NOOB Need help make recumbent ebike conversion in LA

[bapman007]

Hi,
I have been reading the posts for some time on and off. I have finally decided that I want to take the next step and start my project conversion.
To preempt, I a true novice and although i am fairly handy (in fixing household appliances, fridges, computers and etc) I have no electrical or engineering degree or knowledge.

I Live in Los Angeles and unfortunately, most of the ebike stores that were around, went out of business. I tried an Izip and another brand that I dont recall about a year ago and found them pretty fun, but i wanted a little extra speed and distance, I also tried HiPowerCycles, but their bikes are very expensive and for the price i thought the DIY route would net me a much better machine.

I have several needs and I desires in making my first ebike:
1. inexpensive (relatively, since ebikes are inherently expensive b/c of all the components) otherwise the wife will make me sleep in the garage with all my other "useless toys"
2. fast, but not breakneck. I would be very happy with 25-30mph on the flats
3. Fit into my frame fairly stealthily
4. Provide a decent range of at least 30 miles.

My bike: Sun EZ Speedster AX Recumbent (late 2000's build with Avid mechanical disk brakes), this is a short wheel base (SWB). there still should the plenty of room to tuck all the components inside the frame

This is the same bike.

From what I was reading I think I should go with a geared hub motor setup. I am guessing that I will need about 750-1000w and I would like to run a 48v setup. I would like to have a pedal assist via a torque sensor, but I am not sure how an what to get, and in addition I want the option of going on just battery power alone (can I have both, or do I have to choose?)
Basically I am looking for a fairly non-technical assembly, suggested components ( and any links would be helpful) and any other recommendations from experienced ebike builders/owners.

If there is anyone in LA (I am in Encino) who is able and willing to help, that would be greatly appreciated... I have a bunch of computers, heavy duty workstations, macbooks that may be used as bartering tools.

thanks for any assistance in advance.
Bapman007 (Boris)

 

[dogman dan]

I'm flummoxed. You want some first class features, but cheap. But wait a minute, you live in LA, not El Paso. Maybe cheap to you would be a hell of a lot of money to me. For starters, 30 mile range at 30 mph is never cheap. That's at least 1000 watt hours of battery.

The features you want are at Grin Cyclery. Always a good place to start your reading. Best informational pages of any vendor.

But if you were willing to settle for a throttle, I'd just send you to EM3ev for a Mac kit. The 10t rear kit.

Or if you wanted direct drive, I'd suggest the E-bikekit dd setup.

 

[wesnewell]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electric-Bicycle-48V1000W-LCD-Display-26-Rear-Wheel-Motor-Kit-E-Bike-Conversion-/291146654196
Pair this with 15ah of 44-48V battery pack and you'll get ~30mph wot, and a 30 mile range at 20mph. 20ah, which would fit under your frame would work nice for more range if you need it. Battery pack will cost anywhere from $250 up, depending on what you get.

Welcome to ES****Do this before your first post or now (it's retroactive)*****
Please go to the User Control Panel, select Profile, and then enter your city, state/province, and country into the Location field (country minimum) and save it. Once done, your location will appear in every post so you won't have people asking where you are ever again. This will help people help you. Example: Wylie, TX, USA. or just USA, but country as a minimum, and country is the most important. There are many cities with the same name all over the world. Without knowing what country you are in it's hard to make any recommendations. Thank you.

 

[jkbrigman]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electric-Bicycle-48V1000W-LCD-Display-26-Rear-Wheel-Motor-Kit-E-Bike-Conversion-/291146654196
Pair this with 15ah of 44-48V battery pack and you'll get ~30mph wot, and a 30 mile range at 20mph. 20ah, which would fit under your frame would work nice for more range if you need it.

+1 to Wes's request that you provide country/state location info. It's important because local laws govern what you can legally do with an ebike and shipping costs heavily influence what the parts cost.

I'll frame my comments roughly in order of cost:

dogman's suggestion of ebikes.ca is a good one. If you need quality parts, extensive support and you can handle spending upwards of $1500, they are possibly THE primo parts source for ebike homebuilders. I've bought a motor wheel from ebikes.ca and it cost me a fortune.

ebikekit.com has gotten some good press here as a midrange-priced resource. I understand they give good support too. I've never bought from them but they are worth at least a cursory glance at their website.

