Aussie 200 Watt Limit Thread

hi snowc
Yes i agree with your points, it is really an amazingly complex field, I think the examples I gave are more for an idealised max power output,
you cant go higher than the peak efficiency/ max amps/max voltage, even if you dont get those things coinciding in the real world.
But thats what was used in the technical aspects of that case, and I assume would be used again in future cases. But it does highlight the rediculous
lower power limit of the current law, I guess you could say if they change it to continous output its a victory, as it would really be increasing the power
limit from 130w cont. to 200w cont.
The final academic they hired actual knew what he was doing, he was trained in china and had a very long experience in the field.
Puting in a simple test for stall amps was really for anyone who wanted to see if their bike was legal or not in oz, just a simple way to find what is max amp of a controller. If your bike is above the amp figures I gave for different voltage systems then its going to loose in any court disputes going by the precendent already set, not likely you'll find a 36v or 48v commercial system on the market that meets those specs.
simply changing to continuous power rating is going to take away all these legal problems ( to a degree), in my view.
 
The '130w' continuous vs 200w peak sounds like the RMS vs peak measurements of AC signals - the power of a sine wave output calculated using an RMS measurement of the voltage will be 1/sqrt(2) of that of the peak voltage measurement.

RMS ratings are used because they are basically a closer equivalent of DC power output ratings.

Continuous vs peak isn't about the amount of power in vs power out. The laws clearly state is the power out delivered to the wheel itself.

As sn0wchyld said, continuous vs peak is meaningless for our DC electric motors. So to talk about continuous vs peak in court shows they have no idea what they are doing. :(

I also remember seeing someone mention a Transport Canada survey that found that people were much less likely to want to ride an electric bicycle if it was limited to 24km/h compared to 30km/h. But I haven't yet found it.
 
I think the difference between continuous power and peak power is extremely simple and straightforward to understand,
as mentioned the defence ( i.e. police in the nsw supreme court case) hired three different academics to assess the bike in question, they were extremely knowledgeable
people, the last academic they hired was extremely experienced in this field.
My experience has been that people selling ebikes in australia will argue black and blue about this topic, but its pretty much black and white now, very simple to understand the difference between peak and continuous power rating of dc motors ( although the definitons of each can vary, the definitons have been clarified in the court case). I'm just trying to let ebike retailers in oz t understand that if a bike is overpowered according to ebike laws in oz, they are leaving themselves wide open for liability in case of an accident. Considering probably 95% of ebikes on the market here are clearly over powered, it means its probably a matter of time until some retailer is held responsible for any injuries to an ebiker on the road, as shown already the police prosecutors WILL NOT loose the case.
Even as an ebiker rider with a home built bike if you have an accident on an overpowered bike you will have no way to argue against any prosecution and win, the law is now clear, there is no grey area, the grey areas were erased during the nsw supreme court case. I hope they change the power limits sooooooooooooooooon.
 
i think speed would be the best way to govern our ebikes, 40kmh for on road use, 20kmh for shared paths when other people are around/in front of you.. overtaking is done sensibly when its safe..
it wouldnt matter if the motor is doing all the work or if the cyclist is inputting power and the cops would just have to point the radar gun at you to determine if you were going too fast.. easily settled..
as long as you dont put a 200kg person on a road bike and then expect it to be able to stop from 40kmh in a reasonable distance.. a little bit of common sense is needed but unfortunately sense is not very common nowdays..
 
Genius.

So when you come to a hill, where an unpowered bike ridden backwards by a paraplegic clown will do 80 km/h, only the guy riding the electric bike behind him gets a fine.

Pure genius.

Is that you, Fanta Pants??
 
Good timing - this morning I had a chat to another e-biker on the cyclo path. A professor from Monash Uni. His bike was stock legal, he laughed at the power limit and said something I truly agree on "we (e-bikers) are not the dangerous ones (on the cyclo path)" Take my word for it but there was not a single day when some douch didn't come around a blind corner on the opposite side towards me. Usually wearing lycra.

The way I see it - there are 3 kinds of riders: noobs, pros and in between. Noobs make mistakes, from inexperience. Pros mostly ride with common sense. Those 'in between' ones think they are good and race each other. If you want to race how about actually entering in a proper race!

Speed limit sounds fair, 40kph would be a good start. However it shouldn't just affect powered bikes.
 
I tend to think if there has to be any regulation in this area, which I am definitely not a fan of, then it should be speed. On a road, the speed limit is simply that of the posted limit for all road users. On a shared path, I think 30 km/h is pretty good. I average 35 km/h on the 500 W e-bike, so slowing down at potentially risky spots is nothing foreign.

