GNG, 1000W 48V BB-drive, $400

[LightningRods]

The single speed setup is really tempting you isn't it lol.

I keep thinking about running a big block at 100V 50 amps through the BB straight back to a single cog on the right.

 

[ladytoast]

That would be a beast!

 

[boltedjolt]

My 12fet 40amp controller here. Hope the phase wire can handle it.

 

[CEGB]

I can't tell you how happy I am to get these positive reports back from you guys. I looked at the failings in the stock kit and took my best guess on how to fix the shortcomings. I'm glad that it's all worked out so well. More fun stuff coming!

Just to add a few words on the LightningRods bracketry. I bought a complete set of brackets from Mike about a month ago, for fitment to my first ebike project. He boxed them up and shipped them to the UK for me. I did have to pay the dreaded UK import duties and VAT, but it was only £15, so hardly a bank breaker.

Reading the pages on ES convinced me that LR's plates were a must have for the GNG kit, so they were one of the first things to be added to my list of parts for the build. I've never used the original parts and I don't intend to, but its clear from comparison that Mikes plates are in a different league in terms of strength and quality.

The precision with which the parts are manufactured is astonishing. They slide together with clearances more suited to watchmaking than cycling. The design shows clarity of thought, and as with all the best engineering, it's probably the simplest way to achieve the desired goals of increased rigidity and control of chain tension (I bought the 60v 700W chain drive GNG kit).

Since I had my frame going off for powder coating, I included my new plates with the job so that they'd be colour matched to the rest of the bike. The result is an installation that looks "factory" which is I think quite possibly the greatest complement I can give them. The motor unit looks like its supposed to be there, something that really can't be said for much of the rest of my build!

Can't wait to see what else is kicking around in Mike's Skunk Works....

 

[skyungjae]

I can't tell you how happy I am to get these positive reports back from you guys. I looked at the failings in the stock kit and took my best guess on how to fix the shortcomings. I'm glad that it's all worked out so well. More fun stuff coming!

Just to add a few words on the LightningRods bracketry. I bought a complete set of brackets from Mike about a month ago, for fitment to my first ebike project. He boxed them up and shipped them to the UK for me. I did have to pay the dreaded UK import duties and VAT, but it was only £15, so hardly a bank breaker.

Reading the pages on ES convinced me that LR's plates were a must have for the GNG kit, so they were one of the first things to be added to my list of parts for the build. I've never used the original parts and I don't intend to, but its clear from comparison that Mikes plates are in a different league in terms of strength and quality.

The precision with which the parts are manufactured is astonishing. They slide together with clearances more suited to watchmaking than cycling. The design shows clarity of thought, and as with all the best engineering, it's probably the simplest way to achieve the desired goals of increased rigidity and control of chain tension (I bought the 60v 700W chain drive GNG kit).

Since I had my frame going off for powder coating, I included my new plates with the job so that they'd be colour matched to the rest of the bike. The result is an installation that looks "factory" which is I think quite possibly the greatest complement I can give them. The motor unit looks like its supposed to be there, something that really can't be said for much of the rest of my build!

Can't wait to see what else is kicking around in Mike's Skunk Works....

I'm looking forward to seeing pictures.

 

[CEGB]

I'm looking forward to seeing pictures.

I've got a pile of pictures on my camera of the bike in progress, but its a long process that started in September when I bought a ratty old Felt hardtail frame for beer money, but had no idea what to do with it. I'll post a build thread in a few weeks when I've finished it. I've sent quite a few pictures to Mike, aka LightningRods for his use, since I don't think anyone's gone to the extreme of powdercoating his plates to match the bike before. His principle focus thus far has clearly been on the engineering and fitment rather than the aesthetics, but I think even he was surprised how good they look with a splash of colour on them.

He might post up a couple of them here later, but I'm posting this from my phone, so I can't. They do look nice though.

 

[spinningmagnets]

Since LightningRods will be shipping the full kits with all the upgraded parts soon, I have started a new thread for his kit, here:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=57720

 

[LightningRods]

CEGB was good enough to send me these beautiful shots of his powder coated sheets. I was concerned that the thickness of the powder coating would cause fitment problems because my clearances are typically .005". It seems that despite the appearances of the powder coat that it doesn't cause clearance problems. Thanks to all of you for your encouragement and positive feedback. I am doing my best to produce quality parts for you. The Lightning Rods 'Skunk Works' is just getting started.

