LightningRods mid drive kit

what about the trailtech crank arms? now that you have the freewheels, i'm guessing those are the only missing piece in my kit. (i saw you have a stock of controllers so i'm guessing that's ok).

what dreaming? i thought you were PLANNING your next line? don't forget the ecospeed actually started with kits for the trikes, and now have their own banana-mobile.
http://www.ecospeed.com/electrify-your-ride/velomobiles/ (wow looking at brad inside that things makes ME so claustrophobic)
 
Hello all.

I'm new here and excited about the idea of an Ebike mountain bike. I haven't had the opportunity to read through all the wealth of information here but this motor looks great. I'm thinking of building a downhill mountain bike. These bikes typically weigh about 45 pounds or 20.11kg. Can this motor handle that weight going uphills more than say 15% grade? How long will the battery last say with pedal- assist on those same 15% grade hills? These would also be rocky, rough hills, not just smooth dirt roads.

Thanks.
 
Hiya, the answer is yes to the grade and weight, distance depends on the battery size of course, now go do lots of reading :)

I suggest you start with the GNG thread by Spinningmagnets and read through some of the builds already completed and posted about (links at the beginning of that thread).
 
The bumpier the terrain, the more you want a mid drive. Hub motors work well on smooth surfaces but hammer your spokes and rims on rough ground and keep your suspension from being responsive due to the unsprung weight. It is also better to have the major components centrally located for better balance and handling.

The steeper, slower and more technical the riding you do off road the more you want a mid drive. Hub motors are basically stuck in high gear at all times. At low speeds up steep hills hub motors get hot and suffer. With a mid drive running through the gears when the going gets steep and tight you just grab a lower gear and keep the motor in it's happy place.

One of the tough compromises for an off road e-bike is battery capacity vs. light weight and responsive handling. What I am considering for my own bike is four 6S (22.2V) 8000 mah LiPo packs wired 4S for 88.8V 8 ah. That will be the bike pack. It's only 4.5 kg (10lbs). I will have the option of another pack of the same capacity in a backpack that I'll parallel to the bike pack for 88.8V 16 ah. All up weight only 9 kg and only half of that on the bike. That's 1420 watt hours. 700 watts should be good for at least 25 mph. 1420 watt hours should let me maintain that speed for two hours. The real world will yield less mileage but we should be looking at a range of at least 30-40 miles. More if I'm not lazy and pedal some. For quick workouts I'll leave the backpack at home and go play for 15-20 miles on the bike pack alone.

My kits are shipping now. Soon enough we'll see how the whole package works in the real world. The individual components have been in use for some time now and have been performing even better than I'd hoped.
 
Don't go with lipo, just don't, at least not until you ship my kit,we still need you alive :D
 
LightningRods said:
One of the tough compromises for an off road e-bike is battery capacity vs. light weight and responsive handling. What I am considering for my own bike is four 6S (22.2V) 8000 mah LiPo packs wired 4S for 88.8V 8 ah. That will be the bike pack. It's only 4.5 kg (10lbs). I will have the option of another pack of the same capacity in a backpack that I'll parallel to the bike pack for 88.8V 16 ah. All up weight only 9 kg and only half of that on the bike. That's 1420 watt hours. 700 watts should be good for at least 25 mph. 1420 watt hours should let me maintain that speed for two hours. The real world will yield less mileage but we should be looking at a range of at least 30-40 miles. More if I'm not lazy and pedal some. For quick workouts I'll leave the backpack at home and go play for 15-20 miles on the bike pack alone.

My kits are shipping now. Soon enough we'll see how the whole package works in the real world. The individual components have been in use for some time now and have been performing even better than I'd hoped.
Click to expand...

25mph should be arround 500Watts. I think you get much more out of your batterie. 700wh is a lot of batterie. If your are riding technical Offroad, that will be good for hours. Full speed pushing arround with no pedaling your estimation is right.

When I pedal at arround 150W I can travel 25 miles with 25mph and use arround 250wh, when I do technical offroad, I use less Batterie.

This Kit is perfekt for pedaling, so why not pedal easy.
 
Can we add pas to a mid-drive kit (this mid-drive kit)? never ridden a bike with pas, does it goe by pedal speed? or does it just add a particular amount of power whenever you pedal?

Off topic I know so if you can point me at an existing thread for pas on a mid-drive I'd appreciate it :)
 
pass is unrelated to type of kit, you can pas with either mid-drive or hub. i'm personally going for THUN tourque sensor, as it's much more accurate then simple pass. thing, you need to have a different crank arms for that, but for magnet pas you can just use the ones supplied with L-R.
 
emaayan said:
Don't go with lipo, just don't, at least not until you ship my kit,we still need you alive :D
Click to expand...