Wes has found about the best-priced kit I've ever seen for ebike conversion. That motor looks a lot like a 9c, so it should be a good hubmotor. If price is #1 consideration (your comment about the wife and toys - we all get that very well) then you won't beat what Wes suggested for quality vs. price.

Wes is E-S's de-facto ebike Price Warrior. (my term, intended to be a high compliment) I wish he'd been on watch when I bought my stuff years ago, I'd probably have avoided some woe. Keep up the good fight, Wes!

From my experience (see my "eRecumbent" and "Phat Bike" build threads):

dogman and wesnewell are both good sources of information.

50 volts is a good voltage to go with. You can easily find good chargers for 50v (an important consideration since the charger is likely to fail after awhile) and you can easily find meters, DC-DC converters and other peripherals that all work best at 50 volts.

I went with 74v ("18S") with my build, to get good speed out of a slow-wind (but cheap!) motor. It works, and it's OK, but I'm converting to 98V (24S) in the form of two 50V battery banks in series. 50V is less expensive all around, while 98V requires a much more expensive controller, more battery, more wiring, more complication. So where I end up will be determined by what I find works for me.

Plan to spend big-time for the battery. Get a fully self-contained unit with BMS and matching charger. Something with a LiMn chemistry is safely heat-resistant. Make sure you can buy a spare charger - if you commute to work, you'll want two chargers right away.

Here on E-S this is a contested point. I myself don't use a BMS equipped battery, but it would have saved me pain if I had. You can't dispute that a simple charger + battery with BMS is an easy and safe way to go.

Spend a little more on the charger if you have the choice. A bigger, more expensive charger will fill the battery faster, and there will be many times you will need speedy charging. When I say "speedy", I mean 2 hours vs. 4 hours. (Yesterday I was late for a meeting - it took 4.5 hours to top off my battery. Ironically, the meeting was to show off a new, faster, higher-power charger I'd bought, but didn't have connectors installed on it yet.)

An issue you can run into with that kit is that the DD (direct drive) hubmotor is heavy for that frame. You may have to "open up" the rear a little bit with a pair of 2x4's used as pry bars (EVER so slightly!) More importantly, the weight of the motor wheel assembly can cause some flex of the rear wheel forks. If you weigh anywhere north of 200 lbs, a DD hubmotor is more resistant to heat buildup, more forgiving of overload and there are no gears to fail.

But it's a catch-22. If you are heavy, you need a DD hubmotor. If you use a DD hubmotor, it makes the bike heavy too. The size and shape of your body really heavily dictates what motor design you should use.

I don't mean to pry, but it's an important thing, so I'll end my comments with two questions: 1) "How much do you weigh?" and 2) "How important is it to you to pedal?"

JKB

 

[StudEbiker]

First off, welcome to E-S.

secondly, cool bike.

As for the rest, most people when they build their first e-bike are a little optimistic for what they can get for what they are willing to spend AND they may not know exactly what they want with their first build. Your bike has no suspension at all. How are the roads where you are? 25mph over any kind of road divot is going to rattle your bones in a way that won't be very fun at all.

I ride a non-powered recumbent very similar to yours (RANS Rocket) and cruising around town at 30mph would get me in trouble real quick with the random pot hole I wasn't expecting or something similar.

My powered bike is a Bike E recumbent. It does about 22mph and I am quite happy with that speed for getting around town. Even at 22mph, I can get across my little town of 20,000 in almost the exact amount of time someone can do it by car and that's fast enough for me.

My current setup is a 6T MAC with a 15AH Ping battery and I absolutely love it. You have a bigger rear wheel than I do so a 8T or 10T would be a better option for you. 8T=faster, 10T=climbs better. Even running wide open throttle all the time, I still get better than a mile per ah. If I rode more conservatively, I'm sure I could easily get 2 miles/ah. You might consider starting with one 15ah battery and see how it goes, if you decide that's not enough for you, then you could add a second 15ah battery. This would give you some options of if you know you won't need so much range you could leave one of the batteries at home, if you need more range add the second battery.

