My First Build is a Success!

I received my parts from cell_man this past week and got a chance to assemble my ebike yesterday (Aug. 6th). I won't go into a lot of detail except the basics and to share some pictures.

I have the choice of two donor bikes, a 2005 Raleigh C-40 with a 17 1/2 men's frame and a 2008 Diamondback Century flatbar road bike. Both bikes have aluminum forks, with a suspension fork on the Raleigh, but since I'm using a rear motor, that doesn't matter.

My kit consists of a 1000W 8T, geared hub-motor laced into a 700C wheel with an 11/32 freewheel. That's couple thru the controller to a 48V 11.5Ah A123 triangular battery pack in a nylon frame bag, tied via the harness to a thumb-throttle with a separate selector switch and brake cut-off. Total cost to Seattle from Shanghai (with shipping) was about $1250 clams. I chose SAL and though somewhat slow, everything arrived safely and was packed very well. Paul does a great job with the kits.

First pic, showing the battery pack fit into the frame triangle:





The controller fitted under the rear rack:



Wiring:



Throttle set up:



Tidying up:






Finished set up:






All in all, a very good build. Difficult parts were dealing with a leak in the tube (I've purchased a replacement since...) and getting the throttle integrated with the shifter and brake. I will most likely replace the thumb-throttle with a twist-throttle as soon as cell_man gets me a price and shipping cost. I had to relieve some of the material on the shifter to get it all to fit. A lot of fussing-around...

I took the bike on a short 8-mile ride today on a dedicated trail. In my top gear (24) on Level 1 I was able to easily peddle to 21 MPH. I tried Level 2 and it shot up to 28 MPH! I was afraid to try Level 3, as there were too many people on the trail. As it was, peddling in Level 1 was a good match for a paved trail on a Sunday afternoon.

The motor is very quiet. I could barely hear the gears. The way the bike is set up and wired, it would be hard to tell it was electric unless one looked closely; the perfect stealth bike.

The suspension absorbs the bumps well and the bike as a whole rides well. I'm REALLY glad I paid the extra $$$ for the triangular pack and nylon bag. It gets the weight of the battery centered and the cG much lower than on the back rack. The build og the A123 cell-pack is superb!

I *may* tear everything off and try it on the Diamondback just for fun, but this is working well for right now. My only criticism of the kit is not shut-off switch, but it's easy enough to unplug the wires, and actually, that may be a safer way to go anyway.

Cell_man does a good job with the product, though there were no instructions, but setup is pretty straight-forward. Paul is VERY responsive and has been wonderful, patiently answering my many questions. Many, many kudos to him and his suppliers. I have a far faster bike than the ready-built bikes I was looking at, with more umph and more range.

Another ear-to-ear e-grin!

Tony

I like the triangle bag. I may have to get one. Looks like a quality build so far..

The falconev bag is badass. You've basically got my setup, but with a123 instead of lipo.

Congrats on your first build. Here are some thoughts;

You are going to need torque plates or at least some burly torque arms badly due to the torque kick of the MAC/BMC geared motors. I am not seeing one on that bike. You do know that it will shred your rear dropouts, right..... right?!

You will probably find that a front disc brake is a must on that bike. It may involve a fork upgrade. Surly forks are great. I am 250lbs so i need the extra braking. Maybe your situation is different tho.

And that bike seems way too small for you considering how high you have the seat up. May want to consider switching bikes. The seat post could flex and snap at that height.

Other than that congratulations on your first build. Thought i'd throw my 2 cents in because i went through like 4 bikes before i decided on the one i have now, and ended up in a similar place as you.

Congrats - it looks really, really nice.

Neptronix is right - add the torque arm and your away with it. There is a lot of power in that motor.

That kit will serve you well.

+1 Great build! 8)

Looks much prettier than the 3 car batteries in a child trailer build that I put together for my dad the first time!

I too love the Falcon EV bag, did he also build the battery pack as well?

Thanks mucho for the comments. I know I need a torque arm and will be installing one VERY soon. SUGGESTIONS are welcome!

There's LOTS of seat post in the frame; seat was lowered since the picture. I *know* the bike is smallish for me (6'0", 245lbs), but my wife rode it and she's 5'11". It's basically a test platform anyway, not necessarily a permanent ride.

