another stinking newbee

[ezzpete]

for about a month or so i've been reading all i can about e bikes. i've pretty much figured out what all the parts do, but boy are there a lot of choices to throw you off. also the prices for the seemingly same motor/parts are all over the place. example: Hill Topper sells a 24V 250watt gear motor for the front at $169.00 while Green Bike Kit sells either their 24V 250W and 36V 250~350W motor for $79.00. It looks like the same motor. also what does 250~350W mean? the GBK web site has almost no info to go with their items, which is not helpful at all, and their "contact us" is not working. and i'm kind of wondering why their 24 volt motor is the same price as the 36V motor.

i want to put the parts together myself instead of buying a kit, because i want to use a better rim then is offered with the kits, and don't want the brake levers they include, because I want to use an inline "hidden wire brake sensor", for a cleaner look.

my question is: who has the best prices? i don't want to pay 169 if i can get the same or better (36V verse 24V) for 79. anyone have experience with GBK? are there better prices out there? or are these completely different motors? is the "bottle battery" GBK any good? for starters i want to buy a motor,controller,battery,and some kind of throttle. i like the simple " on/off " style Hill Topper uses, will that style work with the GBK components? basically looking for plug and play for these parts.

 

[wheelbender6]

I'll take a stab at a few of them. I'll give you the NASCAR version. In my opinion, the wattage of the motor is like the displacement of a gas engine. In general, the more watts, the more battery consumption per unit time.
Voltage, to a large extent, determines acceleration and total power production. Think of higher voltage as a larger carburetor on a gas engine. A 24v 250w motor, powered by a pair of 12v batteries, will likely provide good range, but maybe have a top speed of 15mph or less.
The average motor is 36v 500w with three 12v batteries or 48v 500w with four 12v batteries. With 48 volts, you may approach 30mph without pedalling. (A 48v 250 watt motor, will be far slower than the 48v 500w motor, because it does not have the capacity to use the extra volts. In essence, the carburetor is too big for that sized gas motor. The motor wattage rating should increase somewhat proportionally to the voltage rating. They sell motors rated at 1000 watts or more that can tolerate as much as 72 volts. You need some expensive batteries to feed those motors.
Lastly, batteries are rated by volts and ah (amp hours). More volts means more power available. More ah means more range between between charges, like a larger gas tank. A 12v 20ah battery will provide power almost 3 times longer between charges than a 12v 7ah battery. There is also a "C" rating on batteries. i don't have a good understanding of "C" rating.
There are likely some errors in my response and other members will delight in identifying them. Maybe somebody else will explain the C rating for us.
There are also a variety of battery chemistries, like lead acid, LiPo, etc. There are plenty of posts about that on this site.

 

[ezzpete]

yeah, for me 15 - 20 MPH is plenty. like to cruise slow most of the time. mainly i'm getting into this because i live in a hilly area, and just want a push up the hills, while i peddle. the town i live in is so small it's just about 1 mile at the widest. the next town over is 9 miles, and i don't think i'd want to go there on bike. more than the technical part of ebikes, i'm needing advice on where to buy, and get the best deal. maybe i'm wrong but most of the kits main components look like they came from the same factory, but there's a big difference in price depending on where you go. some are higher for the kit with low shipping and some are low on the kit with high shipping. i've pretty much narrowed it down to Green Bike Kit , because they have the best price i can find and their motor is 36V. but i'm not sure if the battery they call the "bottle battery" is a good choice, because i can't find and reviews. but i like the way it looks. i'd like to stay stealthy.

 

[wesnewell]

Please go to the User Control Panel, select Profile, and then enter your city, state/province, and country into the Location field (country minimum) and save it. This will help people help you. Example: Wylie, TX, USA. Without knowing what country you are in it's hard to make any recommendations. Thank you.

