hightekbikes.com motor kit review. Electric bike kit.
- Thread starter dogman dan
- Start date
Russell
1 MW
RTLSHIP said:
Ahh I see.
I looked up the spec's for the "silicone" batteries
http://www.siliconebatteriesusa.com/silicone-batteries/35-silicone-batteries/48-electric-vehicle-sp
and compared them to the B.B. Battery EB series
http://www.bb-battery.com/productseb.asp
The Silicone SP10-12 compares favorably to the premium BB Battery EB12-12 with the same 2 hour rating with slightly less weight. The next size up Silicone model, the SP12-12, is somewhat larger and 1.1 pounds heavier than the BB Battery EB12-12 and has a 20% higher 2 hour rate. The Silicone batteries appear to be a modest improvement over SLA.
-R
dogman dan
1 PW
Well, the way I ride, always full throtte, I get about .5 miles per amp hour on sla's. Those with a smarter throttle hand can do much better.
My silicone battery pack goes about 31 lbs, so maybe there is some truth to the claim that this equals
a 16 ah type SLA pack in output. Anyways, the Aotema/WE thumb throttle turns yellow at around 36.8 to 37v. it's a rough gauge and one throttle might vary to the next. I have rarely gone below 36.5 on SLA, so compared to some guys my batts are going to last twice as long. I always thought beyond 36 or 37 was damaging to SLA. These Greensavers are good for 400 "full" cycles.
a 16 ah type SLA pack in output. Anyways, the Aotema/WE thumb throttle turns yellow at around 36.8 to 37v. it's a rough gauge and one throttle might vary to the next. I have rarely gone below 36.5 on SLA, so compared to some guys my batts are going to last twice as long. I always thought beyond 36 or 37 was damaging to SLA. These Greensavers are good for 400 "full" cycles.
dogman dan
1 PW
300 miles on it now, I couldn't be happier with the performance of it, without going to kits that cost more than twice as much. With warm weather, my battery is doing much better, so I now go about 23 mph at full throttle on flat ground. Once in a while I forget to roll the wheel forward an inch as I put on throttle, and get the stutter. Suprising, but harmless. A novice might think it was going to harm the motor but it doesn't. Other than choice of windings, I don't know why somebody would choose crystalyte over this kit for a front hub. I want the fast hub anyway, and this is one of the fast wound ones.
recumbent
100 kW
dogman said:
So the controler is a "pedal first" but it only takes half a revolution of the pedals to start it? That's pretty darn good, and no hall sensors to break. The "stuttering" stops right away though, right?
On my Aotema, there is no pedal first. It just goes f/ a complete stop. There is some drag when
going fast and suddenly going light on the throttle. It has a slowing effect and is more obvious on this model compared to my WE BD-36. Clearly the front wheel is about 5 pounds heavier. I was told the Aotema has windings that are set up differently etc. What makes this Aotema better than the WE brushless is that you get no sensor problem and can go to 48 volts without problems. I've heard that at 48 volts, the yellow light will never come on because you would have to go down to 36 or 37.
going fast and suddenly going light on the throttle. It has a slowing effect and is more obvious on this model compared to my WE BD-36. Clearly the front wheel is about 5 pounds heavier. I was told the Aotema has windings that are set up differently etc. What makes this Aotema better than the WE brushless is that you get no sensor problem and can go to 48 volts without problems. I've heard that at 48 volts, the yellow light will never come on because you would have to go down to 36 or 37.
dogman dan
1 PW
Hmm, recently all WE kits are AOTEMA , and I think it was 2008 model BL36 that went sensorless.
On the pedal first, I sense two things at start up. The stutter I refered to is when you actualy have the motor start in reverse, roll an inch and then start forward and take off. It's pretty suprising, and really makes a loud stutter as it flips directions. To avoid that, I only need to roll about 1 inch forward as I press the throttle. On a normal take off, there is a vibration or gwowling that is porpotional to the load on the motor, and goes away completely above 10 mph on flat ground, and 15 mph on an uphill. This is normal, expected, not a problem, and barely noticed after riding the motor for a week or so. It is nice to have when climbing, if it does get loud, I know I need to down shift and pedal harder ya lazy bum.
