Endless Sphere

Choosing a 3kW DD hubmotor vs a 750W mid drive or geared hubmotor changes things in a fundamental way. This approach leads to a larger battery pack with higher current and amp hour capacity, heavier motor, and a need for tougher rims and tires. The result is a much heavier machine. While a mid drive...

Two 5.0 AH packs are about $450, plus $50 charger, so the mower's about $300. Folks should know that the power output terminals bypass the BMS on these batteries, so there's no individual cell protection or overcurrent protection, where a BMS equipped ebike pack will have both. The power tools commu...

The Domino throttle is reportedly IP67 rated. The rating has more to do with the design of the mechanism than with whether the device is a potentiometer or a hall sensor. The pot tends to be very linear and have a wider range of output voltage, whereas magnetic devices vary considerably in their lin...

Automotive batteries, including armor, cooling, bussing, etc. are not light. There is a significant cost associated with hauling around extra weight in a vehicle - hence the difference in efficiency between bicycles and electric cars. Doubling or quadrupling the amount of batteries carried around is...

The cheapest lithium battery may have a short life, and may not be the cheapest per mile. Ebikes draw more power than the usual power tool. You want something that is cheap per mile, not necessarily the same as the cheapest in up front procurement cost. Gradients are a very important thing to consid...

I'm not concerned about charging, that is taken care of by the charger which makes all four connections, so it has the BMS Data connection and the Temperature connection to work with. I would like to be able to get BMS information for improved discharge protection on the bike during discharge and re...

If there is enough interest perhaps a separate thread on the Ryobi 36V batteries should be started. Most of my bikes don't run very well at that voltage. I use the Ryobi 18V packs for some tools and they are fine, but in a higher power application the cells need good cooling. From what I've seen the...

Thanks for your effort!

Ego has 7.5 amp hour packs for additional range. Some vendors have reduced pricing on these packs. A pair of these in parallel at 15 amp hours is a fairly long range setup. For the same power the mid drive may have the best hill climbing, the geared hubmotor second best and the direct drive the leas...

That could provide a good value if it is a true 4 wire connection that only involves the FETs voltage drop. Ideally this would be measured on the die with separate bonding wires, this measurement made externally will include all the resistances of the leads and bond wires. The best we can do is to m...

The dangers of trusting provided component layout libraries...

The varying load (due to the motor and driving conditions) and varying cosine angle to the sun of a solar panel array on an ebike is not consistent with the assumptions normally made when designing an MPPT controller. Of course the details depend on the algorithms chosen and the feedback parameters ...

On my setup it required both a switched signal and the variable signal. The switched signal did cut off the power (the throttle would not produce power), then the variable signal controlled the amount of braking (in addition to the settings in the controller). Here is the wiring diagram and software...

In the case of living on a hill and descending first, regen will not be available for this initial descent unless charging is reduced below 100%. But every other hill on the trip would be fine. As was suggested, charging to slightly lower max voltage, which is often done just for battery life, would...

One gear for motoring, one for dead battery. Help it out on starts and steep hills.

I never said the wedge lock took more torque to release than something else. I said it took more torque to release it than to stay where it is. Read carefully, sorry if I wasn't clear. Actually it looks pretty clear there. This behavior has been verified with experimental results personally every ti...

Wedge Locking washers like the NordLock must engage the two faces on either side to work. [...] so to release the nut takes more torque than for it to stay where it is, Nope. With or without a softer surface to bite into, they release at a lower torque than an ordinary flat washer. WbLS3rGtKDM Chal...

My own preference is to get batteries that you can get serviced, or make your own battery. Shipping lithium batteries is difficult because they have caused planes to fall out of the sky. They can burn so fiercely that automated fire extinguishers cannot stop the blaze. Thus the rules governing their...

Not sure where you are located, good to put in at least general terms where you are into your settings so folks can use that to improve their suggestions. People differ on many things, but one thing everyone agrees on - no lead. At least on an ebike, a lithium battery is a game changer due to weight...

So frustrating to discover the images missing, and so much work to fix.

You might consider uploading directly to ES, they have been very reliable, and it is very easy to do.

Small cells are like small chips. They only make sense until you know how to make big ones. It is a stopgap solution. It is surprising that Telsa is moving to rare earth magnets, this is not good for mass production or green manufacturing. The only reason is to increase the range slightly, at a cons...

Another good project for 3D printing might be a cable throttle to voltage converter. Here's an example of a couple of different ones. Apparently the seller isn't making them anymore. The output voltage could be from a hall sensor or from a variable resistor, though the hall sensor should be easier t...

Thanks for the glimpse of the future Justin, and know we'll be ready to help with testing.

I have very mixed feelings about the Higo connectors. They look nice but aren't something we can DIY on a piece of cable, as far as I've seen. If they are then where are the DIY kits?

With the resulting fire hazard we cannot tolerate dead cells in a pack. Which is easier to remove? One of many thousands of cells welded deep in a massive pack, or one of a couple dozen in a bolted set? The future is not moving toward more parts in the system. Tesla is making do with what is cheaply...

Most folks on here have either built a few kit or scratch built ebikes, or they've bought a much smaller number of commercially built ones. It's hard to find folks with a wide perspective on the commercial bikes. The folks who have that are generally paid reviewers and their opinions may be swayed b...