Newbe here!!help me build my bike.

Mudduck

10 W
Joined
Jan 25, 2012
Messages
92
Location
South Jersey NJ
Hi guys & girls,there are so many ways to build a ebike I just not sure what to do.here we go I weight 200lbs 5ft 11" around trip to work is about 14miles.I want to fit my cruiser 26 rim.i want to pedal not just use the batteries.I have looked at kits on amped,ebike,eBay.i like the cordless drill battery idea,I have 24 volt ridgid batteries (2) so if I could use them for power that would save me money on the batteries.i would like to spend under $500.00.please help.thanks
 
Darn good thing you like pedaling then. On that budget, you pretty much have nothing for a battery. No clue where you are from, but you mention USA kit vendors.

Clearly you need really cheap. Since I wouldn't recomend an Izip for that length of ride, I'll point you to cellman.

http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i16.html

We trust cellman

I'd say get the smaller gearmotor, and ride it fairly slow to conserve battery and make your pedaling contribution worth more. Say 15-20 mph. Front motor if your beach cruiser is a coaster brake bike. You will get about 1 mile per 24v cordless drill battery, so you won't get much out of that. But we all have to start somewhere.

Later you can save up for a battery that will go the distance, likea 36v 20 ah pingbattery lifepo4. You could go sla's but on a ride that long you'd only murder them. Pointless. Save up, get a good battery later. Meanwhile, use your cordless drill batteries only on the steepest hill.
 
Thanks for the link..I can spend alittle more for a good battery..I'm not set in stone on $500 build.just some
of the kits I looked at were around that price..just trying to get the best bang for the buck..I live in nj.pretty flat,just sometimes have a bad headwind on the way home from work.funny never a tail wind after
Working all day.
 
Lots of good kits out there, some with a 36v sla battery in the sub $600 range. But you will need about 400-600 watts to go 20 to 25 miles per hour. Plus more if you have any stops in that 14 miles. About 35 wh/mi is average for light pedaling. So 14 miles is about 500wh. Add some more which keeps a battery much happier and long lasting, and you come up with a 36v 20 ah or 48v 15 ah as the perfect size. Unfortunately, about $600 shipped to the usa. But it should last years. My first pingbattery went 8000 miles, and lasted over three years. So it's a sound investment.

Typical budget for a solid commuter is about $1200, more if the bike is fancy. But you have solid 20 mile range, extendable to 35 miles if you ride very slow. If you can budget that, I'd recomend a more powerful motor, a direct drive most likely. Cellman sells a good one.
 
Cellman prices are great,just not sure how much shipping should be?i think
I would like to go with a dd front hub kit.i've read
That the dd motors are quieter than the geared.i like the geared for the freewheel.is there that much differance in noise?amped has a 36v sla kit compelete for $399 free shipping.
 
I say go for the $399 kit for a good start. I started with a similar kit and it has been problem free for 4 years except for buying more SLA's. I graduated to a Ping and put it on that same kit and it runs even better now. Ya gotta start somewhere. Get your transportation taken care of and then build yourself something nice. Take your charger to work. Those SLA's need charging immediatley after use.
 
what sort of speed would you like to achieve?
are you planning on charging at work or you need on way back home too?
also could you tell us what's the Ah of batteries you've got? cos that will determine how far you can go with it too :wink:
I think something like this is reliable and good after service too.
I used to have ebay kit and it served me very well, plus when I had trouble and I told the seller, He told me he'll give me spare parts for free but i just need to pay the shipping fee!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2011-New-...255?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c7f4c78f
 
It's 7 miles to work and I can charge the batteries at work..my 24v batteries that I have only have 3ah.I would love to get around 20mph,myself and e power.just want to enjoy the ride!
 
personally I would get one of these ebay kit since they are cheap (due to no brand, shipped from manufacture). If you only got 6Ah overall it maybe difficult to go 7 miles...
what we say in general is. 1Ah =1 mile (not the case with everyone).
also if you want to cycle with 20mph you might want to get new set of batteries...
here is what i would do with 500USD.
- buy kit from ebay below 260USD include shipping
- buy battery from ebay below 240USDinc shipping. or buy extra ridgid battery

do you know what chemistry is your battery? i think its lifepo?
 
I also think a geared motor would be a good choice for you, specially since you like to pedal. The geared motors are supposed to freewheel better than the direct drive ones and tend to be lighter weight so the bike will be more ridable. If you're pretty fit and could pedal all the way to work then you could probably get by just fine on 3 amp hours for a little boost here and there, or maybe if you hit the throttle very lightly as you pedal to lower the pedaling resistance that battery could last you until you get to work then you could recharge it. I think I'd hold back on buying a battery and try the ones you've got first and see how much you can squeeze out of them. After a couple rides you'll probably find yourself wanting at least more capacity and you can invest in a better battery setup afterwards.
 
