Ready for the Road

My finished bike: fenders, new seat, rack and panniers
















My semicomplete dashboard: Throttle and Fenix L2D 180 lumens flashlight for headlight
Missing: Cyclometer
















Here you can see my Planetbike Superflash and a bike chain securing my seat to the bike.

More Pics

My finished ebike, you can see my beastly Kryptonite chain and lock
















The insanely long power cord(I'm going to have to shorten it but it came in handy as a backpack cord)
















Things left to do:
1) Mount fenders on bike
2) Mount cyclocomputer
3) Trim shifter cable
4) Mount bike rack
5) ??build aluminum hard case for battery??

I Think I Can, I Think I Can.....

For the bikes maiden voyage I decided to go up the first rise of the hill on my way to school. I was cruising along and the bike was doing great. I crested the hill in fourth gear and kept on going. I was so please with the result and performance of the bike that I decided to climb the entire first rise of my school journey. This mountain I have to climb is a 6% grade a mile and a quarter in length. I usually have to walk it, but with the motor I climbed it like I had an Olympic runner pushing me the whole way. I alternated between third and fourth gear and yes I had to peddle, but it was less effort than riding on a flat road without the motor.  

This was the first time I had ridden down this particular hill and I must say it was A RUSH! I don't have my speedometer on my bike yet but I think I was doing a downhill speed of between 35 and 40 miles per hour. The cars that were passing me weren't going much faster than I was and I was almost to the point that I could take a lane. 

It took me around 20 minutes for the round trip, I didn't time it this time, and I figure it only took me 5 minutes to get home from the top of the hill. 

Race to the Finish

Well, I received the new bottom bracket earlier this week and in my infinite laziness put off working on my bike till yesterday. So, yesterday I removed my wheels and set about installing my new bottom bracket. That was fairly easy, although I spent about 30 minutes doing it just to make sure I wasn't cross-threading it. I wasn't going to let impatience ruin my frame. But I got it on there and put my new cranks on.

Everything was going smoothly until I tried to put the motor mount on. The new bike frame wouldn't allow me to mount the bracket straight with all four screws. My solution: Drill another hole. In my previous post I showed where a philips screw was placed, this was the area I needed my new hole. I decided dead center would work best and proceeded to drill through my bracket and my two mounting posts. Doing this gave me a nice triangular bolt placement. While this isn't quite as good as four bolts, it is second best. So, after a loosely securing the bracket I needed to check motor alignment. Turns out I was pretty close and only needed a slight adjustment before I was ready to tighten everything down.



Meanwhile I was trying to remove my grips and they were so old they just shredded from the friction. I didn't think this was a big deal and proceeded to remove my left brake lever and shifters. Then I ran into my first snag. The bike had bullhorn handlebars and the throttle wouldn't go on them. So I decided to frankenstein my old bike and new one. I now have the old handlebars and bar-ends on the new bike and the bullhorns on the old. This worked fine but took some time to do. I also had to remove my old rear shifter cable and housings since the cable runs right underneath the motor mount. I purchased a new cable and housing to redirect it around the mount instead.


The new bike came with knobby tires and the rims had different diameter quick releases on them so I had to swap tires and tubes. Then I put on my new chain. I used this video from bicycletutor.com to take the guesswork out of the length. I merely wrapped the chain around my biggest sprocket and front gear while running it through the motors mechanism. After pulling it tight I just needed to add two full links to that length and I would be good to go. Turns out I only had two links left over after the resize. After that I readjusted my brakes and went for a test ride. The mechanics seemed fine until I tried to shift and nothing happened. The previous owner had warned me that the rapidfire shifters sometimes needed a little oil to get them going every now and then. A bit of chain lube to the mechanism and I was back in business. During the test ride the pedals seemed to slip when I applied power, this was normal and just meant that the crank freewheel was tightening down.



