Riding in the rain

imrealymad

10 mW
Joined
Jan 13, 2010
Messages
29
Location
Iowa
I am awaiting my first ebike, ezip mountain trailz, should be here today. However just noticed it says not to ride it in wet weather. If I decide I like my ebike I plan to use it as my main form of transpotation. So can anyone advise my on an ebike that is around 1000usd that is weather proof so I can ride it in the rain. Any help in this area would be appreciated.
 
Your asking the million dollar question, and IMHO, the answer is either a velomobile (the completely enclosed canopy reclined trikes/bicycles) such as this:
AeroRideronFloorWeb.jpg


Or if your less rich like most of us, you can do several things to help mitigate the effects of the weather, but unless you go the $10,000+ route with a velomobile, I doubt you could ever really consider your E-Bike "water proof".

One thing that I have heard people do that makes a lot of sense is to have the vulnerable wire that comes out of a hub motor be attached in such a way that it causes water that is dripping down along it's cord to fall off rather than leak right into the hub.

You can also use silicone on many different places around the bike's electronics, but I can't speak with authority yet, since either we haven't been in the rain enough yet (dad really doesn't ride his in the rain, and I just built mine and I prefer the dry too) but I have heard people talk about rain effecting their thumb throttles.

If your going to ride rain or shine, (this is my goal too) you should think about sealing the wires going into the controller too. Glad you posted this, I need to get some silicone where the wires go into the controller too. :wink:
 
Well I guess I should go with a bit simpler request. I really am only worried about the motor and throttle I can rig up a way to keep the controler and and battery dry but the motor and throttle are always going to be out in the weather when riding. I saw E+ say weather proof and I could probably stretch affording one but I really dont want to spend that much money if I dont have to. Oh well I guess I will keep searching. Well my ezip is here and assembled just gotta wait for the snow to get off the road.
 
I have done four things to help my electronics stay dry on the inside.

1- Used bullet connectors and heat shrink on all exposed wiring. I seldom need to unplug these so this is fine.
2 Put my controller under my seat with the wires coming out the bottom. The top has a rubber seal from the factory.
3-Installed the BMC 600w gear motor so that the cut out on the axle is on the bottom and wires entering are lower than the axle.
4-Rigged up a remote cable operated throttle and put it in a water resistant pack. I use my front derailleur rapid shift unit as the throttle.

Throttle mod Geoff gave me the idea.
throttleinbag.jpg


Shift lever used as throttle
Throttlelevers.jpg



Good fenders keep the water off the electrical and me as well. There is no sealant of any kind on my bike and I ride in the rain regularly. I park the bike inside or for short times when I can't I cover the pack housing the throttle and the seat with a plastic bag.

I live in the Pacific NW so we get plenty of rain and snow occasionally. Still doubt I have more than 100 of the 500 miles on the bike in the rain.

In your case you can make a plastic splashguard to keep the bulk of what comes out of the sky or off the road off the motor.
 
...it says not to ride it in wet weather.
I'm gonna say this was added by Company lawyers. Not the designers... I see the Trailz is not a hub motor but the "classic" Currie motors like the ones I've used on their stand up scoots. On the scoots these motors are mounted low to the ground so I've driven these things though lots of puddles and slush. Things like the wiring and switches etc rotted out from the salt slush but the motors never failed. Yah, the throttle is a weak point, but as you can see from other suggestions here, not hard to address...
I think with a little waterproofing you will find the legal fine print pretty over-the-top...
Lock
 
biohazardman that throttle mod is the shit!!! Kudos to Geoff for the idea tooi...its
brilliant, i have read handful of posts about water affecting the throttles even caused
some to go full power! I'm not a wet weather person so i dont ride in the rain if i did
and regularly this mod would be a certain for me..


KiM
 
Hey thanks for the replies. Good ideas for some water proofing there. Looks like I got a bit of work to do. The battery indicator on the throttle is a nice idea but just seems silly to make the system have such an easy to fix weak point. Any way thanks for the ideas.
 
Most indicators on throttles work poorly with lithium batteries anyway. So unless you have nicads or sla's, just cut the wire to the indicator and problem ( stuck on full) solved.

Some who have rode in the rain a lot have issues with water making it into the hub and staying there. So a hole in one cover, kept taped up, can allow you to let the humidity out from time to time. Some hubs from the wet climates do get rusty inside. Road salt seems to be especially bad once it gets into connectors or motors.
 