Now, one might then ask if we are able to go at these speeds amongst road traffic, should we not pay registration and have a licence? Dunno, but issuing a bicycle licence at the age of 8 might not be a bad idea. At least they will have some concept of the ways of the road by the time they go for a motorcycle or car license. Likewise for bicycle or e-bike rego - is it worth it, and what purpose would it serve? About the only thing it would do is provide the constabulary with a means to ping you if you do something wrong, like not pay your rego...

Would it fund better bike paths and cycling infrastructure? Probably not. They could bump up council rates by 1% and achieve the same thing with far less enforcement.

About the best thing the authorities can do, in my opinion, is shut up and get back to doing something productive. As long as you aren't popping monos and flipping the bird, the cops have no reason to harass you.

But I'm a Greenie Libertarian, so I would say this :D
 
full-throttle said:
Take my word for it but there was not a single day when some douch didn't come around a blind corner on the opposite side towards me. Usually wearing lycra.
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Agreed, alot of my commute is along shared paths and when I go in late there's always kids on scooters etc and at any time there's people walking 2 wide on a path that is barely wide enough to pass them on without being a dick. I always slow down to walking pace when passing the kids as they're totally unpredicatable and frequently just swing to the other side of the path with looking. Not the lycras though, they blast through with no regard as it might interfere with their perfect cadence or upset their aerodynamics.

On the police front, I encountered a few today - one drove past me while I was pedalling up at hill at around 40km/hr. Surprisingly he didn't even give me a sideways glance.
Another one I was talking too said he wasn't keen on the petrol bikes but said ebikes were no problem if ridden sensibly. He was admiring my fighter so I offered him a ride. I explained that I'd put it in higher power mode just for demo purposes to show what it could do and he loved it!
 
Word to the wise, I wouldn't push hard on getting any laws changed.
Put it this way, you're essentially 'invisible' and that comes from the people 'looking'

:wink:

The above text is a figment of your imagination.....
 
Australian car laws and roadworthy requirements (could just be vic) say something like "vehicle needs a functional speedomoter, or tachometer, with which to be able to measure speed of the vehicle".

In order to enforce a bike speed limit, I believe laws must be in place that require a speed measuring "device".

I simply can't measure something, that I can't measure.

I would imagine that any good lawyer (let's not debate the definition of "good" in conjunction with "lawyer" as one would have to be alive) would have that speedily dealt with.

Blah blah alcohol.....
 
As a sideliner preparing to launch myself into the DIY ebike world (when I get home from Antarctica) with guarded disrespect for the law of Oz, and a practical engineering knowledge of the power required for traversing the god damn mountainous city I live in all I can do is flout the law - carefully. They put me in this position (of being an outlaw). I acknowledge the risks but mitigate them by not being a tool on the road. If I get caught I won't be happy but short of emigrating to Canada or the US I don't see any other way.
There are parallels with drug laws here but that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.
 
Another hobby I have is high powered lasers, and the Aussies are cracking down on those requiring a firearm permit for some lasers over a certain power.
 
Ham549 said:
the Aussies are cracking down on those requiring a firearm permit for some lasers over a certain power.
Click to expand...

that's because there are too many brain dead morons out here pointing the bloody things at aircraft.
if you get caught with a laser pointer (in NSW at least) with a higher output than 1mw, you get the same fines and time
as if you had been caught with a loaded firearm.

quote from the NSW police web page follows.

to put a stop to such behaviour, the Government has made it an offence for anyone to have a laser pointer in their custody in a public place or to use
a laser pointer in a public place without a reasonable excuse. If a police officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting that you are in possession of a laser
pointer in a public place, they may search you, confiscate the laser and commence legal action.
Click to expand...

Jason.
 
Here's an idea that might help you guys down-under, or anywhere else where you don't get enough power to pull you up the hills. I'm not advocating that you should break any laws, but, if you do want to then this idea should stop you from getting caught.
Checkout the Speedict controller interface. It goes between your battery and controller and displays and is set on an Android phone. You can program it to comply with your local legal regulations by limiting the speed and current with its various governor settings. All the settings can be ungoverned by pressing a single switch on your phone.