Now that my mechanics test ride was done I could focus more on the motor. I rechecked the alignment, tightened it down, and put my Ping battery in my backpack to do a road test. A quick standing test showed that all the electronics were working and that the motor wouldn't get stuck in the on position. Once on the road I gave the motor a bit of juice and joyed in the burst of acceleration that occurred. I gave it a bit more and cruised a little further then turned back for home. It was then I noticed that the motor had shifted a bit and I could no longer pedal. I used the motors power sparingly to putter home and went to reallign it again. After I was sure that the pedals wouldn't strike the motor anymore I loosened it one bolt at a time, applied Locktite, and tightened it back down. I spent the next 3-5 minutes tightening each bolt in turn, checking alignment and pedal clearance and tightening some more. After the motor was so tight that I feared breaking a bolt if I went anymore, I took it for another spin. This time, everything worked perfectly. I zipped happily along my street back and forth for a few minutes, making sure everything was in working order. Pleased with my work I went inside for a short break in preparation for the bikes maiden voyage.

New Bikes Are Great

Well, I bought another bike yesterday. It's a green GT All Terra(terrain?) and whoever maintained it knew what they were doing. Everything, all the way down to the crank mounts, was coated in grease. As you can imagine this made my job very very easy. The cranks were allen bolts, no socket wrench needed here, and they came off with two twists of the crank puller. The bottom bracket was similar, liberally coated in grease so I didn't have to muscle that out. Yes, the cartridge was in fact a 73mm but I have good news about that. I spoke with Cyclone Taiwan(my other bottom bracket was 73mm too) and they admitted a mistake had been made. They are sending me a new cartridge and some motor cooling fins for my trouble. I have heard mixed things about the support over there, but I must say that it was the most trouble free transaction I have ever had. It supposedly was packed up today so I should receive it sometime next week and the bike is ready and waiting. I must say that it has been a very nice weekend. Although, it would have been nice if I could have finished today.

More Problems???

Well, the good news is I got called back about a 21 speed Schwinn in my area I'm going to look at tomorrow morning. The bad news is I was reading this post on endless-sphere about another guy that built a 500W cyclone ebike, I noticed that his bottom bracket cartridge has significantly more length than mine and there might have been a mix-up at the factory. His cartridge is the First F-2001F model and mine is the F-2001E model. What this means is that even though I have a bottom bracket, it might not help the motor clearance at all. I have sent an email to Cyclone Taiwan and hope they can fix this issue.

However, that would mean that I have to send my cartridge back by international mail and that's pricey. If it is the ballpark of $15-20 then I'll just buy the bottom bracket conversion kit from sick bike parts and the original spindle from Cyclone-USA.

It will add another $40 something to my build but I won't have the guesswork involved with my current situation. The upside is I know it will work for sure. But, I have hope that the part I have will work.

We'll see...

Of Broken Bikes and Dreams Gone By

Well, I got the call yesterday. Yep, my bike has defeated me. In trying to replace the bottom bracket the bike shop stripped the splines that the tool links into. The only way now to get the part out is with power tools and I don't fancy doing that. This leaves me with no other choice than to replace the bike. Luckily the bike still functions so I'll probably be able to sell it cheap on craigslist. So I have been checking craigslist for used bikes. I have found several promising ones and am now just waiting for them to contact me so I can go look at them. If I manage to get one of the listings that is less than $50 then I'll be able to fix it up even if I have to buy a different part for the kit. Hopefully I can get one today that works with the kit as is so I can finish the build this weekend.

On the Installation

Okay, following the instructions on the Cyclone Taiwan site, I managed to get my crank arms off and attempt to get my bottom bracket out. Well, I say attempt because the bike is over 10 years old and apparently some rust or something had gotten into the threads over the years. It was locked tight. I tried for 4 something hours alternating between breacher bar and wrench to wrench with hammer, nothing worked. And, yes, I was turning it the right direction smart Aleck. So off to the bike shop I go, for a measly $30 they are taking the bottom bracket out, replacing it and moving my pedals over to the new cranks. Unfortunately I won't have it back until Friday. They don't tell you about all the hidden costs involved in this kind of endeavor.

