My Raleigh E-bike

[Russell]

Hi Russell!
Here is Stefan from Northern Germany!

i found your bike very.very impressive and cool!

Its a reasionable one, it will work and go fast, its efficiant and beautifull!

Lots of Fun wish you....


I will have a Bafang in a Trekkingbike, with Dualdrive/Sram and with 14s2p Konion x3, so with 55V 15A!

I hope it will run at least 36 Kmh, we will see! Greets

Stefan,

Thank you for your kind remarks.

The bike has undergone a power upgrade recently with the Bafang geared motor swapped out for a Nine Continent direct drive motor. It was to be a temporary change just to test the motor as the 9C motor was meant for another bike but plans have changed. Here is the bike as it looks now however I will be lacing the motor to the rim I used with the Bafang to match the rear. The Bafang motor is installed on one of my other bikes which needs a few finishing touches.

9Cfront 018.jpg (83.86 KiB) Viewed 1794 times

I think 36 kmh is a good bet. I hope you post some pictures when you're done


-R

[Russell]

Laced the 9C motor into the Sun CR18 rim I had used previously with the Bafang motor so the rims match again. The Bafang motor was moved to another bike ( http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10458 ).

9cfront 066.jpg (84.49 KiB) Viewed 1775 times

-R

[Russell]

I got all ready for a long ride and then just three miles out I had a catastrophic tire blow-out on my Kona Smoke-E with no spare so what was I to do? Oh yeah that’s why a person has more than one E-bike! I have only put 534 miles on this bike after installing the Nine Continent motor preferring to ride the Kona Smoke/Bafang bike but it’s nice to have a back-up.

I’ve been wanting to try the 9C on 48V but didn’t have room in the small rear bag for the Fatpacks with SLA booster I have been using on the Kona. I recently purchased a 48V/10Ah LiFePO4 battery and was going to try it out on this bike so now was as good a time as any. The battery fit but just. I have been using a 36V/15A controller (50V caps) from a 250W Bafang kit to conserve power from the 36V/6Ah LiMn battery but for the 48V LiFePO4 I replaced it with the 36V/22A unit (63V caps) which originally came with the 9C motor.

Gotta tell ya I finally know what you guys have been grinning about; the 9C on 48V is a blast The Bafang even on 48V and with a 15A controller is still an assist motor which means I put in a good amount of effort to maintain speed and climb hills. With the 9C on 48V and with a 22A controller pedaling is completely optional. I was expecting a little more top end speed from the pairing because I expected more voltage from a 16 cell LiFePO4 battery. Sure the charger goes up to 59.3V but unplug it and the voltage drifts down to about 54.5V. Out on the road and under some load it goes to low 50’s but then stays there for a long time. This is in contrast to the LiMn Fatpacks I’ve been using. I charge the Fatpacks to 41.3V and except for a drift of a few hundredths of a volt that’s where they remain until used the next day. Once in use the LiMn pack progressively loses voltage at a slope that’s steeper than LiFePO4.

Don’t get me wrong the 9x7 9C was fast, just not as fast as I thought it might be. Right out of the gate and on a slight down slope I achieved 29.9 mph but I didn’t have time to wring it out. The flattest ‘road’ I have is a stretch of bike path 4.5 miles from my home and that’s what I use for my ‘official’ runs. When I got there I waited for a couple of riders to get clear (don’t want no witnesses ) then I took ‘er up to warp speed, or rather an indicated 29.4 mph maximum. During the remainder of the ride it was pretty cool to basically have 30 mph available with some pedaling almost at will. Up hills the bike was at least 4 mph faster than the Kona/Bafang at 48V/15A. When I completed the 31 mile trip I had used more battery capacity then I set out to do but it was just so darn much fun.