What's with this 1mile per ah and 35wh/m?!?

Those are so way off figures, even for guestimates...

On my heavy bike with me on it and all the batteries currently on it (figure 350lbs total), on a front wheel motor on a 24" rim, the WORST I get is 27.xWH per mile. (And that's WITH my son holding on to the battery box on his skateboard)

Even at 30wh/m at 20mph, that's 1.8m/ah worst case scenario on 36v.

You can get away with a "36v 15ah" lifepo4 battery off of eBay for $300, even IF it's crappy, you should get 12Ah out of it..
So figure, even at 36v 12Ah, that's 432wh all completely 100% usable.. Even at 30wh/m that's 14.4miles...
Enough for your round trip without charging..
All worst case scenario...
 
35wh/mi is an estimate of the size battery you need, not of the power you'll pull.

As an example, I currently run at 28wh/mi average, with an average speed around 20mph. So using 35wh/mi would give me an estimation of the battery I would need, plus ~20% extra so I wouldn't be using the battery past 80% on a regular basis.


For the OP, forget the tool batteries. You will get a mile each from them, maybe a mile and a half. While it sounds counter intuitive, the battery is far more important than the motor. A good battery can make up for a bad motor choice, but a good motor can't make up for a bad battery. Without a good battery, you're just wasting money on the rest of the kit.


Summing up the differences on the motors, Geared are light, with good acceleration and more efficient when your speed changes often. But they are noisy by comparison. They do freewheel when not powered. They can't take as high of power or handle lugging under load as long (less heat tolerant). gear set can wear out, can also be damaged under hard riding.
Direct drive are heavy with less acceleration, but more efficient at constant cruising speed. They are far more silent. No freewheel, but the drag is minor when not powered. similar to running knobbies instead of slick tires. They can handle heat build up far better. Only one moving part, essentially nothing to wear out. you can over volt and over power most DD motors to many times their rating.
 
Motor kit $275.90
http://www.ebay.com/itm/48V-1000W-26-Rear-Electric-Bicycle-Engine-Kit-Bike-Hub-Conversion-Scooter-Motor-/230693021146
Digital VOM <$5 from many places including ebay
10ah 12s2p lipo battery pack. ~$130 (6 of these)
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=15521
imax b6ac charger $35 on ebay.
1 roll of friction tape to wrap the rim. Other misc parts. ~$10
You can use the sla charger that comes with the kit to bulk charge the battery pack to 50V once you've checked the batteries with the b6ac charger.
This will get you about 20 miles at 20mph so won't need to charge at work unless you want to.
This is the same kit I've been running for close to a year now and have close to 2000 miles on it. It's as good as the rest, and a lot cheaper.
 
I hadn't been to the amped website in some time, so I was not aware of their current prices.

$399 including shipping with sla's is a great price. I think you could get started with that just fine. Why the about face about sla's? Because a 7 mile ride is a completely different animal from a 14 mile ride.

Yes indeed, you will need to get a bit better than 35 wh/mi to make it on those sla's, and not kill em fast with 100% discharges. I calculate you'd need to get about 20-25 wh/mi to be able to make it on 5 ah discharged from a 12 ah sla, 36v battery.
So this means you'll need to pedal, and definitely travel less than 20 mph, probobally about 15 mph.

FWIW, My estimates of what a practical size battery for a 14 mile commute are based on doing a 14.5 mile commute for four years. Not doing it slow as possible, Not doing it pedaling my ass off, Carrying big ass wind catching panniers, Cimbing 1000 vertical feet on the return trip, perhaps into wind. I always use a real world, might be uphill into wind number. The question asker might be doing that too.

Do I get better than 35 wh/mi? All the time. Do I have days I get much worse? All the time. My rule of thumb for 36v is 1 ah per mile. But a hell of a lot of days, It's taken me all 19 avaliable ah in a 36v 20 ah battery to get home the 14-15 miles. Quite a few days, I've even run out a mile from home. 1 ah per mile assumes as much as 25 mph. Ride 20mph, and the number changes dramaticly for the better. No hill, even better, less stop signs, even better.

But since a 7 mile ride is a peice of cake, My battery advice will now change dramaticly. Cellman 9 ah, or ping 15 ah will be plenty.
 
I like the idea wesnewell has..just don't know enough about how to hook up the batteries.i would like to stay with a 36v system,so how many batteries would I need?is there a forum I could
Go to read about how to hook up the batteries and charge them?i used to have rc boats and cars.i'm waiting for Cellman to get back to me for a shipping qoute.i think I'm going with a dd front hub motor just trying to get the batteries right so many ways to go..whats mah hours mean?
 
