First Big Ride with the Amped Geared Motor!!

[LI-ghtcycle]

Wow what a blast! Just went to visit my Brother in Newberg (27 miles one way) with some major hills (5-7% major for me anyway hehe ) I was really conservative, I didn't want to run out of battery on the way, so I saved it for mostly just the major hills and times I needed to speed up with traffic, and to my surprise, I only used 2.248 AH! I have a 53v 9 AH battery pack, so I still had plenty of power on tap, so on my way back I will go ahead and stretch it's "legs" a bit, coming up on 12 charge cycles for 6 of the Dewalt 28v packs, only about 5-6 cycles for the last 2 (total of 8) I'll use a good 4 -5 AH's on the trip back.

The part that really impressed me however was that I only increased my average speed about 2.7 MPH for the trip over when I was just pedaling with out a kit (roughly 14 MPH average pedaling, and now 16.7 MPH average for 27 miles) yet I beat my previous time of 1hr 55 min by almost 30min. and then I calculated my Watts per mile, and it came down to 4.6 WPM!!!

At this rate I could make the return trip the same day using more battery easily in 3 hours total riding time using about half my AH's and if I wanted to use more power, I might be able to cut it closer to 1 hr each way

 

[DervAtl]

Congrats! Nice to see this testimonial. I bought an Ampedbike kit a couple weeks ago myself, although it's the DD kit. I think your geared kit is more efficient than the DD. Hope to finish up the installation this weekend and try it out myself.

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

Congrats! Nice to see this testimonial. I bought an Ampedbike kit a couple weeks ago myself, although it's the DD kit. I think your geared kit is more efficient than the DD. Hope to finish up the installation this weekend and try it out myself.

Darryl

Thanks! I'm getting close to where I will feel comfortable doing more quantitative testing like running the motor solely up hills and such, I just want to get in 3 more charge cycles to make sure I have about 10 cycles minimum on my batteries.

I think you will be very happy with that DD, I think you will be happiest with either a 36v 20ah or a 48v 15ah. My father has been running his with 36v 9ah but it's a little under-powered with this small of a battery IMHO, but my father is happy with it. :wink:

 

[mikefish]

would you eventually consider trying some sort off speed runs?

i would love to hear how this thing performs at higher speeds for short (5 mile) trips?

thanks!

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

Oh yes, I have taken short trips and I can easily reach 28 MPH, but it's enough work that I wouldn't ride that speed all the time, 25 or maybe 26 is more realistic (with a flat road, no head wind, etc., etc.) The motor by it's self will do 24 MPH on the flat with just under 14 amps draw.

Sometimes I just have to remember not to crank on the throttle too fast, because if there is a good load on it already (like going up hill) I can easily spike the amps enough to trip the BMS on the Dewalts, and it only takes one or 2 batteries to shut things down so that I'm no longer getting the series voltage, just the single 28v battery voltage, which then hits the LVC of the controller.

Just the other day I was getting about 15 WPM with using the motor 60-70% of the time. I'm going to guess that I'll be drawing in the neighborhood of 20-30 WPM once I am testing running the motor 100% of the time especially with climbing hills.

 

[mikefish]

very cool, im on the fence about geared or direct drive.

my main factor is noise. i like the idea of whisper quiet DD.

but i like the torque, and smaller size of the geared motor.

how loud is the motor you have? also, is it disc brake compatible?

I have an Ezip right now, and if it is quieter than that, then it may be the one for me!

thanks so much for the feedback! im only looking to maintain 22-24 ish mph on a 5 mile trip to work

 

[NeezyDeezy]

is it dick brake compatible?

 

[docnjoj]

Ezips are REALLY NOISY! My bafang is fairly quiet but I also am interest in a BMC or geared Ampbikes and would love to hear one also!
otherDoc

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

very cool, im on the fence about geared or direct drive.

my main factor is noise. i like the idea of whisper quiet DD.

but i like the torque, and smaller size of the geared motor.

how loud is the motor you have? also, is it disc brake compatible?

I have an Ezip right now, and if it is quieter than that, then it may be the one for me!

thanks so much for the feedback! im only looking to maintain 22-24 ish mph on a 5 mile trip to work

**** Oops! Forgot to address some of those Q's. ****

This is my first experience with a geared motor, so I can't compare it directly to other geared motors, but it is barely louder than my father's DD motor, and it almost totally drowned out by the normal sounds of a bicycle going down the road, so very quiet.

Yes it is disc break compatible, and it's in the casting, not a cheesy screw-on adapter.

Soon I will remember to have someone help me video the geared motor running on the center stand. Every time I am reminded to do that my batteries happen to be charging! :lol:

I just got back today from the same 27 mile trip, and I should have remembered the tortoise and the hare, I tried to go too fast going back, and had virtually no battery left for the biggest up-hill climb of the trip!

This time I did however maintain about a 18MPH average speed, about 1.5 MPH better than the trip over, but I was trying to maintain about a 20MPH average even with all the 5-7% hills, big mistake .. DOH! Also, there is a section of road that has virtually no shoulder maybe 1 mile long, and I blasted through there at about 25-26MPH but I did get 21 miles at that rate, and considering this included hills, I think I did pretty good

I used about 319 WH, and I didn't really run out of battery until 21 miles, so that makes about 15WPH when going at least 20MPH. I only need about 3 more charge cycles and I will really see how well these batteries perform, still trying to baby them and not use more than 60-70% capacity.

 

[mikefish]

fixed my typo...