Where to begin

I also had a Ping in the triangle laying on its side, over a year- no issues. I also bought pedal extenders ( cheap on ebay but 40$ at LBS)they screw in where the pedal screws in, then you screw the pedal into it. gives you an extra inch on either side and you can mount the ping in the triangle.

Though in the trailer might be easier.
 
Did I missed something? While its nice to go over potential what if and what not, this seems like a crazy endeavor (can't be just me).

Fact is, you need a reliable transportation for your job and for your kids - day in and day out, rain or shine and snow or sleet. What are you going to do when it rains (don't know what you wear to work but getting wet probably not a good idea), super cold, or whatever nature is going to throw at you. There's a reason why you don't see that many people riding even a motorcycle in winter and they go lot faster than 25mph.

For 1-2K budget, while you could build a nice hobby bike that you could commute, a reliable day-in, day-out bike that will last 4-5 years is going to cost you lot more than that. I spent way way more than that on a ebike and would never in a million years trust ebike for daily transportation needs. In fact, I would trust my road bike for commuting than a Ebike as its more reliable. Even those who is saying you could build nice bike, if you go look at their post will show how many time their ebike blew up, stopped working , etc.

I would re-think the strategy a bit before giving up that lease.
 
Well, luckily I live in california, and it doesn't rain that often.
Second, I also have the train option for the rainy days.
And finally we have a 2nd car, so my wife could drop the kids on the bad days.

I didn't want to re-invest in a gas powered car, but I might buy a Nissan leaf when it comes out at the end of the year ;)
 
You have couple of options... all I'm saying is to think it carefully. I've been commuting on my e-bike for couple of years (and on road bike for longer) now and it does get old quickly and sometime you just want to get in your air conditioned car and get to places fast or go to multiple places before/after work without thinking about it. Good luck!
 
leamcorp said:
Fact is, you need a reliable transportation for your job and for your kids - day in and day out, rain or shine and snow or sleet.

I commuted w/ kids, rain, sleet or shine all through the winter. I only had to go a mile w/ kids and 5 miles the rest of the way, and I did have some very annoying breakdowns.

As for rain, my trailer is covered so the kids don't get wet and I wear full rain gear over work clothes, inlcuding booties.
As for cold, we bundle up, and I covered the trailer to keep wind down. They were always cozy warm coming out.
As for snow, yep, slower, with snow & ice tires, much better than a car sometimes.

There's a solution to every problem.

But everyone has to take care to solve their own problems at their own speed.

There are plenty of times I wished I had a backup bike, since mine is an ongoing project. DIY ebikes are not the most reliable form of transport, that's true. But the weather is another matter, IMO...
 
It's true, the bike will break down on you annoyingly often. Maybe just a flat tire or loose connection, something easy to fix, but no fun to fix first thing in the morning. Definitely you will need a backup of some kind, if even only a bike that can be pedaled. But very quickly, you will save enough money to start putting together other backups. A second bike, using the same battery, is the starting point. I was thinking the same thing, on a $400 budget. Soon I'd bought another battery for $450, and a second motor kit for $300. At that point, I still had problems due to a poor motor choice, twice. But I was able to keep one of em running pretty much all the time, and got through the first year pretty cheap. By year two, you'll have saved so much money you will be able to easily start the real upgrades to the setup. Fortunately you are starting with much more reliable stuff than I did, and a bit less distance. But for sure, you will end up pedaling the whole thing home a few times because a charger didn't work or something like that happened.
 
Just an update as I did my first ride to work and back yesterday. Thanks to everyone who helped me with advise on building my e-bike.

1. It's freaking amazing, with a combination of pure joy and fear
2. On my way to work, with a light wind in my face, I used 8Ah out of the 20Ah in my battery (going at 25mph when not stopped at lights), on my way back, going a bit faster, I used 4.5Ah, but with a 15mph wind in my back :)
3. The one thing that scares me would be the front wheel / front arms breaking. Seeing that I have no extra weight there (batteries are in the triangle, and motor on the rear wheel), my main question is "can my front wheel handle 25 / 30 mph continuously ?"
4. My cycle analyst doesn't seem to be doing a good job at limiting amps (I tried setting it to 10A, then 30A, I see no difference, and my controllers seems to be putting about 32A max on the motor -- it's supposed to be a 40A controller, although CA reports max currents up to 40A...)
5. I've currently put the controller inside my battery box, but I'm wondering about heat / ventilation.
6. It's almost impossible to pedal at 22mph+ (I would have to pedal super fast to help the motor), so I may have to look into this ...

