The Dremel Tool Special

[motomech]

The bike is a 2003 model that had never been used. That model had a recall(under hard off-road usage, the chain stays could break)and it had been pulled from the showroom of a large bike shop and lost in the warehouse. I wanted something with Hyd. disc brakes and quality suspension components.
The geared Mini Might frt. wheel kit is from Hightekbikes and the 48V 8ah batt. and rack are from E-Bike CA(Excellent service from them). The rack is a nice piece of work, but I would caution those considering this type of rack to make sure the the frame seat post reciever extends high enough to facilitate the mounting clamps. The batt/rack's three-way switch(master on/off and batt. lock)is very convienent. The sm. controller is mounted entirely under the Schwinn touring seat and the excess wiring and connectors are stuffed into a sm. camera bag strapped to the frt. of the seat post reciever.
The title of this post refers to the mounting of the motor in the Marzocchi mag. alloy forks. In order to mount the extra thick Rev-3 torque arm, I needed as much of the motor axle to extend past the securing fasteners as possible. To this end, the flat washers were disgarded and c-washers were not used. Instead, I hand bored a flat surface in the sides of the drop-outs[removing the Laywer Lips] for the axle nuts to seat with the sm. Dremel standard cut-off disc, which has the exact same diameter as the nuts. Minimal metal was removed. These Italian forks[made for jumping] are high quality and I have absolutely no reservations of running this low-power motor in them. I also had to clearance(sounds better than grind)the hub and brk. caliper and spend time aligning the frt. whl.
The kit's thumb throttle was moved to the left side and the chainring's selector(not used yet)was mounted to a piece of metal broom handle, in turn, mounted to the upper water bottle mounting bosses. Using the throttle as a "pusher" initially caused pain in my thumb, but a couple layers of neoprene Super-Glued on solved that.
The performance of this motor/controller has been well described here, suffice to say that it is no power house, but as an assist, it's perfect. The top speed is well matched to the bike's 44/11 sprockets. In general, I use 8 of the 9 available rear derailleur's gears.
Total weight is 47 pounds, 17 of which came from the conversion. The frt. to rear balance is excellent and I can easily carry it using the rear shock as a hand-hold. This was important to me as I live on an Island in the Carribean and needed to be able to carry it on/off the inter-island ferry boats.
I read and lurked here for days and it payed off, as I am very happy w/ the results. The only thing I would change is that I probably forgo The Cycle Analyst 2.2. It's quality unit, but I have no need for the limiting features it provides.
The tires are Continental Town and Country's.
I am not an accomplished cyclist and I really like the way the motor helps me out of noob situations. I can wait to down-shift at the bottom of the hill and use the motor power to ease the strain on the deraileur's gears as I down-shift. Also, the frame(a 20.5 incher)is somewhat tall for my 30" inseam and the motor helps to pull me out of "tippy" situtations and 0 m.p.h. starts.
Much thanks to all who provided their expertise and a special thanks goes out to Dogman. For awhile I was on the fence about using the frt. motor w/ the alloy forks, but his experience's moved me in that direction and I'm glad I did.
Now, if I can lose 40 pounds of excess rider weight, I might reward my myself with a rear mini-motor(dual motor set-up).
Motomech

[motomech]

UPDATE!!!!!
Well, even my feble noob brain realized that 18 m.p.h. on 48 V wasn't too great, so I went and inspected my install(Probably a good idea for everybody, noob or not). The first thing I noticed was that the throttle lever was contacting the brk. ASM. mount. I quick adj. there and bingo!, 22 m.p.h.
Then I remembered reading here about the unused gray(loop) wire being a current limiter, so I wired it thru the supplied(w/the frt. whl. kit) on/off switch and WOW, it's like a nitrous button, 25 plus m.p.h. And I weight 250#!
So now I have a low power/high power switch(good if I let my girlfriend ride...she can crash at a lower speed).
On high power, the frt. tire will spin a bit if I'm not careful, but suprising to me, hill climbing ability is about the same. I suspect that when the revs drop, much efficiency is lost.
What I don't understand is, the C.A. tells me max current only jumps from 14A to 15A, low/high mode. Watt/hr.s jumped big time, from 20/mile to 30/mile, so maybe I should think of the low power mode as a batt. conservation mode. Cruising around this afternoon in cool weather, neither the controller or motor warmed up at all.
Bottom line, the Mini Might motor Rocks!
Can't recommend it enough.

[amberwolf]

Most likely the loop wire is not a current limit, but a speed limiter. Many controllers have this to adhere to various regulations for areas they may be sold in, where ebikes may not be allowed past certain speeds. That would explain why the current reading isn't much different.


Wh jumping up will happen if you ride faster; drag from wind and rolling resistance, etc, eats up power like crazy as you go faster.

[motomech]

<<<<Wh jumping up will happen if you ride faster; drag from wind and rolling resistance, etc, eats up power like crazy as you go faster.>>>

Yes, and I can hardly pedal fast enough to assist @ 25 m.p.h., even w/ the 44/11 gear combo.


"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Motomech