what is the best e-bike kit??

[parmenps]

I've long been looking for an e-bike but I never know which one is best.
I want a fast e-bike. Who knows a good e-bike kit for me

[d8veh]

Not enough information. They're nearly all good. It just depends what you want to do with them.
You need to say:

How fast you want to go
How far you want to go
How hilly it is where you ride
Your weight
Your budget
Any legal constraints where you live
What sort of bike you want to fit it to.
Your electrical ability.

The faster you want to go, the more it's going to cost.

[amberwolf]

what is the best e-bike kit??

No such thing. Depends on usage, budget, etc.

What do you want it for?
What are you going to put it on?
Where are you going to ride?
Do you want hill climbing ability?
How big are the hills?
What speeds do you want to reach?
How far do you want to go?
How much can you spend?
How much do you weigh?
How much does your bike weigh?

Etc.

That said, I do have recommendations on where to buy from:

http://ebikes.ca Grin Tech
http://methtek.com Methtek, here on ES
http://emissions-free.com Cell_man here on ES
and there are several other good ones, too, depending on where you live.

EDIT: I guess I didn't type fast enough; d8veh posted the same kind of way I did.

[parmenps]

How fast you want to go ------- 25 - 30 mph
How far you want to go -------- 20 - 30 kilometer
How hilly it is where you ride -- most of what I ride is smooth but sometimes I ride on a bridge
Your weight - i'm 75 kilo
Your budget - 700$
Any legal constraints where you live - does not matter

i have no batteries.
My bike has a 28inch wheel greats

[eva-michael]

Not enough information. They're nearly all good. It just depends what you want to do with them.
You need to say:

How fast you want to go
How far you want to go
How hilly it is where you ride
Your weight
Your budget
Any legal constraints where you live
What sort of bike you want to fit it to.
Your electrical ability.

The faster you want to go, the more it's going to cost.

This is really a very good guideline .
And 500W ebike will be a good option. Generally a 36V 500W is a bit faster than 48V 500W motor. Andway 48V get a litle higher torque.
48v12ah can make a 33-38KM riding.

[parmenps]

if I buy this:
http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i24.html

and batteries like these:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10357

is this a good combination?
and how am I supposed to make batteries to the motor do I have to buy a new controller for it.

thanks for the comments

[parmenps]

Not enough information. They're nearly all good. It just depends what you want to do with them.
You need to say:

How fast you want to go
How far you want to go
How hilly it is where you ride
Your weight
Your budget
Any legal constraints where you live
What sort of bike you want to fit it to.
Your electrical ability.

The faster you want to go, the more it's going to cost.

if I buy this motor:
http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i24.html

and 2x batteries like these:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10357

is this a good combination?
and how am I supposed to make batteries to the motor do I have to buy a new controller for it.

thanks for the comments

[dogman]

There are kits for pretty fast. Pretty much all the 36v kits can be run on 48v, and get above 25mph, some even hit 30 mph.

There is no kit for FAST. At least not with battery anyway. 40 mph club and above generally means buying a fairly robust motor often a direct drive model, then doing your own fabrication to build a torque plate so the motor doesn't just fly off the bike at a touch of the throttle. The motor is run on a larger controller using 3000w or more, at 72v or more. Batteries are often lipo from HK, because nothing else has a better discharge rate.

But if all you want is the 30 mph club, The cellman kit with the fastest winding, and one of his 48v batteries gets you there nicely.

If you run two of those hk 6s batteries, that's only a 44v battery, not 48. So you'd be just a tad slower. Personally, I'd prefer the 8t motor myself, because it climbs a hill better. Since I have hills where I live, I'd rather have good hill climbing an 25 mph, than a motor that is slower on the hills.

As the others said, much depends on what you need. And once above 30 mph, you are illegal in most of the world. The flip side of that, is cops ignore you in much of the world anyway.

[parmenps]

There are kits for pretty fast. Pretty much all the 36v kits can be run on 48v, and get above 25mph, some even hit 30 mph.

There is no kit for FAST. At least not with battery anyway. 40 mph club and above generally means buying a fairly robust motor often a direct drive model, then doing your own fabrication to build a torque plate so the motor doesn't just fly off the bike at a touch of the throttle. The motor is run on a larger controller using 3000w or more, at 72v or more. Batteries are often lipo from HK, because nothing else has a better discharge rate.

But if all you want is the 30 mph club, The cellman kit with the fastest winding, and one of his 48v batteries gets you there nicely.

