motor kit recommendation?

[mikewse]

I am about to do my first e-bike conversion and have been looking around for kits for a while, becoming somewhat confused by all different options and technologies. I really appreciate all help in aiding me to find the right motor kit, or type of motor kit, fulfilling the following requirements:

• fair quality on both electrical parts and rim
• good value for money
• ~250-400W
• silent
• rear mount
• compatible with Shimano 8-speed gears
• compatible with standard disc brakes
• little pedaling resistance when motor is off
• no cut-off speed limit so motor still helps when pedaling fast
• small/unnoticable install
• easy/minimal wiring
• small/discrete throttle and battery indicator

My bike is a Merida Matts 20 http://www2.merida-bikes.com/en_INT/Bikes.Detail.80, and I'm using the bike for commuting (17km one way).

Thanks
Mike

 

[spinningmagnets]

Nice bike choice, many kit options, but have you looked at the rear geared-hub (stealthy) at http://ampedbikes.com/kits.html ?

 

[dogman dan]

Don't really know any kits that meet all those criteria, but an E-BikeKit might come close. This vendor is in the USA. Some motors don't have room for 8 speed clusters, and run 7 or even 5. But it's not like you need more than about 3 gears once you are motorized. But that motor, a 9 continent, is very large. Another one avaliable in rear you might look at is the BMC 400 watt. Ooops there went affordable and silent. Not that the noise is that loud, but there is noise on gearmotors, which usually are the most stealthy visually. Most of the kits don't have battery indicators because having one on the throttle creates a risk of an accidental stuck on full throttle condition. And mostly battery indicators don't work on lifepo4 anyway. The least pedal resistance is found on gearmotors, but they tend to make a bit of noise. But some direct drive motors have more pedal resistance when off than others. I find it pretty small resistance on my Ebikekit motor, but yours may have more, or less.

Anyway, somethings got to give, ALL the items on your list are pretty hard to find. However, a good gearmotor like the Ezee kit from Ebikes-ca or a BMC 400 watt ( that has several vendors) may come the closest to meeting more of your list. None of the kits are that hard to do the wiring. The gearmotors don't make that much noise, and most go 20 mph. I belive both those motors are disk compatible, but getting it all to line up and work may take some fiddling.

Edit, that's right, amped has a gearmotor now.

 

[mikewse]

Nice bike choice, many kit options, but have you looked at the rear geared-hub (stealthy) at http://ampedbikes.com/kits.html ?

No, hadn't seen their geared kit! It says 6-speed cluster though - can I still fit my stock Shimano 8-speed?
Btw, what do they mean with "350-450W"? Different on different days?

 

[mikewse]

Don't really know any kits that meet all those criteria, but an E-BikeKit might come close.

The kit I'm seeing at http://www.e-bikekit.com/ is a 500-750W kit? (and thus large)
My thought with going for a low 250-350W is to be able to have smaller components (both motor and battery), to hopefully solve some of my other requirements such as discrete looks. At work I can only park my bike out in the open. And trying my wife's e-bike, I find 250W and 36V10Ah is quite enough for my commute (although her bike is speed-limited).

Some motors don't have room for 8 speed clusters, and run 7 or even 5. But it's not like you need more than about 3 gears once you are motorized. But that motor, a 9 continent, is very large. Another one avaliable in rear you might look at is the BMC 400 watt. Ooops there went affordable and silent. Not that the noise is that loud, but there is noise on gearmotors, which usually are the most stealthy visually.

I'd really like to keep the 8 gears. Or does that rule out a lot of kits together with the disc brake? I was thinking 250W motors could be made fairly thin?

I could compromise with both stealthiness and noise, with stealthiness being a little more important than noise. Though both loud noise and large size is probably out of the question.
Does that make any other kits interesting?

Anyway, somethings got to give, ALL the items on your list are pretty hard to find. However, a good gearmotor like the Ezee kit from Ebikes-ca or a BMC 400 watt ( that has several vendors) may come the closest to meeting more of your list.

Ok, so these are "geared" recommendations. What could the best "direct drive" recommendation be? (for purpose of comparison)

Thanks
Mike

 

[spinningmagnets]

Btw, what do they mean with "350-450W"? Different on different days?