 

[dnmun]

yeah, for me 15 - 20 MPH is plenty. like to cruise slow most of the time. mainly i'm getting into this because i live in a hilly area, and just want a push up the hills, while i peddle. the town i live in is so small it's just about 1 mile at the widest. the next town over is 9 miles, and i don't think i'd want to go there on bike. more than the technical part of ebikes, i'm needing advice on where to buy, and get the best deal. maybe i'm wrong but most of the kits main components look like they came from the same factory, but there's a big difference in price depending on where you go. some are higher for the kit with low shipping and some are low on the kit with high shipping. i've pretty much narrowed it down to Green Bike Kit , because they have the best price i can find and their motor is 36V. but i'm not sure if the battery they call the "bottle battery" is a good choice, because i can't find and reviews. but i like the way it looks. i'd like to stay stealthy.

wes has a thread on the yescomusa which is a pretty cheap option but don't buy a bottle battery. buy a real battery.

 

[d8veh]

for about a month or so i've been reading all i can about e bikes. i've pretty much figured out what all the parts do, but boy are there a lot of choices to throw you off. also the prices for the seemingly same motor/parts are all over the place. example: Hill Topper sells a 24V 250watt gear motor for the front at $169.00 while Green Bike Kit sells either their 24V 250W and 36V 250~350W motor for $79.00. It looks like the same motor. also what does 250~350W mean? the GBK web site has almost no info to go with their items, which is not helpful at all, and their "contact us" is not working. and i'm kind of wondering why their 24 volt motor is the same price as the 36V motor.

i want to put the parts together myself instead of buying a kit, because i want to use a better rim then is offered with the kits, and don't want the brake levers they include, because I want to use an inline "hidden wire brake sensor", for a cleaner look.

my question is: who has the best prices? i don't want to pay 169 if i can get the same or better (36V verse 24V) for 79. anyone have experience with GBK? are there better prices out there? or are these completely different motors? is the "bottle battery" GBK any good? for starters i want to buy a motor,controller,battery,and some kind of throttle. i like the simple " on/off " style Hill Topper uses, will that style work with the GBK components? basically looking for plug and play for these parts.

There's lots of suppliers of the same motors, but they give them their own designation. Greenbikekit.com is a good supplier for buying direct from China, but you don't get warranty cover like you do from a local supplier; however, problems are unusual.

The 24v motor is nearly the same as the 36v one, which is why it costs the same. You can run it with 36v or 44v, and it's equally as powerful as the 36v one. The rating 250-350w is meaningless as a label. The recommended controllers give 15 amps, but some of us run them at 48v and 17 amps, which means 800w max. That's OK if you don't make it labour up long hills.

There's two speed versions of this motor: 201 rpm (15mph) and 328 rpm. The 328 rpm one is for small wheels, which spin faster. If you put it in a 26" wheel or bigger, it doesn't have the power to accelerate you, so runs very inefficiently. It'll work, but would probably over-heat on hills. Therefore, its not recommended to put it in a large wheel unless you only want to use it after you've reached 15mph by normal pedalling. There's also a version with the cassette spline, which is more expensive, but you can use decent cassette gears, which you've probably already got instead of having to pay an additional $40 for a 11T free-wheel set. You need an 11T top gear on an electric bike.

The basic 8.8aH bottle batteries are a bit weak. The voltage sags under load, and you can't set your current any higher for hill-climbing. You can get Bottle batteries with Samsung ICR18650-22P cells that are better, but more expensive.

If you want to put your own kit together, you should contact Kevin Fang of BTN. He can get more or less anything at quite good prices. He can supply the brake sensors, a nice LCD display with multi-PAS levels, whatever motor you want and a decent battery, or you can buy one of his kits. He has a lot more stuff than shown in his Aliexpress shop. If you want an LCD display, make sure you specify a wheel speed sensor, otherwise it'll show zero speed when free-wheeling.
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/904105

The rims and spokes on the Chinese kits are OK. Why not try it, and change it later if you want better. Why spend a lot of money on an expensive rim and spokes only to find out later that you don't like the motor.

 

[dogman dan]

I tend to agree with that last bit. Easy enough to unlace a wheel later if you decide you wish to keep riding with a better rim.

Are you sure the price difference is just laced wheel? You might not get a controller or throttle with the unlaced motor.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Welcome to the forum. That motor you are looking at, that gbk-100 is realy an Andana Cute Q100, more often just refered to as the Q100, or the Cute. And it sure is a cute little motor, well liked by those who use them. But it's not a hill climber, in the same way that a chihuahua is not an Alaskan sled dog. Try one of the proven hill climbers like the Bafang.

