Adaptive Tadpole Trike - Best/Easiest conversion to electric

[lifereinspired]

Hello,

I'm soon to have a semi custom adaptive tadpole trike. Front wheels are 20",rear is 24". Disc brakes all around. I'm not a mechanic and although I've had some very generous offers from fellow ESers to help me build it up, unfortunately geography plays a big part in this and they are in far corners of the country.

So, it looks like it will be up to me. And I'll definitely need your help!

I guess it's on of two main options a rear hub motor or a mid drive. I've been educating myself about the two types and it seems that the most "elegant" and efficient is the middrive but sometimes, people don't give all the information and I don't know how difficult they are to setup, install, and maintain. I don't want to end up on the side of the road with a screwed up drive. I'm disabled and that just wouldn't be a good scene.

Next is a simple hub drive. It looks easier to install overall and doesn't seem like it would have as much maintenance. I'd need direction as to what to do and the best options for my setup and situation.

Just as an FYI for background info, I live in a very hilly area and have to tackle a pretty major hill to get almost anywhere. With the hills in mind, I don't know if geared or direct drive is going to work best in my situation. And the tadpole weighs more than the average bike, obviously.


Any thoughts, advice, insight, ideas, recommendations etc would be super helpful. The only really simple kit I know of at this point is the Golden Motor Magic Pie 3 setup. But please don't take that as what I want to use! It's just a starting point.

Two other pieces of info. I currently have a rear 24"wheel on my setup but it can take 20,24, or 26" wheel. That means that piece is flexible with what you think will perform best. I'm told larger wheel equals speed a degenerative smaller, a hill climber. The 24" is the compromise. I have 24 gears on the trike and it has under seat steering. I'm guessing I want to run my system at 48v? I know volts = speed and ah=longer distance capable. But I'm not clear what is needed on hills... I'm thinking power so higher volts and the ah let's me go father with that power. If any of my understanding of how this works, please correct me.

Hopefully that's plenty to start with. If I've missed something you need, please let me know.

Thanks so much!
Take care.

 

[mlt34]

I don't want to end up on the side of the road with a screwed up drive. I'm disabled and that just wouldn't be a good scene.

This alone is a good reason to avoid the mid-drive set up. Their main advantages are reduced weight and increased hill-climbing efficiency, but since you already have a heavy trike and the hill climbing can be overcome with a decent hubmotor, I'd say the disadvantages of a less tried-and-true mid drive system mean a hubmotor is more up your alley.

Just as an FYI for background info, I live in a very hilly area and have to tackle a pretty major hill to get almost anywhere. With the hills in mind, I don't know if geared or direct drive is going to work best in my situation. And the tadpole weighs more than the average bike, obviously.

There are a number of different hubmotor kits out there. I'd recommend a direct drive for you since your trike is already heavy and it will give you more power for hill climbing. eBikes.ca sells good Nine Continent (9C) kits, and ebikekit.com sells a 9C clone kit though I've been less impressed with their quality and service.

Two other pieces of info. I currently have a rear 24"wheel on my setup but it can take 20,24, or 26" wheel. That means that piece is flexible with what you think will perform best. I'm told larger wheel equals speed a degenerative smaller, a hill climber. The 24" is the compromise.

There are basically two ways you can go from here, a bigger 26" wheel with a slower winding motor (since the large wheel will inherently go faster) or a smaller 20 or 24" wheel with a faster wind motor. I would be inclined to go with the smaller wheel with a faster spinning motor because I think that would give you good torque characteristics for the hills and still a fine cruising speed.

I'm guessing I want to run my system at 48v? I know volts = speed and ah=longer distance capable. But I'm not clear what is needed on hills... I'm thinking power so higher volts and the ah let's me go father with that power. If any of my understanding of how this works, please correct me.

Your understanding of volts and ah is correct. However, don't just arbitrarily choose 48V because it is faster than 36V - do the math to figure out what you need. the ebikes.ca simulator is helpful here because you can put in the wheel sizes, motors (2805 and 2806 are faster 9C's, 2808 is slower), controllers and battery options to see what your bike's performance will look like. For example, a 26" wheel with a 2807 motor, 36V battery and 20A controller will get you about 21 mph (34 kph) on flat ground and around 750 watts peak draw, while a 20" wheel with a 2806 motor, 48V battery and 30A controller with get you about 26 mph (42kph) and a peak power of about 1500 watts.

Playing around with the simulator will help you see what different combos of parts can do for your bike. I'd recommend a setup of at least 1000 watts to deal with the hills. Personally, if I was in your shoes I'd choose a 20" wheel, 2806 motor, 48V battery and 20-25A controller. Good power but not over the top, great motor and almost maintenance free use - outside of checking all your parts, wiring, connectors etc regularly for signs of damage.

also, do you have disc brakes in the rear? If not, how can you change the size of your rear wheel?

