Using a trailer for a large capacity battery for nc 6x10

[Ian]

Eagerly awaiting my 6 x 10 NC motor with 48v controller soon (wheelbuild from the excellent HolmesHobbies) on a rear 26" wheel to put on the evg iacocca bike. Crunch time looms on batteries. Has anyone got any experience with a trailer to carry a large capacity battery? Such as the bob ibex - the single wheel trailer with a rudimentary spring? Not talking about a powered or "push" trailer - the trailer is just to stash a bigger battery. And a 2-wheel trailer is not on the cards.

Without being able to test-ride such an option (always the problem), it seems to be a sensible solution if you want a lot of range around the 15mph zone, but I find very little feedback on the forum to go on. Most reviews from regular bikers on the Bob trailer are positive, it tracks pretty good and doesn't affect the handlng that much up to a certain point of weight and speed. A lot of the long-distance tourers use them. The trailer is 17 pound weight on its own.

So how about a 48v 40ah setup with 75% of the battery - ping 36v 40a pack about 30 pounds weight - in the rear trailer? A set up for 40-50 mile cruises in the mountains. But the 6 x 10 would still be able to haul the bike up the steep grades right?

 

[GrayKard]

Eagerly awaiting my 6 x 10 NC motor with 48v controller soon (wheelbuild from the excellent HolmesHobbies) on a rear 26" wheel to put on the evg iacocca bike. Crunch time looms on batteries. Has anyone got any experience with a trailer to carry a large capacity battery? Such as the bob ibex - the single wheel trailer with a rudimentary spring? Not talking about a powered or "push" trailer - the trailer is just to stash a bigger battery. And a 2-wheel trailer is not on the cards.

Without being able to test-ride such an option (always the problem), it seems to be a sensible solution if you want a lot of range around the 15mph zone, but I find very little feedback on the forum to go on. Most reviews from regular bikers on the Bob trailer are positive, it tracks pretty good and doesn't affect the handlng that much up to a certain point of weight and speed. A lot of the long-distance tourers use them. The trailer is 17 pound weight on its own.

So how about a 48v 40ah setup with 75% of the battery - ping 36v 40a pack about 30 pounds weight - in the rear trailer? A set up for 40-50 mile cruises in the mountains. But the 6 x 10 would still be able to haul the bike up the steep grades right?

Sounds like a good way to go. But I would do both packs at 48 volts with say a 10ah pack on the bike and a 30ah on the trailer. That way the trailer could be unhooked and the bike still is usable for shorter trips. If you go with a 36 volt on the trailer and a 12 volt pack on the bike then you don't have that option.

I would guess that the 6 x 10 would be fine going up the hills with that setup but I don't have any personal experience with them.

Gary

 

[mrzed]

The question of hauling up steep grades depends a lot on how many amps you can pull, and how much pedal input you provide. The key is to stay in the efficient speed range of the motor (at least 12 mph is good) - and that will take a certain amount of watts. The more peak amps you can deliver the better. It will draw more total power - but waste less.

 

[dogman dan]

48v is going to pull your hills just fine with a 6x10. I would advise 48v for all mountain riding. I assume you are talking paved roads or dirt log roads or fire roads? Trails with a trailer would be pretty tough. 48v 30 ah would be a great touring load up of batteries, that could get you up to 80 mile range, and even in the mountians 60 miles should be possible.

Do you already own some of your batteries? With my 6x10 bikes, I find my 36v pingbattey just too sluggish on steep hills, but it's fine for getting crazy long range on the flats or moderate hills, churning along at 15 mph. Lipo would be great for carrying in the original battery location. I bet 10 ah of 14s lipo would fit in there. Mabye even in the original battery box. I guess I don't quite understand your battery propsal. You already have a ping 36v 40 ah?

My own setup is one ping 36v 20 ah, and one 48v 15 ah. I have nearly 80 mile range with a 6x10 if no huge hills or wind. With suspension, I can just carry it all on the rear panniers.