If you run two of those hk 6s batteries, that's only a 44v battery, not 48. So you'd be just a tad slower. Personally, I'd prefer the 8t motor myself, because it climbs a hill better. Since I have hills where I live, I'd rather have good hill climbing an 25 mph, than a motor that is slower on the hills.

As the others said, much depends on what you need. And once above 30 mph, you are illegal in most of the world. The flip side of that, is cops ignore you in much of the world anyway.

if I buy this motor:
http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i23.html

can I use this battery (2x) on:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10357

do I have to buy another controller then

[dogman]

No, the kit controller will run it fine. It's 36-48v capable, so a 12s lipo will be 44v. In some ways perfect, a bit more speed and total watts than 36v, yet not pushing the controller to it's very limit like 48v does. Just a couple mph lower speed, so you might not quite reach 30 mph.

I would call those two items together a good kit for a ride of about 5- 6 miles, at full speed 25 mph +. For more range you add more 6s packs, but paralelling them so you keep the total pack 12s ( 12 cells in sereies) So for more range, you are pairing 6s packs paralell before connecting each bundle in series to another bundle for the final running voltage of 44v.

You know about lipo yet? You'll spend more on the charger and voltage monitoring stuff on the first buy, then later you can add more ah for range fairly cheap. To get started you'll likely need some 12 guage wire and connectors to build your wiring harness, a cellog 8 or perhaps a pair of them. A 350w power supply and a decent charger if you are going to be charging more than 2 packs. Some way to measure watts while you ride is nearly mandatory for lipo. After all, you are the bms.

[999zip999]

Do you have a charging station for those batteries ? If not cellman has a nice plug and play battery 51v. one charger. Maybe a 8t. motor if you have little hills with the 12 fet controller and C,A. Plug and play.

[parmenps]

so I may just be the battery (http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10357) connected to the controller of the motor (http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i23.html),
without to change anything? no wire,

I can hardly believe

[dogman]

And you are right. To use the lipo, you have to build a wiring harness to get the voltage you want to the controller. Most of us have several packs connected paralell, then enough of those pairs connected in series to have the voltage you want. By the time you are done, the wiring can look like a computer from the fifties, or a birds nest.

And you need to build a voltage monitoring system

And you need to build a charging setup.

[parmenps]

motor:
http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i23.html

Battery Chargers:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... 200W_.html

batterys 4x:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10356

watt meter:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... ouse_.html

I miss something

[dogman]

We're getting there.

You will also need a power supply to run the charger. After you choose a charger, you choose a power supply that will run it. Some chargers want 12v-16v dc input, more powerfull chargers tend to want 24v dc input. For many of us, the standard is a Meanwell switching power supply. The 12v 350 watt ones are the common choice for chargers up to 200w.

The charger you chose will suck. It's 4 cheap unreliable 50w chargers in one box. Get a good 150 or 200w single channel charger. You can connect all your batteries in paralell, and then run the charger. Then to ride, connect in series to get to 44v.

3s batteries connected in series to make 12s will work. But you will have twice as much wiring to fiddle around with that way. Most of us use 6s 5000 mh packs, or lager 6s packs. For a time 4s hardcase packs got popular, but that was because they were being sold very cheap at the time.

Add a cellog 8 to the list. You don't have to have one, but they are such a time saver you won't regret it. Fitting easily in a pocket, you can carry one so that if anything seems wrong, you can very quickly check the packs individual cell voltage with the cellog. Great device too, for deciding before charging whether to balance charge this time or not. And for deciding which pack to balance. Quicker and easier than hooking each pack to the charger one by one to use that dislpaly to decide.

Once you have your battery selection sorted, you will still need something to connect the batteries to the controller. If the controller is not close to the battery, you will need some wire. At the very least, you will need some kind of connector that adapts the controller to the battery. That is, whatever the connector is on the controller, it has to match the battery connectors, or you need to make an adapter that fits the battery on one end, and the controller connector on the other.

You will also want some way to connect the batteries in paralell to charge them. A device called a paraboard works, but most of us just make our own. Some more wire and bullet connectors will give you what you need to make Y adapters. To make Y adapters for the balance plugs, buy some Jst plug extensions that match the battery. 6s extensions for 6s, for example. Then cut and splice em to make Y adapters.

[John in CR]

You need at least double the batteries. 222 watt-hours isn't going to get you anywhere closed to 20-30kms at 25-30mph, or any speed for that matter unless your legs are doing most of the work.

