Which motor and battery for touring rinding with some hills

I listed my rides specs further up the page, I'm due an operation ive had one cancelled and put me on antibiotics just yesterday so I'm no athlete at the moment but all day I've been dropping drop handles climbing my local mountain with my bike it's amazing having a steady 15mph climbing pace anywhere and blast past the lot of them as they try to draft with no chance I'm gone.

Sometimes I bait them and make them increase their cadence and push hard then on top quick water top up I'm done and they are faffed but if I drop the cog even today I well over halfed their time over a 4mile steep climb hub motors used right can be relentless, still hand cold on top I can't heat this sucker up with 1500watts at all.
 
I recumbent trike tour on a medium power Nine Continent 2806 rear motor on 26" rear wheel, with a 30 amp controller and dual 48/15ahr packs running in parallel. Peaking at 1400 watts on the CycleAnalyst with a total vehicle/passenger/gear weight of around 280 lbs, and an additional weight for the BOB trailer. I am able to go up "steep" - say average 13% grades on pavement for several miles up, carrying all of my camping gear, and occasionally pull off 100 mile days with that gear in mixed flat/hilly conditions. I think that is about what you want for your scenario. I have some fairly low gearing on my 21 speeds (3x7) and I pedal fairly hard on the steepest sections in my lowest gear - when the motor is approaching 1400 watts. 19000 miles with no issues other than flats. I think my max torque on the motor is maybe around 60 newtons which isn't super torquey. This is a better setup for touring than small geared motors, which I also use on my "about town" market bikes. Averaging about 20 watthours per mile on this setup. I wouldn't really want more power than that due to the extra weight of all the elements, and since I am pedal-centric (always pedal) it works well. If I didn't pedal much, this would not be enough. On the flats I'm averaging maybe 21mph, at a low wattage - ecomiling it, - where most of the power is from my legs. Used sensibly I think these direct drive motors are very good. With hard pedalling and full throttle, I can approach 30mph on the flats. Only thing I would prefer is a sinewave controller for perfect silence, but the stereo dominates the motor noise, with a couple of marine speakers and a veloamp.
 
chvidgov.bc.ca said:
I recumbent trike tour on a medium power Nine Continent 2806 rear motor .

hi every one i appreciate all your sharing.
When you say 2806 rear motor medium wich model are you talking about? I saw27xx buy cant tell wich and wich price it comes to.
Are those DIrect Drive or geared hub motor? I read DD have more drag than geared hub or mid motor. i intend to use the bike without the motor force 90 % of the time so lowest resistance is important.
Your cargo looks like mine. how would you compare the motor your suggesting to bmp 500w? For both i read stuff about rusting problems...
 
John and Cecil said:
I think 300lbs and a 500w hub is not going to work for hills unless it is geared to only go under 10mph. We are 275lbs with riders and bike weight and 750w motor and we can only climb maybe 8-10% grades without running the risk of overheating the motor(without pedaling) - and that is in 1st gear that at the moment maxes out at 10mph on flats.

hi both of you tx for sharing, are you saying that you are 2 people pedalling the same bike plus 750w (i guess you run it at 1500w?) and stil have problem going 10% hill?

- Also you said ;"a 500w hub is not going to work for hills unless it is geared to only go under 10mph" . I dont care about slow speed, i would mostly just use it for hills so even if it is 5 mph it is ok with my. I have time, i just look for a machine that can do that with a low budget. how do you gear a hub low? it might sound like a stupid question but when you buy a 500w bafang geard hub, you selec rpm but i dont see how to gear it low. maybe my english understanding fails on me on this , if you could explain in other words i would appreciate. tx
 
I recumbent trike tour on a medium power Nine Continent 2806 rear motor . "Medium" to me refers to a power range of maybe around 1500 watts. Above that is "above medium" from my perspective.

Oops...Nine Continent 2706 rear hubmotor.

http://www.ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/motors/m2706rd.html

That is a direct drive motor. There is very little drag with the controller I am using, and I sometimes pedal it with no power whatsoever or maybe 10 watts, once I have gained the cruising speed I'm looking for. The drag seems to vary considerably depending on the particular controller you use with it...I am using this controller...