36V at 10A equals 360W (1/2-HP), then, if you decide to use 48V at 20A you will be pumping 960W through it (1-1/3 HP). Ampedbikes.com rates their motors for continuous duty at 36V (even though he knows half his customers immediately use 48V).

If you want a small rear direct-drive hub, consider the Crystalyte 408 at 48V. It will be silent and stealthy (easy to hide behind two panniers). It will have a higher top speed than the geared unit, but it will have less hill-climbing torque than the geared hub.

It may be difficult finding a hub that will accept 8-gears, I don't know of any. I agree with the other poster, 5 gears will be enough after you get power and any more gears than that and you will have fittage problems with the drop-outs. Others have forced 6 or 7 gears between the drop-outs, but 5 should drop-in just about any frame.

 

[mikewse]

It may be difficult finding a hub that will accept 8-gears, I don't know of any. I agree with the other poster, 5 gears will be enough after you get power and any more gears than that and you will have fittage problems with the drop-outs.

My (possibly naive) thinking was that I want to be able to keep taking the bike out on dirt trails with non-motorized friends and leave the battery at home, just carrying the extra weight of the motor. Then having the full 3x8 gears would be nice. Also, I wouldn't have to muck about so much with changing gear levers etc if I can just keep my existing gears.

The reason for wanting to go with a rear wheel conversion is that this is my "winter commute" bike (I have a 28":er for summer) that I only use on snow and ice. I have spiked tyres but I'm still a bit suspicious about having the drive on the front wheel when on ice... or is this no problem and I can safely choose a front wheel kit?

 

[dogman dan]

Yup, possibly naive. We all were at one point. One bit of advice I often give newbies is to never ruin thier favorite bike with a motor. If you have a nice MTB you like to ride on trails keep it that way. You can put a motor on something much cheaper for the street commute. Not always a cheap bike, but maybe a used bike, old school steel frame, 5 speed shifters etc that can be found cheap. My stable has several ebikes, but also a vintage motobecane road bike, and an 05 giant FS MTB for the trail riding. No way I want to strap 10-20 more pounds to either one!

So there went the toughest one, 8 speed gears on a rear hub. The motors are just wide enough to have problems with so many gears. the skinniest one is the Ebikekit, or 9 continent if looking at them at ebikes-ca. I really don't know if they can take 8 gears or not, but most clytes take only 5. Again, you'll only be using about 3 of em unless you ride unpowered. If you really plan to ride unpowered, you really want to get a gearmotor since they freewheel. Gearmotors tend to be wide motors though.... The cheaper bike will also not have disk, eliminating another problem. Just pick an easier bike to motorize.

On direct drive motors, 500 watts is about the lowest usable wattage for us yanks. Less just won't climb the rocky mountains, and we tend to live farther from work. It just depends on the length and steepness of your route. On the flat, a 500 watt motor may only use 200 watts. You can ride half throttle and use 250 watts.

As for front wheel on ice. It would be sketchy for most, but if you have superb riding skills you would have no problems with it. You just can't romp the throttle any which way on slick surfaces with either type motor. Some less skilled riders shit their pants if a wheel spins, but for me it was always half the fun when the wheels start spinning. So front or rear, slippage is just part of the fun to me. I was snow riding the other day on my front hub bike and didn't find it any particular problem. No ice though. In a way it could be better, you have traction on both wheels if you pedal too. But if you don't controll the traction, sure , you could be in trouble.

But, after too much yakity yack as usual,... The 408 clyte is a good choice for a rear dd motor that is stealthy. The only smaller diameter ones are gearmotors. But you just need to find an old bike with 5 speed gears to put it on. You should be able to scare one up for less than $50 eventually. If you put it on the 8 speed bike, you should be able to use the 8 speed shifter, just set the derailur so it won't shift off the cluster with the adjustment screws and use gears 1-5.

 

[mikewse]

Thanks for all the great info! (And for bearing with all my questions)

About the 9 Continent:

• It looks quite interesting!
• Motor versions with different top speeds: are motors normally designed to "flat out" at a certain speed? I want to be able to reach higher speeds when using both motor and pedals, so need I look for special motor versions made for this? Are geared motors better for high top speeds?
• They mention the possibility to spread the frame for rear mount with 7 or more gears. Is this a straight-forward procedure, or more a world of hurt? (I had to ask )
• Does the regenerative braking work well, and does it extend the range by any relevant percentage?