So you make the governor settings to comply and then switch off the governor and ride around with whatever power you want without making it too obvious, so ability to air pedal is a pre-requisite. If your bike with massive motor and battery is noticed by police and they stop you, you tell them it's gutless because of the draconian laws with which you have to comply, and you invite them to have a go on it. While, they're getting ready, you switch on the governor from your phone, and after trying it they ask, " How come you could go so fast on such a low powered bike?", so you tell them that you can pedal very hard. It helps if you're panting a bit when they first stop you. Never in a million years (unless they read this) will they figure out or be able to prove that you changed something. The only incriminating evidence is the included data-logger, which they might be able to figure out, but, if they decide to take the bike away for further investigation, you leave the bike switched on, and all the data will be overwritten before they figure out how to get it out, or, if you have time, while they're loading up you bike, you can manually delete all the files from your phone.

http://www.speedict.com/

The main risk would be that you had an accident and were incapacitated so unable to operate your phone. Then you'll take a bit of a dive.
 
its quite difficult to find good info on power ratings etc, especially how to use a power graph as commonly supplied by chinese factories, this page is quite useful
http://dunkermotoren.com/default.asp?id=18&lang=2

speedict around $100usd thanks for sharing that one........looks like maybe come from rcplanes?
 
t3sla said:
Word to the wise, I wouldn't push hard on getting any laws changed.
Put it this way, you're essentially 'invisible' and that comes from the people 'looking'
Click to expand...

+1
Be careful what you wish for !
Licensing /rego would be a hassle , but not a deal breaker,..BUT..the one to be scared of is.. INSURANCE !
and you can bet that any move to registration will automatically open the door to insurance.
 
whatever said:
Also interesting the 36v postal service ebikes using bmc front motors are also illegal and over the 200watt limit,
now that was a daring move by the melbourne retailer who convinced auspost that they were legal
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My understanding is that the aus post bikes have undergone some kind of approval process - not sure of the specifics.Power output is limited by the controller & when measured at the motor is within the 200 watt limit. This approach was adopted to improve motor life, the smaller motors suffering premature failure due to the constant stop - start riding. The main maintenance issue now is brake wear for the same reason.

If this is the case then it opens up a lot of possibilities.
 
My understanding is that the aus post bikes have undergone some kind of approval process - not sure of the specifics.Power output is limited by the controller & when measured at the motor is within the 200 watt limit. This approach was adopted to improve motor life, the smaller motors suffering premature failure due to the constant stop - start riding. The main maintenance issue now is brake wear for the same reason.

If this is the case then it opens up a lot of possibilities.
Click to expand...

Yup, That's pretty much spot on 8)
 
Animalector said:
That really is quite stupid. I can average 30 on my racer already with no electric assist.
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even more stupid when you think that most people can hit over 30 on the flat on a normal bike. just seems stupid that with assistance you cant go above 25, without, you can do 60+ if you can manage it.

Right now we can fly below the radar. I'm happy to leave it that way.
 
25km/h would be ridiculous. The average commute is more like 30km/h, so cyclists would still be going the same speed, just a little faster up a hill... When I'm in a hurry going the 4-5 km to places, I average just above 40km/h on my crappy old theft proof junky bike, without a motor and with fat tyres, and that includes the time stopped/going through crowds. Isn't the US and EU laws 25 mp/h? that is more like 35-38km/h so that is far more reasonable.

I am happy to be sensible and fly under the radar for the time being, but when change does come, I just hope it is inclusive.
 
Is what everyone seems to be missing is that, at least in the US, you are a sitting duck on nearly every roadway if you are not going near the speed limit. 30kph? Seriously? Cars go 60-80kph on roads with 40-50kph limits all the time.

The problem is that fast moving traffic makes everything dangerous.

Multi-use paths? That's another story. First, pedestrians need to stay to the side and not block the route. They completely block the path ALL THE TIME.
Next, cyclists need to ride reasonably. That means slowing when necessary, but it also means that if you are on an open stretch with no one around, it's perfectly safe to go 35-40kph. So I'm not totally for strict 25kph limits on paths. I ride empty paths at 50kph on this one downhill, never hurt a fly. Not for long though, I usually keep it around 30-35ph, sometimes I even stop or ride through the grass to pass pedestrians.

Pedestrians and cyclists need to be separated in some way, if possible. Our city engineer mentioned how they try to design a bikeway for 40kph, as a design standard. That means it feels ridiculously safe at 25kph.

All I do know is that I rather be in control riding a bike path faster than everyone else, than to be on a road and be 100% 'on it' knowing everything that is going on, especially behind me. The roads are deadly, you have distracted drivers floating through your path without a care in the world. These ridiculously slow limits for the best urban-suburban transit mode are unfair. I have a drivers license, that should be enough to allow to travel a safe speed.

I'm not really complaining, as I can ride how I want without issue, but for you guys who are hassled for >200watts - that's just sad you have to deal with that.
 
veloman said:
....
I'm not really complaining, as I can ride how I want without issue, but for you guys who are hassled for >200watts - that's just sad you have to deal with that.
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deal with it? pah, I ignore it!!! :p I just hope that we can continue to fly under the radar for many years to come... wistful thinking maybe, but we can all hope eh?
 
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