 

[boltedjolt]

That looks awesome. Any way quick question how hot is too hot on our gng motor gonna be running 40 amp continuous most of the time don't want to melt the wires or any thing else.

 

[r3volved]

The black on blue looks gorgeous!
I really like all the black accents you added as well

 

[Wishes]

That finish on those plates looks incredible. Awesome job. I'm jealous

 

[Wishes]

I'm converting my GNG Kona Stinky to a dedicated winter ebike

+

Awaiting for the kit to come in Winters won't be so long anymore.

Wishes

 

[LightningRods]

I'm converting my GNG Kona Stinky to a dedicated winter ebike

Awaiting for the kit to come in Winters won't be so long anymore.

What a great snow setup! If we had more snow here in my part of Oregon I'd want one of those for sure. I'll be looking forward to your build thread and seeing the videos of your snowbike in action.

Your parts shipped yesterday, Wishes. Thanks again for the loan of all of your 60V chain drive parts.

 

[CEGB]

I was concerned that the thickness of the powder coating would cause fitment problems because my clearances are typically .005". It seems that despite the appearances of the powder coat that it doesn't cause clearance problems.

To be fair, the powdercoat process does make fitting them a bit trickier than it is without the powder, although that's perhaps not helped by my choice of finish. The process involves a coat of zinc primer, colour coat, and then two coats of clear coat. One with the sparkles, one without.

This adds up to increased thickness, especially around the holes. It's only a minutely thin layer of plastic, but it s there, and Mikes super tight tolerances are going to notice it. The primary plates are fine, but the secondary's need a little bit of thought and persuasion to get them on. The sliding section is fine, but because there are spacers between the plates and the motor, there's are 6 thicknesses of powder coat finish to squeeze into the gap where previously only the motor and a pair of spacers sat. It's just enough to make the gap a little tight. The trick is to line get the bottom holes lines up and loosely bolted first, and then rotate the motor casing into the plates. This allows everything to line up properly. If I'd left the spacer plates alone I wouldn't even have noticed the issue.

The black on blue looks gorgeous!
I really like all the black accents you added as well

The black parts are as they came from GNG. I was going to do the motor casing ends as well, but I left them alone in the end. Partly this was done as I didn't want to chance ruining the motors internal clearances, and partly (well, mostly) because I couldn't be bothered to strip it apart... The bike has many other black parts on it that really do look the part, but the overall aesthetic is ruined by my choice of tyre. All you need to know is they are white, and they look awful, and they are not staying...

That finish on those plates looks incredible. Awesome job. I'm jealous

It was surprisingly cheap and easy to do. I dropped the frame and a big box of bits off at the powder coaters, picked a colour (RAL 5002) and a finish (gloss, with a sparkly clearcoat) and left them to it. They stripped the old frame of decals and paint, prepped the parts, masked off every thread, phosphate washed, primed, coloured, sparkled and clear coated all the bits and the frame, and then rang me a week later to tell me it was all finished. Cost was just over £100, including the special finish.

Plain colours were about £60, special stuff like sparkles, candy colours, chrome finish (very convincing chrome effect), or (and believe me, I was very tempted) glow in the dark colours, are a little more. The powder comes from the USA, so I should think getting someone to do it on your side of the pond should be pretty easy.

The powder finish is incredibly tough. Even in my most ham fisted moments I haven't even made a mark in it, where a paint finish would have been ruined...

 

[LightningRods]

So this is a Ktrak. Very cool! I think this is one of those situation where the awesome of snow track and e-bike will multiply each other. How much fun is this going to be?? And guess what- you need a mid drive to make this work. Hubbies need not apply.

Here is the Ktrak video page showing people out having a blast.
http://www.ktrak.es/mediaeng.htm
I'm thinking about all of the primo ski areas in the Cascades to my east and that this might be a huge hit there. Bend, Oregon is already a huge summer mountain bike and winter snow sport destination . It may be time to combine the two!

 

[Wishes]

I did a lot of research on these Ktrak kits and read tons of customer reviews. Most praise it. Most of the few that don't are over the level of resistance snow, the front ski, a tread on a track ect.... adds to the pedaling experience. You don't go out on 10k rides on flat surfaces with these. They are apparently a work out and a half to pedal.

Madboy electric have built a mid drive with a ktrak. 1200-1500 watt is what they were using and complained that if you didn't have enough momentum for a shift, you would stall in some conditions. So getting enough speed and having enough power is the key. A perfect fit for 3.5kw GNG setup It will be a good test to see how LightningRods belt upgrade holds up in snow conditions.

