Looking for advice on converting an Electra Townie

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narselon

1 µW
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Aug 5, 2022
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I have an Electra Townie &D that I'm looking to get converted due to my difficulty climbing the mild hills in the immediate area near my house in the Boston area.

  • I have no real max speed requirements. I am honestly fine going at normal pedaling speed with a mild boost if traffic is on my tail.
  • Range. I would like to make a 20 mile round trip and replace driving and for most local trips.
  • Wheel size is 26".
  • Brakes are linear pull brakes.
  • My weight is around 200.
  • Terrain is roads with hills. Google maps defines routes that give me trouble right now as mostly flat. I think there might be a 60 foot change in elevation.
  • Installation difficulty would be simple. looking at hub at front or back versus mid-drive.
  • Only other requirement is that I would like to attach a kid's trailer sometimes for hauling groceries.
  • Budget. Would like to stay low ~600$ but can go higher.

Overall I want the bike to help give me a boost when I need it but still want to pedal for fitness.

I have searched various websites and message boards and I'm overall overwhelmed. I've been circling around a Bafang front hub. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D2FB8Y...-1974312358653077800-20&geniuslink=true&psc=1 But I'm a little afraid to pull the trigger. A lot of advice I'm getting online seems to keep discouraging Hub and going mid-drive, but installation is intimidating. I have also test ridden two front hub bikes that felt perfectly fine to ride.

Also, I visited a local ebike shop that would convert my bike for $1500 with these specs that I jotted down.
  • 1200W front hub motor
  • 54.4V battery
  • 10-15 Amp Hours
  • monochrome display
  • electric cutoff
  • 22A controller
  • Programmable display
  • Thumb throttle
  • Waterproof

It is tempting to pay the premium and never have to worry again, but is this a ripoff/overkill?

Any advice/direction is welcome.
 
You don't need a 1200 watt motor if you're only going to put in 22 amps. Remember 1200W is the continuous output rating for the motor, not the peak electrical input rating. A 1200W motor will likely have a higher RPM per volt than would be appropriate for your budget and power limitations.

That 500W geared Bafang hub is a pretty darn good match for your criteria. If you get it as a kit, you can reasonably expect everything to work together with minimal problem solving. I have built a passel of bikes with Bafang, Ebikeling, and Aikema geared hub motors-- several of them Electra Townies-- and they've been effective and reliable.

If you don't have top speed requirements, don't use a 52V battery. The only thing it does better than a 36 or 48 volt battery is turn the motor faster. That reduces your range, for any given size battery.

You don't need a mid drive to do what you describe. A mid drive incurs a whole lot more maintenance and repairs than a hub motor, and you should only use one if it's necessary to get the job done or you're entertained by putting motor power through the bike's gears. I had one on my bike and it was great; the resulting upkeep on my bike was not great.
 
The thing I would wonder about is the Rim width .... they fail to mention it. They state 2.1 tire width but that is pretty much meaningless. The pictured rim is also a painted rim with decals .... no clean machined brake track for the rim brakes.
 
narselon said:
Would a 13Ah battery be sufficient?
Click to expand...
48V? 22A controller? 20 mile range? Mild hills? <20mph? With you pedaling?

If yes to all, then yes 13Ah battery would be sufficient, provided it is actually 13Ah or close to it (many battery vendors lie about the true specs).

It would even be more than sufficient, not a bad thing considering the battery's deterioration over time. And that you don't want to continually run the battery down to 0 each time.
 
I actually already read through your build. Unfortunately I have the step through version or I'd try to use the center triangle. How relevant would those components be at present though?
 
With the possible exception of the controller (for more power) I can see no reason to change any of the components. None of them have been much improved other than the batteries, but the ones I used would still be OK if charged the way I did it with every cell having its own balance sense wire. I would change the system to 72V from the 96V the bike had.

I wouldn't change any more of the bikes traditional parts than what I did. If I had extra money to piss away, I'd buy a crank overdrive for it.
 
Is the Townie using a steel fork or alloy fork (check with magnet), I'd only use a steel fork for a front drive, but I'd prefer to install a rear motor, so I don;t have to worry about the dropout breaking.