I know I should pedal a bit more at start up for efficiency, but frankly with mr ping in my battery box, I don't care too much. I tend to pedal a single pump to roll the wheel and then ride the trottle till the speed fits the gear I'm in. Lazy, but maybe why the cheapo derailur on my bike hasn't crapped out.
On the pedal first, I sense two things at start up. The stutter I refered to is when you actualy have the motor start in reverse, roll an inch and then start forward and take off. It's pretty suprising, and really makes a loud stutter as it flips directions. To avoid that, I only need to roll about 1 inch forward as I press the throttle. On a normal take off, there is a vibration or gwowling that is porpotional to the load on the motor, and goes away completely above 10 mph on flat ground, and 15 mph on an uphill. This is normal, expected, not a problem, and barely noticed after riding the motor for a week or so. It is nice to have when climbing, if it does get loud, I know I need to down shift and pedal harder ya lazy bum.
I know I should pedal a bit more at start up for efficiency, but frankly with mr ping in my battery box, I don't care too much. I tend to pedal a single pump to roll the wheel and then ride the trottle till the speed fits the gear I'm in. Lazy, but maybe why the cheapo derailur on my bike hasn't crapped out.
I have never seen a BL36, but the WE website now claims 25mph+ for the new BL36 on 26". The WE may now say Aotema, but I can't see how it is the same if it is 25 mph. My BD36 has no english words on it. I was a little surprised at how WE is
a "members only" place. Membership required to buy accessories. They seem to have some attitude towards the public.
No biggie because there are plenty of parts vendors.
a "members only" place. Membership required to buy accessories. They seem to have some attitude towards the public.
No biggie because there are plenty of parts vendors.
dogman dan
1 PW
WE retails through WeRelectrified website. Thier prices are kinda high, I think they just want to wholesale nowdays. I think they changed the motor winding, the 2008 BL seemed comprable to a clyte 408, and now it's more like a 406-or 407. I get 25mph if I pedal, but on flat ground I get about 23.5 with no pedaling. A less upright bike with slicks would do 25 mph. I weigh 180. My BD gets about 24 mph on flat ground. Thats at 44 acutal volts on the battery measured when the battery is at rest. (36v pingbattery) I think parts for these things will be easy enough in the future. Somebody will be willing to sell parts from kits. Chances are, all you need to do is email Terry to get a part. After another few hundred miles, I'll be digging into this aotema brushless motor more. If I put it on my trike, I can test various voltages with sla's, and I'll crack the case and show the innards after 500 miles or so. I will be adding a thermocouple to the inside of the hub at that time, so I'll be able to report about temperatures when ridden hard in hot climates.
HighTekBikes
100 W
Hey Dogman, before you attempt to take the motor apart, please get in touch with me. When I say this motor has strong magnets, that was not marketing hype. I do not believe you can pull it apart withoui damaging either the case or the wiring inside if you start prying and jamming a screwdriver inside. I plan to ask the factory for a tool to safely open the case. I will need it anyway to repair any motors that meet the misfortune of spinning in the fork, damaging the wires. I can also request some photos of the inside of the motor.
Almasi
100 W
HTB_Terry said:
I only took apart a Crystalyte 406...and wow those magnet are crazy strong...I was affraid to put it back together...and when did...wow it jumped on it (you have to make sure your finger are not close at this exact moment )
Robin
dogman dan
1 PW
Yup, it's tricky! Not for the novice, which I was the first time I did it with a brushed motor. I did a sloppy install, and spun the hub and cut wires after 1/2 mile of riding my new BD36 kit. A proper puller would be very nice. My low tech method involves a lawnmower blade. Putting the blade on one hub end, I can then stand on it, and pull like hell to seperate the magnets. Putting them back, there is the tricky part. I just had to do my Heinzmann, and it is something you have to think about first. You can't just lower it in, the other side will leap off the table on ya.