 

[mlt34]

one thing I forgot to mention - it's important to realize that it's not just volts that control power. power (in watts) = volts x amps (with those amps being controlled by the controller). The AH is, like you said, just a measure of how long your battery will last. So to make your trike a more powerful hill climber, you'll want to think about increasing both the volts of the battery AND the amps of the controller. This has to be done in balance because, like you correctly stated, volts directly affects speed, so if you don't want to have a crazy top speed then you'll need to increase amps instead of volts or decrease wheel size, or both.

ebikes are a fun world :-D

 

[dogman dan]

Id say if the hills are really bad, you want both a fairly slow hub motor, and a small wheel. Go to grin cyclery, and look at their crystalyte HT version motor in 20"

Then give it whatever voltage you need to go as fast as you like. Grins simulator will help you figure that out. 72v should give you plenty of speed, or less if you don't need it, and keeping the amps of the controller down to 20-25 amps will limit the motor overheating. I find it nearly impossible to overheat a slow motor if I don't give it more than 2000w. 72v x20 amps = about 1500w. That should get you up very steep hills. 10% grades no problem.

The pie isn't a bad choice, it's also a slower motor. Use an external controller though.

 

[Rassy]

If you go to your profile area and update your country plus state or city, etc. you may find there are some ES members nearby.

The above answers were pretty general because two key items were left out. Namely, what is the top speed you expect on level ground, and what is the actual grade % of the steepest hill you need to be able to climb?

My tadpole trikes have 20" wheels and I use a mid-drive slow wind (6X10) 9C clone combined with a NuVinci that has a 50% underdrive. It serves my purposes very well because I am happy with a top speed of 20 MPH plus I need to go up a 20% grade (briefly) and 15% grades on every ride.

I'm not suggesting you should install a mid-drive, but depending on speed and hills there are still many options available in direct and geared hub motors.

As far as voltage, it is my opinion that 48V systems are the most versatile for the average user.

Good luck with your build.

 

[lifereinspired]

Thanks so much for the great information! I felt more comfortable with the hub motors but didn't want to pass up something great if a mid-drive was better for this application.

In answer to your question, all three wheels have disc brakes. So it's simple to choose different size wheels and the trike is designed to be flexible in that way.

One question I have is when you said if it were you, you'd choose a 1000 watt setup, is that 1000 watts steady power or peak? I'm assuming the former but wanted to double check.

Raw speed isn't as important to me as reliability (by that I mean both being reliable as well as not worrying if the battery will make it home) and hill climbing. Also anything that will smooth the ride would be great (so if 24" is a better compromise on that, I'm open to either that or the 20").

Do you still use the bike gears with a direct drive motor? I'm assuming most of them have regenerative braking now. Can I get it with pedal assist mode?

I appreciate your help, advice, knowledge and time answering my questions and such so very much!

Looking forward to hearing thoughts on the.

 

[lifereinspired]

OK, profile updated!

This is a terrible answer but I don't know how fast I want to go. I've never had a bike that had the capability to go all that fast and after I get the hang of driving /riding the trike & get really comfortable with the direct underseat steering, I'll want to go faster than when I first start. I know I don't want to go 40mph and doubt I'd want to go 30mph but maybe I'll be wanting to work up to 25mph. Not entirely sure so that's the best answer I have at the moment. I may need to pull a trailer w/my service dog in it or hubby might when we eventually add a hub mother to his 26" hybrid bike. I don't have to go too fast up hills but I'd want to be in sync with my husband and don't want to blow up the motor. We live in Vermont so the Green Mtns are all around. If we go on any longer rides (working up to that one day) there will be mountains. I'll look up the grade I will have to go up to get most anywhere as soon as I'm back to my computer.

 

[parajared]

I feel 130ish mph or so is when motorcycles start to feel a little on the unstable side (Kawasaki Ninja), I think around 50mph or so is when bicycles feel a bit squirrely (GIANT NSR 3), and low 40s mph is when tadpole trikes start feeling squirrely (KMX Typhoon), so for your tadpole I wouldn't shoot for much more that 35mph or so.

I have both mid-drive (GNG) and hub motor (9c, magic pie, crystalyte, MXUS) driven bikes. You will spend much more time and effort keeping your mid-drive going than you will keeping a hub motor going (almost maintenance free). I average a good hour of maintenance into my chain drive for every week I ride.

Also in your case definitely go with the smaller 20" wheel. For steep uphills it will blow the socks off a 24" or 26" paired motor.

Lastly Magic Pie 2 is better than Magic Pie 3. The name of the game when you are running high power through these things is to keep them cool. Having both the controller and the motor in the same enclosure is just hilariously bad engineering.

 

[lifereinspired]

I was afraid that having the controller in the motor wasn't a good thing but being new to this, it sounded fantastically simple. How difficult is the external controller to hookup (not for you geniuses ...but someone who can follow directions, pay attention, is disabled and never done this before)?

