No brainer bike purchase

[dogman]

When's it a no brainer to buy a broken down used ebike?

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When it's a THINK, and it's only 40 bucks. And it's virtually unridden. Seriously, casting flash still on the original tires. Man, the original controller must have lasted about 5 min. No battery, which I considers a definite plus. Who wants another lead doorstop?

16 bucks shipped for a new 350 watt brushed controller, a few minuites stripping useless crapola off the bike, and presto good as new.

Gone is pedelec, and a dumb computer that gave battery level, and told you when to shift up or down and original throttle. Now it's got an old but functional WE thumb throttle and nice clean handlebars. Runs on 24v, so I can use my lawnmower pack, or some nicads I still have laying around like doorstops. I'll take it to work, and use it to get around the condo complex. Perfect for that, it's slow for sure.

Here it is naked.

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Brushed motor and gearbox.

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Battery tray

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Lipo in the box

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It's not a bad bike really. Goes about 15-16 mph I guess. No speedo on it now, so maybe faster but I doubt it. Nice to have a motor that runs through the gears. Both the motor and gearbox make noise, way louder than any planetary gearmotor. Pretty much sounds just like my worm drive skillsaw. Definitely loud enough to get noticed on the bike trail. But not quite dental drill loud like an EV global bike. Easy as pie to see why this one never caught on. Especially if they toast controllers before you can wear the nubs off the tires. Hopefully my 16 buck controller will last longer. I bet the controller problem had to do with all that crap I stripped off it. Everything had to go through that cheezy dashboard unit. Now it's just throttle, controller, and I kept the keyswitch.

Slow as hell will be perfect at the condos. It's nice looking at least. Hopefully it doesn't fall apart too fast, but the front fender didn't last a block. On the first bump, one leg of the fender support fell off and tangled in the spokes.

[wineboyrider]

I think I saw this on LC craigslist???

[MadRhino]

Sure a good deal.

How much Lipo did you fit in there?

I'd be looking to upgrade the performance. I suppose this motor could stand 36v, and eventually be replaced for a stronger one.

[rojitor]

40 bucks? Wow you made your day! It's a great deal.

[dogman]

24v, 6s 20 ah, but more would fit. I was tempted to run it on 10s but I'll be riding it at work, were 15 mph is the speed limit.

Likely I'll run it on nicads though, I have two thrashed old Ebikes Ca 24v packs in the garage. May as well squeeze a few more cycles out of those.

[Jason27]

Good stuff!

[nechaus]

what a buy!!!!
keep us updated with it

[veloman]

It drives through the bottom bracket, just like Optibike. Surely you can get this thing to move....

[DervAtl]

Nice find, Dogman! You'll have to keep us updated on how it runs out.

[dogman]

Little cheaper than an optibike, or even a martin. It would be interesting some day, to find a 2000w brushless motor that fit on the tranny. Hardtail makes it useless to me to ride further than 5-6 miles, so not much point in doing anything much with it. The condos at work are just big enough to cost time to walk it. We have two schwinn trikes there, and now I'll use the think to get around the place faster than walking, but not too fast.

[knoxie]

Hey Dog great purchase, its not all about speed you know whats wrong with range? you might need earplugs though or your mp3 player ha ha, I like the goofy look of it too, nice spot and so cheap that is doesnt really matter.

[Drunkskunk]

Wow! Nice find. If you're going to use it at work, you could buy a nice Ping for it, and write it off as a buisness expense.

[Ykick]

Nice find to dabble with a BB drive. Interesting rear section design? Room for fat tires?

[dogman]

Bike would go the distance, my crushed lumbar disks wouldn't. it's why I require FS for a 30 mile ride. It's not a buisness, but I'm tempted to put some 6s lipo on the work credit card. No big deal if my nicads revive enough.

It could at least go balloon cruiser tires for sure. Wide rims on it too.

[blueb0ttle2]

Man I'm jelly.
You folks are right, that should get pretty peppy if you are running through the drivetrain.

[dogman]

Still a brushed motor. You know what those do when overvolted much. If I'd had a 36v controller around though, I'd have likely just run it on 36v.

Finally rode it some yesterday. My tired old nicads are pretty tired. Got about 4 miles range from an 8 ah 24v pack. Too see what would happen, I tried to start from the stop sign in the highest gear. Woah, talk about a spike. Voltage sagged about 6v. I'm so used to lipo now, so these half used up nicads sure don't do great.

It's definitely sensitve to what gear you are in. Have to downshift for every stop, at least to the middle gears. Quite a pain in the rear after years of riding hubmotors that leave a stop sign fine. Down at the condos, it will just stay in the low gears all the time so still a good bike if you just ride sub 10 mph.

[amberwolf]

dumb computer that gave battery level, and told you when to shift up or down and original throttle.

Save that thing...depending on how it outputs that up/down indication, it could be used to activate autoshifting on a chain drive or other gear-shiftable drive.

[dogman]

It's not tossed, you can have it sometime. Not sure if I'll be heading west anytime soon though. Cheap enough to ship to you.

the tranny has a sensor on it too, so that was how it was done.

[amberwolf]

Actually I was thinking that if you ever wanted to do another bike with a middrive, you could use it to do the gearshifting. Or even reinstall it on that bike, and set up a motor to do the shifting part.

But eventually I could probably use it once I worked out a method for motorizing the shifting of the gears. I'm sure eventually we'll run into each other at a Death Race or something, once you're feeling better enough and I am able to get away from work and dogs long enough.