jetstream
1 µW
Hello,
My name is Pablo and I am from the United Kingdom. Below are some pictures of my first build and some details to go with them. Hope you like...
I have been reading posts on the endless sphere forum for the last two months and have used much of the information to help me build my first e bike. So first of all a big thank you to everybody on this forum and also a big thank you to user name StephenR whom I had sent private messages to and he gave me lots of advice and guidance along the way.
I wanted a bike that was light and powerful, would provide plenty of range and at the same time be portable too. The very first thing I chose was the bike; I decided to go for the Dahon jetstream P8, the bike weighs approximately 11KG. I'm pretty sure they are much cheaper in the US but in the United Kingdom I had to pay £550, they normally retail for around £800 here, sounds ridiculous I know but it's true.
Next I had to choose the motor I decided to go for the Phoenix racer with the crystalyte version 2 4840 controller. Without the batteries including delivery to the UK on a 20 inch rear wheel setup it cost me £675 and £25 of that was a charge for paying by wire transfer by my bank that's roughly $50 just to do a wire transfer, again ridiculous charges. I then had to pay £158 to release the kit from customs, it's called a customs charge in the United Kingdom and 17.5% is added to the invoice value. So total for the Phoenix racer kit delivered to my door step cost me £833 from the USA and that's without the batteries. I wanted to ask the seller if he would send it to me marked as a gift that way I wouldn't have to pay any customs charges (just like the way ping batteries are sent) but they clearly state on their website please do not ask us to falsify customs documents, so I did'nt Wanna offend him by asking.
Now for the batteries, I was originally going to order four 12v SLA's with the Phoenix racer but then I heard about this new battery technology called lifepo4 on the forums. After reading the whole duck tape thread (yes all 67 pages, took me about four hours
, left me exhausted) I decided this is the battery technology that I was going to have. I was pretty much decided on the ping 48v20ah battery but then I read the posts by Stephenr who mentioned that the battery was not powerful enough to power his x 5303 and would sometimes cutout 
. This got me a little worried at first and I was kind of leaning towards ordering a ping 48v30ah as some people here have advised. I had to have a very long think about this but in the end I decided to go for the 48v 20ah ping. The reason for my decision was because I was going to use my Phoenix racer on a 20 inch wheel and therefore I approximated that I would use less amps to produce the same amount of torque as somebody using it on a 26 inch wheel. Also, I am very light and my bicycle is like too, after putting all these factors into consideration I finally ordered the ping V2 48v 20ah battery 
.
I am now glad I did not order a 30ah version, I have never had a cutout on this bike yet I can go up the steepest hill and a speed it can reach is just frightening . I took it up to 30 mph and I think that was about half throttle but I didn't dare go any faster because it felt like the bike would lift off the ground and I will be faced with an" ET flying to the moon scenario". The power on this thing is absolutely amazing, what you have to understand is that for the last five years I have been riding a bike with a 200 watt motor, maximum speed of 12 mph and a 24v7ah 12 KG battery. It's like going from a donkey to a stallion (please note I have never ridden a donkey or a stallion for that matter, but I thought it would be a good comparison).
It's a bit heavy from the back and feels a bit strange when riding because the balance is not 100% like a normal bike but once you start moving it's hardly noticeable and your body automatically adjusts and compensates for the weight.
I had to think of a way to mount this battery onto my bicycle, I could not find a pannier that would fit because it is a full suspension bike. After much googling I came across this site called thor USA, they make a special rear rack especially for the jetstream P8 but it's for the 2007 Jetstream P8 and mine is a 2008 version, slightly different so there was a chance that it may not fit perfectly. It is a high-quality rear rack that is Swiss made and rated to carry a load of 10kgs. Now my ping a battery weighs 10kgs so it was just right, if it was a Chinese made rack rated at 10kgs I would not have bothered but because it was Swiss made I thought it should be okay and went for it. It cost me about US $75 delivered to my door in the UK.
Here is the link for the rear rack if anybody is thinking of doing a similar project:
http://www.thorusa.com/pletscher.htm
And here's a picture of the rack installed on a 2007 Jetstream P8, again from the same site:
http://www.thorusa.com/dahonquickrack1.JPG
Now that I had my rear rack sorted I had to think of a way to mount the battery onto it, I thought I might make a box out of Perspex and after searching for Perspex here in the UK I found the prices for 10 mm sheets to be very expensive indeed. So I then decided it was not worth the hassle and I should probably go for a rear top box instead. My googling led me to this item below:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280277218957&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=018
total cost £25 including delivery.