I find with hubmotors staying within 1/2 of the top speed up hills keeps heating to a tolerable level. So with the 6x10, even 7 mph would be fast enough at 36v, and 10 mph fast enough with 48v. The only time I ever had to stop and let my 6x10 cool, I was riding on real steep road, 10-12% , or even steeper trails in the mountains. Even then it took about an hour of riding. I take my 6x10 dirtbike out in the deep sand on hot days, and ride at least 10 ah of 48v through it at 5-10 mph before it gets very hot. It's a great cool running motor for hills and other lugging it situations.

 

[Ian]

48v is going to pull your hills just fine with a 6x10. I would advise 48v for all mountain riding. I assume you are talking paved roads or dirt log roads or fire roads? Trails with a trailer would be pretty tough. 48v 30 ah would be a great touring load up of batteries, that could get you up to 80 mile range, and even in the mountians 60 miles should be possible.

Do you already own some of your batteries? With my 6x10 bikes, I find my 36v pingbattey just too sluggish on steep hills, but it's fine for getting crazy long range on the flats or moderate hills, churning along at 15 mph. Lipo would be great for carrying in the original battery location. I bet 10 ah of 14s lipo would fit in there. Mabye even in the original battery box. I guess I don't quite understand your battery propsal. You already have a ping 36v 40 ah?

My own setup is one ping 36v 20 ah, and one 48v 15 ah. I have nearly 80 mile range with a 6x10 if no huge hills or wind. With suspension, I can just carry it all on the rear panniers.

I find with hubmotors staying within 1/2 of the top speed up hills keeps heating to a tolerable level. So with the 6x10, even 7 mph would be fast enough at 36v, and 10 mph fast enough with 48v. The only time I ever had to stop and let my 6x10 cool, I was riding on real steep road, 10-12% , or even steeper trails in the mountains. Even then it took about an hour of riding. I take my 6x10 dirtbike out in the deep sand on hot days, and ride at least 10 ah of 48v through it at 5-10 mph before it gets very hot. It's a great cool running motor for hills and other lugging it situations.

I ordered the 6x10 and 48v controller after reading your posts on the 6x10 dogman. Not planning on trails that much, mainly paved and dirt roads. Good to know the ins and outs of the hub before I get going, so thanks for all the info.

Yeah I already do have batteries in the evg - 4 strings of 12v 13ah nimh in series for 48v 13ah. They are still ok with about 200 cycles on them but not enough now on their own, and I moved to lake county CA and real hilly around here, before it was AZ and far less so.

I was going to configure them to get 24v 26ah in the bike then add say a 24 20ah ping on the rear pannier or maybe even limn pack. So then I got 48v 20ah. Not bad. But then, casting my eyes at mt konocti and imagining a glorious ascent & descent followed by 8 miles uphill to get back home, with the final mile steepest of all, I figured that that might not even cut it. So I get to my latest idea to parallel my nimh to get 12v 52ah, then add 36v 30ah ping on that fancy ibex trailer. It isn't my ideal pulling something behind me, but nor is 15 or 20 pounds stuck over the rear wheel either. What to do eh

 

[John in CR]

What to do eh

A cargo type bike...smoother ride, more useful as a car replacement, and versatile in loading as much in the way of batteries or whatever else as you like. If you don't want to mod your bike or have a second bike, an Extra Cycle rig may be just the thing, though after you get used to it the Extra Cycle extension is likely to stay on permanently so why not do a permanent mod or cargo bike and put the money saved into extra batteries? I can't imagine what pulling a trailer is like with a bike, but my cargo bike daily rider is almost like riding a regular bike even with an extra 110lbs worth of kids every morning going to school.

 

[dogman dan]

Ok I understand what your needs are better now. Since it's not daily commuting, you might want to look into lipo. If this longer ride is more of a weekend thing, you can take your time breaking down the pack and charging it a few packs at a time. You can also purchase the battery 5 ah at a time, if that helps with the money.

Lots of power in a tiny package. I bet you could carry plenty of lipo on a rear rack, or in panniers. You could just ride your normal 48v nimh for part of the ride, and then use 14s lipo for the steep bits. 14 s lipo is about 58.8volts when full charged. I felt 15s at 63v was a bit risky for a controller designed for 36v. The caps inside are 63v. 15s can be done, but I felt better backing off to 14s.