 

[wesnewell]

Where you live is mostly flat unless you ride out of town. You really don't need a powerful hill climber there. If 20-25mph is fast enough for you any 48V 500W kit will do fine. If you want more power and speed got to 1000W.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rear-Wheel-Electric-Bicycle-Conversion-Kit-24V-36V-48V-250W-500W-700W-800W-1000W-/290754592384

 

[ezzpete]

yeah, the more i look it seems the Bafang is the best choice for me. i want a front drive and not looking for 500 watts. i just want a little help, and plan to peddle. not looking for something that does ALL the work. i'm basically a fitness freak, with a bad hip. i love bikes and human power, a motor will give me much more flexibility, and will get me past the toughest parts.

it's definitely not flat here. may look like it on a map, but i'm in the mountains and it's either up or down here.

 

[Samd]

If you still want to pedal and just want some assist A q100 front kit from BMS or Greenbikekit with a 10s bottle battery might be better than the Bafang...

The stock controller pulls about 550W, the motor will handle 700W if you shunt the little 6 fet controller. Add a 3 speed switch for a little more top speed.

I took my larger Ezee off mine - overkill. Same as the BPM2 within reason.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45570

 

[ezzpete]

i finally got tired of shopping around and ordered a kit from GreenBikeKit. they seemed to have the best price. i got a 36V 250~350 kit with the bottle battery. it may not be the ideal kit but i couldn't wait any longer. it's got all the main components and it's a good starting point. one thing i'm gonna do right off is replace the thumb throttle with a push on/off button. i ordered a motorcycle kill switch off of eBay. i think for my needs it will work better. anyway, thanks to all for the help, i'll most likely be back with more questions once it's here and installed.

 

[biohazardman]

The thumb throttle varies a 5V signal voltage to tell your controller how much juice to give the motor for smooth acceleration and holds the voltage steady at the speed you desire. A full on or full off motor is not going to be acceptable or safe to most of us. I would have a very hard time controlling my bike at full throttle all the time and cruising at 40+ MPH is just not what I want to do. Still others have done it and if your set up is not very powerful it might be OK for you. http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50843

 

[ezzpete]

i wouldn't want to cruse at 40 mph either. i don't think the kit i bought is capable of much more than 18 mph. and as i said, i only want the motor for assistance, not so i can stop peddling. Hilltopper sells their kit with just an on off switch, and from all the reviews i've read most people with the same use in mind as me, seem to think it works great.

 

[dnmun]

i have never heard of someone using an on/off switch for the throttle. where did you read that others do that? sounds like you would be best off with a pedelec controller and no throttle.

 

[d8veh]

Hopefully you paid the extra $9 for the LED display, which gives you three levels of PAS. With that, you don't need a throttle of any sort. It makes the bike very pleasant to ride.

Did you get a front or rear kit. If you got a front, you'll need to file the drop-outs in the forks to get it to fit correctly, and you should add one of their torque arms to your order. If you got a rear one, you need to find someone selling a free-wheel gear-set with 11T top gear if you don't want to pedal too fast. You should also consider a pair of their Hidden Wire Brake Sensors, which fit over the brake cables, otherwise you have to change your brake levers, to the ones in the kit.

Let us know how you get on with it or if you need any help installing.

 

[100volts+]

Hook up dual 150v infineon controllers to 30s lipo and a cromotor or Hubmonster. That is a nice starter kit.

 

[ammodave]

I'm running a 36v Q100 (328rpm) front hub on my first build using the 10.4ah bottle battery. It gives me a whisper quiet 22mph and an unassisted range of about 10-15 mi. with 700c wheels. I don't have many hills but when I run across one, I peddle a little and the motor does just fine.

 

[ezzpete]

i have never heard of someone using an on/off switch for the throttle. where did you read that others do that? sounds like you would be best off with a pedelec controller and no throttle.

got the idea from Clean Republics Hill Topper kit. also plenty of threads on this site talking about doing a conversion to button from thumb/twist throttle.