AussieJester said:
biohazardman that throttle mod is the shit!!! Kudos to Geoff for the idea tooi...its
brilliant, i have read handful of posts about water affecting the throttles even caused
some to go full power! I'm not a wet weather person so i dont ride in the rain if i did
and regularly this mod would be a certain for me..


KiM

Glad you like it. I did similar on Schwinn, but with a twist grip like Geoff, after reading about the problems with water in the throttles as you did. Still now instead of water problems one needs to remember to keep the cable just a bit longer than needed so you can adjust racks and things up and down without stretching the throttle cable and causing mechanical problems with it. Oh and some of the throttles are made of such thin plastic inside this will not werq on them others are perfect. It is very stealthy also.
 
I had to go back from work to home under heavy rain (and wind!) yesterday (new setup, 1st time under rain)
It didn't work at all, the throttle didn't do anything :(
After 10km of hard pedaling, it just work again, but I was in my street.
No water in my battery case, hub motor and controllers are supposed to be waterproof, but there was some water in the connector (mini xlr like, 9 wire) with +36v (for light), 2 brake signal, throttle signal, and ground.
How works the brake command? Can the water activate it by short-circuit brake command and ground or +36v?
 
I think most bikes ridden in the wet have the ebrakes removed. All your connectors must be sealed.
 
yes you can ride in the rain don't worry about it. if it breaks then you can fix it. 99% chance that it will be ok.

if you are really unlucky then water in the throttle could cause the bike to accelerate uncontrolably. therefore you should always know how to cut the power in an emergency.
 
Oh, oh, oh. Lots of replies so I'll throw in one more. I'm running a Crystalyte 5304 and 48 volt 20 AH Lithiums and have waterproofed the living crap out of it. The first time I got caught I was lucky and suffered only a throttle lock up (thumb throttle) and was able to turn my whole system on and off to control speed but it was hairy.

This meant I waterproofed some more, took the much needed advice from forum members and waterproofed even more.

The next time the problem started out the same way but I was in the middle of nowhere with no place to hide and got even wetter with a LONG way home and things started to go wrong. I turned everything off and pedaled to a convenience store a couple of miles away and waited for the rain to stop. It didn't stop but did slow down to a drizzle so I dried everything off with paper towels and started back up. Since I had about eight miles to go and with all the crap I have on the bike it's very heavy I need the electric power to advance beyond five or six miles and hour. So I turned the power on and suffered the throttle problem which I was willing to work through. Then the problems really started.

The front wheel (power wheel) started "lurching" and all power died. Once the wheel starts lurching even pedaling is out of the question because you simply cannot power through the lurch. I pushed the bike a couple of miles to my in-laws house and left it. Going back the next day with the sun shining I dried it off again but it was still dead. I had a friend with a bike rack and we carried it home where I started going through everything.

The motor was dead, the controller was dead. I wound up ordering a new motor and new controller but friends on the forum talked me through repairing the motor and I was able to return it. I had to use the new controller. I think, and this is only think, that condensation within the waterproof bag I kept the controller in shorted it out and it was the rain that caused the condensation. This in turn shorted the motor. It was a giant expensive pain. I no longer ride in the rain and I pay attention to weather reports.

Bear in mind a drizzle is not rain, wet roads are not rain. Rain is RAIN where everything gets wet.
Mike
 
Well I havent started waterproofing yet but the ice melted enough yesterday for me to go for a ride. These ezip bikes may not be the fastest but I barely had to pedal to go up a 35 degree incline. I was really impressed by the performance I got from such a low priced bike.
 
mvadventure said:
Oh, oh, oh. Lots of replies so I'll throw in one more. I'm running a Crystalyte 5304 and 48 volt 20 AH Lithiums and have waterproofed the living crap out of it. The first time I got caught I was lucky and suffered only a throttle lock up (thumb throttle) and was able to turn my whole system on and off to control speed but it was hairy.

This meant I waterproofed some more, took the much needed advice from forum members and waterproofed even more.