Anyway, that's a very cool bike and should make for a very nice e-bike. I look forward to seeing your progress.

 

[cal3thousand]

I'm in LA (near MDR) and can do some work/help. I have an ad in CL for my services

I would recommend a MAC motor for your requirements. Every need you listed will be covered by a MAC 8T. To get 30 miles out of a MAC on a recumbent, you'll need about a 500Wh pack or slightly larger. 48V 15Ah would be about perfect while giving you some extra breathing room (don't want to run into range anxiety).

MACs can be purchased from EM3EV.com and I would recommend that you get a quality rim for the motor. Paul can have them laced for you before shipment, but I'm not sure about his wheel builds. I'm fairly certain he uses 12G spokes which I do not recommend on a bike rim.

Best to do would be get a bare motor from Paul and lace the motor into a nice rim using 14ga / 15ga butted spokes. I offer this service at $60 labor for the wheel build. Spokes are about $20-$25. Paul can send you a rim or you can get one online and have a greater selection. With a handbuilt wheel, you won't be coming back here in 6-12 months asking about why your spokes are popping. ( I have yet to need truing on any of my handbuilt wheels with 1000+ miles on some)

 

[dogman dan]

Dump requirement for pedal assist by torque measurement, and lots of cheaper options are out there.

In LA, go pick up a Yes kit makes some sense for the budget. But I think you'd be happier with a Mac 10t. Assuming this will go on the back wheel.

 

[bapman007]

Hi, and thanks for your replies.

I'm flummoxed. You want some first class features, but cheap. But wait a minute, you live in LA, not El Paso. Maybe cheap to you would be a hell of a lot of money to me. For starters, 30 mile range at 30 mph is never cheap. That's at least 1000 watt hours of battery.

Well I meant relatively inexpensive, not cheap... I just dont want to spend as much as the "retail" ebikes are... any decent ones are $3K+
I dont need to go 30mi at 30mph, in addition i think that if i have a torque sensor, then I will have to pedal and that should incrase the range... right?

I don't mean to pry, but it's an important thing, so I'll end my comments with two questions: 1) "How much do you weigh?" and 2) "How important is it to you to pedal?"

My weight is about 195lb +/- 3lbs, depending on the time of day . I do want the bike to remain a bike, so I envision that i will be pedaling. I also want some exercise. I decided with a geared motor so that there would be no resistance, when the motor is not engaged.

so for my wish list i assumed that the torque sensor is best. I have beed reading about them online and Thun seems like the one that is selling the most, has anyone tried it?
Also, with torque sensors in genral, do I need to get a better gear ratio? my question stems from the assumption that the faster one goes, the less torque is applied to the pedals and thus less assistance is provided by the motor.

I guess I need more info on how they work... anyone can clarify?

Thanks

 

[jkbrigman]

I don't mean to pry, but two questions: 1) "How much do you weigh?" and 2) "How important is it to you to pedal?"

My weight is about 195lb +/- 3lbs, depending on the time of day . I do want the bike to remain a bike, so I envision that i will be pedaling. I also want some exercise. I decided with a geared motor so that there would be no resistance, when the motor is not engaged.

Cool, cool! So you are on the "upper end" of weight for a geared hubmotor, but IMHO, you aren't so heavy that it will be a problem. I'm still 40 lbs heavier than you, so for me, a direct drive hubmotor is still the only option. It's not HORRIBLE when pedaling a direct drive motor, but a geared hubmotor is a better bet for allowing ease of pedaling.

YAY to pedaling!!!! You will want to plan on swapping out the freewheel in the rear and the crankset in the front. It'll get you higher speeds, greater range and improved efficiency. I can't imagine riding an ebike without pedaling.

so for my wish list i assumed that the torque sensor is best. I have beed reading about them online and Thun seems like the one that is selling the most, has anyone tried it? Also, with torque sensors in genral, do I need to get a better gear ratio? my question stems from the assumption that the faster one goes, the less torque is applied to the pedals and thus less assistance is provided by the motor. I guess I need more info on how they work... anyone can clarify?

Here's some good info, where Justin is adding a torque sensor for PAS to his big bike that he used for the trip to Maker Faire SF:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49583&p=749253&hilit=sensor#p749253