Latest Build Nearly Complete After Over a Decade

BrandonB

10 W
Joined
Feb 19, 2009
Messages
75
Location
Shelby, NC
The last bike I completed myself was over a decade ago, a 2005 Giant Rincon. It had a blowout $250 EBikeKit.com 9 Continents hub motor kit from a dealer that was going out of business and a battery that comprised of six 7Ah lead acid batteries wired up for 36 volts at 14 Ah.

I couldn't keep a rear rack on the bike because the battery was so heavy. I loved the bike, but it was frankly too small for me and there wasn't any room on my grocery store budget to buy the lithium it really needed, so I sold the bike.

Over the years I tinkered some here and there. Bought a prebuilt Schwinn with a 24V pouch pack that eventually expanded and a small hub motor that was underpowered for my size that was eventually stolen off my porch.

I have two project bikes that haven't found their way to another home that I have worked on over the years: a Giant Revive DX with a front hub motor (9C 8x10 torque wind) and an Electric Raleigh Twenty (Brushed BD36), both parked for battery reasons too.

I then decided to purchase a right-for-my-size Raleigh Talus One, which I started with a Hailong pack from an ebay seller with good reviews and a Magic Pie Vector 5. The bike performed pretty decent, but it was also underpowered for my size. The controller is built into the wheel and is most likely underpowered. I bought the wheel laced into a 20" rim and had it relaced for 27.5", in retrospect it probably should have stayed in the 20" rim, but live and learn. I'm going to gut the controller in the near future and run an external with more amp capacity.

Somewhere in the mix, I purchased a BMC MAC v2 motor on blowout from Hi Power Cycles on eBay, and a 25 amp OEM controller. I had that motor laced up as well, and got it mounted in. I wired it into a Kelly 50 amp controller which worked, but was very coggy on startup. Reading through OLD forum posts, I found out that the advanced hall timing along with the high eRPM of this motor were unsuitable for regular controllers. I had a d'oh moment when I realized I could have saved myself a lot of time by using the factory controller.

I bought some JST-SH connectors and a tool and got everything wired up right along with a Magura 5k throttle, and got a street tire swapped onto the rim which was pointed in the wrong direction the whole time. I topped it all off with a surplus 36 volt 15.6Ah battery from a Lime scooter, that comes ready to go with a built in BMS for a great price. The bike itself is built in the same way with the same spirit as the Giant, but with the parts I would have really liked to use back then if I could've afforded them. I'm looking forward to see how the BMC motor performs since it's considered a performance model, and I don't think I've ridden a geared motor bike before either, at least not one capable of 900 watts continuous.

I hope to jump back into the DIY ebike world a little stronger nowadays since I'm a little more financially able. Thanks for reading!
 

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Lead acid batteries are no good for ebikes.
What is your size in terms of weight and height?
That is the most common mistake people make is building an ebike that is under powered.
 
Nice job, did you have any trouble waking up the lime battery?
I think I bought the same battery and the power out and charge cable both read 2.9 volts even though the individual cellpacks are over 3 volts.
 
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