Point well taken about the disc brake on the front!

I will be adding a CA soon as well and as noted above, changing out the throttle to a twist-grip.

Tony

LI-ghtcycle said:

I too love the Falcon EV bag, did he also build the battery pack as well?

Click to expand...

Yes!

I agree on the Falcon EV bag, it is certain to grow in popularity. $40 from the middle of this catalogue page (ES review link just below it)
http://www.falconev.com/batteries.html
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=29211

I also agree on the torque arms/torque plate...you may think you'll just "take it easy" until you have time to get a pair, but...when there is a sudden spin-out of the drops...hopefully you will not crash and be injured (as many others have been), and the LEAST of your worries will be that the wires have been ripped out by their roots.

All you have to do then is disassemble the motor and re-solder the wires back where they came from, after (of course) you have identified what each wire is and where each one goes. When you get the motor apart, its a good time to add a temp cheap sensor probe (order that when you order the torque arms), spray the inside with a non-corrosion coating, and perhaps upgrade the phase wires one or two guages fatter (teflon insulation if you can swing it)

Go easy on the power you put in the bike and you will have many happy years with it. My bike is out of commission for about a month now. Just got 400miles on it before it died. So i would be cautious since it might be a premature victory. best of luck!

neptronix said:

You will probably find that a front disc brake is a must on that bike. It may involve a fork upgrade. Surly forks are great. I am 250lbs so i need the extra braking. Maybe your situation is different tho.

Click to expand...

As a roughly 350 pound car-free rider who has daily ridden e-bikes and pushbikes at body weights of over 400 pounds, I can tell you this:

The best linear-pull brakes will outperform the best bicycle disc brakes every time. It's just physics; the rotor (which is to say, the rim) is much bigger and heavier and made of material with better thermal properties. Rim brakes are more sensitive to setup and cable routing and maintenance, and they might need a harder squeeze to get them working their best, but they have more potential stopping power available.

Also, the worst disc brakes I have used were far weaker than the weakest rim brakes (any kind of rim brakes) I have used. They simply did not respond to careful setup or adjustment. You'd get better braking out of a brick tied to a string and thrown overboard than from some of the Promax and Radius disc brakes I've serviced. The first generation Shimano discs from the 1970s weren't even that good.

And no bicycle brake of any kind has ever been as powerful as this one I built, back before Shimano V-brakes came to market:



Those are ordinary Kool Stop pads engaging a beefy but otherwise normal aluminum rim. Any bicycle disc brake would wad up its rotor before doing what this brake can do. The shaft coming down onto the fork crown from above is a reinforcement that connects to the handlebar stem, because these brakes easily bent forks that lacked such bracing.

The best disc brakes do have some good things going for them-- strong lever response, sensitive feel, and independence of the rim's condition. Smart designs like Avid's BB7 are easier to set up than a normal rim brake, which is very convenient. But in terms of gross stopping power, good quality discs wind up somewhere near the middle of the various styles of rim brakes. If you prefer the feel and lever response of hydraulics, note that you can get hydraulic rim brakes from Magura which combine the maximum power of a rim brake with the lever feel of a hydraulic disc.

Chalo

Sorry but i just don't agree. I have a steep 5 mile hill to ascend and descend. I could not find a front rim brake / pad that does the job like my front avid BB7 + 180mm rotor. In a word, it was terrifying knowing that your rims are smoking hot and your brake power is continuing to fade and you have 1 mile more to go at 20-40mph with a stoplight half way.

I have a rear vbrake and the rim gets hot enough that it will burn your hand after certain hills. A rubber tire and innertube are sitting on that. Now you know why i am leary of rim brakes.

So ok - i am a little biased because i have extreme terrain.

Independent of that, I hate the rim alignment issues with v/canti brakes, i find my discs are much easier to deal with in real life usage. I do wonder if rim brakes do cause the rim alignment issues. I have never had to true my front wheel, but the rear needs it often.

Both kinds of brakes can be good, or bad, depending on a lot of things. I have the cheapest possible mechanical disk brakes on a couple of my bikes. Unimpressive. But better than badly adjusted rim brakes, and at least they don't need constant re setting of the pad angle and cable length.