Speaking of hidden costs, you have to add approximately 4 chain links to your chain. If you don't have said links you must buy a WHOLE NEW CHAIN. That was another $15 for a low end chain, plus $6 for more chain lube. Oh, and don't get me started on the bracket mount. The one they sent me didn't have holes in the right places for the bolts to go through, I had to drill my own. That took an hour and and 2 charged drill batteries to accomplish (hour includes charge time). Before I figured out I had to drill the holes I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to put the bracket together. I still wasn't 100% sure I had it right when I finished drilling but figured it would all come together. It wasn't until I was browsing the Cyclone USA miscellaneous parts page that I found an assembled bracket picture that wasn't on a bike. The below pictures are the assembly process, notice the philips head bolt in the lower right in the first pic? That's important. The holes I drilled are in rectangular piece on the far left(the two on the ends) turns out I only needed to add one hole, but two won't hurt anything.




The power system is pretty straight forward. Battery red goes to motor red, battery black goes to motor black. I however, wanted a more versatile system. Plus I had to add my fuse holder in and such. I couldn't find anything about fuses on Cyclone Taiwan's site but the USA store said to put one in and I always prefer to put a fuse in than not. No use burning out my electronics when I could burn out a $1 fuse. Sadly I needed a fuse rated at least to 40 amps and AutoZone, Home Depot, Fry's Electronics AND the 2 radioshacks I went to only had fuse holders rated up to 30 amps. For those that don't know, if you buy a holder rated for 30 amps and you try to run a fuse with 40 amps going through it you will burn up your fuse holder, it's a mess so don't try it. So I ended up going to my favorite electronics chop shop here in San Diego.....INDUSTRIAL LIQUIDATORS. 30 seconds after I walk in the door I tell the clerk what I'm looking for, he leads me to a stand around the counter and bingo, fuse holder rated to 80 amps 120 volts. Way overkill for what I'm using it for but with these things, overkill is good. The fuses are only $1 a piece and if you can't tell how much the fuse holder was from the picture I can't help you.

The holder is that big black tube and I think it was supposed to come with a spring to make contact with the fuse like in battery flashlights. It did not so I had to use the knowledge I gained from this instructable to make my own. Mine was a greatly scaled down spring made by wrapping about 3 feet of stripped 22awg solid core wire around a zebra mechanical pencil tube. It worked and saved me a couple of bucks. As you can imagine a multimeter is essential for this, it allowed me to check my connection BEFORE plugging it in. This was the cheapest one I could find. Radioshack wanted $20 for a similar model.

The power connectors I got from Fry's electronics for about $3, they were designed for a 18awg wire to be crimped around it but I made it work with my beefy 12awg wire by soldering it straight to the connector. No pics of the soldering but there are plenty of youtube vids about how to do it. The reason I went with these connectors is so that I have a connector very close to the battery so I can take it with me to class. It also provides a quick and painless way of quickly disconnecting the battery as the connector that goes in the motor is very stiff to remove as well as being in an inconvenient spot.

Speaking of the motor connector, I added about 3 feet to the wires that are included with the kit, this allows me to have plenty of slack in case I need to move the battery or run the wires to a different location. These were soldered on and you can see them below. The two wires are the same color so you can imagine me triple checking them before I finished. Had I switched them my motor controller would have blown faster than you can imagine when I plugged it in.



The motor comes with 4 Allen key bolts holding the planetary gear box onto the motor shaft. If you are going with a build that puts the motor in FRONT of your crankset, you can just leave the motor as is and mount it. I need to mount it BEHIND my crankset. In order for the chain to run smoothly you have to replace one of the allen key bolts with the included chain guide. The positioning depends on the rotation of your motor. If the kit has a clockwise spinning motor, like mine, you have to mount the guide in the upper left hand bolt hole. If you get a counter-clockwise motor, it has to go in the lower left hand bolt hole. Also a good thing to note at this point is that the wires should go DOWN, this helps prevent rainwater and such getting into your motor. Now of course there is only one TRUE way of checking motor rotation. That's right, PLUG IT IN. I think this is a good time to test the electronics too, don't you?

