A2B Metro restoration / modification - Fechter's first Ebike

[marty]

I have the 2.75-16 version on order. It should arrive soon (it will go on the rear).

Will 2.75-16 fit both front and rear? Any problems? Tire iron suggestions? Got lots of bicycle tire experience. Never played with motorcycle/moped tires.

My A2B Metro got a flat tire. My tube patching skills must be bad because it leaked. Have gotten many flats caused by assorted metal trash in the road. Hate pushing this bike with a flat tire.

Looking at:
M/C Tire 2.75 - 16 Front/Rear Dual Sport On/Off Road Performance
https://www.amazon.com/Tire-2-75-Front-Sport-Performance/dp/B005IARA3M

$34.90 each, free shipping

Also will buy new tubes.

I ride on dry roads 90%, Wet, rain, snow, ice, 9%, Mud 1%

Should I press the buy button? Any other tire suggestions? My goal is no more flat tires.

Bought 2 tires a while ago. Finally had time to mount them. Watched a few YouTube motorcycle tire mounting videos. See people using wire ties. Theory is that inside diameter gets bigger when you tighten wire ties.

My normal procedure when mounting hard to mount tires is to accidentally poke a hole in the tube. Mounting was still difficult but easier using the wire tie method and seemed less likely to accidentally poke a hole in the tube. Used a tool that I am not sure what it is? Lead and oakum tool?

Excited to ride on a new bike trail. Town of Tonawanda Rails To Trails. Old railroad track replaced with a bike/walking trail. 4 mile straight line from my house to a new house that I bought.

 

[fechter]

I finally found a nice steel tire lever that had the right shape on the end. Makes it fairly easy and it's short enough to fit in my bike bag.

I also found another place that had a nice selection of tires in this size:
https://www.treatland.tv/SearchResults.asp?Search=16+x+2.75+tire

I wish I found that place earlier, as it's in San Francisco and I could just drive there. It's where I got my nice rear view mirror.

 

[fechter]

After enduring over 60" of rain during the rainy season, things finally dried out enough to ride the trails again. Especially beautiful this time of year when everything is turning green. Nice after about 2 years of brown/dead.

Well, still a little muddy:



The local cows are happy



The red arrow below is pointing to my house. The trail to where I took the picture comes up from behind and it's about 2 miles to go around. There are no trails going directly from my house to this hill. That's Mt. Tam in the background.

 

[marty]

Marty's tool that I don't know what it is? Used as a tire iron.

 

[fechter]

That tool looks like some kind of antique. Seems like it should work. The one I bought has a slight hook on the end so it doesn't slip off when you are prying.

 

[ZenStar]

If you wanted to replace the Rear Motor with a newer one, do you think the newer ones will be alot lighter?

 

[fechter]

Not sure. The stock motor is pretty light for the power rating.

 

[Ianhill]

Just scored myself one of these in the UK, It needs internal battery but luckily I have 6 4s 10000mah turnigy graphene lipos with no role and a 12 fet sinewave bluetooth controller in the post so I'm going to swap to lipo internal batt I know some will scream no but it's all under control I know the risks and ill double the energy density, the plan is then to swap the rear shock and look at my tyre options for a hybrid on/off road bike around 2kw, I'll get a thread up when I get it.

I noticed the motor runs in delta, I wouldn't mind checking the winding scheme and try terminate it in wye, but with out the scheme I don't know if I have to flip any hall sensors or adjust their timing.

 

[fechter]

One nice thing about the internal battery compartment is it's all metal. In the event of catastrophic battery failure, the housing will minimize the likelihood of a fire spreading. Just tons of stinky smoke.

I did come up with an improved tool for taking the motor apart. Basically the same metal bars I had before but instead of trying to wedge various objects in for the fulcrum, I drilled holes through at the fulcrum point and put a long bolt through. Bolt is fixed to one with a nut and there is another nut that I use to adjust the spacing. (a picture would be good here). This works extremely well as you can work your way around then adjust the nut out and go around again until it pops off.