I'm starting to understand direct drive vs geared now, but am also coming across new buzzwords, f ex "sensorless". Is this a Good Thing (seems to imply less cabling?) and are there any other features to watch (out) for? Some kit pages talk about magnet and winding metrics, should I make an effort to understand that?

I'll spend some time examining the products you all mentioned a bit further. BTW, when googling for ebike products I notice pages from a wide range of Chinese manufacturers pop up. Is it worth looking at these, or is it better to look at the western-world reseller pages as they have sorted out the good stuff from the bad?

 

[dogman dan]

Look at all the stuff you have time to and lean all you can. The ES technical reference section has some good explanations of the basics that you can refer to when you get amps and amp hours, or paralell vs series confused. The Ebikes-ca website has a cool motor simulator that helps. They also have one of the better explanations of how motors and controllers work, but don't expect to understand it on the first read.

A few basics..,

Direct drive motors, depending on the way they are wound will max out at different speeds at the same voltage. So a crystalyte 406 tops out faster than a 408. Some will say the slower motor has more tourqe, but really it just has similar tourqe, but at a different speed. So the best power band on one motor may be at the speed you want, and another not. But in general, for hauling loads and climbing hills that happens slower, a slower wound motor is a better match. A fast wound motor may be a bit sluggish to get started, or not, depending on how many watts you feed it. This sluggishness of fast motors at low wattage is often called less torque. It feels like less torqe.


The kings of torque are the gear motors. They get more torque by mechanical advantage of the planetary gearing inside. A high watt gearmotor is very powerfull, but some gearmotors are low wattage, and though they may have torque they are still low watt and therfore may not be all that fast.


Voltage affects speed. So the same 408 that goes about 20 mph at 36v may reach 25 at 48v.

So the fastest motor is usually the one that is wound for speed, such as a crystalyte 5303, that has lots of volts, like running at 72v. People with that set up go illegal for the street fast. Most kits sold stick to the US street legal speed of 20 mph, but a few may be a tad faster. Other vendors don't worry about legal speed kit sales, and just stock a variety of motors and controllers and the legal problems, if any ,are your deal.

Just to make it more confusing, the 9 continent retailers are currently using different systems for motor ID. So the 9x7 at ebikekit and the 2807 at ebikes-ca are similar in terms of the speed they are wound for. My ebikekit motor for instance runs about 21-22 mph on a fully charged 36v battery. It's a designed to go the US legal speed kit. I've been pretty happy with my ebikekit so far.

On a cheaper steel frame bike spreading the forks is easy as pie. Wedges of wood, or scissor jacks are two of the methods. On aluminum frames, it can be done, but if you screw up, it's the recycle bin for that frame. The steel bends without breaking much better.
.
Personally I'm not a big fan of regen. Opinions vary to how big a percentage you get back, but for sure it's not all that much. Buying a decent size battery seems to work better to me. Don't need to extend range if you have range. A 36v 20 ah lifepo4 or 48v 15 ah takes you further than 20 miles at full speed, which is plenty for most. For example my ebikekit and 36v 20 ah battery easily takes me 25 miles or more. Some dig the idea of getting better braking power by combining motor regen braking with the mechanical brakes. I just don't go so dangerously fast, and my bike stops fine from 25 mph with ordinary rim brakes. I change the pads about every 3000 miles or so. Once a year.

 

[torker]

Ditto on the need for less gears once you have a motor. I have a 9C front motor and the bike has never been out of high gear since I installed it. I also have a 9C rear on a mt. bike. I was able to reuse the 7 spd. freewheel but I don't think 8 would fit. The 9C is a tad wide but I was able to mount it by only spreading the stays about a 1/4 inch. I thought it would be hard but it had a lot of flex and actually slipped right in with very little effort. The 9C is not stealthy or light. You won't really enjoy riding it unpowered. Not a lot of drag, just heavy.