 

[ezzpete]

Hopefully you paid the extra $9 for the LED display, which gives you three levels of PAS. With that, you don't need a throttle of any sort. It makes the bike very pleasant to ride.

Did you get a front or rear kit. If you got a front, you'll need to file the drop-outs in the forks to get it to fit correctly, and you should add one of their torque arms to your order. If you got a rear one, you need to find someone selling a free-wheel gear-set with 11T top gear if you don't want to pedal too fast. You should also consider a pair of their Hidden Wire Brake Sensors, which fit over the brake cables, otherwise you have to change your brake levers, to the ones in the kit.

Let us know how you get on with it or if you need any help installing.

nope didn't get the display and don't want to use the PAS. i'm a minimalist and want to keep things simple. just the motor,controller, and battery along with some kind of throttle. for starters i'll just use the thumb throttle to see what ebiking is all about. i just wanted a motor to get me over some hills, not for 100% of the time i'm in the saddle. just for a little push. but i did get a hidden brake sensor.

 

[ezzpete]

Hook up dual 150v infineon controllers to 30s lipo and a cromotor or Hubmonster. That is a nice starter kit.

i'm guessing you didn't read my posts. even though i don't know what any of that means, it sounds completely different than what i'm trying for.

 

[e-biker]

If you want simple then get a magic pie 3 and a 48 volt battery. makes for a clean easy build. With plenty of power for the hills.

 

[d8veh]

Hopefully you paid the extra $9 for the LED display, which gives you three levels of PAS. With that, you don't need a throttle of any sort. It makes the bike very pleasant to ride.

Did you get a front or rear kit. If you got a front, you'll need to file the drop-outs in the forks to get it to fit correctly, and you should add one of their torque arms to your order. If you got a rear one, you need to find someone selling a free-wheel gear-set with 11T top gear if you don't want to pedal too fast. You should also consider a pair of their Hidden Wire Brake Sensors, which fit over the brake cables, otherwise you have to change your brake levers, to the ones in the kit.

Let us know how you get on with it or if you need any help installing.

nope didn't get the display and don't want to use the PAS. i'm a minimalist and want to keep things simple. just the motor,controller, and battery along with some kind of throttle. for starters i'll just use the thumb throttle to see what ebiking is all about. i just wanted a motor to get me over some hills, not for 100% of the time i'm in the saddle. just for a little push. but i did get a hidden brake sensor.

It'snot too late to change it. It normally takes them about 10 days to get it all together. They stock the controllers and panels so it's easy for them to change your order if you're quick. Don't forget the torque arm which will save you a lot of messing about later.

 

[ezzpete]

Dang, i ordered on Thursday and the kit got here yesterday (monday). I got everything installed and tested, took a while though. i shortened some of the cables and soldered on the connectors. when i ordered i was thinking i was getting a 8fun motor but because of the totally unclear with no explanation of what you're getting in the kit way the site (GBK) is set up it turned out to be a Cute motor. It does what i was hopping for so no big deal.

on the down side, the LED battery monitor part of the thumb throttle isn't working and the 3 speed switch i added worked for about 2 minutes. apparently the person who put the connectors on the wires didn't realize the wire and lug are supposed to make contact, easy fix. also the plug that goes from the charger to the battery is not a match so it needs to be tilted just right so it makes contact. the hole in the plug is much bigger than the pin on the batt end. and the switch on the battery case was not completely installed. other than that it's the same great quality we've come to expect from China.

now i need to start fiddling with the controller 'till i burn it up.

i'm kind of surprised that Harbor Frieght doesn't stock some of the ebike kits. maybe the quality is too high?

 

[ezzpete]

thought i'd post a few pics of my ebike. the first pic is the way i first mounted the batt. after taking a good look at the latch that holds the "bottle" in it's holder, i decided that having gravity push it into the mount instead of trying to pull it out, it would be better mounted to the down tube instead, as shown in the 2nd pic. i like the way it looks in the first pic, but don't want to take the chance of my batt falling off.

i know it's a kind of raggidy install, but that's what i wanted so it's matches the bike. love it so far.