S-KU123 36V 48V 700W30A 12Mosfets Controller overvolted - Packs generally charge to 57.6, occasionally 58.8 for balancing. These controllers are cheap and reliable, but if I were to purchase a new one, I would go sine-wave rather than square-wave, for quiet.

Some of the earlier Grin controllers I tried had considerably more resistance to pedaling un-powered. Anyway, none of the direct drive types will freewheel as well as a geared motor, but only a few watts will make the resistance unnoticeable. I like reliability and simplicity of the direct drive motors, preferring throttle only with no pas or torque sensing at all. Full intentionality of the power depending on the context of the road situation - gunning it through intersections or eco-miling at speed for long distance.

The BPM 500w was a largish geared motor I tried, too loud, and a real torque monster, but too slow - 22mph max.

I haven't noticed any rust on the 9C since I bought it in 2008, and I have drilled out holes in the cover plate, to let the guts dry out if damp. I store the trike inside. The setup seems like it will run forever, trouble free - I did replace the bearings once in the motor about 5000 miles ago in 2015, which wasn't too difficult.
 
want to build said:
hi both of you tx for sharing, are you saying that you are 2 people pedalling the same bike plus 750w (i guess you run it at 1500w?) and stil have problem going 10% hill?

- Also you said ;"a 500w hub is not going to work for hills unless it is geared to only go under 10mph" . I dont care about slow speed, i would mostly just use it for hills so even if it is 5 mph it is ok with my. I have time, i just look for a machine that can do that with a low budget. how do you gear a hub low? it might sound like a stupid question but when you buy a 500w bafang geard hub, you selec rpm but i dont see how to gear it low. maybe my english understanding fails on me on this , if you could explain in other words i would appreciate. tx

Sorry for the confusion. We only have (1) 750w motor and (1) human pedaling. Cecil is a dog, think of him and his carrier as 35lbs of cargo and I weigh 180lbs.

I understand exactly what you are saying about a hub geared to go slow for hill climbing. I wanted something similar but with 27.5 plus tires I am not sure if anything like that even exists. Hub motors are made to spin at a certain speed, most if not all will not redline at under 10mph unless you are running very small tires. I also don't care how fast I can climb a hill, only that I can do it. It is very hard for me to climb steep hills due to carrying 35 lbs of rear cargo all the time. In the end I decided on a mid drive with a wide ratio rear cassette. I moved into e-bikes from motorcycles so the mid drive with gears is more natural for me. Right now my 1st gear is a 34t cog and it will do 10mph at redline motor cadence but I will soon upgrade to a 40t 1st gear which will do 8mph at 90 cadence.
 

Attachments

  • DSCN2885.JPG
    DSCN2885.JPG
    163.1 KB · Views: 2,099
There's confusion I feel on the amount of drag a dd motor has, I still roll on the flat very well and my climbing ability is great, Undervolting just makes the torque drop of earlier and lowers the top speed so my mxus for example would not start to reach efficency till 35mph at 72v but with 36v that is halfed and at 17mph plus I use very little power after 20mph there is no torque and the motor simply can not help any more.

The stator has physical limits it will have loses per volt applied and a current handling ability, it possible to not use max power and lower the voltage to get to efficency sooner and have less losses per volt applied the efficency will not be so high up the chart so a 90% efficent motor at 72v may only hit 80% at 36v but it's still capable of producing max stall torque just it falls away faster as there's only 36v, On the plus side riding at 20mph cuts wind drag etc massively so that 90% to 80% drop doesn't show itself as there's gains elsewhere so I'm still able to get upto 30 miles of a 350wh 10s pack.

I won't say middrive has no place it's got the full range of speeds and torque ranges so it's adjustable on the fly you will suffer with drive train losses and I hate snapped chains so I wanted a super reliable ride and that what I got its all about your own choice and needs.

I'll do a video on my bike soon to show how well it rolls and show it's climbing ability.
 