The rain finally let up enough for things to sort of dry out. I've really been enjoying riding the off road trails around my house. I haven't seen so many wildflowers in years.

 

[Amiran]

Just in case anyone wants to know. I have fitted 13s8p 20700b batteries into the frame compartment. Was not easy but it works now great.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Amiran]

All worked well before the dropout snapped.
I mentioned in other topics I did not wait for torque arms to be installed.
Looking to buy used swingarm, let me know if you have one without use.
I will still try to get the alloy welder to fix it and reinforce with torque arms from both sides./

 

[fechter]

It may be possible to just saw off the broken part and a matching section on the other side and fabricate dropouts that bolt onto the swing arm. I've seen some people do that with other bikes. The new dropouts could be the clamping type. The swing arm has a nice flat area where the stock torque arms sit that would probably be strong enough to support new dropouts.


There are lots of examples on the forum. Here is one thread:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32140

 

[Amiran]

Hi Fetcher,
Thanks for suggestion. I have seen these. Will try to sit down and sketch somthing up.
Thank you

 

[bobmutch]

I have really enjoyed this thread, I have had my eye out for a used a2b for a couple years so it was really nice to see you work this one up.

your an inspiration to the community.

 

[coolbobjoe]

How did everyone get their hubs back together? trying to figure out how to get them clamped back together

 

[fechter]

I clamped the axle in my bench vise just to hold things and used a large C-clamp to squeeze the halves together. Just do a little at a time and work your way around to keep the shells close to parallel. (Edit: found a picture)

 

[shinyballs]

Got a similar LED headlight to yours -
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XVAEP8E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Light is rated 12V-80V. Tried to wire 2 in series to my 24s(98V) pack. The 1st light is bright but got hot to touch in <5 minutes, the 2nd light is barely warm and just dim. There is a high pitch buzzing "bee" sound coming from both lights. Works fine when I tested each one at 12V & 54V; 15W load.
I might just power them from a separate 12V pack or a switching psu.

Will this dimmer switch work ok for switching it?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015VWDM42/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3962I4PJIM2NR&psc=1

 

[fechter]

Will this dimmer switch work ok for switching it?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015VWDM42/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3962I4PJIM2NR&psc=1

That dimmer is made for 12v, so would work with a 12v LED and a dc-dc converter. At your voltage, almost any AC switching power supply will work.

 

[JanComputerman]

I'm working on an old Metro for a friend that had a battery died and after having it rebuilt with higher output cells find out the motor had a problem. If you ride it with power off it rolls ok until about 5mph then the motor develops what I can only describe as a phase misfire and this is with the power off so I assume the controller is powering up off the motor bemf. It also ran a little with the new battery just fine then started the same misfire. Taking the hub apart I found one hall sensor had come unglued and was protruding into the rotor magnets. I'm just wondering if its position could be picking up stator magnetic fields and causing it to fire at the wrong time and gluing it back in place between the stator teeth will solve the problem? My theory is because it was out further than normal it picked up the stator magnetic field instead of only the PM magnetic fields.

 

[fechter]

Hard to say, but for sure an out of position hall sensor could cause timing issues. Too bad it's such a pain to take the motor apart. The sensor could be damaged if it was rubbing on the magnets too.

Yes, just spinning the wheel will create enough BEMF to power up the controller even if the battery is disconnected. This always sort of worried me because if you had the battery off and coasted down a steep hill, there would be nothing to keep the BEMF from getting destructively high. This would happen somewhere around 35mph.

You could apply power to the controller while it's apart and try to measure the hall signal lines while passing a magnet over them. You should see the signal toggle as the polarity of the magnet is reversed. If this works, it should be good to go. Just be real careful not to short the pins while measuring. Your meter negative can go to the battery negative wire. The signal wire is one of the outside legs, ground is in the middle and 5v on the other side. The 5v might be more like 7v on these.