Trip stats:

Distance: 31.0 miles
Average speed: 20.0 mph
Max Speed: 35.3 mph

Amp-hours used: 8.349
Watt-hours used: 414.7
Peak Watts: 1061
Peak Amps: 21.88
Min Volts: 45.51

Wh/mi: 13.38


-R

[Russell]

Time for yet another motor change for my Raleigh test mule. First there was the 36V Bafang QSWXB which migrated to my Kona Smoke, then came a Nine Continent 9x7 motor, a real hoot at 48V but too big, and now a 24V Golden Motor mini-motor…well, just because.

I ordered the mini-motor from Golden Motor for $139 and 9 days later it was delivered but was damaged and unusable. I contacted the folks at Golden Motor and was promised a replacement. Two weeks later and I found out they never shipped it but promised to do so right away and true to their word less than a week later (yesterday) the new motor arrived. (Thank you Mr. Yao Yuan and 'Tom' . )

This “mini-motor” truly is small measuring about 1cm smaller in diameter than my Bafang and weighing in at 5 lb 12 oz (2.6 Kg) compared to my Bafang at 7 lb 2 oz (3.2 Kg). The motor is also disc capable. Dimensionally and appearance-wise it sure looks like a Bafang QSWXH, and that’s not a bad thing.

I removed the 9C motor from the Sun CR18 rim and laced up the Mini using 258mm Wheelsmith DH-13 spokes with 16mm nipples in a 2X configuration.

GM Motor 021.jpg (86.74 KiB) Viewed 1511 times

I ran into just one problem; the Mini was too narrow for the forks which is odd since the Bafang and 9C fit snugly into the same opening. I moved one of the thick anti-spin washers to the inside and that fixed that.

GM Motor 024.jpg (86.41 KiB) Viewed 1513 times

I used two of the 9C’s mini torque arms to help secure the mini-motor.

GM Motor 025.jpg (89.34 KiB) Viewed 1515 times

After that I lopped off the phase wire bullet connectors and installed Andersons to mate with the little 36V/15A 6 FET controller that originally came with my Bafang motor (that motor now runs on an E-BikeKit 9 FET controller at 48V). The little motor spun up right away with a promising no-load speed of 30.1 mph at 41.0V powered by my 36V/6Ah Bosch Fatpack 3-pack.

Today I took out the GM mini-motor for the first time. The low end grunt is meager, far less than the 36V Bafang at 48V and perhaps even less than the Bafang at a stock 36V, it’s hard to remember now how it felt. Acceleration on the motor alone is weak at any time making this a true “assist only” set-up. The trade off for this weak low end performance is speed and in that department this 24V Mini is much faster at 36V than the 36V Bafang on a 36V pack. On this bike with 700x35 tires the Bafang topped out in the low 17’s while the top speed of the 24V Mini at 36V is in the vicinity of 22-24 mph. After one ride I can’t pinpoint the top speed any closer since level ground and no wind conditions are hard to come by plus I believe the 15A controller is a limitation here. At top speed the controller is pretty much maxed out so any undulation or wind impacts the speed more than usual. I have another 22A controller I can use in the future to check this out. The last 4 miles of the ride today I held full throttle much of the time and the motor barely got warm...promising.

-R

[Russell]

24V GM Mini-Mo at 48V

I could not resist putting the Golden Motor 24V Mini-Motor to the test. As I stated previously the 24V Mini at 36V/15A was rather weak on the low end but offered a top end around 23 mph and good assist at 26 mph even with my little 36V/6Ah battery pack half empty. The next step was to change to a 22A controller and try again. The bottom end torque and hill-climbing were improved but it wasn’t a “night and day” sort of comparison. The 24V motor peaked at 801W with the 22A controller compared to 579W the previous day with the 15A controller or essentially the same peak power as my 36V Bafang on 48V with a 15A controller but the latter still feels stronger.