John and Cecil said:
want to build said:
"a 500w hub is not going to work for hills unless it is geared to only go under 10mph" .

hi i find it funny that it turns out to be a dog hahaha.
when you say500w hub is not going to work for hills unless it is geared to only go under 10mph my questions is how can one gear a hub to go under 10mph? Is it a different model of the same hub we need to ask factory or what changes can we apply to it ?
tx
 
want to build said:
hi i find it funny that it turns out to be a dog hahaha.
when you say500w hub is not going to work for hills unless it is geared to only go under 10mph my questions is how can one gear a hub to go under 10mph? Is it a different model of the same hub we need to ask factory or what changes can we apply to it ?
tx

Sorry I do not know much about hub motors. They all come with a certain speed. It sounds like if you get a higher powered hub and run it at lower voltage then it will be slower. If you mount the hub to a smaller rim it will go slower too. As I said, in the end I decided that would not work for me because the EU has a limit to 250 or 350w and I will probably be lucky to get away with my 750w motor there. You might like the mid drive though, if you were near me in South OC California I would let you try mine.
 
Hills A and B, with heavy pedaling in whatever low gear you need, will go with nearly anything. Basically, if you can pedal it, you can pedal up it with a tiny hub motor helping very little. Because you can gear all hub motor lower only by making the wheel diameter smaller, they will be running horribly inefficient, and heating up fast, and will overheat fast.

But not in 500 m. 8) Repeat that 500 m a few times, and bye by small hub motor.

At your projected weight, 250 pounds plus rider, means 400-450 pounds? Only the bigger hub motors are going to do that weight up hills C and D. They can do it because with 2000 watts or more of real world power flowing into them, they can maintain 15 mph, or close to it, up those hills. This means in your big wheel the rpm does not drop to the low efficiency range of the motors power curve. The rule of thumb with hub motors, is you need a short hill, or you need to keep your speed up them.


Keeping your speed up on a long hill, or mountain, or repeated short hills, is impossible with the smaller motors, because they just are not made for 2000w. Many can handle 1000w, so its quite possible to use two of them, one on each wheel. This is a proven thing that works.


So if you don't go mid drive, which does allow gearing changes as you ride, the only way to get low drag with the hubmotors off would be two geared type hub motors. Like two macs. Then you get both hubs freewheeling when off.


But many overlook a thing about the big direct drive motor. Yes, it will drag with the motor off, this drag varies with speed, and it varies motor to motor. But lets say you get the one with huge drag. Do the calculations on how much power you need to give it to eliminate the drag. Yes, it will drag with the motor off, but the tiniest trickle of power will eliminate the drag, and likely add a handful of watts assist. Lets just assume you have a setup with 5 levels of assist you can choose on the display. Level one will max out at about 75 watts, but you can ride using half throttle using 30w. Now, lets assume you have a larger battery, say 1000 watt hours. And you need 800 wh of it, to get up that hill. 200 wh left. 200 divided by 30 is 6.66 hours of ride time. Six hours of riding with just enough power to eliminate the drag of the hub motor. Plus perhaps an hour getting up that hill too. 7 or 8 hours of riding time a day enough? It should be.

So if you really need to power up those hills, the drag of a big ass direct drive motor is not really any penalty at all. This is part of why I did my touring with a big motor. I rode with assist the whole time, but used 2000w only to get over the mountain passes, and rode the rest on about 250w of power. The 250w was just enough to make my pedaling effort with all the gear and heavy bike and batteries feel like riding 15 mph on a regular bike. I was not up to pedaling no assist, because of an illness. But for you, all you need is 30-50w of power to make that drag go away.

With the big hub motor, you will maintain that 15 mph or so up the mountain, down it because the drag helps you slow on the descent, and continue at the same speed on the flat. Its a beautiful way to cruise. Speed stays same the whole time,,, think about it,,,, this means you never shift all day.

But like I said, if you want to get up those mountains on 700w of assist, it must be a mid drive. But even with the weight, your lowest gear on the one front ring you get will be plenty. You will want to choose the smaller of front rings you can have, but something like 42 tooth up front will be plenty with that much help. You simply won't be riding up those hills 3 mph. Just get a nice big low gear cog on your rear wheel, and you will have all the low gear you need with that mid drive helping.
 
To clarify a bit about an earlier post, a 2806 nine continent motor was mentioned. This means a 28 mm wide stator and ring of magnets, in a direct drive motor. At pedal speeds of under 10 mph, the drag this motor produces when off is very small, hardly noticed by a casual rider. But it would add up on a day you pedal 8 hours.

