48V 18AH Setup Specifications

ZipZopZap

1 µW
Joined
Oct 3, 2018
Messages
2
Hello,

First post here, thanks for all the amazing info.

I bought this E-bike setup at a garage sale, really nice guy and I believed him that everything's working. (he's the one that referred me to this site) I got a great deal on it, mainly because it didn't include a battery. I've been saving up and I *think* I found what I want, but I'm not confident enough in my E-Bike knowledge to make the purchase.

Below are photos of the hub motor and the controller.
The original owner said to use a 48V battery with it, however the controller says "36V / 22A". I thought I read somewhere on here, that that is overclocking it a little, but perfectly fine to do?

This is the E-Bike battery I was thinking of pairing it with:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/323445719849

Any input/help would be greatly appreciated.

<<Specifications from Ebay ad:
Material: aluminum alloy
Charging mode: DC/AC
Input: 110-240V, 50/60HZ .2.5A MAx
Output: DC 54.6V 2.0A
Max charge voltage: 54.6V
Cycle life: About 1000 cycles
Charging time: 7.5 hours
Range with one charge: 50-80 miles
Model: Rear rack type
Battery material: li-polymer
Nominal voltage: 48V
Rated capacity: 18Ah
Plug: US

Package Included:
1 x E-Bike Rechargeable Battery
2 x Keys
1 x Charger
1 x Battery Holder
1 x Accessories Pack
1 x Manual

Note:
Recommended to be used with 48V 1000W electric bicycle motor.>>
 

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How much did you spend on the ebike with no battery, and no charger I can assume right.
That is the case with countless ebikes or anything really that needs batteries to power a drivetrain, when the batteries go and they seek out replacements and see the very high cost, they let sit in the shed for a decade or two then when they decide to clean up or move they want to get rid of it.

With ebay battery purchases you'd have to be very careful. I notice they do not mention anything about the brand or model of cells they use in their pack. For example like Sony 18650-25R. That should tell you something about the seller right there, so be very very cautious.

Known good quality battery packs are from places like www.ebikes.ca and www.em3ev.com and on Aliexpress/Alibaba names like Unit Pack Power, OSN Power.


Ampedbikes.com
ZipZopZap said:
I got a great deal on it, mainly because it didn't include a battery.

This is the E-Bike battery I was thinking of pairing it with:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/323445719849


<<Specifications from Ebay ad:
Material: aluminum alloy
Charging mode: DC/AC
Input: 110-240V, 50/60HZ .2.5A MAx
Output: DC 54.6V 2.0A
Max charge voltage: 54.6V
Cycle life: About 1000 cycles
Charging time: 7.5 hours
Range with one charge: 50-80 miles
Model: Rear rack type
Battery material: li-polymer
Nominal voltage: 48V
Rated capacity: 18Ah
 
I would not use that battery if they would pay me. No way to know if the cells are legit brand name.
Imbalanced poorly matched recycled cells could result in a fire.
Burning a house down is not worth saving 100 or 200 bucks.


Buy from em3ev. It's the best IMHO for prebuilt batteries and the prices are really worth what you are getting (close to being the best bang for you bucks in the legit branded cells battery pack world).

Don't by no-brand no-spec packs from ebay.

90% chance that battery is made from poorly matched late 90's to early 2000's recycled low-power laptop batteries...

PS: A fully charged 48V battery is actually 54.6V. So check that the capacitors inside your 36V controller are rated form more than 54.6V (likely either 50V which is bad or 63V wich is good) and you should be good to overclock/overvolt. Buy a 48V charger (with real output voltage being 54.6V). I recently overclocked my own 36V eBike to 52V. See here : https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=93576

Matador
 
Ditto on:

Get a battery from a reprepreable seller. ebikes.ca, em3ev.com, lunacycle.com, pingbattery.com to name a few.

On checking your capacitors in your controller, you must remove all the screws and slide the components out of the case so you can view the capacitors and check them as described above. Also, check the specs of the mosfets as well. If you hook up a battery with more voltage then the controller can handle, the controller will go "POP" and then it will be useless until you replace the popped component/s.

This from Grin:
http://www.ebikes.ca/product-info/battery-kits.html#36v-or-48v
We sell roughly equal numbers of 36V and 48V battery packs, and all of our conversion kits and controllers work fine with both 36V and 48V (or 52V) battery options. Just because 48V is a larger number, it does not mean that a 48V ebike is intrinsically better / more powerful / faster than a 36V ebike despite what the ill-informed internet will lead you to believe. However, it is true that a given motor will spin faster at a higher voltage, and usually higher speeds will correspond to more power consumption. For most of the stock hub motor kits that we offer, a 36V battery will result in a commuting speed of 30-35 kph, while wth a 48V battery will result in closer to 40-45 kph.