You'd want the same batteries (12s2p) for a 36V system. That's why a 36v system doesn't make sense IMO. The cost is about the same. The controller LVC for a 36v system will be about 32V, so it won't protect that battery pack. LVC on the 48V system will be 42V and will keep you from damaging the pack. If you do the math, and understand what you're looking at, you'll see why a 48v system makes more sense. You could go with a 48V 500W kit and save about $50, but the top speed on it will only be about 22mph, where you'll get close to 30mph on the 1000w motor with room to go a lot faster if the need arises.
 
mAh = milli amp hours. The Hobby King Lithium Polymer Batteries that are popular on this forum are rated this way. A milliamp is .001 amp so a 5000 mAh battery would supply 5 amps for 1 hour. When they talk about 35 wh/mi. They're saying it takes 35 watt hours per mile. This is where voltage comes in. So if you had a 36V 10 amper hour battery or 10,000 milliamp hour battery you would have 360 watt hours of capacity. @ 35 wh/mile you could go 10 miles before exhausting the battery.

One thing that complicates this is that different battery chemistry reacts differently to deep discharges. SLA's (sealed lead acid) batteries go bad quickly when deeply discharged. They also do not like to be left in a discharged state. This is why Dogman is saying that charging at work is a game changer You aren't discharging the battery completely and you're restoring the charge ASAP. You''l get some life out of SLA's. I still think their too heavy but with your budget something's gotta give.
 
Mudduck said:
I like the idea wesnewell has..just don't know enough about how to hook up the batteries.i would like to stay with a 36v system,so how many batteries would I need?is there a forum I could
Go to read about how to hook up the batteries and charge them?i used to have rc boats and cars.i'm waiting for Cellman to get back to me for a shipping qoute.i think I'm going with a dd front hub motor just trying to get the batteries right so many ways to go..whats mah hours mean?

Search around the site. Plenty of threads on how to hook up batteries and make your own packs.

1000 mAh = 1 Ah, so a 20amp hour battery would be 20,000 mAh's.

You mentioned you used to have rc cars/boats, if you ran those off LIPO batteries, you might be ahead of the game if you still have a charger/powersupply/balancer.

I like DD hubs. Regen braking will help you reclaim some energy, with the tradeoff being that you'll notice some resistance if you pedal without applying power to the motor.
 
I agree, 48v 1000w kit would be better for future investment. I got 1000w kit from the beginning and personally no regrets infact being able to go 25mph while half pedalling and half throttled is very good feeling. Plus those 1000w motor can take 72v so easy to upgrade.
Ps: 48v kit won't get 30mph without pedalling with 11t freewheel
 
You guys are the best!!ok here we go I'm going to order the rc batteries can't beat the price.I have a charger but I'm pretty sure it for older style batteries.since I'm going with lighter batteries front hub or rear hub dd?is there anything else I'll need besides the batteries,some type of a charger,how about a bcm?I think they balance the batteries?last a 48v wheel kit..That's alot to think about..
 
You've got some reading to do. Check out the battery forum and spend some time understanding the different chemistry (LIPO vrs LiFePO4). I went LIPO but I'm used to doing research and integrating different components together. Take your time in battery research the investment is considerable. Your bike may evolve but batteries are a longer term investment.
 
Oh no, here we go again...

Another ebike beginner...

Just wait Mud, the SECOND you get your bike together, you'll be wanting more..
FASTER..
LIGHTER..
STRONGER...
FURTHER..

By the time you're done, you'll be in the same boat as the rest of us..
Spending lots O cash!

Good luck, brother!

P.S. Learn a lot about all the battery chemistries you can, much happier when you know what you're getting yourself into.

;)
 
sangesf said:
Oh no, here we go again...

Another ebike beginner...

Just wait Mud, the SECOND you get your bike together, you'll be wanting more..
FASTER..
LIGHTER..
STRONGER...
FURTHER..

By the time you're done, you'll be in the same boat as the rest of us..
Spending lots O cash!

Good luck, brother!

P.S. Learn a lot about all the battery chemistries you can, much happier when you know what you're getting yourself into.

;)

Totally agree! It took me whole summer (2months) to choose what to buy and C rating nd 6s or 5s ect. Also buying the charger is a big decision too
 
I know you want to go NOW, but do hold off on making a HK order today.

A few things to consider.

Never order unless it is in stock, and stock is plentiful.

Order all batteries from the local warehouse, USA? I'm just assuming usa.

Read some of the Battery FAQ section. 4, 6 s, 5000mha packs would give you plenty of range for one way. (44v 10 ah) But charging at work may be a problem, with the fire hazard. You'd still need 8 packs for the round trip, so perhaps not so cheap after all.
 
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