Since the 22A controller can handle 48V the next step was a little evil but I had to know how the 24V Mini-Mo would do at 48V. I stuffed my 48V/10Ah LiFePO4 into the rear bag, turned the key and hit the throttle and got a bit over 40 mph no-load…yeah baby. Out on the road the little motor really woke up though low speed torque still lagged the 36V Bafang at 48V. Speed however was another thing; I quickly got ‘er up to 31 mph on a slight downgrade. I had no trouble keeping law-abiding motorists behind me as I traversed the 25 mph residential streets south to where I pick up a bike path. At one light right before a downhill I was stopped alongside a minivan with a punk in a compact behind them. I took off quickly and as the road dipped I hit nearly 34 mph. The punk, impatient behind the minivan driving the limit, jumped out to pass on the downhill and blew by me at probably 45 mph (remember this is a 25 zone). I was right behind him however so he rolled through the stop light at the bottom of the hill and turned left.

When I got to the stretch of bike path I use for top speed testing I only could manage 27 mph into a slight headwind with the WU meter reading a bit under 20A. I was using a lot of power already, too much to go my planned route, so I settled back to just riding 19-20 mph. This would be too much for this mostly upgrade section of the path on a crowded day but riders were sparse today. I hopped off the bike path on to a back road and revved it up to over 30 mph to keep a pick-up with a wide trailer in tow behind me.

The rest of the ride I stopped every now and then to feel the motor; it was barely warm until the end of the ride when it was warm but not hot. Overall the peak performance essentially matched the 9C at 48V though of course the Mini-Mo could not survive this treatment for too long while the 9C never seemed strained. It was interesting because I did the exact same route 2 weeks ago with the 9C on this bike and here are the stats for that ride and today’s ride.

First the Nine Continent on 9/12

Trip stats:

Distance: 31.0 miles
Average speed: 20.0 mph
Max Speed: 35.3 mph

Amp-hours used: 8.349
Watt-hours used: 414.7
Peak Watts: 1061
Peak Amps: 21.88
Min Volts: 45.51

Wh/mi: 13.38


-R

Then the Golden Motor Mini today

Distance: 30.9 miles
Average speed: 20.1 mph
Max Speed: 35.7 mph

Amp-hours used: 8.115
Watt-hours used: 403.3
Peak Watts: 1057
Peak Amps: 22.08
Min Volts: 44.73

Wh/mi: 13.05


I definitely wouldn’t run the 24V Mini this hard all of the time but it was fun and quite amazing for a sub-6 pound package to deliver this level of performance.


-R

[317537]

Golden seem to be getting better with the CS. I never had much of a problem with my lug of a hub bar the crappy rim it came with. Its powerfull but the speed is not like this little creature.

These look very neat. The price of these motors are awesome. Be nice to see inside of them, I'm not asking you to do this btw.

[TPA]

Take the bad one apart. Let's see if the broken part is simple.

[Russell]

Take the bad one apart. Let's see if the broken part is simple.

The case on the original motor is the only part that is bad.

GM Motor 007.jpg (84.02 KiB) Viewed 1420 times

I guess I have spares now.

GM Motor 027.jpg (84.61 KiB) Viewed 1423 times

-R

[Papa]

As usual, nice report Russ. Curious, I'm reading that all (or most) geared hubs cannot be used in a counter rotating installation because of a one way or freewheeling clutch. Where is it located in this hub?

[Russell]

As usual, nice report Russ. Curious, I'm reading that all (or most) geared hubs cannot be used in a counter rotating installation because of a one way or freewheeling clutch. Where is it located in this hub?

You'd have to ask someone who has dissected one completely cuz heck if I know, this is the first time I took one apart this far

-R

[317537]

Whats bad about this GM motor? Do you know yet?

Would be awesome to see you fix this.

[Russell]

Whats bad about this GM motor? Do you know yet?

Would be awesome to see you fix this.

I would need a new case.

(the big part on the left in the picture above)

-R

[Papa]

Russ, I suspect you already noticed, but I'll mention it anyway.

The six brake rotor mounting holes appear to be drilled completely through the side cover. As such, ya might consider plugging those threaded holes (with a squirt of silicone maybe?) to prevent moisture and dirt from entering the gearbox.

[Russell]

Papa,

Other guys are drilling holes in their motors for cooling and I have them ready made But really I hadn't thought of that, thanks, I'll plug the holes with some grease for the time being.

-R

[317537]

Ahhh I see the damage it clear in the pic the hub is together, is that ring broken or just munged?

It looks repairable and could make a good back up motor or one to experiment with. Or is the hub to far out of centre to bother?

[317537]

Russ, I suspect you already noticed, but I'll mention it anyway.

The six brake rotor mounting holes appear to be drilled completely through the side cover. As such, ya might consider plugging those threaded holes (with a squirt of silicone maybe?) to prevent moisture and dirt from entering the gearbox.

Or install a brake disk onto it.

[Russell]

Ahhh I see the damage it clear in the pic the hub is together, is that ring broken or just munged?

It looks repairable and could make a good back up motor or one to experiment with. Or is the hub to far out of centre to bother?

The flange isn't just bent, it's cracked.

Or install a brake disk onto it.

The fork does not have disc mounts.

-R

[GoldenMotor]

oh no don't mention it, i was just browsing through my e-mails and i saw this. told you fellas gm is improving!

[Russell]

Last ride for the season…at least for this bike/battery.

It was a crisp afternoon with temps that didn’t exceed 36F (2C) during the ride and while the sun shown brightly it adds little warmth these days. I’ll probably get a few more rides on my other bike before I pack it in for the season but today I wanted to drain this 36V/20Ah Li-ion battery down for storage. Also after finding the limits of a Mini Motor just like the one I’m running on this bike on my other bike I decided to take the current up a notch. I was reluctant to do this while I was using the 3 Bosch Fatpacks (rated 6.6Ah) but with the recently acquired 20Ah battery why not. I replaced the little 6-FET controller with a 9-FET E-BikeKit/Infineon controller with the shunt soldered up to produce a peak of 24.5 Amps. During the ride this produced a peak power of 905W compared to 578W on the last outing with the 15A controller. Acceleration was enhanced and my speed going up hills was better by several mph.

It was a brisk ride in two respects, first with an average speed of 19.0 mph it was faster than I normally ride and second with a top speed of 36.1 mph the wind chill was…umm, chilling. Anyway by the time I got home (25.8 miles) I had used up half the pack which at a resting voltage of 38.0V was a good level to store it for a few months. I will take a reading perhaps once a week to see if that holds. My Fatpacks have been cooling their heels in the fridge for the past month and haven’t lost a bit of voltage but then they don’t have a BMS. I’m uncertain at this level if the BMS in the 20Ah Li-ion pack will present any load so to be safe I’ll check it more often than the Fatpacks.

I can't wait for spring...

-R

[kefa]

Hi Russell,

Just curious why you chose the 24v mini instead of the 36v mini. What are the differences between the two?

[Russell]

Hi Russell,

Just curious why you chose the 24v mini instead of the 36v mini. What are the differences between the two?

I started with a 36V Bafang on this bike then moved it to my other ebike, then switched from 36V to 48V on that bike leaving me with a 36V only controller and a 36V battery. I hate to see things go to waste so after examining the graphs at Goldenmotor.com I saw their 24V Mini was wound to spin about 40% faster than the 36V (you could also think of it as a 36V motor made for a 20" wheel). Anyway I bought the 24V Mini for this bike in order to use the 36V controller and battery yet have a higher top speed than if I had gone with the 36V version and run it on 36V. It worked, the 24V Mini on 36V provides the same top speed on the flats as the 36V Bafang at 48V does on my other bike. The trade-off for that speed with the 24V Mini is of course less low-end torque however that can be boosted to a degree with more current. I couldn't squeeze the extra amps reliably from the small 36V only 6-FET controller so I swapped in a bigger controller and since the 36V battery I was using was 3 Bosch Fatpacks with a maximum demonstrated capacity of 6.4Ah I needed a bigger battery which meant using the 36V/20Ah battery I purchased to use with a 9C motor. Funny thing is now the 36V controller and 36V battery which were the reason for getting the 24V Mini once again sit unused …for the moment.


