my 48v 1000w customised motorcycle

jimmyhackers

10 kW
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
600
heres my first post on this forum....so hello all

thought id wait till i was a bit more "up to speed" before i joined

heres a bicycle that is now a motorcycle curtesy of a 1000w 48v hub motor kit and 4x 20ah 12v sla batteries. it has a few other tweeks of my own devices aswell.



i get 27mph uphill, 30mph on the flats and 35-36mph downhill. the battery lasts for around an hour and a half. and its a dream to ride. charging does take around 8 hours. it weighs around 50kgs

ive added caps in parrallel to the batteries to lessen the peukert effect, theyve added around 20 - 30 min in runtime and a bit more torque from a standstill.

so far its cost me under £300 to build and i plan on going to 60v in future for a bit more speed.

let me know what you think or feel free to ask me questions about it all
thanks in advance jim
 
Welcome! :D

It looks great, I really like the rear wheel.

It is heavy, but it will change drastically if you upgrade to lithium on the future.

The price is amazing.

What motor is exactly, and where do you bought it?

congrats!
 
heres my controller



i have an idea of what im doing but i want to double check with people on here.

the blue big caps are all rated at 63v 470 microfarads, and the three smaller ones are rated at 63v 220microfarads.

i figure i just replace these with 100v rated ones at an equal or higher farad capacity?

the mosfets are hy1707, i cant find a datasheet for them :s can someone else point me in the direction? i think they are 75v 80A but im not to sure. either way hopfully i wont need to replace them. is this the case?

and thats my plan...after all that stick 60v into it instead of 48v. is ther anything else i missed??

thanks in advance for the help
jim
 
why was one of my completely seperate posts put into this post?

do we have another forum nazi in control here?

its a cheap chinese ebay job i got from a company called germenladen was 200 quid including postage.
 
If it were my bike, i'd get a front wheel with a disc brake from Ebay and fit a hydraulic disc brake. The difference in the quality of your braking will be massive.
 
Something tells me there isn't much on that bike that is DOT approved, and hence could never be registered as a motorcycle.

That's a motorized bicycle without pedals, and as such, isn't even legally a bicycle. It is in a whole illegal class of it's own.
 
lol.... ive had this discussion with my "motorbike" friend a while ago. ill let you know the outcome of that inabit

few points first.....

all motorcycles were originally bicycles with a motor strapped to them.

if i take a bicycle and i remove the "cycle" part (pedals) all im left with is a "bi"ke. if i then add a motor it is now a "motor" bike.

legality.....doesnt come into question under defining definition. if i have a gun and its illegal.....its still a gun
(even though it is illegal my local rozzers dont bat an eyelid)

those points also didnt wash well with my motorbike friend. untill he had a go....and then he changed his tune. untill you have a go you dont realise it most definately handles and feels like a motorbike and not a bicycle anymore.
 
heres an update, long over due.





quite a few updates. 1500watt controller, 60mph top speed, nice new horn, front lights, rear mudguard, new throttle with voltage display, new buttons for said lights n horn, kickstand, extra footpegs (not sure why, but should help protect the battery if i fall off again), painted front shocks, lots of surface rust :)

all in all its still holding strong and is quite the ride now.
ive tightened the rear spokes twice, gone through a fair few sets of brake pads. other than that extra maintanance on top of regular maintenance its been good.

the batteries are 3x6s 12ah lipos in series for 18s. ive only have three cells go puffy/bad, and that was early in their life cycle (within 1 year from new). i replaced these cells with spares and all has been good for the past few years.
 
Your build looks good and well thought out. I particularly like how you did the pegs.

I'm a big fan of rim brakes too. With a proper setup and pads they are more effective at panic stopping from high speed (50+ mph) than magura MT7 hydraulic discs. Rims have the thermal capacity discs don't.
 
another person with a brain :)

yes rim brakes are better than discs.....when will the people ever learn.

its the "avon lady"price thing again.....just becuase they cost more people thinks discs are better......really not the case.

they weigh more, are more easily contaminated, provide less braking force, cost more, less easy to do a visable safety check on.
the require unsymetrical spokes which weakens the wheel.

its like when mythbusters did stone tipped arrows......sharp sticks were better than a sharp stone on the end....but cavemen still used them stone tips for "reasons". probably, they looked cool and could be shown off to their cavemen mates.

i pretty sure most peopel in the tour de france still use vbrakes for these very reasons
 
jimmyhackers said:
another person with a brain :)

yes rim brakes are better than discs.....when will the people ever learn.

its the "avon lady"price thing again.....just becuase they cost more people thinks discs are better......really not the case.

they weigh more, are more easily contaminated, provide less braking force, cost more, less easy to do a visable safety check on.
the require unsymetrical spokes which weakens the wheel.

its like when mythbusters did stone tipped arrows......sharp sticks were better than a sharp stone on the end....but cavemen still used them stone tips for "reasons". probably, they looked cool and could be shown off to their cavemen mates.

i pretty sure most peopel in the tour de france still use vbrakes for these very reasons

Yeah, those stupid engineers at Yamaha and Ducati should have put rim brakes on their bikes! :lol: Cool bike you have there. Its something refreshing to see. Love the handle bar. :bigthumb:
 
Really nice bike, I love the front part and the rear wheel. The frame shape is really well suited too.

You should really consider ditching the SLA batteries and go for lithium, it would be much lighter, more powerful,a lot more compact and would probably allow you to get an even better look since you could build it at a custom shape of your choosing.
It could also allow you to use a much more powerful controller, 1500W seem a bit underpowered to me :)
Pretty sure your motor could be fine with 3000W. Kelly does some very tiny controllers for that kind of power and they are not very expensive so you might want to look into that.

I absolutely hate the front light and the gigantic horn, they kinda ruin the looks. Please ditch those asap :lol:
For the front light maybe you could try to find a round one from a moped, it would help with the motorbike look and it should be easy to get for cheap.
Also not a big fan of the rear fender, but I don't see any better solution than yours so I guess you don't have much choice.

As for the rim brakes, yeah, on a lightweight bike they do have much more braking power than discs. The only inconvenience being that they need some adjustments from time to time because the pads wear.

Very nice work, keep up the updates!
 
armandd said:
Yeah, those stupid engineers at Yamaha and Ducati should have put rim brakes on their bikes!

irony is if they fitted rim brakes they'd probably work better on a motor bike than discs.....

problem is motorbike rims are more expensive than bicycle rims. its at the price point where replacing a small disc is cheaper than replacing the rim....

just had a google and you can get perimeter disc brake rotor for motorbikes (never actually seen them before).... apparently they work better but cost more.
 
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