The 06 is the winding count. 6 turns of wire, which produces a medium fast wind motor. This motor is definitely NOT a good choice for climbing a long hill with a heavy load. It will need to run a few mph faster up a hill to maintain efficiency than a 2807. But even if you went to an extreme slow wind, its limits for load up long steep hills would remain about the same as all 28 mm dd motors, about 300 pounds weight max. Above that it might not fail, but it WILL suffer, blacken its windings, and perhaps cook off the hall sensors.

Its a 500w rated motor, and has similar load limits to 500w rated geared motors such as the Mac. Again, any of those 500w rated motors handle 1000w fine, and two of them will pull twice the weight.

Your problem is weight plus long hill.

I'm not pulling these weight limits out my ass btw, I did the testing for E-bikekit.com, so they would know when their shit failed. You would not believe the weight of some of the customers, so we needed this information badly. I took the motors, and on the hottest day of the year, rode them up the mountian with a bob trailer full of water jugs. At 400 pounds I was cooking off the motors, or at least smelling it that they were starting to cook off.

300 pounds no problems with the 500w rated stuff. This is why I went with the 35 mm wide magnets motor for my touring rig. I rode at 400-450 pounds total. That setup barely got warm, meaning my battery pushed me up the hill, rather than just heating up copper. That battery watt hours are precious, so you cannot tolerate wasting it, even if the damn motor does survive it.
 
Where did I say you should push beyond limits. Mere that the introduction of those items will ensure mitigation of certain issues and allow a rider to assess when are over the limit of a motor.

The fact of improving heat dissipation will get a rider back on the road sooner, or prevent an overheated motor in the first instance.

When it comes to motors heat dissipation shouldn’t be smirked at. And a hub motor most certainly isn’t a cpu. :)

Soon to break my hub open and apply insulation paint to the windings and a few Mls of mineral oil. Only be a positive thing that prolongs life. Well, time will tell. :D

I’d agree that 36v 500watt isn’t going to climb a steep hill when with a serious amount of weight. However, I pull a cargo trailer on a moderate climb and a 35Ah battery does assist at 30kmh.

With these LCD, controllers to now limit speed, etc, wouldn’t now consider a wheel hub less than 1000 watts. Bigger is better...
 
dogman dan said:
ith a bob trailer full of water jugs. At 400 pounds I was cooking off the motors, or at least smelling it that they were starting to cook off.

300 pounds no problems with the 500w rated stuff. This is why I went with the 35 mm wide magnets motor for my touring rig. I rode at 400-450 pounds total. That setup barely got warm, meaning my battery pushed me up the hill, rather than just heating up copper. That battery watt hours are precious, so you cannot tolerate wasting it, even if the damn motor does survive it.

HI dog man, I am confident the total weight including me will be 300lbs or less someting like 270lbs 26 inch wheel. I am very resistant to get a DD because of the many things i read saying that it has more drag when not using the motor and that is what i will be doing most of the time ridding without electricity. It will be already hard to do it with cargo,i really dont want to have to suffer drag on top of it. For the battery, i dont care much not use them in the most effective way because i'll encounter 2 or 3 hills in a day max and can still recharge if needed in a coffe shop.

In the tests you made, did you only test DD from the cie or did you tried also Bmp500W or similar geared hub?
by the way i intend to find a way to monitor the inside heat of the motor to never go above like 90 oC. But the motor still has to be able to get me up hill (with me pedalling to help it ). what inclinasion of hill do you think it can handle for like 300m without smelling with all the battery amps it will ever need?
 
i intend to find a way to monitor the inside heat of the motor to never go above like 90 oC

You said you are using cycle analyst.
If you have version 3 they sell a temp sensor that plugs directly into your CA.

If you are using CA v2, I find that "Traxxas on-board" works well (TRA4091). You can just double-sided sticky it to your handlebar or whatever.
 
hi, i do not own a cycle analyst. I might get one i dont know what are the benifits worthy. i wonder if it replaces a controller cause couple week ago i read there are a lot of options on it.

Do you or anyone know if it exists a adaptable controller that you can set the amps and volts so that it can be used with diffenrent motors or different batteries?
 