I shouldn't have to pull the core out though, to just get one cover off and take pics and install a thermometer sensor. Just popping a cover is usually pretty easy, but carefull with those wires! In my climate, I don't see how I can keep riding without monitoring temperature. It'll be hitting 90 f pretty soon. My aim this summer is to report just where the line you don't cross is. Or rather, when you reach that line, which is 150 F in my opinion. Last summer all I found out was, somewhere past 10 miles in 105 F is where brushed hubs die. This year I want to be able to say, you can go exactly this far, and the temp will be exactly this.
I shouldn't have to pull the core out though, to just get one cover off and take pics and install a thermometer sensor. Just popping a cover is usually pretty easy, but carefull with those wires! In my climate, I don't see how I can keep riding without monitoring temperature. It'll be hitting 90 f pretty soon. My aim this summer is to report just where the line you don't cross is. Or rather, when you reach that line, which is 150 F in my opinion. Last summer all I found out was, somewhere past 10 miles in 105 F is where brushed hubs die. This year I want to be able to say, you can go exactly this far, and the temp will be exactly this.
I figured WE was only selling to retailers. There are many ebike shops in Calif. where most WE accessories are available. I have used DalesBest4bikes a few times. There are a few gadgets that
are hard to find. One is a compatible battery monitior that provides data while riding. the other is a regen type controller for my BD-36. Again, it has to be compatible. With a collection of 3 SLA battery
packs and 1 Silicone pack ( 2 chargers and 1 desulf)), I now feel equal to Lithium. I'll have cruising power for a while.
are hard to find. One is a compatible battery monitior that provides data while riding. the other is a regen type controller for my BD-36. Again, it has to be compatible. With a collection of 3 SLA battery
packs and 1 Silicone pack ( 2 chargers and 1 desulf)), I now feel equal to Lithium. I'll have cruising power for a while.
dogman dan
1 PW
Equal exept for the weight, and I can ride 20 miles and put the bike away, and charge a week later. For long frequent rides, lifepo4 rocks. I never could carry enough sla's to get up the hill home to my house. More batteries made me so heavy I ran out further from home than before.
good point. you carry less weight and have more range. the reason I didn't buy litium or nimh
was not merely the money. I was also concerned about making a bone-headed mistake as far as battery battery maintenance/use. 10 mile round trips are enough for my purposes and there are no mountains, few hills. just bridges and overpasses. SLA batteries are widely available and competively priced, also. But they do have to be babied. If you're going to put the Aotema on a trike w/SLA's, maybe you can try parallel wiring. amp up and stay with 36v too.
was not merely the money. I was also concerned about making a bone-headed mistake as far as battery battery maintenance/use. 10 mile round trips are enough for my purposes and there are no mountains, few hills. just bridges and overpasses. SLA batteries are widely available and competively priced, also. But they do have to be babied. If you're going to put the Aotema on a trike w/SLA's, maybe you can try parallel wiring. amp up and stay with 36v too.
dogman dan
1 PW
The trike never goes down the hill anymore, unless I put the lifepo4 in it. By now I have lots of half dead sla's and I load it up with six of em, and still don't get far since I have put so much abuse on them. Steep hills and sla's are a poor match. Once up the hill, there is about 6 miles of more level ground near my house. Mostly I go to the flea market 2 miles away on the trike. It's a funny sight, when I'm riding home with a junk bike on the trike. Take the hill out of the ride and sla's make a lot more sense, but I'm going to get some nicad soon so having to charge right away is not an issue, and weight will decrease some.
dogman dan
1 PW
Yesterday I decided to push the high tech bikes motor as hard as it could go, by taking it on the hardest of the single track trails in the local mountains. These are trails where the gullies are so steep I often have to get off and walk on my pedal bikes. You'd expect to need something like a 72v bike to get up the steep far side of the dips. But much like before, when I rode on the roads that approach the mountain, I found myself using very little trottle getting up these hills, and since it was a coolish day, 65 F, I had no problems with overheating at all. Very impressive, my heinzmann bike on the same trail will overheat in about 3 miles. Bear in mind, this is a 36v lithium battery, not a 48 v.
