Modified Bike Frame HS3540 e-bike

[MagerPain]

My current e-bike has served me well for the last couple of years with >2500km and about 100 cycles on the 16S 20Ah China prismatic battery pack. Ever since building it however, I was very unhappy with the fact that the 9kg battery had to be mounted high and rear, as well as the lack of grunt from the no-name motor:


After a long time threatening to do it, I have finally gotten around to building my second e-bike, this time with a far more appropriate weight balance and proper hub motor. The bike frame is essentially identical to the original, having been bought from Target for <$200 with all the bells and whistles. Since this frame had been stripped to make a frankenstein mountain bike a number of years ago and was now just taking up space, I didn't have any issues with chopping it up and practicing my aluminium TIG welding skills (or lack thereof) for this project:





After a little more modification, I got the rear swing arm sat in and put in the wheels off my mountain bike to mock it all up and see how well everything fits together. Not too bad for something I knocked together in a day:



After I saw that everything *should* work, and decided that the welds are strong enough, I started stripping the original bike for its headset, forks, handlebars, crank, spring etc to get everything ready to take it for an unpowered ride:


All seemed well, so naturally, I did a bit of a rush job to make it electric and see how well it goes compared to the clumsy old bike:



So far, so good. Even with the relatively low power the old battery pack can give, it still pulls very nicely and handles almost as well as my mountain bike. I used to not be able to stand up on my e-bike for fear of sending it out of balance and getting thrown off; no longer. Having the weight of the battery where it is makes for a pretty much 50\50 distribution which makes it stick to the road even when punching the throttle up kerbs. Bliss.


Things to do (in no particular order):

Battery compartment side covers
More rigid forks (may just rebuild my old Tora 302's)
Proper damping rear shock
Rear brake caliper
Derailleurs and shifters
Cable routing
Paint job




Thanks for looking! I'm more than open to suggestions, [constructive] criticisms and comments

 

[deffx]

Congrats, thats quite a large battery, i can only imagine how it affected the bikes handling on the rack before, must be heaps better now.

I would suggest welding up one side of the box for some strength, look forward to seeing the finished bike