Cycle analyst works with a wide variety of operating voltages and amperage. If you don't have the wherewithal to keep an eye on your SOC (state of charge) you will have to set a new low voltage cutoff in the CA menu when you swap to a battery of different voltage... or don't, the 80% cut-off voltages are really easy to remember (for lipo). That would be 44.4, 66.6 and 88.8 volts.

CA will not replace a solar charge controller.

You can set amp limits on CA. I like the 3-way toggle function which lets you set up to three amp limits and you can switch between the three on the fly at the flip of a switch.
 
dogman dan said:
But many overlook a thing about the big direct drive motor. Yes, it will drag with the motor off, this drag varies with speed, and it varies motor to motor. But lets say you get the one with huge drag. Do the calculations on how much power you need to give it to eliminate the drag. Yes, it will drag with the motor off, but the tiniest trickle of power will eliminate the drag, and likely add a handful of watts assist. Lets just assume you have a setup with 5 levels of assist you can choose on the display. Level one will max out at about 75 watts, but you can ride using half throttle using 30w. Now, lets assume you have a larger battery, say 1000 watt hours. And you need 800 wh of it, to get up that hill. 200 wh left. 200 divided by 30 is 6.66 hours of ride time. Six hours of riding with just enough power to eliminate the drag of the hub motor. Plus perhaps an hour getting up that hill too. 7 or 8 hours of riding time a day enough? It should be.

I ran into a situation that demonstrated that a couple days ago when I ended up riding along with a rather congenial "lycra" who was on his molded carbon fiber road bike. I set my PAS to "1" and that seemed to put us on a fairly level footing for apparent effort while we chatted - even though I was rolling with a lot more weight and larger lower pressure tires. It only takes a trickle to compensate for the motor drag. My speeds on PAS 1 seem to be about what I'd expect riding my Trek 1400 at the same effort level. I'm not sure of the amp draw on PAS 1, but it isn't much.

Also, it occurred to me that some of the impression of motor induced drag can be due to the added weight rather than the motor drag proper. 60-70 lbs of bike will feel slow compared to even a stock MTB, much less a svelte road bike.
 
Bg-electric-cycle said:
Soon to break my hub open and apply insulation paint to the windings and a few Mls of mineral oil. Only be a positive thing that prolongs life. Well, time will tell. :D

Why do you want youre wind to be insulated? Isn't the idea to help the heat outside? what is the concept behind this practice ? tx

I’d agree that 36v 500watt isn’t going to climb a steep hill when with a serious amount of weight. However, I pull a cargo trailer on a moderate climb and a 35Ah battery does assist at 30kmh.
how steep and weight and watt?
 
wturber said:
dogman dan said:
But many overlook a thing about the big direct drive motor. Yes, it will drag with the motor off, this drag varies with speed, and it varies motor to motor. But lets say you get the one with huge drag. Do the calculations on how much power you need to give it to eliminate the drag. Yes, it will drag with the motor off, but the tiniest trickle of power will eliminate the drag, and likely add a handful of watts assist. Lets just assume you have a setup with 5 levels of assist you can choose on the display. Level one will max out at about 75 watts, but you can ride using half throttle using 30w. Now, lets assume you have a larger battery, say 1000 watt hours. And you need 800 wh of it, to get up that hill. 200 wh left. 200 divided by 30 is 6.66 hours of ride time. Six hours of riding with just enough power to eliminate the drag of the hub motor. Plus perhaps an hour getting up that hill too. 7 or 8 hours of riding time a day enough? It should be.

hi wturber, thank you for brigning some of your light. i did not think about that possilit. It would make me become dependant of my battery though. I dont not remove this possibility. maybe what could help me decide is the price a DDmotor would come to. would you have 2 good bang for buck DD to recommend me for my needs270 lbs wich are probablyhills A,C,D maybe B rarelyarely
A500m 11%
B 500m 18%
C 5% 7km
D 9% 7km
 
hi
I do need a bike wich ever motor i choose

theres is this bike that semble like new a 150 $ .

i will probably go and see it. WHat (number ) Where)do i need to check if i want to keep the possibilité of cyclone 3000? i wounder how much space is needed for cyclone...
tx
 

