adrian_sm
1 MW
After seeing a few friends ebikes I got the bug and had to build one for myself. So after chatting to a few people, and hearing some of their war stories, I took the plunge and order my parts.
Decided on a Crystalyte 408 rear hub, 35A controller, 48V/10Ah Headway LiFePo4 batteries, half twist throttle and a Cycle Analyst so I know what is happening.
The bike is a hard tail Avanti Montari. I have been riding it as a commuter for quite some time, but wanted to get to work a bit quicker and not quite so sweaty. It is about 18kms one way, so I might need to charge up at work depending on how lazy I am in pedalling. The ride is a nice mix of flats, gentle hills and a couple of hills that hurt to get up if I haven't riden for a while.
Anyway, I finally got my hands on the batteries yesterday after a long wait, so I set to work seeing if it would all run. Unfortunately it was a holiday today, meaning shops aren't open so I had to improvise the way I mounted the batteries and controller. But at least it gave me some design feedback for the final mounting.
Wheel dropped in nicely. Had to adjust my rear v-brakes to accomodate the new wider rim.
Next was the throttle which I thought would be simple, but had a bit of trouble, the rapid fire shifters seemed to get in the way. Finally managed to space them apart enough to get clearence for shifting, but not ideal. I must be missing something here, there has got to be a better way.
Next was the hard part, the batteries. I was pretty keen to get the battery weight down low so decided to try and fit them in the frame triangle. The battery pack is about 130mm wide, so just narrow enough not to get in the way of my legs or pedals. Hadn't really considered where to put the controller, but ended up trying it in the frame as well. The vague plan was to create a aluminium sheet metal shelf that the baterries and controller get strapped down to. Then I would fabricate some protective sheets for the sides, in case I drop the bike on it's side. Finally adding some sort of weather proof cover over the top.
But for now, I just hacked together what ever I could find laying around in the shed to get the thing running. So I cut up an old plastic storage box in place of the ally sheet. Used some ply board to add some support and spread the loads. Then proceeded to cable tie everything to the frame.
Tucked all the wires roughly away to make sure they don't escape, took a photo incase it all blows up on it's maiden voyage, then took it for a spin.
Surprisingly all went well. Cruised up the hill on my street at ~23km/hr, came down doing about 43 km/hr.
I did notice some vibration during hard acceleration, from an unknown source. Actually come to think of it there was some vibration when I turned the motor over with the bike upside down in the shed. Maybe the wheel isn't well balanced.
I'll start trouble shooting tomorrow.
Can't wait to take it for a decent spin. Gotta love e-bikes.
Thanks to everyone on this forum for all their knowledge that I have been reading through while waiting for my parts. And a special thanks to Mark & John for helping me decide on the parts, and getting them all for me
Cheers, Adrian.
Here is a couple of photos, of my thrown together build.
Decided on a Crystalyte 408 rear hub, 35A controller, 48V/10Ah Headway LiFePo4 batteries, half twist throttle and a Cycle Analyst so I know what is happening.
The bike is a hard tail Avanti Montari. I have been riding it as a commuter for quite some time, but wanted to get to work a bit quicker and not quite so sweaty. It is about 18kms one way, so I might need to charge up at work depending on how lazy I am in pedalling. The ride is a nice mix of flats, gentle hills and a couple of hills that hurt to get up if I haven't riden for a while.
Anyway, I finally got my hands on the batteries yesterday after a long wait, so I set to work seeing if it would all run. Unfortunately it was a holiday today, meaning shops aren't open so I had to improvise the way I mounted the batteries and controller. But at least it gave me some design feedback for the final mounting.
Wheel dropped in nicely. Had to adjust my rear v-brakes to accomodate the new wider rim.
Next was the throttle which I thought would be simple, but had a bit of trouble, the rapid fire shifters seemed to get in the way. Finally managed to space them apart enough to get clearence for shifting, but not ideal. I must be missing something here, there has got to be a better way.
Next was the hard part, the batteries. I was pretty keen to get the battery weight down low so decided to try and fit them in the frame triangle. The battery pack is about 130mm wide, so just narrow enough not to get in the way of my legs or pedals. Hadn't really considered where to put the controller, but ended up trying it in the frame as well. The vague plan was to create a aluminium sheet metal shelf that the baterries and controller get strapped down to. Then I would fabricate some protective sheets for the sides, in case I drop the bike on it's side. Finally adding some sort of weather proof cover over the top.
But for now, I just hacked together what ever I could find laying around in the shed to get the thing running. So I cut up an old plastic storage box in place of the ally sheet. Used some ply board to add some support and spread the loads. Then proceeded to cable tie everything to the frame.
Tucked all the wires roughly away to make sure they don't escape, took a photo incase it all blows up on it's maiden voyage, then took it for a spin.
Surprisingly all went well. Cruised up the hill on my street at ~23km/hr, came down doing about 43 km/hr.
I did notice some vibration during hard acceleration, from an unknown source. Actually come to think of it there was some vibration when I turned the motor over with the bike upside down in the shed. Maybe the wheel isn't well balanced.
I'll start trouble shooting tomorrow.
Can't wait to take it for a decent spin. Gotta love e-bikes.
Thanks to everyone on this forum for all their knowledge that I have been reading through while waiting for my parts. And a special thanks to Mark & John for helping me decide on the parts, and getting them all for me
Cheers, Adrian.
Here is a couple of photos, of my thrown together build.