The next time the problem started out the same way but I was in the middle of nowhere with no place to hide and got even wetter with a LONG way home and things started to go wrong. I turned everything off and pedaled to a convenience store a couple of miles away and waited for the rain to stop. It didn't stop but did slow down to a drizzle so I dried everything off with paper towels and started back up. Since I had about eight miles to go and with all the crap I have on the bike it's very heavy I need the electric power to advance beyond five or six miles and hour. So I turned the power on and suffered the throttle problem which I was willing to work through. Then the problems really started.

The front wheel (power wheel) started "lurching" and all power died. Once the wheel starts lurching even pedaling is out of the question because you simply cannot power through the lurch. I pushed the bike a couple of miles to my in-laws house and left it. Going back the next day with the sun shining I dried it off again but it was still dead. I had a friend with a bike rack and we carried it home where I started going through everything.

The motor was dead, the controller was dead. I wound up ordering a new motor and new controller but friends on the forum talked me through repairing the motor and I was able to return it. I had to use the new controller. I think, and this is only think, that condensation within the waterproof bag I kept the controller in shorted it out and it was the rain that caused the condensation. This in turn shorted the motor. It was a giant expensive pain. I no longer ride in the rain and I pay attention to weather reports.

Bear in mind a drizzle is not rain, wet roads are not rain. Rain is RAIN where everything gets wet.
Mike


I take a different approach to waterproofing than many. One can nearly eliminate condensation caused by moisture being unable to escape an area by not sealing the bottom of the enclosed electronics. Throttles are another subject as the speed one travels drives the moisture into them from several angles, that is the reason I enclosed mine. The pack, on the rear rack, containing the throttle, battery and my dc-dc converter for my headlight really only gets wet when I stop or ride very slow. At speed, I catch all the rain and the pack only a little. The controller, a few inches below my seat, usually stays dry even in the worst downpour. Combine this with parking the bike indoors in heated areas, my living room at home and a heated shop at werq, and I have no problems. My last bike had 2K+ with no electronics problems caused by moisture once, I moved my throttle from the handlebars to an enclosed area that is.
 
just thinking about the argument for having the wires drop where they exit the axle.

i was thinking in terms of hydraulics, and where the wire enters the inside of the hub.

the wire comes out of the axle at a 45 degree angle, so where that hole exits the axle on the inside is the low point in a hydraulic circuit.

if the axle is rotated 180 degrees then the hole that come out of the axle inside would be on top of the axle and the hole that runs out through the axle where the wire enters is the lower point in the hydraulic circuit.

the rain runs down the cable, drops off where the loop goes down and then enters the end of the axle from below, so the asumption is that the flow of water into the axle is eliminated, but there could be other sources of water to the hydraulic circuit, so it seems like normal logic would result in the hole on the inside of the hub being at the low spot, so any failure of the sealant would result in water entering the hub.

devils advocate or logical?

also the hall sensors or on the same side as the hole in the axle inside. so if the normal assumption is followed, the hall sensors are at the bottom of the hub, so any water that enters will collect around the hall sensors and short them out.

more likely that any water inside would be swept up and coat the hall sensors no matter where they are located.
 
No way - way too simple:)

Nice re-framing of something that I certainly overlooked in waterproofing my rig (not to mention the manufacturers).

Hat's off, and I hope lots of people read your post.
 
...the rain runs down the cable, drops off where the loop goes down and then enters the end of the axle from below, so the asumption is that the flow of water into the axle is eliminated, but there could be other sources of water to the hydraulic circuit, so it seems like normal logic would result in the hole on the inside of the hub being at the low spot, so any failure of the sealant would result in water entering the hub.

Sorry, but I am too thick to understand this :) First it drops off, THEN it enters the axle anyway?

...Curious why the hollow axle cannot just be filled w/a goop of silicone etc?
tks
ll0K
 
Not quite sure I'm following all of your thought Dnmum. The hydraulic low point of the motor is the bottom of the hub right? Not the axle. No doubt I simply misunderstand.