So, direct drive, smaller wheel, external controller, battery...isn't there one other piece I need that I'm blanking on right now? Who are your fav (reasonable and reliable) manufacturers for this type of application? I've heard 9C and Golden Motor. I've read a little about Crystalite (sorry for spelling errors on that name) but the article basically said that they were huge motors well above the legal limit (I know most of them can be depending upon volts use and wattage of the motor together) but it sounded like that manufacturer was particularly huge. BMC/MAC are mostly known for their geared motors, correct? And if this were your trike, what constant/peak wattage would you be looking at getting?

Do you recommend a Cycle Analyst or something similar (seems to me I heard of something similar that has a different name)? How do you create the setup for pedal assist mode (which piece controls it and where in the chain does it go)?

Oh, I think the other part I couldn't remember above is the throttle either thumb or shift, right?

And can you use your gears with a direct drive motor??

Thanks again everyone!!

 

[parajared]

My crystalyte H series had a problem where the bearing chewed through the wires. Also the much cheaper priced 9C performs nearly identical, though it can't take quite as much power without overheating and makes a mild electrical hum. Yesterday I changed the fifth tire on my 9c worn from brand new to completely bald. Not sure how many miles that is, but my 9c has received a lot of lovin' and no problems so far.

Most people on the sphere prefer sensored controllers. These can be a little tougher to connect correctly because they have 8 wires that have to be hooked up perfectly (the color of this wires never matches, so it turns either into guess work or asking someone on the sphere what the exact combo is). Sensorless controllers have 3 wires, the motor runs more quitely, almost any combo of the wires will make the motor work right, but you can't just punch the throttle from a dead stop, you have to peddle your bike an inch or so before hitting the "gas".

I have had problems with the no-name cheapo 20 amp controllers, my Hua-Tong crapped out on me a few months ago. So far Lyen's controllers have been the only controllers that have worked reliably for me so far. (http://www.lyen.com)

So far 3000 watts has worked nicely for my trike, but when you run that much power through these things you have to monitor with a temp sensor. I prefer TG3 on-board temp sensor, but a lot of guys modify BBQ sensors, and this works fine too. 110c seems to be the conservative cut-off point, but many run higher temps.

You can use your gears with a direct drive motor, with a mid-drive you have to let off the gas every time you switch gears, but on a DD you can throttle and shift all at the same time.

Cycle analyst is a bit spendy, but it is so awesome. It monitors wattage consumption, amp use, your speed, what your watt hours per mile are, how much energy you have consumed and a whole lot more. It really is the ultimate e-bike digital display. If you just want a fuel gauge you can get by with a lipo cell checker like cell log 8 or Hyperion EOS sentry. I like these because it shows your battery in percentage. For me it is much more useful to see that I have 50% of my pack left than I have consumed a certain amount of energy. Your batteries aren't necessarily fully charged every time and cycle analyst will mess you up this way. Also these don't have to be hooked up to lipo, they work just fine with LiFe or whatever chemistry you decide on.

Unless you have regular handlebars like a bicycle I am pretty sure you have to get a thumb throttle for a trike. I don't see you being able to steer with a twist throttle when the motion that steers the trike is a twisting motion.

 

[lifereinspired]

Any other ideas? Recommendations for best direct drive or a link to comparisons? I'm too new at this to know what I'm looking for but I want to learn. Also, I'm nervous about how hard it is to install an external controller if the Magpie 3 is not good with the integrated controller.

Thanks in advance!

 

[rumped6]

Trike Gal:

Things will be "hard" or "easy" depending upon the experience and
confidence you bring.
Sometimes, even the most helpful folks here (and they are many and
terrific!) forget what it was like to begin.

The controller can be a wiry nightmare .

But it can be greatly simplified with a plug and play system, and, as
has already been suggested to you, a "sensorless" model.

Ebikekit.com, about 60 miles from here (18104), and one of the few outfits still
shipping from the east coast, is very responsive (or, at least used to be -
haven't dealt with them a while) to individual needs/concerns, has its
own "trike" kit, and puts together its own wheels, all within the parameters
of a plug-and-play system, which will take care of some of your basic
worries. I don't think they have a sensorless option on the controller,
but you can check with Jason about that (plug and play makes the need for
one less).

Drop them a note, and get the communication going. See if you feel
comfortable with them (always an individual thing 8) ).

And take your time. You seem to be doin' fine....

Good luck.

(Amberwolf would be another great helper here, for non-traditional
setups. PM him, tell him Dunderhead sent you ).

 

[rumped6]

Add:

ebikes.ca is having a 9C sale right now; they are good and helpful and honest folks.

If cost is a primary concern (as it is for so many of us) now might be a good time
to strike!?!