It definitely didn't work to try to just pour on more throttle and blast up these super steep hills. But with the bike in its lowest gear, and using just enough throttle to assist my pedaling I was easily climbing slickrock chutes that would really wind me on the pedal mtb. The trail from where I parked to the top of the loop is about 4 miles, and only once before have I gone all the way to the top. Even with the motor, the last part of the loop trail is pretty scketchy, with lots of boulders making the trail like riding a giant staircase. I did still have to walk it some on that part, on some of the worst grades. If you bobble it, no way can I get started up again. But generally , if I could hack it, the motor could too. Overpowering it just caused wheel spin, so light pulses on the trottle was the way to go, and in that low gear, you had to be ready to get off the trottle to keep from stalling the motor. Soon I learned to pulse the trottle in time with my pedal strokes on the steepest parts. This really worked well to avoid stalling the motor and getting it hot. On the less steep parts, I could coast down into the dip, and just floor the trottle at the bottom, motoring up the slope using momentum and the motor with no pedaling needed.
It was really fun, and I ended up riding the 8 mile loop trail, plus some other trail on the other side of the mountain I had never been on before, for a total ride of 11.5 miles. People say front hub doesn't work on such trails, but I find the wheel would help me pull straight again when I got squirrley and needed to get back on track. The one drawback was the cheezy steel suspension forks which bottomed out hard a few times till I learned to slow down a bit more on some of the deeper holes. I used 11.75 ah, or one amp hour per mile, so even though I was using low throttle settings, the hills were steep enough to use a lot of power.
One thing that was real fun, was seeing the lycra guy on the big buck Trek carbon bike try to catch me. He followed me up the road to the parking, getting a good look at my wallmart bike on the rack on my car all the way. I went up the trail about a minuite ahead of him, wearing blue jeans and a t shrit. He followed and tried like hell to catch me, I could see him busting his guts on the flatter approach to the trailhead. I was out of sight of him pretty quick :lol: I can only imagine what he was thinking. Blown off the trail by a grey haired old hippy on a wallbike. Poor guy, he's really fit, and in his prime 30's. I try to ride these trails when they won't be full of other riders so there won't be new signs out there specificly banning electric bikes. I was sorta suprised to see anybody, the wind was blowing about 45 mph.
It definitely didn't work to try to just pour on more throttle and blast up these super steep hills. But with the bike in its lowest gear, and using just enough throttle to assist my pedaling I was easily climbing slickrock chutes that would really wind me on the pedal mtb. The trail from where I parked to the top of the loop is about 4 miles, and only once before have I gone all the way to the top. Even with the motor, the last part of the loop trail is pretty scketchy, with lots of boulders making the trail like riding a giant staircase. I did still have to walk it some on that part, on some of the worst grades. If you bobble it, no way can I get started up again. But generally , if I could hack it, the motor could too. Overpowering it just caused wheel spin, so light pulses on the trottle was the way to go, and in that low gear, you had to be ready to get off the trottle to keep from stalling the motor. Soon I learned to pulse the trottle in time with my pedal strokes on the steepest parts. This really worked well to avoid stalling the motor and getting it hot. On the less steep parts, I could coast down into the dip, and just floor the trottle at the bottom, motoring up the slope using momentum and the motor with no pedaling needed.
It was really fun, and I ended up riding the 8 mile loop trail, plus some other trail on the other side of the mountain I had never been on before, for a total ride of 11.5 miles. People say front hub doesn't work on such trails, but I find the wheel would help me pull straight again when I got squirrley and needed to get back on track. The one drawback was the cheezy steel suspension forks which bottomed out hard a few times till I learned to slow down a bit more on some of the deeper holes. I used 11.75 ah, or one amp hour per mile, so even though I was using low throttle settings, the hills were steep enough to use a lot of power.