Some DIYers think a rear wheel motor is more complex, but I counter that dual torque arms, plus the need to understand how a front motor can fail makes it more complex and more expensive, given the price of commercial torque armss.

Nonetheless, I have done a FWD 500W bafang on a cruiser bike with steel fork.Has a 20A controller, and a 48V10AH battery. I was not paying attention when I bought the battery, but it's still a nominal 480WH pack, and I can get 30 miles easily out of it, at a little faster than bike speeds )12 mph_ as it is a cruiser.

I wouldn't out a 1000W motor on the front, so that $1500 commercial build is not for me.
 
Looks like I haven't posted on this forum for about 15 years. Since that last post, I've built 4 more E bikes using Grin cyclery components. I just bought a Townie Go ebike for 100 bucks planning to use the motor and the battery for a different project. Silly me, I didn't get the differences between the open source Grin components and proprietary stuff. This bike has a rear hub motor with a derailleur and seven or eight cogs on the cassette. It also has a 9 pin plug. Has anybody figured out what those nine pins do and what it might take to put a plug on this motor that I could use with my older controllers? I got this bike so cheaply because it doesn't work. It looks like the reason it doesn't work is the two batteries it came with are dead because the charger does not work. If I can't figure out a Frankenstein this motor, I'll give the bike to a friend and let him buy a new charger. I figure I call up somebody who's got one of these for sale and ask if they might let me go over to their house and plug their charger into Attach filesmy battery to see if the problem really is the charger.
 
Last edited:
lawson415 said:
Looks like I haven't posted on this forum for about 15 years. Since that last post, I've built 4 more E bikes using Grin cyclery components. I just bought a Townie Go ebike for 100 bucks planning to use the motor and the battery for a different project. Silly me, I didn't get the differences between the open source Grin components and proprietary stuff. This bike has a rear hub motor with a derailleur and seven or eight cogs on the cassette. It also has a 9 pin plug. Has anybody figured out what those nine pins do and what it might take to put a plug on this motor that I could use with my older controllers? I got this bike so cheaply because it doesn't work. It looks like the reason it doesn't work is the two batteries it came with are dead because the charger does not work. If I can't figure out a Frankenstein this motor, I'll give the bike to a friend and let him buy a new charger. I figure I call up somebody who's got one of these for sale and ask if they might let me go over to their house and plug their charger into Attach filesmy battery to see if the problem really is the charger.
Click to expand...
Check the 9 pin HIGO connector halfway down the page under motor connectors to see if it’s the type you have.

Connectors - Learn

There are lots and lots of connector types used in the ebike industry, so many that it would be a very tall order to try and list them all. In our business, we focus just on aftermarket conversion kits and have tried to keep the connector styles down to a well chosen minimal set. This page...
ebikes.ca ebikes.ca
 
E-HP said:
Check the 9 pin HIGO connector halfway down the page under motor connectors to see if it’s the type you have.

Connectors - Learn

There are lots and lots of connector types used in the ebike industry, so many that it would be a very tall order to try and list them all. In our business, we focus just on aftermarket conversion kits and have tried to keep the connector styles down to a well chosen minimal set. This page...
ebikes.ca ebikes.ca
Click to expand...
Excellent E-HP! Thank you, this is what I have and I've got a long standing relationship with the guys at Grin. I'll do some arithmetic and figure out what's the most economical way to move forward.
 
lawson415 said:
Excellent E-HP! Thank you, this is what I have and I've got a long standing relationship with the guys at Grin. I'll do some arithmetic and figure out what's the most economical way to move forward.
Click to expand...
You could buy an extension cable, then cut the extension and separate out the conductors so you can graft on (solder/crimp) the desired connectors.
Or, cut the controller hall and phase wire connectors off the controller and replace with the other half of the extension cable.
 
I wrote to Grin to see if they make something easy to use for this conversion.

However, I had no idea such an extension existed. The easiest fix might be "cut the extension and separate out the conductors so you can graft on (solder/crimp) the desired connectors." I do not need regen, ebrakes or torque sensor. All I need to use is a Grin twist throttle and CA3 so I might not need to connect all the wires
E-HP said:
You could buy an extension cable, then cut the extension
Or, cut the controller hall and phase wire connectors off the controller and replace with the other half of the extension cable.
Click to expand...
 
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