whats best setup for performance hillclimbing mtn bike ?

the learning curve is a bit steep for an e novice. you folks are smarter than i will ever be. i need help from you folks listing the best parts for a bike build- my goal to get performance setup to 75% as good as the stealth e mountain bikes. http://www.stealthelectricbikes.com.au. those fellas are on the right track.

goals

batteries monted low and in middle
25 mph top speed
20 mi no pedal range with some hills
big hillclimbing abillity
heavy downhill mountain bike
robust
very strong acceleration
ability to drive slow without "lugging motor"
i guess everthing but top speed. How do those aussies do it ? i dunno.

here is my list that i figure may get me mostly there- but i would really appreceate any input that may work best.

72v headway battery pack tucked into the center frame section ? or would a ping work instead ? 48v with higher amp controller ?
clyte 5305 ? overkill ? 5304 ?
would a stock controller work ? does someone make something with @ 75 amps ?
24" rear wheel ?

should i buy one and reverse engineer it ? is there a rich sponsor out there ? am i now on a cia list because i used keyword stealth, reverse engineer and bomber ?



thanks

pete in minneapolis

You want everything dont you?

That is an awesome bike BTW. But where you gain weight you lose climbability.

Ive always wanted to rig up a racer with big spokes some lipos and a decent RC brushless.

If you want some thing that can climb a mountain and bound down it. This would be an awesome place to start. some of the lipo techs here could answer whether that space in the triangle could fit enough AH to get you up a mountain or not.

A lot depends on how long you want to climb the hill, how fast, how steep. Steep and slow, easy. Steep and fast, easy. Steep fast and long, heh heh good luck. The closest setup for all three is a clyte x5 and lots of volts. Small wheels and high winding count gets you trials riding, while small wheels, low winding count and high voltage gets you flying up the hill till you melt something.

I'm still trials riding myself, till I can afford more batttery and controller. Rear 5304 in 24" wheel, 48v 8 ah nicads, and a tiny 20 amp controller to try to spare the nicads. I have all the battery I can fit mounted low, and the rest on the handlebars, since a frame choice issue had me wheelieing everywhere. It gets me steep , slow, and long. When I can afford it, I'll trade for steep, fast, and shorter. Not sure how to carry more battery on a tiny frame though, and need a low top bar to ride gnarly trails and keep my nads.

Others swear by thier bmc gearmotors. Gearmotors rock, I loved my heinzmanns but they got hot way too fast for a desert dweller to use one. My fusin is a great gearmotor, but it just can't go without overheating near as long as my x5. It just depends on your climate and the length and severity of the climb whether a gearmotor will do it safely, or you need to just go for the x5 and throw watts at it.

what you want ain't too hard. its just expensive.

you said you want it 75% as good as the stealth. which one?
If you mean the fighter, then thats easy. a 48V 30Ah controller and any 500 watt motor would have 75% of the Stealth fighter's output.

a 48V 48Ah controller and a 750 watt motor would be 75% of the bomber's output.

25mph top speed is easy enough at 48 volts for a good number of motors.
20 mile range... at what speed? the faster you go, the more battery it will take.
Hill climbing. If you want realy good hill climbing, you're not going to want something less capable than the bomber. even 3000 watts isn't much against a 15% grade hill.

If you get a 72 volt battery, you need a 72 volt controller.

Gears must be in the crank set. Rear Hub motor not identified. They are bad ass bikes, though.

I was going to say i can do 25 miles no peadaling @ 20mph on 84v @ 6AH. Probably 15-20 miles mixed riding with acceleration bursts and hills. But my 6.6AH at 84v handles very well and its light. Still in a trunk back on the rear rack but its low to where it almost feels like its mounted in the middle. My gm will do 30mph on 48v so thats something to consider. A 9C might run in the high 20s but its more solid than the GM More mass and can take a little more heat. A 4011 would be around 20mph on 48v but it will climb anything like a pack mule on crank. The real question is money... how much are you willing to throw down... not on the motor... but the Battery... that should be the starting point and devotion for most of the funds in any bike build.