I now had to mount this box on my rear rack but the standard way it was mounted looks very odd so I installed it back to front and fitted it onto my seat post tubing rather than on my seat post to give it a slightly lower centre of gravity. I then cut a groove in the bottom of the box and slid it onto the rear rack, this makes the whole setup much more solid. It's very difficult to explain in words the way I did it but I think the pictures will make it a little more clear for you.
The battery came with the new Silent charger its smaller and has only one LED that is red when charging and then turns to green when charged here is a picture of it in case anybody wants to see what it looks like:
And here are the specs for it too:
Another problem I had was my original rear wheel had a 8 speed cassette but the Phoenix racer would only accept a freewheel. After much googling again I took my chances and ordered what was advertised as an 8 speed screw on freewheel, it is stated in the description that it was SHIMano and S RAM compatible. Again I was very lucky it was a perfect fit and all the gears work flawlessly.
I decided to mount the controller underneath the rear rack as it is very light and again everything fitted perfectly so I was very happy with that indeed.
View attachment 5
I wanted to order a cycle analyst but after ordering my controller I realised that it does not have the connector for the cycle analyst and also I do not know how to wire the cycle analyst into my controller or even whether it can be done or not. So for the moment I am using a cat eye speedometer to track my mileage and speed.
The battery fits perfectly into the box with space to spare but I have cushioned it with bubble wrap. Here are some pictures of the battery in the rear box.
View attachment 2
Soldering is something I have some experience with but when I tried to solder these big fat wires onto my Anderson's connectors it just wouldn't work there was not enough heat produced for everything to melt and weld together. hmmmm, after scratching my hair apologies let me rephrase that for you after scratching my bald head (yes I have a big bald patch the size of a football pitch) I decided to use a blowtorch to heat up the wire and the contacts. Wow this was an absolutely fantastic idea the solder melted like butter and the joints looked beautiful ....
CONTINUED BELOW ...........
My name is Pablo and I am from the United Kingdom. Below are some pictures of my first build and some details to go with them. Hope you like...
I have been reading posts on the endless sphere forum for the last two months and have used much of the information to help me build my first e bike. So first of all a big thank you to everybody on this forum and also a big thank you to user name StephenR whom I had sent private messages to and he gave me lots of advice and guidance along the way.
I wanted a bike that was light and powerful, would provide plenty of range and at the same time be portable too. The very first thing I chose was the bike; I decided to go for the Dahon jetstream P8, the bike weighs approximately 11KG. I'm pretty sure they are much cheaper in the US but in the United Kingdom I had to pay £550, they normally retail for around £800 here, sounds ridiculous I know but it's true.
Next I had to choose the motor I decided to go for the Phoenix racer with the crystalyte version 2 4840 controller. Without the batteries including delivery to the UK on a 20 inch rear wheel setup it cost me £675 and £25 of that was a charge for paying by wire transfer by my bank that's roughly $50 just to do a wire transfer, again ridiculous charges. I then had to pay £158 to release the kit from customs, it's called a customs charge in the United Kingdom and 17.5% is added to the invoice value. So total for the Phoenix racer kit delivered to my door step cost me £833 from the USA and that's without the batteries. I wanted to ask the seller if he would send it to me marked as a gift that way I wouldn't have to pay any customs charges (just like the way ping batteries are sent) but they clearly state on their website please do not ask us to falsify customs documents, so I did'nt Wanna offend him by asking.