 

[JanComputerman]

Thanks fechter I'll give that a try ...not like it will spin ha ha no magnets! I have worked with hall sensors ... had to 3d print my own hall sensor plate for a motor, very nice way to make a precision part btw. I didn't find this hub hard to take apart but it was very clean for a 5-7 year old bike. Three jaw puller on the inner disk brake lip with moderate tightness and a block of wood hit with light hammer taps around the edges. It is held together in the center bearing on the axle and the hub outer where the magnets are so you have to pull on both.

 

[JanComputerman]

Ok the hub took 5 clamps and a lot of hammer tapping with a plastic Hammer to get it together and it spins without doing anything funny like firing a phase now and then the slow itself down. Reinstalled it back into the bike today and the damn battery went dead over the winter after being rebuilt and fully charged. So now we're going to wait on that little problem to see if it's going to run or not. I see the manual recommend charging every 30 days but this was an extra large capacity rebuilt battery which should have gone a few more months but I think it's been sitting for at least six or seven and won't take a charge.

 

[Ianhill]

If it's on a bms you will have to use a hobby charger to get the cells upto 3v and then it should engage charging, my stock bms was game over after a few months flat it wouldn't charge again even with a full disconnect and reset it was knackered.

Took my a2b out today it's had a major make over and today was the big voyage after a year of no use, I managed to get 13miles with 40% capacity remaining of the original stock pack I'm using a sinewave Bluetooth controller at 40amps battery and 120% overspeed.
Switching the caps fast is normally a big no no but the controller can do 36v to 72v with 12 4110 fets so it's not really switching above the electolytic caps capability so they should have a decent life span and with a mxus 3kw in a 20 inch wheel there's loads of torque there and never gets warm I'm really happy with the outcome it's not a 10kw beast it's running 1.4kw at 10s gets 25mph there abouts and is perfect for the local bike tracks etc i get decent looks most of the time rather than slow the f#$% down idiot with a walking stick round the head.
I'll do an update on my thread tomorrow with some pics of the lighting that makes it looks like jonny five from the front real chuffed with it and the loom that I got factory looking as possible and overkill with 8awg Teflon silver wire loads been done but all will become clear soon enough just do the cells in the future to get 20+ miles range easily.

 

[fechter]

Ok the hub took 5 clamps and a lot of hammer tapping with a plastic Hammer to get it together and it spins without doing anything funny like firing a phase now and then the slow itself down. Reinstalled it back into the bike today and the damn battery went dead over the winter after being rebuilt and fully charged. So now we're going to wait on that little problem to see if it's going to run or not. I see the manual recommend charging every 30 days but this was an extra large capacity rebuilt battery which should have gone a few more months but I think it's been sitting for at least six or seven and won't take a charge.

Once the BMS drains the cells below a certain point, it turns off both the charge and discharge FETs so there's no way to put juice into the pack. You need to get access to the BMS so you can bypass it and get some charge into the cells. While you're there, you can check the individual cell group voltages. Recovery charge from dead needs to be at a really low current for a long time until you get the cells up to around 3.0v, then the normal charger can work. It may be possible to charge through the discharge wires (main output going to the relay) without pulling the pack out, but I haven't tried this.

Several people have been successful in reviving an over discharged pack. I have one that needs it, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[JanComputerman]

Right on the money there Fechter! yeah it was down to about 23 volts or lower so I applied an adjustable Power supply with a current limiting 120 volt 20 watt bulb in series to the charger wires externally and saw the voltage slowly coming up and then pulled the battery out and put it on the bench in case of fire and started charging at a few amps (60-100watts) and watched as the voltage slowly came up to 30 volts. It is an almost 30 amp hour pack that was rebuilt about 9 months ago. Now the pack up in the 35 volt range, the external 4 amp charger has been charging for a couple of hours and the motor RUNS!!! WOOO WOOO!!! One red led battery level and a now a solid yellow while writing this. It was the loose hall sensor that was bouncing in the magnets and picking up the magnetic fields by the phase currents between the poles because it was not exactly between the pole teeth to NOT detect those fields causing it to misfire. ... and what a job stuffing the wires back into the frame with the battery . . . Took over an hour AGAIN! You would think I would get better at it by now!