 

[mikewse]

Right, I just realized that motors may wheigh over 20lbs. It's not always easy to find the weight on the kit's home pages, any tips for finding those figures? I've understood that geared motors are lighter than direct drives. Are there any typical weight numbers for these categories of motors, or does it change a lot depending on wattage as well?
I just came across this nice article:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/quiet-revolution-bicycles-recapturing-role-utilitarian-people-movers-part-ii
that mentions the quality of different brands (interesting to see if you agree?) and also says that regenerative braking could extend range with 20% (impressive but still not enough to really make a difference to me).

 

[torker]

Yea, the 9c weighs 15 lbs. with wheel. And large diameter so not stealthy. But pretty quiet. The Crystalyte 5x series probably weigh 20 lbs. someone may chime in as I don't own one. The Crystalyte 4x series should be comparable to the 9c The atoema like Dogman runs is probably under 10 lbs. and the geared motors should be even less. I think for stealth and cost the Atoema would be hard to beat. I think they are on sale for 299 but not sure about a rear motor, that might just be the front motors on sale.

Maybe we should start a thread on hubmotor weights...

 

[Drunkskunk]

Interesting article. I'll have to read it through when I'm not at the office, but the part on the quality of Hub motors seems to be what most of us have found here, too. I would rank the Aetoma higher than the Goldenmotor, but the order seems correct, and even the golden motor in last place is a well respected motor. That E+ they mention doesn't belong in that list, though. its more of a gimic, than a viable motor.

The Aetoma and Clyte 40X series motors are the same size and weight, and make the least noise of just about any motor out there. My Clyte 408 weighs 15 pounds motor alone. The 530X series of Clyte weigh 25 pounds, motor alone. while my 9C motors is 11 pounds just the motor.

You can fit a 7 speed and a disk brake on a 408 Clyte, but not without some real clearance problems. I did on mine, but I also had to do extensive modifications to an Avid BB7 and build a custom mount for the calliper.

As for regen, 5% is more reasonable. its possable to get as high as 10% if you happen to do a whole lot of braking, but 20% is likely only possable in labratory testing, under perfect conditions and ideal settings. I believe Justin got 5% on his cross Canada ride. IMHO its not worth trading other features for, as getting a battery 5% bigger will give you the same results.

I usualy recomend the 9c motor to anyone new at this, but in your case, the 408 may be a better motor. its smaller, stealthier, and quieter than the 9c. Mine hides in plain site between the disk and the freewheel, and people riding beside me at speed have failed to notice the motor

 

[kriskros]

try the puma olr bafang from holmes hobbies... both are geared.......bafang $300. puma$400. laced into a rim

 

[1-track-mind]

Look at all the stuff you have time to and lean all you can. The ES technical reference section has some good explanations of the basics that you can refer to when you get amps and amp hours, or paralell vs series confused. The Ebikes-ca website has a cool motor simulator that helps. They also have one of the better explanations of how motors and controllers work, but don't expect to understand it on the first read.

A few basics..,

Direct drive motors, depending on the way they are wound will max out at different speeds at the same voltage. So a crystalyte 406 tops out faster than a 408. Some will say the slower motor has more tourqe, but really it just has similar tourqe, but at a different speed. So the best power band on one motor may be at the speed you want, and another not. But in general, for hauling loads and climbing hills that happens slower, a slower wound motor is a better match. A fast wound motor may be a bit sluggish to get started, or not, depending on how many watts you feed it. This sluggishness of fast motors at low wattage is often called less torque. It feels like less torqe.


The kings of torque are the gear motors. They get more torque by mechanical advantage of the planetary gearing inside. A high watt gearmotor is very powerfull, but some gearmotors are low wattage, and though they may have torque they are still low watt and therfore may not be all that fast.


Voltage affects speed. So the same 408 that goes about 20 mph at 36v may reach 25 at 48v.

So the fastest motor is usually the one that is wound for speed, such as a crystalyte 5303, that has lots of volts, like running at 72v. People with that set up go illegal for the street fast. Most kits sold stick to the US street legal speed of 20 mph, but a few may be a tad faster. Other vendors don't worry about legal speed kit sales, and just stock a variety of motors and controllers and the legal problems, if any ,are your deal.