-R

[kefa]

do you mind telling me how you calculated the spoke lengths? i'm thinking of getting one of these motors and lacing it up to a 700c rim like you.

[Russell]

I used the spoke calculator at http://www.dtswiss.com/SpokesCalc/Welcome.aspx?language=en

For the FRONT GM Mini I used the following parameters;

Pitch Circle Diameter: 120.00mm
Flange distance: 23.00mm
0 of spoke hole: 3.0mm

No. of spokes: 36
No. of intersections: 2 (can use 1 if you like)

Use the nipple length you prefer (I used 16mm because it made the 258mm spokes I had on hand work)

Effective Rim Diameter (ERD) can usually be found at the rim manufacturer's website or is often listed by retailers. (I used a 700C Sun CR-18 rim with an ERD of 612mm).

-R

[Russell]

This Raleigh was my first conversion which became a sorta test mule and I used what I learned from it to build my second E-bike based on a Kona Smoke steel framed bike. The differences between the two were only in the details which made the Raleigh redundant. After selling my third bike, a Cannondale flat-bar road bike, I was in need of a regular bike therefore I converted the Raleigh back to pedal-only power.

Yesterday was a hot day so I went on a long slow ride on my Kona/Bafang E-bike. A significant number of the 41 miles I covered were on pedal power alone which got me thinking about the Raleigh which has been sitting unused since it's "un-conversion". I figured if I could pedal a 59 pound bike a long way the 32 pound Raleigh (as equipped in pic below) would be a breeze. Today it was significantly cooler, though still quite sticky, with only a light wind; in other words a good day for a ride.

Raleigh_No_Motor 003a.jpg (196.09 KiB) Viewed 791 times

My usual average trip speed on the Kona E-bike is in the mid/high 17's to the low 18 mph range but yesterday with a lot of miles on pedal-only power I averaged just 15.7 mph which got me to wondering where the threshold was where it would be faster to ride the conventional Raleigh bike. Today's ride was to answer that question. I took off and of course instantly noticed how much easier it was to get the lighter Raleigh up to speed. The ride though a bit harsher with the aluminum frame/steel fork/28mm tires compared to the Kona's all steel construction with 50/47mm tires wasn't bad. The first good hill, averaging around 5-6%, demonstrated why I like riding the motorized bike. The hill just seems so much longer spinning away at 8-9 mph than it does at 14 mph with the motor. The bike path I hop on to head west, an old railroad route, has a 4 mile section where it maintains a steady 1% up grade. It's along this section where on a nice summer weekend I pass countless other cyclists while riding my E-bike at a sedate 16-17 mph. Today on human power alone I was reminded why this is so. My favorite bike calculator ( http://www.noping.net/english/ ) says I need 150W (a power level I can sustain for prolonged periods) to maintain 12.8 mph up a 1% grade and while I dipped to 13 mph at times I was normally maintaining 14-15 mph along this section, meaning I was indeed working hard. And that's another thing about riding sans motor, ya never get a break when you're heading up hill or into the wind. Anyway at the conclusion of the 18.2 mile ride I had averaged 15.9 mph, slightly faster than yesterday's much longer motor-assisted ride.

With extra motors and controllers lying around I was thinking about converting the Raleigh back to an E-bike but make it as light as possible. The bike would never be a true lightweight but with the sub-6 pound 24V GM Mini and say 5Ah of 10S LiPo (~23 mph top speed) along with some weight-saving measures, like removing the fenders and using even lighter tires, I think a 40 pound "as ridden" weight might be doable. With light use I bet I could get 30 miles of assist from it too.

-R

[Samson]

Hi Russel

My first post and I realize this thread is old but I hope you don't mind updating me on how you made out with the Mini motor. I am considering using one for my first build. I want a very light bike and do not mind pedaling. I have a 42V 10Ahr battery, a 26" wheel size and the bike and me weigh about 250 Lbs. I am fine with a max speed of 30-32 Km\hr. What range do think I could expect to get on the flats?

Has the motor been reliable?