If you are upgrading or replacing an existing battery pack, it is always safe to replace it with a battery that has the same nominal voltage. If you have an 36V ebike setup that is not from us, and are looking to 'upgrade' to a 48V/52V pack, more often than not you can do this without damaging the existing electronics. That is because most 36V motor controllers use 60V rated mosfets and 63V rated capacitors, and so even a fully charged 52V battery will not exceed these values.

Also, with a front hub motor you will need torque arms on both side to keep the motor on your forks in case the motor opens up the drop outs. Without torque arms the motor can come flying out of your forks and you could get hurt bad if you crash wrong.
 
Thanks so much for all the useful information!

The person I bought it from recommended checking pingbattery.com for batteries too. I spent $120 on the E-bike with no battery, which I still think is a pretty sweet deal. Good components, the hub wheel had been re-spoked and actually yes, a charger was included.

Noted on the torque arms! that makes a lot of sense.

----

With the battery - The big appeal of this one was also that it could be locked to the rack and that rack could in turn be U-locked to the frame on the street. (also I have a basket on the back of my bike, so it wouldn't be visible)

I walk dogs for a living, so I can't carry around a heavy battery when I arrive at gigs. It would need to be something I could secure to the bike.

Above all that is cost. Dog walking does not make it rain cash and $350-375 is already a lot for me to dish out. All the ones on the listed sites were about $500 which I don't think I could afford.

Are there quality options that could be mounted to the frame and still stay below $375? I'm pretty handy and open to constructing my own, but regardless of being handy, it still looks pretty intimidating and potentially dangerous if I do it wrong.

Thanks again for all the information. Very useful.
 
I would say:
1. Save for a while longer and get a pre-made battery from Ebikes.ca, or ping, or EM3ev, or Luna.
2. Get a smaller battery and know you will need to pedal more to get longer distances.

Why?

If you build your own pack, you will need to buy batteries, perhaps a bms, a $100 to $200 tab welder, nickle strips, shrink wrap, wires and maybe plastic of fiberglass board to keep it all protected. Then you have to take the time to research and learn to properly build it.

Now, you could try to find an old 1000w or larger microwave oven and harvest the coil and learn how to properly build a tab welder from that. If you have that transformer, an old set of car battery jumper cables and some simple tools you could build a crude tab welder.

You might be able to use a 65 to 80 amp car battery to build a crude tab welder as well.

Any of this put together will cost you about as much as that extra $200 you would spend over you battery budget as it stands.

The cheapest way to try to build a battery is to get a second hand 100w soldering iron and solder the pack together, but you also run the risk of melting the internal plastics in the cells so you degrade, or ruin a cell and then have to figure out which one is the problem.

Kits are available for 18650 batteries, but they cost money as well.

I would just take a deep breath and know that you need to save that extra $200 if you want to get a good battery.

:D
 
Markz mentioned Unit Pack Power. I've bought two batteries from them in China, and I see they now have a ebay store. Their better batteries use Samsung GA or LG cells, and are higher priced. Their lower cost batteries use chinese cells of unknown make. While the two packs I bought were spec'd as GA cells, I guess I really need to look inside.

Lithium batteries have a lot of stored energy and a few do catch fire, so it's worth spending more to get the quality.

Low cost on ebay with unknown cells.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/U-P-P-48V-14-5Ah-Down-Tube-Hailong-3-USB-Port-Li-ion-Battery-with-Charger/253615295201?hash=item3b0ca64ae1:g:sfwAAOSwmypbMfP~:rk:10:pf:0
https://www.ebay.com/itm/U-P-P-48V-15Ah-Lithium-Li-ion-Battery-with-Rear-Rack-for-1000W-48V-Electric-Bike/253904069520?hash=item3b1ddca390:g:hMIAAOSwhQhboxnn:rk:5:pf:0

If you check their aliexpress site, seems to be easier to find are more models with name brand batteries. Here's one with Panasonic cells.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/US-EU-No-Tax-Ebike-Frame-Battery-use-Panasonic-cells-48V-12Ah-Electric-Bicycle-lithium-Battery/1178407_32749218664.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.6.10b65084eHf5RP

I just list the above as examples. I don't own those particular batteries or vouch for safety or reliability. What I have bought from UPP seems well packaged, and properly labeled with Hazmat stickers. They came withing a few days of ordering, after the Paypal went thru.
 
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