinda work" because they are blocking to some degree the reaction torque by jamming the arm into the frame, but this is not correct really. On my trike I have dual torque arms on each side, fully immobilizing the wheel in both directions each side, even though my rear 9C motor has no regen installed.