dakh
100 W
Catching up here, I already have 3 iterations of this thing done and there's going to be more I'm sure.
At some point I realized e-bike might be the most badass commuting solution for the city (Seattle-Bellevue in my case). So I went off to get my feet wet with a front wheel Cute Q100 from this almost too nice Russell dude here who not only sold me the wheel and motor but controller, throttle, and some other essentials thrown in, as well as a piece of paper that outlined all the controller connections.
For the base bike I absolutely wanted disk brakes and steel frame. I race motorcycles as a hobby and I raced a few mountain bike enduros too so I'm too used to disk brakes, and I kinda learned to hate non-suspension aluminum frames since I'm not a youngster anymore and I like the supple feel of steel frames. Injuries accumulate over time too so I don't like my battle scars rattled up by aluminum frame for no good reason. Titanium is not in the budget (and kinda pointless for what I want, a couple pounds don't move the needle enough), carbon I think is too fragile to deal with possible clamps across the frame tubes for battery mounts and such. Plus steel frames usually have nice small diameter round tubes so mounting shit to them is easier.
Anyway I got just the bike for a steal of a deal on local CL, Jamis Coda Elite for $350, whew. Had to do a few tweaks to it, I like FSA Metropolis handlebars if I'm not running traditional road bars (my usual commuter bike is Kona Honky Inc.), fenders, rear rack, lights. The usual stuff that precipitates recycling a bunch of cardboard with Amazon stickers all over it.
Next up, charger and batteries. V1 was two 5A 6S Turnigy bricks from HobbyKing. Charger is SkyCharger 6200, I picked that one out for the price ($60 AFAIR) and that 200W rating (which is actually true). My plan was to just balance charge the two bricks individually and then make a parallel harness and bulk-charge them most of the time keeping an eye on cells staying in balance.
Well. The bike comes with a carbon fork stock. I ain't riding that front motor with a carbon fork so in comes a Kona Project fork (disk brake mount). Went to a local bike shop, Bike So Good in Georgetown, they swapped the head bearing races for me and off I go installing everything.
After a whole lot of scratching my head, reading forums, and at least a couple six-packs here's what emerged:
At some point I realized e-bike might be the most badass commuting solution for the city (Seattle-Bellevue in my case). So I went off to get my feet wet with a front wheel Cute Q100 from this almost too nice Russell dude here who not only sold me the wheel and motor but controller, throttle, and some other essentials thrown in, as well as a piece of paper that outlined all the controller connections.
For the base bike I absolutely wanted disk brakes and steel frame. I race motorcycles as a hobby and I raced a few mountain bike enduros too so I'm too used to disk brakes, and I kinda learned to hate non-suspension aluminum frames since I'm not a youngster anymore and I like the supple feel of steel frames. Injuries accumulate over time too so I don't like my battle scars rattled up by aluminum frame for no good reason. Titanium is not in the budget (and kinda pointless for what I want, a couple pounds don't move the needle enough), carbon I think is too fragile to deal with possible clamps across the frame tubes for battery mounts and such. Plus steel frames usually have nice small diameter round tubes so mounting shit to them is easier.
Anyway I got just the bike for a steal of a deal on local CL, Jamis Coda Elite for $350, whew. Had to do a few tweaks to it, I like FSA Metropolis handlebars if I'm not running traditional road bars (my usual commuter bike is Kona Honky Inc.), fenders, rear rack, lights. The usual stuff that precipitates recycling a bunch of cardboard with Amazon stickers all over it.
Next up, charger and batteries. V1 was two 5A 6S Turnigy bricks from HobbyKing. Charger is SkyCharger 6200, I picked that one out for the price ($60 AFAIR) and that 200W rating (which is actually true). My plan was to just balance charge the two bricks individually and then make a parallel harness and bulk-charge them most of the time keeping an eye on cells staying in balance.
Well. The bike comes with a carbon fork stock. I ain't riding that front motor with a carbon fork so in comes a Kona Project fork (disk brake mount). Went to a local bike shop, Bike So Good in Georgetown, they swapped the head bearing races for me and off I go installing everything.
After a whole lot of scratching my head, reading forums, and at least a couple six-packs here's what emerged: