Lightweight Commuter Cute 100 CST

[athletic91]

Updates 5/4/14,

Decided to to go LIPO 10s 5ah, which is enough for my 28km commute. The bottle battery sags badly compared to the lipo. Also added some mudguards as it has been raining recently.




Also i recycled the 36v bottle battery on my razor e200. Rides like a beast now !

 

[athletic91]

Ordered a nice Topeak saddle bag to fit the batteries. Looks much neater now.

 

[athletic91]

2000km update- no issues

wonder how long more the hub motor can last before i will need to clean and re oil the gears inside and replace the catridge bearings

 

[motomech]

I have a new Q100 CST motor and I inspected the gears be before I used it.
There was sufficient grease on the gears.
Unless you ride in water much, you will not need to worry about the gears or bearings for many 1000's of miles.

 

[motomech]

Looks like the 9spd cassette's giving you trouble aligning the hub into the frame? Dishing the rim enough will probably leave spokes on the cog side nearly vertical as it's built?

And/or, relace the wheel offset spokes in the hub flange? I'd probably use a different rim at that point - Alex, or something with eyelets, at minimum.

You should also use a thin steel washer inside the LH dropout IMO.

This is exactly correct.
I had to dish the Brake side very near vertical. It leaves the cassette side spokes showing some thread, but it can be done.
I replaced a standard Q100 with a DNP 9-speed and the CST with 9-speed cassette is wider. 137 mm vs. 133 mm.
I used thin washers inside both sides of the drop outs, one so the cassette wouldn't rub and the other to align the disc to the caliper.

 

[motomech]

athletic91-
If you replace the red wires with black, it will look much less like an Ebike(if you care).

 

[athletic91]

athletic91-
If you replace the red wires with black, it will look much less like an Ebike(if you care).

I did think of that. But left it red for safety reasons to identify pos and neg wires

 

[Rollodo]

I did think of that. But left it red for safety reasons to identify pos and neg wires

You can still either 1) wrap the entire harness in electrical tape, or 2) undo the connectors, slide some heat shrink on, and redo the connectors. They don't make any black bullet connectors? WTF - Andersons all the way, always.

 

[athletic91]

3300km update no issues..

At 2900km, i retired the 10s 5000 packs as they were showing signs of puffing.( due to the fact that this were my first lipo packs and i did not know how to care for them, including a incident when they will discharged below 2.5v)

Replace with a fresh pack of 13s 5000 and bought a custom alloy bulk charger that charges to 53.3v only (4.1v/cell)
Cruising speed has improved from 27 to 35km/h. Very happy with the setup !!

 

[athletic91]

3900km no issues....installed new stem and front topeak mudguard, pics to follow

 

[athletic91]

updated some old posts with the overdue pics..

After travelling 16km, 13s5ah lipo drop from 53.3v to 48.7v..... I could get 20km max at 47v. This is at top speed of 35km/h. if i limit to 25km/h, i could easily get 30km out of this tiny 5ah pack !

 

[athletic91]

UPDATE 4600KM ,no issue, re-routed the wire from battery to wattmeter and removed the down tube fender since i had the front wheel fender installed

 

[motomech]

There is some empirical evidence here that wrapping the Lipo bricks tightly when new extends service life/resists puffing.
I figure that it can't hurt and the Gorilla tape does offer some puncture protection.

 

[athletic91]

5000km update.

Sometimes at high wattages i can hear hub gear slippage for 0.5 secs of grinding sound, other than that its fine. I will gladly replace the the cute100 at the 8000km mark .

 

[Ykick]

5000km update.

Sometimes at high wattages i can hear hub gear slippage for 0.5 secs of grinding sound, other than that its fine. I will gladly replace the the cute100 at the 8000km mark .

Probably getting into clutch issue IMO. They’re very simple but use what looks like ballpoint pen springs to help the rollers engage into the ramp.

In my case(s) the thin springs eventually wear down and work between the rollers/ramp and either fail to disengage and/or prevent the rollers from engaging.

I found some springs made from much thicker steel and cut to length. Appears to be a good repair.

No need for much lubrication as long as things are staying clean and most importantly dry.

 

[athletic91]

ended the year 2015 with a mileage of 5500km. retiring my set of batteries and ordered a new one

 

[athletic91]

The authorities here are ramping out enforcement , singapore follows the EURO 250w standard ....So being discreet is the key now !

 

[athletic91]

Fitted in my new set of lipo . Cant believe the old 5s lipo swell that much or the new ones were just smaller in dimension. I swear the old packs were well taken of,never below 3.6 above 4.1.

The news ones also came in a glossy shrink wrap as compared to the non glossy old one .

 

[athletic91]

After 6400km, i decided to retire the diamondback frame and transfer the kit to a new scott aspect bike that i got on closeout. Main reason was the disc brake to work on the diamondback frame, i had to add 5mm of spacers to the left axle to prevent rotor rub.And i was not sure how much more stress the old frame could take..

 

[athletic91]

Mileage now at 6900 km. After riding 400km on these maxis detonator tires 1.5 width. realise they took 20-30w more to maintain 30km/h compared to michelin run n r 1.4. However detonators wet performance is much better.

 

[1KW]

Nice build. Are torque arms needed? Never any axle play?

 

[athletic91]

No Torque arms needed, peak power is about 850w but its not more than 5 secs before dropping back to 300w nominal. I guess bring a rear wheel drive help distribute the torque better

 

[wire.rat]

Wow are you riding it in Singapore?

 

[matthewmax09]

Hello!

I am also from Singapore and am I thinking of starting a build that is similar to yours. Since it looks pretty stealth and I think with a sine wave controller, it could potentially be pretty silent too.

Do you still ride your bike in Singapore? Also, have you had any issues with LTA enforcers at parks, especially with the government plans to clamp on non compliant ebikes?

Thanks in advance!

 

[athletic91]

Im still riding it on the roads here, on a regular basis.

I always wear a helmet and covered shoes and also make a effort to pedal as it doesn't have a throttle.

Drivers just think I'm a fit rider riding a normal MTB