Drunkskunk said:

Hill climbing. If you want realy good hill climbing, you're not going to want something less capable than the bomber. even 3000 watts isn't much against a 15% grade hill.

If you get a 72 volt battery, you need a 72 volt controller.

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Listen to this guy my GM will haul my ass up a 15% hill @ 80+v but its dumping 3600w into the motor to hall 400lbs up a hill. only 1000w is actual working power and the rest is being dumped as heat. If you want a motor thats good on hills then look into swblutos motor simulator and plug in some numbers a 5305 is the most efficent thing to go up a hill... i would aim for the 50-60v nominal range atleast to keep the motor happy. It will help out on the low end torque. But then again more amps equals more torque and acceleration.... so you can aim for low volts but you got to pick a motor that can take high amps for a some what extended period of time but if you go high volts... you can pick a lower end motor that can take higher voltage and lower amperage for the same amount of power. Just something to look at.

Im realizing 45-50A is to much for a GM on 80-90+v. Think imma drop down to 30A.

All posters here are on that list. When the right time comes we will all be collected and put in internment camps and forced to produce drone robots. This will be under the 3rd bush administration or aka return of the twins. Or the first women as president(s) You will not know which one is ruling at any given time.... shutting up now

But for real,

I would go with a chain reduction cyclone 1200watt and you can kick there collective hub motored asses up the hills. You can do a 20% grade at 15-20 mph with a 48v 20ah battery. Also you can up shift and go 35 plus. If you need more info give me holler and check my vid if you want to see one in action. Much lighter too.

gunthn said:

I would go with a chain reduction cyclone 1200watt and you can kick there collective hub motored asses up the hills

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Hard(er) to install.
Noisy.
Chains flying everywhere... more chances of mechanical failure.
Quality control issues.
Etc.

Just saying... there are very valid reasons that people don't use cyclone/chained setups for hill climbing regardless of how much better they can be. It's just a matter of preference.

icecube57 said:

A 4011 would be around 20mph on 48v but it will climb anything like a pack mule on crank.

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A 4011 ain't climbing squat at 48v, but at 84v I would wholeheartedly agree with the "pack mule on crank" quote.

check out these pictures http://www.stealthelectricbikes.com.au/stealth_fighter.html. genius

no derailer
batteries tucked away down low
doesnt look like a walmart bike with a blender motor taped on it built for a high school science fair.
from the videos it seems quiet- (no drama)
2 speed crank ?

pure genius - i think this is the future. how did they do it ? 5305 ? headways ? handmade cromolly frame ?

the chain drive setups seem to perform really well- but the noise, shifting the chain and reliability seem to be at issue. it would seem difuicult to change speeeds and shift brake throttle. i have driven a little motorcross, but hated the noise and inability to ride where bikes go. ive been waiting for years for this, kudoos to the aussies - but how did they do it ? anyone else want to weigh in before i blow the bank and do it wrong (again) ? where is the doctor ? doctorbass are you out there ?

From the motor size, I'd say it's either a larger gearmotor like the bmc, or a 4011, 409, something like that. The battery is too small to be very long range, so they probobaly have about 60v 10 ah of a123's or konions in it. Hauling ass like that, they run out of juice before it can melt. A bike with high c rate cells, but only 10 ah of it, may not be able to run long enough to melt down. The controller is huge, so it's not some dinky thing with 4 fets inside.

We really need more clarification on what you want to do before we can get any more specific that get an x5. 20 miles at 25 mph is easy as pie, I do 15 miles daily on a cheap aotema front hub and a 36v 20 ah pingbattery. Along the way, I climb 1000' of vertical, most of it on one stretch of a mile of 5 and 6% grade.

But the bike I ride steep single track mtb trails with is the fuji with the 5304 in a 24" rim. It's slow now, but if I ever get a pack of headways, I can put a higher amp controller on it and go as fast up those trails as I am comfy with going down, which is about 15 mph. Lotsa nice rock and cactus if you don't stay on these trails. Some parts I'll never want to even go 5 mph on. A bmc or puma gearmotor would do better at getting up the hill, but I live south enough to need the x5 to keep from melting a motor on those trails in the summer. Last winter I was riding the same trails on a EVG with the 24v heinzmann gearmotor. The motor was great, but would overheat fast if it was over 50 F outside. So it just depends on what you plan to do. A short ride in the hills is no prob for most motors, but only the x5 can soak up heat for the long haul.