Took me 32 minutes door to door this morning (for 9.4 miles), if I can keep my commute around that time, that's perfect.

And finally, the best part for me is that my road follows the caltrain tracks, so I'm never more than a couple miles away from a train station in case something goes wrong ...
photo.jpg
 
Nice! Congratulations!!

I've found the 7sp freewheel w/ 11T cog amazing cause I can meaningfully pedal at high speeds. methods used to sell them. not sure where to get them now. Anyone know?

Glad to hear you've got plenty of Ah!

What kind of controller is it again? Doesn't the CA cut out power when it goes over a certain Amperage?

Ride w/ the kids yet?
 
No, not with the kids yet.
My wife is going to europe with them for 6 weeks in about 2 weeks, and I think that I'll only start bringing them to pre-school after that (but who knows, she might get tired of doing the commute sooner).
I'm planning on doing a bike ride with the full family this WE, on a paved bike trail, so I'll get a sense of how this thing can help me haul the trailer.

It's supposed to be the 40A controller from ebikes.ca, but with their recent recall mess, I'm not sure about what they actually shipped me (35A or 40A).
It doesn't really matter anyway, I'm quite fine with the current performance (I'll get to 25 mph really fast, then it'll max out between 28 and 30, depending on wind, but I'm not keeping the throttle full, as it seems that between 20 and 30A I only get 1 or 2 mph more when I get close to the max speed, and I'd rather keep my motor not too hot ... it's currently quite warm when I arrive to work).

Anyone has a good iphone app to recommend in terms of getting some basic information ? (speed, distance, time, elev, map would be awesome).

Has anyone used the light system from ebikes.ca ? (the diode one), it's quite expensive, but seems fairly easy to set up.

Ho, and any good recommendation for a key power switch (that supports 50A) ?
 
gudy said:
5. I've currently put the controller inside my battery box, but I'm wondering about heat / ventilation.

Nice carpentry skills... Got photos of the work in progress? Always fun to share. So how do you open the case up? unscrew a side?

Ventilation is definitely a good idea, esp come summer. I'm not a math guy, and there's probably a way to figure out how much heat is getting in there. Controllers are designed as heat sinks to be cooled by open air, so you're pretty much eliminating cooling but keeping it closed up. If it were higher V/A, it would be long before the solder melted and something blew. But at that rating, it's hard to say. Drill a hole, put in a scoop and cover it on wet days?

Re the power switch, I'm not sure it's recommended to put a switch on the main battery leads, if that's what you're thinking. DC current arcs much more than AC current, so finding a 50A DC switch will be hard, and it'll be big... or a relay, or contactor. Instead, a lot of controllers have a switch line that you can use, much smaller than the leads. My 2c

I've been drooling over ebikes.ca lights for a while now. Took me a year to buy a CA...

just searched for "iphone" on ES and it looks like Arlo uses something, mentioned in this thread. you can ask him.
 
I haven't made pictures of the box as I was making it, but I really came up with the idea of how it would work as I was building it.
I'll open it this WE (as I want to finalize it), and I'll take pictures at this point, and I'll explain the process (which I made up as I was building it).
it's not finished yet, as I'm still working on quite a few details (the attach points for once, and then I'd like to be able to remove it easily, and it's not really possible right now as everything is connected from the inside.

Regarding the overall on / off switch, I do have an on / off on the controller, but is that enough? I wanted a real on / off switch that I would have put on the positive battery wire, in case something goes wrong ... do you guys keep the battery connected to the controller at all times (even when charging, or when not being used?).

Maybe that I'll just create a small opening in the box to access the area where the battery connectors are plugged to the controller ones ...

Ho, and my wife decided that I should drive the kids to pre-school this morning, took me about 25 minutes for the first 5 miles with them, and then about 15 minutes from there to work ... really cool, and I think they really liked it. I'd like to find a way to get some kind of two-way talkie-walkie system in between their trailer and the bike though, with something like a bluetooth headset for me ;)
 
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