The Kit

Going with my chain drive decision I purchased the 500W single chainring kit from Cyclone Taiwan. The main reason I went with them over the USA dealer is that even with the $100 shipping it was still $100 cheaper to buy direct. One disadvantage is that the kit doesn't come with the break levers that kill the motor, so if I get stopped and the cop knows to look for it I may get a ticket. If this happens, I'll just buy the levers from the USA dealer for the $22 he has them for and get the ticket fixed.

The single chainring is more "stealth" than the 3-chainring kit due to it's ability to be mounted between the cranks and rear wheel rather than on the downtube. I didn't want my motor to be out there for some loser with a wrench to take it while it's locked at the school. Now some of you might be thinking "He's crazy, they're still gonna see it and jack it." But here's the rub, I already have to take my quick release front tire off and there's this nice brick wall behind the bike racks. By positioning my bike parallel to the wall and locking my front tire OVER the motor, it will be nigh impossible to reach.


On to the POWER. Spurred by the enormous amount of good forum response at V is for Voltage, among others, to Ping from pingbattery.com I purchased his 24V 20Ah LiFePo4 battery for a mere $400ish with shipping. Lithium is the way to go with a 500W system, so sayeth the Cyclone-USA people. Plus it has the advantage of somewhere between 2000-3000 charging cycles. If I take care of it, the battery will last many years.

The total kit weighs about 18.5 pounds, much better than the 30 something I would have been dealing with had I gone with SLA batteries on a smaller motor. Although that would have saved me about $300 with the initial investment. However SLA batteries only have between 300-500 charge cycles so the investment over time is higher.

Introduction

I would like to take this moment to welcome you to the documentary of my first ebike build.

A Brief History:
(skip to the next post for the ebike)
I became interested in electric bicycles approximately two years ago when gas began going above $4/gallon. It was at this time that I purchased a used mid-90's specialized Rock Hopper mountain bike from craigslist. It was in decent shape for the $100 dollars I paid for it and it came with a decent cable lock. Little did I know at the time that it was slightly too small for me and would require several additions to make the ride more comfortable. It had a racing style hard saddle that I replaced with a factory one and I needed to buy a riser stem to take some weight off my hands. Then I decided if I was going to go any considerable distance I should add some clamp on bull horns. Finally I bought a Planet Bike Superflash and a Fenix L2D flashlight for my headlight and tail-light. This finally brought the total cost of the bike to around $250, not to bad for getting back in the saddle after 6 years. After all this, as a starving college student, I couldn't justify the expense of an electric kit just to run errands around town.

Then the worst happened, last August I totaled my beloved 40mpg toyota Echo. Alas, now I couldn't justify the expense of new car(no comprehensive, stupid me) and still had to get to school 15 miles away. I know what you are thinking, "15 miles? That's easy." I would agree with you, except for the fact that the first one and a quarter miles is a 6% grade hill and if I wanted to get to school for a full day of class and not smell like I had just wrestled a bull I needed an alternative.


Queue electric bike. Fortunately I had access to about $1000 for new transportation and I had two options. 1) buy a junker car and still pay for gas, insurance and likely repairs that would result or 2) buy an electric kit. Obviously I chose #2 otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.

Now I had plenty of options when it came to electric, but since I had to get over that hill I had to have PLENTY of torque. I could go with a high powered hub motor but Cali has that whole "no greater than 1000W" law and I would have had to over volt a lower Watt one to get over that hill, possibly damaging the motor in the process or I could go with a chain drive bike that could use my bikes existing gearing to give me the torque I needed for the hills and the speed on the flats. I went with the chain drive because I like the best of both worlds.

Up next: The Kit