Where's my x5 grade gearmotor? Or some kind of air cooling for a small gearmotor?

As others said, it just takes money. Be thinking in the $2,000 minimum range. The bike alone could be pricy. Then more than a thou for the battery, so it could easily go to the 3 grand mark.

If you are not made of money, then you can still make a nice bike with a BMC 600 watt gearmotor, a 48v headway pack, and a used low end full suspension mtb that has a big frame triangle. Schwinn S-5 was one like that. No 5 inch suspension travel, but 2 inch is plenty for street use and dirt roads. The wallbikes have 1inch travel that's pretty lame. Assuming you pay $200 for the bike, the rest should be under $1500. It'll climb like a mule, but you will need to monitor temps on the hub, and stop when it gets too hot. Later on, you can move all the stuff to a $1500 DH bike. $1500 is the used price too. :shock

The reason to go with the gearmotor instead of the x5 is that it will perform very nicely on less battery, like a 48v pack. It's lighter too, and a gearmotor will best fill the requirement for slow riding on tricky trails. Where you live, heat will not be as big an issue as it is for me, where summer lasts 9 months.

i would aim for the 50-60v nominal range at least to keep the motor happy

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CLyte motors are heavy.

You will be very surprised with the torque and hill ability of the geared 9lb. BMC 600 v2 at 36v ( or 48). IT does 24mph at 36v and takes off. That should be enough for most......and the range you get by keeping the battery weight and motor weight - and price - down compliments the balanced handling. My experience so far.

The bmc will climb better, the clyte will climb longer without overheating. You'd only pay that weight penalty if you need to, as I do living in the desert. Otherwise, unless you will be going up hill for many miles continuiously, the lighter weight and smaller battery weight and cost would make the bmc a great choice.

There is no "best setup" one shines for one type of riding, the other shines for the other. But the one that has the widest range of use is the clyte x5. The one that can cost the most is also the x5.

I did a lot of research and weight was my number one issue. Trying to pedal an unpowered bike while deep in the trails was something I didn't look forward to. I went with the bmc geared torque motor route. I also liked the fact that it has a freewheel so there is no motor drag. Something you get with direct hub motors when unpowered.

My build
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12654

I also have a cyclone setup, and have been using that for the trails without issue. I plan to make an rc motor setup similar to the cyclone build when I have the time. This will bring the wieght down even more. A lite setup is far more responsive when trail riding.

kfong... I'm especially interested in how your motors (BMC and Cyclone) compare on long ascents? Have you tried either or both on something like a one or two mile upgrade? If you had to choose one for such conditions, which would it be? (Personally, I'm interested in endurance and efficiency rather than top speed.)

thanks!

The BMC is still a work in progress and has yet to be finished. I really can't say how they will perform on long upgrades since my area is relatively flat. You will have to rely on other members inputs on this. One of the trails I ride is a 1/4mile climb that would be very slow if I had to pedal it. Don’t know much about the grade but the cyclone handles it very well on low gear with me assisting it as much as I can. As far as ruggedness. I think the Cyclone would be the one I would count on, since it has metal gears and the fact that I can put it in low gear really helps to keep the motor from overheating. I really don't know how reliable the BMC motor will be. The plastic composite gears is my only concern. If you put one metal one, then the reliability will go way up. Heat will be an issue on either motor on such long climbs, but I don't have real world tests to say if it would be a problem. I have ridden the cyclone on a plus 90 deg day in the trails without holding back. As long as I was in low gear, the motor seem fine. It was hot after the ride, but still touchable.

hillbilly said:

kfong... I'm especially interested in how your motors (BMC and Cyclone) compare on long ascents? Have you tried either or both on something like a one or two mile upgrade? If you had to choose one for such conditions, which would it be? (Personally, I'm interested in endurance and efficiency rather than top speed.)

thanks!

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