Attachments

  • _59_002.JPG
    _59_002.JPG
    158.6 KB · Views: 1,990
  • _59_003.JPG
    _59_003.JPG
    138.3 KB · Views: 1,990
  • _59_004.JPG
    _59_004.JPG
    141.9 KB · Views: 1,990
Cost of the build is as far as you take it and how good are you at getting a deal, I payed £230 for my a2b metro another £270 on a mxus another £100 for a Bluetooth controller, £70 front and rear moped rims £145 for front and rear spokes/nipples then there's the never ending list of changed bits, grips, throttle, hydraulic brakes, single speed freewheel, single speed derailer, 5mm disc spacer 203mm rotors, rear air shock.

I had Teflon wire in 8awg so that saved me on building the loom and I had various sleeving and conduit to make it all look nice, I didn't have torque arms so I had to get custom ones laser cut so I made them dual and large as the frame would accept, luckily I worked with a champion of a man who I got in touch with and I give him a 3d drawing and he got them laser cut from high cromoly stainless £30 for the pair ( that could of really hurt on price I was damn lucky) I also laced the wheels up and done all the work stripped the motor and conformal coated it there been some serious love on this bike.

I bought a pair of Michelin 16 inch tyres and by the time I got round to fitting them they wouldn't fit and it been to long to send back so I got £70 of rubber doing nothing and I've just gone and bought a 56t 130mm bcd chainring and shimano ultegra 6601 crankset got all that discount as I can and it's still cost me £90 for the lot and I not got some decent peddles yet.

As you can see it goes as far as you like it's took me over a year doing it slowly and saving up, It's now at £1000 and I've yet to build and fit my upgraded 20700 battery pack so I should be around £1400 by time I'm done maybe bit more if i really worked it out.

Even at 36v and the lower 46t-16t gearing it feels very fast as a bike and pulls excellent off the mark, soon as I get the bigger battery to match the crank and gearing upgrade it should be a real good commuter and unique I get comments alot, but while there's life in the original battery I'm going to enjoy it as is its been off the road long enough.
 
want to build said:
hi, i do not own a cycle analyst. I might get one i dont know what are the benifits worthy. i wonder if it replaces a controller cause couple week ago i read there are a lot of options on it.

Do you or anyone know if it exists a adaptable controller that you can set the amps and volts so that it can be used with diffenrent motors or different batteries?

CA is a very valuable tool on long rides. It will let you measure battery and motor efficiency etc. etc. I would never attempt a long ride without a CA or very least a few good watt meters. I think (not proven) a good mix would be a BBS02 and a high torque small mini motor for the extra uumph up hills. :?
 
FTR Dogman rode his cargo bike to my house from Las Cruces up a very formidable mountain through what the spanish called the Jornado del Muerto or Journey of the Dead.
 
want to build said:
hi wturber, thank you for brigning some of your light. i did not think about that possilit. It would make me become dependant of my battery though. I dont not remove this possibility. maybe what could help me decide is the price a DDmotor would come to. would you have 2 good bang for buck DD to recommend me for my needs270 lbs wich are probablyhills A,C,D maybe B rarelyarely
A500m 11%
B 500m 18%
C 5% 7km
D 9% 7km

Dogman and others would be better at making specific motor recommendations than I would.

And yes, you do become fairly dependent on battery power if you have a DD. You can pedal without it. In fact I've done a mile uphill with mine riding about 55 miles on the battery. Silly me, I used up my batteries going uphill too fast on the final leg home. Anyway, I got home fine. I just dropped down to my 42 tooth chainring and hit the granny gears on the back. It was slow, but I got there.

I wonder if the two-speed Xiongda might be a good choice for you. What do you think Dogman?
http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_20.html
 
Go all out and get a zero z force motor and feed it 70kw with a custim igbt driver board and let the sucker eat, oneday I will build an IPM based supermoto and I'll fling it about getting pussy wet like I'm on miami vice.

I had a guy hate on my electric bike, his missus was like well I like it I would ride it I said well thanks dirty girl lol, I think my cheeky smile helped so she melted easy enough petrol heads will be stubburn I should nw I'am one, but with an electrical background I see the torque potential just need to get more watt hours crammed in the rest of our tech is golden.
 
Back
Top