 

[Rassy]

Unless you have regular handlebars like a bicycle I am pretty sure you have to get a thumb throttle for a trike. I don't see you being able to steer with a twist throttle when the motion that steers the trike is a twisting motion.

This statement is not correct IMHO. I have had both a recumbent bike and a tadpole trike with under seat steering and handlebars that point straight up. I used a thumb throttle on the bike, partly out of preference at that time and partly because it was equipped with half twist shifters. On my tadpole I use a full twist throttle and it works great. I don't have brake cutouts hooked up, so the only issue is to use a technique so that the throttle doesn't twist when using the right side brake.

+1 on the recommendations about both Jason at e-bikekit.com and Justin at ebikes.ca

 

[Drunkskunk]

This may be information overload, but this is a handy tool to see what various motors can do: http://www.ebikes.ca/simulator/
You can experiment with wheel sizes, power levels, motors, and see how they do on various grades.

For instance, a 9C 2807 motor in a 20" wheel running at 48 volts and hauling 330lbs will be able to handle a 10% grade hill for 10 minutes at full power before over heating. or go forever with just 220lbs. A HT3525 will be able to handle the hill for twice as long.

Your total weight is the deciding factor to what combo is best, but if you+bike are closer to the 220lbs than 330lbs range, The 9C (2807) in a 24 inch wheel at 48 volts is a good compromise between hill climbing mountian goat, and a steady cruiser.

 

[lifereinspired]

Hello,

Sorry I've been away from the forums for a bit and neglecting my thread but my Dad passed away somewhat unexpectedly this week and I'm too disabled and ill to go to the funeral. I was his only daughter and ended up as a Daddy's Girl, so to speak. I adored him, and he adored me. I miss him so much already.

It was absolutely lovely to come back to the thread and read the new posts. Very, very helpful! I'll check into both the of the sites you recommended and start checking out their lines. At this point, the mid-drive is out as I want to spend more time with my bum in the bike seat riding rather than turning into a professional mid-drive mechanic. I'm loving the sound of the plug & play and from what you said it's only ebikekit.com that does those not the 9C motors, is that correct? I'll have to see what kind of packages ebikekit.com can put together because it's sounding like with the hills and such, I'll need to run 48v or so.

I'll check into these and I'm sure will be back with more questions because it seems that the more you learn, the more you realize you need to know!

Thanks again for all the great advice and ideas. I'll be checking back so if anyone has a flash of inspiration, please do share.

 

[rumped6]

PM sent.

 

[rumped6]

Life Re:



E-bikekit (I didn't realize they now have a hyphen!) emphasized plug and play from their
beginnings. Still do. But almost every kit now is plug and play to some extent.
Ebikes.ca would solve your controller-wiring worries as much as e-bikekit would,
I think.

The "trike" kit ("more I need to know") - is speed limited, according to the site.
They are saying ten mph forward, three in reverse. (If that's for the 20-inch wheel, then
maybe the 24 gets you twelve forward, the 26 15????) And while those speeds may be
a downer, the fact you can reverse at 3 mph may be a real benefit. Sheer guesswork
from Out Here.


Which a lot of this info will necessarily be since your hill, your skill, your trailer,
your dog, the weight of your bike, the wind, the controller-battery match, your
ability to pedal at all, will make for a unique puzzle. The Grin calculator can help,
but it doesn't live in Vermont!

You're so far ahead of the concept-curve compared to what might have been the case six or
seven years ago, it's amazing! Congrats on that. But there are so many cost-benefit
calculations to solve it will definitely take a while in the real world :wink:

Take a breath. Let the bike arrive. Get a feel for it. THEN you will be better able to start
guessin' about comfortable and competent speeds - and THAT will have serious impact
on which system you decide as best first fit.
Begin your conversations with dealers (ElectricRider now has a geared kit for trikes
they are high on. Check it out. Send Mike an email, describing your situation - or just
point him to this thread). Say hello to Jason (e-bikekit), Justin (when he's there, at
Grin), Amberwolf (here).

Drunkskunk's notes on the 2807 seem a solid place to at least start from. Dogman is one
resident guru on slow-winds (and almost everything ebike), but adds the possible difficulty
of heavier/more powerful batteries, or more demanding (lipo) ones. Want to keep
KISS in mind, even with all the help you're getting, and your willingness to learn.

Never lose the fact that serious hills are serious complicators. (My terrain is hilly (Pocono foothills)
but maybe not so much as yours). They are more complicating now that I can't pedal much.
Extra volts (36 to 48) have enabled me to make my shorter trips (5 miles round) but my ten-milers
are a serious (though surmountable) challenge. Be aware that you can't have it all - weight
and speed will compromise range, ESPECIALLY in hilly Burlington. Willing/able to go slower?
Good! You just bought greater range. Gotta have your dog along? Just lost some range.

And so it goes :?

Jack