Throttle %

kudos

10 kW
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
629
Location
Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK
I was using the ebike simulator to find out if I could make a certain distance with my setup.

The sim says I can make that distance as long as my throttle is set to 70%

Well that's very good to know but how the heck can I set my throttle at 70% with any kind of accuracy?

Any one got any ideas?

Can you do this with a CA?

Kudos
 
I'm waiting for the day when we can push a button on our ebike computers and it can do a google maps api lookup to determine distance to destination.

Then uses that and known battery capacity / setup model to work out max throttle % then plugs that into cruise control.

Kudos
 
When learning to ride slower, trying to hypermile, at that time I had no wattmeter. I cut a notch on the throttle body, and another at about 75% of the rotation of the throttle. Who knows what % it actually was electronically, but it allowed me to know if I'd let my throttle position creep so I could return to 3/4 throttle consistently. That mark corresponded to about 18 mph on the flat at the time. Holding on that same mark allowed me to climb hills with less wattage, pedaling hard of course to keep rpm above 15 mph.

If you have a wattmeter, then it gets much much easier. You simply aim to generally not exceed a wattage you decided on, and keep adjusting the throttle accordingly to keep below 300w or whatever you chose.

But really it just comes down to your speed. If you want to really stretch your range, 15-18 mph is the speed. 20 stretches it quite a bit, but it's amazingly more range slowing to 18mph. Below 15mph even better, but that's just too slow in most cases, for most ebikers. So it only really requires a speedo to stretch your range. Aim for 18 mph on the flat, and 15 up the hills. It might take more throttle to maintain 15 up the hill, but you will get it back going down the other side using no throttle for a bit.
 
Dogman, I really like that notch in the throttle housing idea. Presumably the same idea could be had with paint, stickers, white-out, etc. when I'm trying to eek out more range or slow down a but to force myself to make up the difference in pedal power, I often back off to what I assume is "75%-ish" but inevitably start cheating my way back up, even without realizing it. The physical indicator is a great way to keep me honest. Thanks for the tip :)

Of course the CA solves that problem, but I just can't justify outfitting all my bikes with one. The CA was great on my first few bikes to teach me good EV driving practices, but once you learn how throttle control greatly affects power and thus range, the lesson is basically learned.
 
Hi: I think the best way to do it is simply putting a resistor from the positive leg of the throttle to the signal leg of the throttle. You could then put a push-button on the handlebars to make the connection happen.

Push-button:
http://elifebike.com/peng/iview.asp?KeyID=dtpic-2012-91-9KQ2.361NB

You could also use a potentiometer insead of a fixed resistor. Then you could adjust the potentiometer to 70% throttle, so when you pushed the button it would jump to 70%. You could set it to 50% etc as well.

I'm playing with the idea of just having a button throttle that just automatically eases the bike up to speed.

Guys, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Beagles idea is about what Methtek sells with his universal 3 speed switch. So you could just set to speed 2, for 70%.

And then carry a bigger battery. :mrgreen:
 
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