A drip loop is a good idea, I install all my motors that way, with the wire looping below the axle and then going up into the motor from below. This nearly eliminates water getting in by running down the wire. Water can still get in though, of course, running down the fork or more likely just by condensation. In really wet climates, the best thing seems to be drilling a hole in the cover, and once in a while when the motor is good and hot, peeling off the tape over the hole and letting the steam out. Sealants on the axle seem to just help keep vapor in the motor once it inevitably gets in say some folks from the wet places. Same thing goes for the controller, you want it covered, but able to breathe enough to not be in a zip lock bag full of condensation.
 
i've driven in the rain loads of times. it rains in Britian a lot. i have NOT done any water-proofing and my bikes have been fine for 3 years of riding. i use all crystalyte kit. i don't see the problem at all. my mess of wires are not even inside a bag, they are just cable tied to the frame next to the rear wheel. they even act as a mud guard for me :lol: if people are having problems with water proofing then i would suggest that they are doing poor wiring jobs or have crapy quality components. try changing your hand throttle for another brand.

this should be a non-issue. there was video on this forum of someone driving through a river with their hub motor fully submerged in water!
 
monster said:
i've driven in the rain loads of times. it rains in Britian a lot. i have NOT done any water-proofing and my bikes have been fine for 3 years of riding. i use all crystalyte kit. i don't see the problem at all. my mess of wires are not even inside a bag, they are just cable tied to the frame next to the rear wheel. they even act as a mud guard for me :lol: if people are having problems with water proofing then i would suggest that they are doing poor wiring jobs or have crapy quality components. try changing your hand throttle for another brand.

this should be a non-issue. there was video on this forum of someone driving through a river with their hub motor fully submerged in water!

What throttle do you use? Every hall-effect thumb throttle I've seen looks the same.
 
dogman said:
Not quite sure I'm following all of your thought Dnmum. The hydraulic low point of the motor is the bottom of the hub right? Not the axle. No doubt I simply misunderstand.

A drip loop is a good idea, I install all my motors that way, with the wire looping below the axle and then going up into the motor from below. This nearly eliminates water getting in by running down the wire. Water can still get in though, of course, running down the fork or more likely just by condensation. In really wet climates, the best thing seems to be drilling a hole in the cover, and once in a while when the motor is good and hot, peeling off the tape over the hole and letting the steam out. Sealants on the axle seem to just help keep vapor in the motor once it inevitably gets in say some folks from the wet places. Same thing goes for the controller, you want it covered, but able to breathe enough to not be in a zip lock bag full of condensation.

i agree that putting a drip loop is the correct procedure. just wonderd if the hole exiting the axle on the inside of the hub should be up or down. if the hole inside is up, then water that enters the axle would have to fill the entire axle before going over the lip inside to get into the hub. versus if the hole were down then any water in the axle would go into the hub.
 
LI-ghtcycle said:
One thing that I have heard people do that makes a lot of sense is to have the vulnerable wire that comes out of a hub motor be attached in such a way that it causes water that is dripping down along it's cord to fall off rather than leak right into the hub

I mounted the motor so that the cable exits downwards. That makes for a "drip loop" hanging down about 3" as the cable is brought back up to where it is velcro'd to the fork.

viz:


(as you can see, I'm doing something dumb when it comes to trying to include photos.... I *think* I uploaded this one, but it's not happening)

LI-ghtcycle said:
If your going to ride rain or shine, (this is my goal too) you should think about sealing the wires going into the controller too.

What I did was:
  • Slit a bicycle handlebar grip lengthwise
  • About 8" from the controller, on the bike side of the connectors, I wrapped the slit handler grip around the wires.
  • Wrapped the grip with electrical tape, tapering the tape to the wires on the bike side.
  • Put the whole schmeer - contoller and all - into a 2-gallon plastic freezer bag with half of the handlebar grip protruding
  • Zipped the bag up to where the grip protruded
  • Rolled the zipped portion of the bag up and layed it against the grip
  • Electrical-taped over rolled up bag and grip

I slip the bagged controller into a side pocket on a basket on the side of my luggage rack. The battery sits on top of the rack.

Rode about 4 hours yesterday in steady rain with no apparent problems.

BioHazardMan's remoting the throttle via a cable shifter appeals to me.
 
I ride my eZip on the average 20 miles a day. I'm retired. Every day is different. I ride every day, rain, snow, ice. I missed a couple days this year when my rear brake cables froze (the ice kind of froze). I put Gore Low Friction Cables (not the sealed version, $60) $40 on it and haven't missed a day since (only been 10 days). I have a Ping LiFePO 24V, 15 Amp-Hr battery and 3,793 miles on the bike. No waterproofing. I put a canvas over it at home.

I think my Irish LUCK has helped, but I (and it) just keep going.

I hope the good fortune spreads.

"The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a period of anxiety" - John Preston

have fun, Don
 
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