Just to make it more confusing, the 9 continent retailers are currently using different systems for motor ID. So the 9x7 at ebikekit and the 2807 at ebikes-ca are similar in terms of the speed they are wound for. My ebikekit motor for instance runs about 21-22 mph on a fully charged 36v battery. It's a designed to go the US legal speed kit. I've been pretty happy with my ebikekit so far.

On a cheaper steel frame bike spreading the forks is easy as pie. Wedges of wood, or scissor jacks are two of the methods. On aluminum frames, it can be done, but if you screw up, it's the recycle bin for that frame. The steel bends without breaking much better.
.
Personally I'm not a big fan of regen. Opinions vary to how big a percentage you get back, but for sure it's not all that much. Buying a decent size battery seems to work better to me. Don't need to extend range if you have range. A 36v 20 ah lifepo4 or 48v 15 ah takes you further than 20 miles at full speed, which is plenty for most. For example my ebikekit and 36v 20 ah battery easily takes me 25 miles or more. Some dig the idea of getting better braking power by combining motor regen braking with the mechanical brakes. I just don't go so dangerously fast, and my bike stops fine from 25 mph with ordinary rim brakes. I change the pads about every 3000 miles or so. Once a year.

That's just an outstandingly informative post for us newbs ! Thank you !

 

[ElectricEd]

I pretty much agree with all of the above.
Forget about taking a 408 without battery on the trails with your mates. The drag from motor cogging feels like running one of those tyre rubbing dynamos of yesteryear. On a technical hilly trail you'll be stuffed in no time. Adding to that, if you don't get a 408 with the latest mod with a moulded in steel insert for the threaded cluster boss, in granny gear you're likely to rip it out of the side plate. This has happened to me and others from this forum.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9205&p=142756#p142756

The cheap rims that come with most electric motors can't cope with any sort of rough treatment like kerbs or small jumps, so barrelling down a bumpy trail at top speed is a definite no-no.
I'd recommend a geared motor if you really want to use the same bike. They a smaller, lighter and have no cogging drag because of the free-wheel built into the gearing mechanism. Chuck away the rim and rebuild the wheel with a quality semi deep-V rim and SS spokes. There is nothing worse than that long walk home caused by equipment failure. Murphy's law ensures that this will happen at the most distant point from home. :wink:

 

[dogman dan]

Trouble is, gearmotors are far from silent. But they do blend right in when they are rear motors. They are kinda wide, too, so can they be used with disk on the rear? I don't know myself without digging.

 

[ElectricEd]

Trouble is, gearmotors are far from silent. But they do blend right in when they are rear motors. They are kinda wide, too, so can they be used with disk on the rear? I don't know myself without digging.

Yep, there are pluses and minuses to everything. The all metal geared versions are as rowdy as hell and the ones with plastic planetery gears are quieter but wear out too quickly.
What beats me is, why aren't the motor manufacturers making higher power geared units with the stator and coils around rather than beside the gearbox and with helical gears? It'd be more expensive but I'm sure that there'd be a market for it. Just imagine a 5303 sized motor set up like this. It'd be quieter with the helical gears and have heaps more torque due to the larger diameter. It could be skinnier with room for a disk and an 8 speed cluster. Add a delta-Y capability ala doctorbass and you'd have something that can climb light poles and go like stink. 8)

 

[dogman dan]

Yup, that's my dream motor. But it may weigh so much you have to put it on a motorcycle. But the power of an x5 through gears would be sweet. If I had the funds, I'd be real tempted to try a stokemonkey set up on my 5304 in a motorcycle frame. Forced air cool it too.

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

I have something to add to the post many may not have experience with.

Amped Bikes has a geared motor (rear only at the moment) that is almost totally silent, and even at WOT is not going to be louder than the sounds of a normal bike going down the road.