My only nit pick of the bike is that the controller and wiring plugs will get wet if you hit a puddle. I like to take soft closed cell foam and make rear fenders out of it. You know, the 3/8 thick stuff that is used for fatigue mats, play surface, etc. Or camping sleeping pads, yoga pads. Just cut a strip of it, and zip tie it to the frame and the rack.

You may even want to relocate the controller to top of the rack. Crosswise, right at the front is my typical location for controllers.

spinningmagnets said:

I also agree on the torque arms/torque plate...you may think you'll just "take it easy" until you have time to get a pair, but...when there is a sudden spin-out of the drops...hopefully you will not crash and be injured (as many others have been), and the LEAST of your worries will be that the wires have been ripped out by their roots.

Click to expand...

I would love to have a recommendation for the best torque arm(s) for my motor and application (rear stays).

Please advise.

Thx...

dogman said:

My only nit pick of the bike is that the controller and wiring plugs will get wet if you hit a puddle. I like to take soft closed cell foam and make rear fenders out of it. You know, the 3/8 thick stuff that is used for fatigue mats, play surface, etc. Or camping sleeping pads, yoga pads. Just cut a strip of it, and zip tie it to the frame and the rack. You may even want to relocate the controller to top of the rack. Crosswise, right at the front is my typical location for controllers.

Click to expand...

Good advice. I questioned cell_man about this and he said that he'd had no issues riding in the wet with the wiring harness. I have a rear fender that I took off for the install and need to reinstall. I don't have the harness wire length to run the controller from the front to the rear. I may come up with a better way of packing the controller and harness on teh existing rack OR, get a double-decker rack and use its battery slot for the cotroller and harness.

TR

Reading this thread regarding torque arms:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18195

by John in CR » Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:07 am

Those running the skinny torque arms on AL bikes (especially on one side only) aren't respecting the forces involved. I wouldn't be surprised if a forum member who simply stops posting has disappeared from the forum because they're dead as a result of a spun axle failure. It's not a long shot probability.

I've purchased a lot of used hubmotors, and every one that came with a torque arm, they were wallowed out from the forces. Thru hole torque arms are crap and can't fit perfectly without perfectly machined flats and perfectly machined axles, and would still require thick steel.

Please don't treat a hubmotor's connection to the bike as an afterthought. It's thousands of pounds of force due to the tiny radius, and that motor is trying to spin and climb right out of those dropouts. The strength of the aluminum counts for exactly zero. How long would an aluminum open end wrench last? Plus aluminum isn't going to give you some warning squeaks ahead of time like steel does. Instead they'll just suddenly snap right off.

Click to expand...

YIKES!

On torque arms and plates and forces generated.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14195

I'm a believer...

neptronix said:

Sorry but i just don't agree. I have a steep 5 mile hill to ascend and descend. I could not find a front rim brake / pad that does the job like my front avid BB7 + 180mm rotor. In a word, it was terrifying knowing that your rims are smoking hot and your brake power is continuing to fade and you have 1 mile more to go at 20-40mph with a stoplight half way.

Click to expand...

I lived in Seattle when I built my e-bikes. With about 400 lbs. of me on them, they were respectively about 485 and 525 pounds all up. I lived at the top of a 400 foot hill and worked at sea level. The descent was about 1/2 mile long, and I got to hit 55mph any given day on the way to work (if I wasn't riding my e-bike with passive e-braking over 29mph). 8% to 10% grades were on my daily menu, but there were grades up to 25% in the parts of town I frequented. That was why I even bothered with e-bikes at all.

My bikes then (both e- and pedal bikes) had all kinds of brakes: disc, drum, roller, cantilever, linear pull, caliper, and u-brakes. The only brakes that failed to meet the challenge were the drums and roller brakes. They'd get hot and fade when faced with hard jobs. But most of the others outperformed the discs at the limits. At that time I had a Hayes HMX-1 disc (similar to Avid BB-7) with 180mm rotor, an Avid Mechanical (predecessor of the BB-7) with 165mm rotor, and a Mountain Cycle Pro-Stop disc with fully floating 229mm rotor.