If you decided on a ping to carry on a trailer, I'd get one 48v 15 ah. See how far you get with it, and then decide if you want another. You will get a long ways with just one. You might be able to just take a break and charge for a few hours with the 5 amp charger, and save yourself some weight. One that size will carry on a rear rack just fine, and you might not need a trailer. You should see about 30-35 miles of mountian riding from the 48v 15 ah ping. I've done it, on emory pass and got that kind of range with a 9x7, riding about 15 mph. That was 20 miles of uphill mountain riding, and about 10 miles down the other side on the one ping. So you will be very close to having the range with just a 48v 15 ah ping and your current nimh.

I've been really tempted to try one of those nasbar bob trailers. They have been sale priced for some time. But by the weekend, work just has me too tired to go on much of an adventure lately. I'd love to take a month off in the fall and go riding with the trailer but it's just a fantasy for now.

 

[reb1]

I use a bob to haul groceries with several different bicycles. Unless you are trying to use a short wheel based racing bicycle to haul the battery and some gear, you should not have a problem until you start with loads over 50lbs. I have hauled over 100lbs in the bob hooked to the tandem.
I am looking at purchasing a battery pack for a mid engine made by ecospeed. The motor is 1000watt. I am going to install this on a cargo bicycle that weighs around 60lbs to haul groceries and hardware. I am researching batteries and am thinking that a 20 amp hour in the recommended voltage will be large enough for the short trips of around 30 miles. After reading the literature at several web sites. I am having trouble trying to decide where to purchase the battery for this setup. Can somebody tell me if there are reputable sources for the made up battery packs that can actually ship them to my door. I live in California.

 

[dogman dan]

Pingbattery.com , provided the motor uses a controller under 25 amps. There are much better cells out there, but ping still supplies one of the better ready to ride packs. A nightmare to fix one if you have a problem though.

A better solution though, might be to dive into lipo. A heavy cargo bike up a hill might be quite a bit of strain even on 20 ah of ping. The nice thing about lipo, aside from thier humongous c rates compared to ping, is they are in nice little 5 ah blocks. A bad one simply gets replaced with a new one, easy as pie.

 

[reb1]

dogman: Thanks for the quick reply on the battery packs. I will need to educate myself more before purchase. Now that I have done some reading I can see why ping is less money. I will quiz the EcoSpeed people about the c rating on there batteries. I need durability and utility and will pay for it when it is available. I was interested in cycle9 batteries but they refuse to ship without buying one of there full kits. I will also contact lipo and let them know what I intend to do. I need to figure out a roughly 36 volt system with around 20 amp hours. The EcoSpeed system powers at the crank so rpm range for best power is a concern. They say a 36 bolt will work. I spin around 95 rpm and most people spin the cranks slower. So if the voltage was up some it might not be a bad thing.

 

[D-Man]

Anyone else using a trailer for batteries?

I know its a dumb idea but anyone using an sla trailer?

 

[dogman dan]

Kingfish hauls a bob trailer when touring, but I think it's for cargo. He uses a big RC lipo pack to power the bike. I'd say if you gotta haul lead bricks, then a bob trailer would help.

You go back far enough in forum archives, you start seeing threads about bob trailers full of lead. Not in the last few years though.

 

[hjns]

Hmm. I would definitely look into Lipo here.

Doing 48V would mean going 12S Lipo, aka 2 bricks of 6S in series, 44.4V nominal, 50.2V HOC. The 6S 8Ah bricks weigh approximately 1.11 kg. That means a 48V 12S (2x 6S) 8Ah setup is 2.22 kg. For a 40Ah setup, it would be multiplied by 5, aka 11.1 kg for a 12S5P 40Ah Lipo pack (1.7 kWh). Add another kg for the wiring, and the total weight is below 13 kg (26 pounds). You can easily transport that on a bike, especially when that is a cargo bike in the first place.

I run 6 packs of 10S 37V 4.5Ah Zippy Lipo bricks (1.1kWh) which weighs about 10kg (20pounds). I am still working on a solution to have it all fit into a triangle, but even having it on the rear rack beats having to pull a trailer.

By the way, even with an atrocious energy consumption of 25Wh/km (e.g., keep your amps down), you should have a range of over 60km / almost 40 miles.