Now for the batteries, I was originally going to order four 12v SLA's with the Phoenix racer but then I heard about this new battery technology called lifepo4 on the forums. After reading the whole duck tape thread (yes all 67 pages, took me about four hours
, left me exhausted) I decided this is the battery technology that I was going to have. I was pretty much decided on the ping 48v20ah battery but then I read the posts by Stephenr who mentioned that the battery was not powerful enough to power his x 5303 and would sometimes cutout . This got me a little worried at first and I was kind of leaning towards ordering a ping 48v30ah as some people here have advised. I had to have a very long think about this but in the end I decided to go for the 48v 20ah ping. The reason for my decision was because I was going to use my Phoenix racer on a 20 inch wheel and therefore I approximated that I would use less amps to produce the same amount of torque as somebody using it on a 26 inch wheel. Also, I am very light and my bicycle is like too, after putting all these factors into consideration I finally ordered the ping V2 48v 20ah battery .I am now glad I did not order a 30ah version, I have never had a cutout on this bike yet I can go up the steepest hill and a speed it can reach is just frightening
. I took it up to 30 mph and I think that was about half throttle but I didn't dare go any faster because it felt like the bike would lift off the ground and I will be faced with an" ET flying to the moon scenario". The power on this thing is absolutely amazing, what you have to understand is that for the last five years I have been riding a bike with a 200 watt motor, maximum speed of 12 mph and a 24v7ah 12 KG battery. It's like going from a donkey to a stallion (please note I have never ridden a donkey or a stallion for that matter, but I thought it would be a good comparison).It's a bit heavy from the back and feels a bit strange when riding because the balance is not 100% like a normal bike but once you start moving it's hardly noticeable and your body automatically adjusts and compensates for the weight.
I had to think of a way to mount this battery onto my bicycle, I could not find a pannier that would fit because it is a full suspension bike. After much googling I came across this site called thor USA, they make a special rear rack especially for the jetstream P8 but it's for the 2007 Jetstream P8 and mine is a 2008 version, slightly different so there was a chance that it may not fit perfectly. It is a high-quality rear rack that is Swiss made and rated to carry a load of 10kgs. Now my ping a battery weighs 10kgs so it was just right, if it was a Chinese made rack rated at 10kgs I would not have bothered but because it was Swiss made I thought it should be okay and went for it. It cost me about US $75 delivered to my door in the UK.
Here is the link for the rear rack if anybody is thinking of doing a similar project:
http://www.thorusa.com/pletscher.htm
And here's a picture of the rack installed on a 2007 Jetstream P8, again from the same site:
http://www.thorusa.com/dahonquickrack1.JPG
Now that I had my rear rack sorted I had to think of a way to mount the battery onto it, I thought I might make a box out of Perspex and after searching for Perspex here in the UK I found the prices for 10 mm sheets to be very expensive indeed. So I then decided it was not worth the hassle and I should probably go for a rear top box instead. My googling led me to this item below:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280277218957&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=018
total cost £25 including delivery.
I now had to mount this box on my rear rack but the standard way it was mounted looks very odd so I installed it back to front and fitted it onto my seat post tubing rather than on my seat post to give it a slightly lower centre of gravity. I then cut a groove in the bottom of the box and slid it onto the rear rack, this makes the whole setup much more solid. It's very difficult to explain in words the way I did it but I think the pictures will make it a little more clear for you.
The battery came with the new Silent charger its smaller and has only one LED that is red when charging and then turns to green when charged here is a picture of it in case anybody wants to see what it looks like:
And here are the specs for it too:
Another problem I had was my original rear wheel had a 8 speed cassette but the Phoenix racer would only accept a freewheel. After much googling again I took my chances and ordered what was advertised as an 8 speed screw on freewheel, it is stated in the description that it was SHIMano and S RAM compatible. Again I was very lucky it was a perfect fit and all the gears work flawlessly.
I decided to mount the controller underneath the rear rack as it is very light and again everything fitted perfectly so I was very happy with that indeed.
View attachment 5
I wanted to order a cycle analyst but after ordering my controller I realised that it does not have the connector for the cycle analyst and also I do not know how to wire the cycle analyst into my controller or even whether it can be done or not. So for the moment I am using a cat eye speedometer to track my mileage and speed.
The battery fits perfectly into the box with space to spare but I have cushioned it with bubble wrap. Here are some pictures of the battery in the rear box.
View attachment 2
Soldering is something I have some experience with but when I tried to solder these big fat wires onto my Anderson's connectors it just wouldn't work there was not enough heat produced for everything to melt and weld together. hmmmm, after scratching my hair apologies let me rephrase that for you after scratching my bald head (yes I have a big bald patch the size of a football pitch) I decided to use a blowtorch to heat up the wire and the contacts. Wow this was an absolutely fantastic idea the solder melted like butter and the joints looked beautiful ....
CONTINUED BELOW ...........
... I'm sure that will put a smile on a few faces around here 
, as I thought I would need it in the future without having to take out the big gas blowtorch.