I burned the stock Hayes pads down to their backings in less than 20 miles of Seattle city riding. Their EBC Gold metallic replacements have lasted for years.

Discs can and sometimes do yield more braking power for a given amount of force on the lever. But if you are like me, you can almost always squeeze harder. The limits of braking are dictated not by the ability to pull harder on the lever, but on the properties of the braking mechanism.

I have a rear vbrake and the rim gets hot enough that it will burn your hand after certain hills. A rubber tire and innertube are sitting on that. Now you know why i am leary of rim brakes.

So ok - i am a little biased because i have extreme terrain.

Click to expand...

I ride on streets that get hot enough that they'll burn your hand during daylight hours. My tires and tubes are sitting on that. Do you know what vulcanization is?

Energy is energy. I can do with mass and velocity and ambient heat what you must do with elevation change. The fact is that discs just can't cook off as much energy as full diameter aluminum rims, so they are quicker to overheat. They get smoldering hot, the rotors warp, and then plastic parts in the calipers melt. Or if they are hydraulic, they boil the fluid and lock up.

But if you are concerned about heat dissipation with rim brakes, you can use a much heavier rim, tube, and tire for more thermal mass and more surface area to reject heat through. All you can do with a disc brake is get a slightly larger disc rotor (realistically, 180mm is only slightly larger and heavier than 160mm). My best rotors measure over 625mm in diameter, weigh about two pounds each, and are made from aluminum-- which has much higher heat capacity and conductivity than stainless steel. They also have many times as much surface area as bicycle disc rotors for discharging heat to the air. My 180mm stainless rotors would be non-repairable before those rims even got uncomfortably warm.

Independent of that, I hate the rim alignment issues with v/canti brakes, i find my discs are much easier to deal with in real life usage. I do wonder if rim brakes do cause the rim alignment issues. I have never had to true my front wheel, but the rear needs it often.

Click to expand...

The rear wheel carries more weight, and if it's dished for multiple speeds then it's much weaker than the front. Both these factors mean more maintenance.

It sounds like you've never done what must be done to make rim brakes deliver their potential. For cantilever or linear-pull brakes, that means using a booster arch, using good pads like Kool Stop, using a good heavy aluminum rim, adjusting them with proper pad angle and toe-in, and routing the cables with minimum overall length and maximum bend radii. And you have to match the brakes and levers such that their ratios are appropriate to each other.

Here"s a link with some good information: http://www.sudibe.de/articles/billondiscbrakes.html

There's a disc brake test (with rim brakes for comparison) from a German cycle magazine floating around out there, but I can't find a link to it just now. If I run across it, I'll post an update.

Chalo

Chalo said:

The rear wheel carries more weight, and if it's dished for multiple speeds then it's much weaker than the front. Both these factors mean more maintenance.

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Front disc brake wheels also have dish to compensate for the rotor, which is inherently weaker than a standard symmetrical front hub. The other interesting thought is the extra force applied to the j bend of the spokes at the disc brake hub during braking. This too can cause earlier spoke failure. The braking force applied to the rim affects the spoke nipple and head of the spoke, but the bending force isn't usually enough to bend them far enough to fatigue them as early as at the hub. Contaminated disc rotors and pads squeal, contaminated rim brakes are not nearly as sensitive to typical cleaning solutions used in regular maintenance cleaning.

Each design has advantages and disadvantages, I toss this into the mix for consideration but I can make my disc brakes skid and my rim brakes skid. I use rim brakes (simple Shimano V-Brakes set up properly) on my heavy hauling cargo bike, and my other bikes have disc.
(I can remember Pederson SE cantilever rim brakes which Suntour purchased and kind of buggered, those were powerful too when set up properly, but there are factors involved in proper rim brake set up that even many professional bicycle mechanics miss, which is often why disc brakes work well for a majority)

But... I am really anxious to find out which torque arms or plates are preferred!

$1,250 for an SAL kit???? Can you please itemize your components for us. That's worrying me. I have a budget of $500-700 and it's for a lithium powered kit. After reading your post though, I'm getting concerned whether or not my setup would even be possible.