Wishes

 

[LightningRods]

My machinist Steve and I have been hard at work for weeks designing and building production jigs to get all of my parts into production. I finally have all of the pieces to assemble a complete 'tuner' GNG with all of the weak parts upgraded.

Here is my new steel tube jackshaft housing. The tabbed lockrings and spacer tubes tie into my upper adjusters to make the whole assembly super rigid and secure. The outside lockring is my own design, laser cut and lathe tapped. Old school BB lockrings are getting hard to find.

The primary side showing the 18T and 90T GT pulleys and GT belt drive. 400% the power capacity of the GNG drive.

A rear view showing the upper and lower adjusters. The upper adjuster is for the primary belt, the lower adjuster is for the secondary chain.

The secondary side showing my #219 kart chain drive. 66% more reduction in the same size sprocket due to finer link pitch (.30" vs. .50"). #219 chain is called "high speed" chain by kart racers because of it's light weight and high strength. There is a range of BB sprockets available, from 64T to 93T to allow you to fine tune your reduction. The 80T BB sprocket shown here is connected to a five bolt ACS freewheel and 148mm ISIS BB by my laser cut adapter plate. I also make an adapter plate to fit the 4 bolt GNG BB for light duty on-road use.

I have two different complete setups for this 'small block' motor. The one shown requires no GNG parts and can either be used to upgrade one of the original Gen 1.0 motors to current specs or to build up a purchased motor into a finished kit. I have 100 small block motors on a container ship headed to the US as I write this. My other kit can be used in stages to upgrade a Gen 1.1 kit. A lot of it has to do with your budget and how you like to do things.

This kit has been a year in the making. There is no chance that I could have accomplished this without the support of all of my friends here at Endless Sphere. I have had many people send me hundreds of dollars and tell me "send me the parts when they're ready". We're there.

Thanks for everything!
Mike

 

[litespeed]

looks killer!

Tom

 

[ladytoast]

Really great looking Mike

I really hope you get the returns due to you on all of this great work. I consider it to be an essential upgrade over the stock GNG kit, especially if riding off road.
I am certainly recommending this to my friends, and people that stop me on the local trails.

I would love to get my hands on one of those belt kits to replace the primary chain drive. Are you going to be selling those parts individually?
Also you were talking about an enclosure for the belt, any progress on that (I know, it never ends right!)

Dylan

 

[LightningRods]

looks killer!
Tom

Thanks Tom!

I would love to get my hands on one of those belt kits to replace the primary chain drive. Are you going to be selling those parts individually?
Also you were talking about an enclosure for the belt, any progress on that (I know, it never ends right!)

Dylan

Hi Dylan- Yes I'll sell any part or any combination of parts that people want. If I think one part needs another I'll tell you, but you can still have that one part if that's all you want. I do have plans for an enclosure for the primary side as well as guard(s) for the secondary side sprockets. It will never end- there will always be something to add or to do better. I just got the jackshafts coming out of Steve's shop looking the way that I want them. Motor spindles are next. I have 100 motors coming with the wrong kind of spindle in them so I need to get that whole process worked out. I have four big blocks in the shop right now with the helical gear spindle that customers are waiting on. Once those are done I'll be on to the primary drive cover. Thanks for the referrals. Selling parts and kits is going to be what keeps the lights on.

 

[kfong]

Looking great Mike!

 

[snellemin]

Looks awesome Mike. I will buy all the upgrades for my gen 1 soon enough. I'll have to show this off on the trails.

 

[AussieJester]

fantastic work you have done here matey, I been following the thread with great interest
I think now this is the best mid drive option available with your upgrades...

KiM

 

[LightningRods]

Thanks gents. My commitment to you is that if this kit is not the best solution for a mid drive available I will keep refining it until it is. This is a brilliant little motor for this application, nearly perfect. I feel that all I have to do is finish the process of adapting it to bicycles.

 

[CEGB]

Guys, I apologise if this has been posted and asked before, but I'm surfing on an iPhone, which makes searching a bit if a laborious task, not to mention a lengthy one given the signal strength out her in the wilderness of Essex, where I'm currently located.

After a mere 30 miles, the freewheel in the centre of my GNG cranks has given up and decided that it's better off exploring the afterlife. It notified me of its decision by trying to launch me off of the bike at 30 mph when the freewheel locked up.

Any suggestions on where I can get a replacement?


Obviously UK suppliers are preffered, but international sellers are useful too if no UK seller comes to light.