Compared to my father's DD Amped Kit (still not 100% sure if it's one of the 9c motors or later design) my geared motor makes no more sound than his DD for 75% of the throttle, it's only at 80%+ that it makes a bit of a "turbo jet" whine thats really kewl, I will do a video later so those of you who have other brands of geared motors can tell me how loud or quiet mine is by comparison. 8)

I also wanted to add on the rear freewheel gears, I started with a 9 cog cassette with a 11 tooth top gear. If you think about it, even when your riding your bike un-powered, do you really use all those gears? I have found that sticking with the best cadence (for me 65 - 70 RPM's at the crank) 90% of the time, I use maybe 3 -4 gearing combinations. I go up hills a lot where I live, so often I'm either in my lowest gear or close to it going up something steep, my highest gear going down, or some form of the med-high gearing on the flats.

Now that I have added my Amped Bikes rear geared motor, I am almost always in the med-high to high gear range. Going down-hill I had to do some changing however, since I can only get a 12 tooth for my tallest gear in the rear freewheel by going larger on the front.

Currently, I have something that looks more like a road-bike's gears +1 tiny gear for hills if I ever had to slug it up a hill with a dead battery. I have a 52, 48 (the 48 was my old high gear! :lol: ) and 28 up front. The rear freewheel is a custom combination 7 speed with 32 for the low and a 12 for the high.

I pretty much agree with all of the above.
Forget about taking a 408 without battery on the trails with your mates. The drag from motor cogging feels like running one of those tyre rubbing dynamos of yesteryear. On a technical hilly trail you'll be stuffed in no time. Adding to that, if you don't get a 408 with the latest mod with a moulded in steel insert for the threaded cluster boss, in granny gear you're likely to rip it out of the side plate. This has happened to me and others from this forum.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9205&p=142756#p142756

+1 on the resistance felt with most DD's I can only speak to an early model of Amped Bikes DD motor (most likely the ones 9c started selling to all buyers w/o Amped Bike's permission ) but I can remember especially when we had this kit and a SLA battery that unless I was riding under power all the extra weight(34lbs of battery! ) + the resistance of the DD motor's magnets, it was like riding a bike on moist beach sand, not dry enough to keep you from moving, but close! Even once we got some nice light Dewalts on dad's bike, I could still notice that considerable resistance from the motor. That is one of the main reasons I got my kit as a geared motor, only 9lbs (less than half the weight of the 20lb early DD! ) and the 100% freewheeling.

I agree on principle that you wouldn't really ever run ANY E-Bike with-out the batteries to save weight and go nutz on the trails trying to use it as a regular bike, but it can be done. My build at 59lbs total for bike + batteries & motor kit is light enough for me to pedal up the steep hills I have climbed in the past with out really noticing the weight, however that isn't really to compare to flogging your MTB on a technical trail! :lol:

The cheap rims that come with most electric motors can't cope with any sort of rough treatment like kerbs or small jumps, so barrelling down a bumpy trail at top speed is a definite no-no.
I'd recommend a geared motor if you really want to use the same bike. They a smaller, lighter and have no cogging drag because of the free-wheel built into the gearing mechanism. Chuck away the rim and rebuild the wheel with a quality semi deep-V rim and SS spokes. There is nothing worse than that long walk home caused by equipment failure. Murphy's law ensures that this will happen at the most distant point from home. :wink:

I can't agree more! One of the reasons Danny started his company was because he couldn't seem to find a decently built wheel with most E-Bike kits on the market, to his credit I can say that my father's bike with first a trailer holding 3 SLA CAR BATTERIES!?!?! :lol: in a trailer totaling no less than 110lbs (we were REALLY n00bs then :lol: ) and then later with one car battery and 2 SLA scooter batteries (34lb battery pack) on the back rack, we were not diligent about checking the spokes regularly.

Even though we did everything wrong, and only tightened the spokes after realizing that the "high speed wobble" down our favorite/most hated (depended on if you are going down or up hehe :wink: ) was really the spokes that were finger loose!! Fortunately for us, no mis-haps and all we ended up having to do was tighten up the spokes and go on home.

Which ever kit you get, be SURE to check that the wheels are properly dished, spokes are tight, and I would strongly advise 12G SS spokes if your kit doesn't come with them. I had to buy a new spoke wrench for the 12G spokes that my geared kit came with, but I'm sure that in the end I will be glad to have them. Also, you want to make sure your kit has a good double wall rim. I prefer over-engineered to under-engineered, usually costs less in the end. :wink:

Just my $.02