[o00scorpion00o]

The mac 8T from emissions free is a teriffic motor and has great torque for hills!

It will do 28-30 mph max on a 48V ping battery, keep it to no more than 2500 watts on 48v and it will last a long time.

The clutch and keyway can break if running higher power. Cell-man is upgrading the clutch and axle in the mac, I don't know when it will be available to buy but it should take a lot more power.

Cell man shipps the kit set for about 2100 watts.

the best thing about the mac is the freewheel, it feels much more like a bicycle than a direct drive motor makes peddling much easier!

I can get 25 miles on 60 volt LiPo no peddling at 20 mph using only 8.5 ah narrow 1.6 continental tyres pumped to 90 psi.

I really love the mac and cell-man is really good to deal with. It may take him a few days to reply as he is really busy but he is very reliable!

[wesnewell]

Get the 1000W motor kit. Twice the potential power at less than 10% increase in price. A no brainer.

[parmenps]

which stuff you will use for the 500 or 1000w motor
because I did not know much. this is the first time I make ebike

[wesnewell]

Use the "stuff" that comes with the kit you get. Not sure what stuff you are talking about.

[parmenps]

which batteries you would use for the mac 500 or 1000 w

[parmenps]

which batteries you would use for the mac 500 or 1000 w

and which watt meter and batteries charger

[o00scorpion00o]

The watt meter most of us use is the cycle analyst from ebikes.ca, it's an essential piece of kit to be honest and it tells you stuff like consumption per mile, current amps which is useful if you want to know if you are being too hard on your motor and battery.

There are a few different types, one is called the direct plug in, it connects to the controller and you can adjust your amp limits and speed. The other is the stand alone that can't limit speed or current.

I think you are going to have a hard time building a 30 mph system on 700 USD ?

Say 500 USD for cell-man's 8T 1000 watt high power kit including shipping. That leaves you only 200 for the battery!

If you get 9 of these
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... ouse_.html

That would give you 55 volts and 15ah or 23 miles range at about 35 watt hours per mile 25-30 mph

This shows 435 USD shipped to Ireland so I'm sure it would be cheaper for you. But you got to then spend more on a balance charger and power supply, probably looking at another 200+ Euro's!

Then you have to make cable harness to connect all the batteries together, and you can't store LiPo in your house and you have to take good care of it and constantly monitor each cell voltage, for which you will have to spend more on cell monitors.

You should check out the battery section, there is lots of information on LiPo and that will tell you what you are getting into.

Study them well and don't rush into buying anything until you are fully confident you can look after LiPo!

This battery from cell-man is 550 usd + shipping

http://www.emissions-free.com/catalog/i28.html

I'm sure he could make you up a 15 ah pack ??? obviously it will cost more. Going with LiFeP04 means it will be bigger and heavier than the LiPo but you just plug it in and forget about cell monitoring and it will last a lot longer than LiPo. You should get several years out of that pack!

With just under 12ah with the emissions free battery you might just about make your 30 km commute, if that's both ways ? if not you will have to charge at work!

There are other LiFeP04 packs but their discharge rates are too low for the mac kit and that's why I recommend cell-mans LiFeP04 packs, I think you would need a little more ah so you could ask him to make a 15ah pack ?

Unfortunately there is no way to go 30 mph for 30 kms that is going to be cheap!

If you are prepared to pedal a bit the 11.5ah pack from cell-man is the best way to go!

[parmenps]

how am I connect these batteries: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=19716
on the mac 500w
what do I have to buy for it

Thanks for your help

[o00scorpion00o]

how am I connect these batteries: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=19716
on the mac 500w
what do I have to buy for it

Thanks for your help

You would be better off to get the 5S packs, less wiring.

Connect 3 in series for 15S and another 3 in series and connect the 2 15S packs in parallel for a total capacity of 16S.

You have to make up your own wiring harness.

Seriously though I think the emissions free pack should be the way to go, a lot less complicated, a lot longer life for a commute, no fire risk, no newbie mistake risk.

But those are the probably the best assembled packs you can buy at the moment. Ping batteries are good, but they are not able to supply a lot of current for long.

You would need at least 2 x 48 volt 20ah ping batteries in parallel to run the mac 1000 watt 8T to reduce stress on the battery, where the emissions-free packs are much better for small packs and high discharge.

If you want a lot of range the ping batteries would make more sense and would be more battery for less money, but you would need 2x 20ah packs, and they weigh 9.9 kg each for the 48V 20ah. and go for 2x 5 amp chargers to charge in half the time.