One thing that was real fun, was seeing the lycra guy on the big buck Trek carbon bike try to catch me. He followed me up the road to the parking, getting a good look at my wallmart bike on the rack on my car all the way. I went up the trail about a minuite ahead of him, wearing blue jeans and a t shrit. He followed and tried like hell to catch me, I could see him busting his guts on the flatter approach to the trailhead. I was out of sight of him pretty quick :lol: I can only imagine what he was thinking. Blown off the trail by a grey haired old hippy on a wallbike. Poor guy, he's really fit, and in his prime 30's. I try to ride these trails when they won't be full of other riders so there won't be new signs out there specificly banning electric bikes. I was sorta suprised to see anybody, the wind was blowing about 45 mph.
bikeelectric
100 W
Any thoughts on how waterproof this hub motor is ?
I know I have read that the crystalites get moisture in them that causes problems.
I know I have read that the crystalites get moisture in them that causes problems.
dogman dan
1 PW
The motor won't need a lot of waterproofing, but throttles can short out easy. Most of the water problems with clyte are with the hall sensors, but this motor doesn't have em. Other problems can happen with condensation when the bike goes inside after being out. The fix for that is vent holes that can be opened to let the innards dry out. Run the motor wire with a drip loop as in the pics at the start of the thread.
I'm in the wrong climate to really test waterproofing. I'm going to be testing what the effects of heat are where I live.
Somewhere in the forum last year there was some good discussions of waterproofing controllers and throttles. My controller was pretty well potted, so that should make it more resistant to condensation inside, and you can just seal all the joints with a good sealant. My favorite sealant is designed to seal the joints in raingutters. Riding in rain is supposed to be possible, but of course you do want to keep out of deep water.
I'm in the wrong climate to really test waterproofing. I'm going to be testing what the effects of heat are where I live.
Somewhere in the forum last year there was some good discussions of waterproofing controllers and throttles. My controller was pretty well potted, so that should make it more resistant to condensation inside, and you can just seal all the joints with a good sealant. My favorite sealant is designed to seal the joints in raingutters. Riding in rain is supposed to be possible, but of course you do want to keep out of deep water.
there is you tube tutorial on how to remove motor cover plate. He told me that you should use a sealant when putting hub back together. He used a screw- drivers and 3 jaw puller to open hub. Be careful not to pry near hex key screw holes as this is the wea spot
dogman dan
1 PW
After my fun with trying to fix a melted down BD hub last summer, I can pop a cover in about 5 minuites. Practice makes perfect. Sealant makes sense if the cover is off, but where I live it doesn't matter too much. We got a tenth of an inch of rain in the last four months.
ekingsting
100 mW
HI everyone. new to this forum . I have had the new aotema brushless since mid Jan. I am very impressed. Ran at 36v for 1mile as a test with old batteries -23.8mph no pedaling. I installed 4 12ah sla's and hot off charge 55.2v I got to 29.8mph sitting straight up in the seat. I used the same controller supposedly 35amp supplied kitfrom ebay , sorry Terry . After 250 miles I love it. I already have great fun playing with unsuspecting group riders. So far my longest ride was 19.5 mile and still plenty of juice to climb 1/2 mile hill of better than 10% to get home ( light pedal assist 13mph). Thanks to all on the forum who help educate me as I now will attemt to covert my 76 rd400 from ice to an agni motor.
23.8 MPH ? I get 22.5 to 23 MPH w/ my new Aotema " 26 tires (no wind) and weigh about 170#. I'm running 36v 12 ah sla .
The fastest I've gone w/ wind is 26 to 26.5 mph (no pedaling). This motor is also impressive against the wind doing about 21 to 22. It will fluctuate on my Bell F20 f/ 19.5 to 22 mph depending on present wind gusts
The fastest I've gone w/ wind is 26 to 26.5 mph (no pedaling). This motor is also impressive against the wind doing about 21 to 22. It will fluctuate on my Bell F20 f/ 19.5 to 22 mph depending on present wind gusts
ekingsting
100 mW
Yes 23.8mph on 36v with the aotema on 70psi schwalbe slick tires and sealed bearing rear hub that rolls so easily. I also tried to reduce my wind resistance by tucking down a bit. the bike is 75lbs and 170 for me.
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