Bah! I sleep with charging LiPo in my bed during the winter to keep me warm. :wink:
 
meanwhile the fireball which erupted while charging and undervolted bloated lipo with a fast charger, got my dad into getting a fire alarm. ever since then he won't allow me to charge while i'm not present. :shock:
 
emaayan said:
meanwhile the fireball which erupted while charging and undervolted bloated lipo with a fast charger, got my dad into getting a fire alarm. ever since then he won't allow me to charge while i'm not present. :shock:
Click to expand...
you should always be present when charging batteries. be it lipo, lico, limn, life ... and even nihm/nicd. but i guess this could go offtopic really fast.
 
t0me said:
Can we add pas to a mid-drive kit (this mid-drive kit)? never ridden a bike with pas, does it goe by pedal speed? or does it just add a particular amount of power whenever you pedal?
Click to expand...

I'm working with Emaayan to produce the first torque sensing version of my kit. The more I think about torque sensing the more I like it. It works on the force you apply to the crank arms and then the BB. The harder you pedal the more power is applied to the motor. It helps you get a workout and extends the range of your battery.
 
izeman said:
emaayan said:
meanwhile the fireball which erupted while charging and undervolted bloated lipo with a fast charger, got my dad into getting a fire alarm. ever since then he won't allow me to charge while i'm not present. :shock:
Click to expand...
you should always be present when charging batteries. be it lipo, lico, limn, life ... and even nihm/nicd. but i guess this could go offtopic really fast.
Click to expand...

Of course I agree. For all of you noobs out there who read what I was saying about sleeping with charging LiPo, I was KIDDING!

I typically charge my LiPo on a tile countertop right next to where I do a lot of my computer work. That way I can keep my eye on the little buggers. If I do have to charge my LiPo unattended I do it in either my barbecue outside or in the oven in the kitchen. I charge at 5C, which my batteries are rated for. I never store them with a full charge, I never run them down lower than 3.6V in any one cell, I always say nice things to them and I say my prayers to the God of LiPo every night. So far, so good.
 
t0me said:
love the idea of that, especially if I can choose to ride like that or power on when I want to
Click to expand...

Yep, you can override with the hand throttle at any time.
 
LightningRods said:
t0me said:
Can we add pas to a mid-drive kit (this mid-drive kit)? never ridden a bike with pas, does it goe by pedal speed? or does it just add a particular amount of power whenever you pedal?
Click to expand...

I'm working with Emaayan to produce the first torque sensing version of my kit. The more I think about torque sensing the more I like it. It works on the force you apply to the crank arms and then the BB. The harder you pedal the more power is applied to the motor. It helps you get a workout and extends the range of your battery.
Click to expand...
i heard that torque sensing together with mid drive doesn't work really well as there is always some lag induced (by the motor, not the torque sensor).
would be interesting to hear your results, as i really like this idea a lot. i think it's the most natural way to ride an ebike. everything else is more like a motorbike. and if you ever had the chance to test ride such a bike it's super nice as you just need to put a feet on your pedal and off you go - the bike i did test was a hub motor though.
 
however i should add 2 important points.

1. thun BB is the only i believe that can work here, because they have the longest one (136, opposed to the original 148) ,but in only works on the LEFT side (meaning data is sent when you rotate the left pedal

2. it also depended on the controller you have, while i assume the default controller l-r is providing is similar if not the same as the ones paul from em3ev provides, my BMC controller is different beast, it's throttle curve is not exactly "balanced" (i can't remember the exactl term) so it would start strongly, and can't exactly be fine tuned. this would cause the bike to jump suddenly without warning if you start pedaling.

naturally u'd need CA for this anyway.
 
I grappled for some time with the concept of the torque sensor getting a 'dirty' signal from the BB because of the motor power running through it. The light that finally came on for me is that the motor doesn't really run through the BB, it runs past the BB. The driven sprocket on the BB is running on a freewheel. Whenever the motor applies torque to that sprocket it pulls away from the BB rather than against it. The torque sensor is reading the torque being applied to the BB through the crank arm, not the torque being applied to the freewheeling sprocket.

If anything the pedaling signal might be reduced somewhat by the resistance of the drive chain being pulled away from the BB. As long as the motor doesn't come on so hard that there's nothing to pedal against, it should all work.
 
Justin has a good solution to the torque sensing.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60703
 
kfong said:
Justin has a good solution to the torque sensing.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60703
Click to expand...
TORQUE sensing? Or pas?
 
Hello I am interested in your lighting rod kit but I am having a hard time getting you email. Would appreciate it. Thanks
 
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