Help with eLation kit

[bikeola]

Thanks for an interesting read. I sent my eLation ebk300 motor back from Canada, under warranty, about a month ago. Now I have contacted Aus Post to try to get it back. Let's see if I can fix it. It is a V3 from last Dec., but with the off-centre drive cog, and is a similar problem to this. The motor runs, but the cog doesn't turn. The thing did work for a short while. Is the drive sprocket on the eLation freewheeling cranks compatible with the drive sprocket on a Cyclone motor, if I have to go that way? It took me a while to get it installed in the Quest, so I'm not giving up now. (The Bionx PL350 for my ICE Trice, no longer under warranty, is in Quebec being fixed, so right now I'm strictly HPV.)

 

[Wombat]

bikeola

I'm sorry to hear you have been caught out by this somewhat irresponsible (being nice!) aussie too. He was having plenty of problems with quality plus poor delivery. We weren't the only ones by any means.

Hindsight is a glorious thing. Mechanically his custom designed motor gear boxes are lacking too.

I believe It would be best you find a local small jobbing engineering shop who might have a go at machining new motor gear parts for you. Mine was one of the earlier v3 motors too; but 200 watt which I believe although slightly dimensionally smaller is internally the same set up. The eLation uses an internal free-wheel clutched gear on the offset output shaft (which I suspect is the same point of failure on yours as mine... the free-wheel clutch). If in luck your gears teeth may not have been damaged yet

The Cyclone kit is a different set up and may not be internally reduction geared like the eLation. The Cyclone kit does not allow for three speed front drive wheels (2 only) and uses an outer very large (ugly) drive gear turned by the motor (the eLation uses a small inner free-wheel drive gear).

The eLation internal gears drop 10:1 it appears.

The Cyclone uses only 24 volt batteries, the eLation 48 volt.

So that's a lot of up/down grading of parts.

If you could take the gear housing off yours when it arrives and post a photo of its internals I would really appreciate it.

Although returned three times over a short time, twice mine was repaired because of a similar failure as yours. Ditto the fourth failure which I failed to get returned before he closed up, quickly deregistered his business, and went into hiding.

Besides the three repairs to mine I discovered it is even missing one of two load sharing gears completely so that's why I hope you could show a photo one day.

My review post is at this link... http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=32492.

If you haven't seen it this eLation pitch .pdf shows an xray diagram of how the early v3 gears should look... http://phparagon.com/eb/elation_spruke.pdf right hand side.

So good luck with it, it's a lot of money to just through away.

Regards.

 

[bikeola]

Thanks for your posts, Wombat. There is some comfort in knowing we're not alone, but that doesn't cover the $. In postage I will have paid for the motor twice, once it returns in 12-24 weeks. By airmail it would be 4x. I will certainly take apart the gearbox, and post pix. In Canada we are allowed 500w assist, so I could buy just a Cyclone motor and mount from Cyclone-USA. They offer 48V. From the xray view it looks like I might not be able just to use the Cyclone gearbox (9.55:1), but we'll see.
Otherwise, the output cog of the eLation (dEjection?) is 11T and the Cyclone is 14T, and I will use Dow's questionable freewheel cranks, cautiously.
Hope you can get motorized soon.

 

[swb]

Here are some more pictures of mine.

You can see that the replacement gears (from voicecoils) are a little thinner than the original. I dont see this as a problem as they sit in the outer ring gear well.

When I put is back together there was a little rubbing going on (not because of the new stub gears) you can see in this pic where the gear on the bottom right was rubbing against the metal pin, which was sticking up too far, so I smoothed it out with a dremel.

There are 2 NK12/12 needle bearings inline, in the centre where the motor shaft sits (top photo). I removed one and it promptly fell apart, I am not sure if it was faulty but since I could not reassembly the b@stard thing, I went out and bought 2 new ones ($13ea) However I could not get the bearing at the bottom out! The large bearing on the outside (below) seems to be OK but I though it was a bit strange that it was lock-tighted to the motor case.

On re-assembly and test there is still some small grinding going on and I suspect its the main clutch bearing as part central assembly. I dont see any way to service this or even re-grease.

So at this stage I am waiting the the lock tight to set then will put it back on the bike and see how it goes. I dont have a lot of faith but it might last for a bit longer, will let you know how it goes.

cheers,
Graham.

 

[Wombat]

swb

Wow how good's that. Real decent people helping others. But I wouldn't throw out the original gears. Perhaps in time it will prove necessary to find a local small-job engineer to reproduce them dimensionally in METAL. Shown all the orig parts their advice on that would probably be worth listening to.

Vibrations can some times be mistakenly taken for "grinding" noise and with a bit of luck there may be some truth to it mit yours - could also imagine the use of lock-tight being a sorta fix for that too. It would only take a minute machining mismatch tween bearing outer and seat inner for that to happen.

Anyhoo just a thought.

I have seen a site or two manufacturing clutched bearings but alas I haven't bookmarked them as they didn't refer to "geared" clutch bearings (which is my most important need). So there is hope there too... wouldn't be surprised if someone around here (forums) knows of availability of clutched bearings.

So go for it. Hope it works out with simple solutions that enable longevity of an otherwise dodgy product.

bikeola

9.55:1 is not very different, may even prove beneficial!! But I reckon there's a fair chance you could source a suitable replacement free-wheeling crank; try a few local bike shops for advice on sourcing such stuff (plus of course these forums).

*12-24 weeks... what the...! Maybe 'cause of the complete factory shutdown the motor ended up in some Aus Post deep dark black hole; they are usually pretty good (gov owned corporatized only, not privatized, one of the few ex public service entities not actually sold to greedy corporations).

"dEjection", I like that. Have also seen "deLation".

Regards.

*PS my avatar is after-all me on my soap box!!!

 

[Rusty the Peddlehead]

Hi All,

I also suffer from parts lost in the mail from Elation.
I sheared off all five nuts that hold the drive sprocket on the v3 motor and lost the blasted drive sprocket.
WEAK AS BRO !
Allan assured me he has two sprockets left and they are in the mail.
Two weeks later still no sprocket, and Australia post refuse to search or check for "Unregistered mail"

Does anyone know where I can get a substitute or original drive sprocket or
how big the sprocket is and how many teeth it has.
Im wondering if an electric scooter repairer may have a substitute.
I was going to retap new holes for the replacement as I cant get the old screws out with easy outs or any amount of cursing !
I thought about using a motor bike drive sprocket but the chain teeth will be different - duh.
I love my v3 elation and want to get it back on the road ASAP.
Rusty !

 

[Rusty the Peddlehead]

ATTENTION ELATION V2 OWNERS !!!

Electro Bikes - 10/58 Deshon St Woolloongabba
Ph: 07 3392 0588 - 1300 781 866

I found this place at Deshion Street Woolloongabba with several used and brand new what appears to be elation
V2 kits. Im still chasing a bloody drive sprocket for my v3 and found these helpful guys showing me kits they inherited from the somewhere !
Alas these kits are no use to me by I'm sure someone on this forum can use them to get their old V2 going again.
hope this helps.Ask them for some photos if your not is Brisbane.
Ps....I still need to know what size sprocket and how many teeth are on the v3 elation motor.
Rusty !

 

[Wombat]

G'Day Rusty

Refering to the v3 "motor" it would help if you took and posted a couple of digital images of your motor gear box so we could give the correct info. A Dow used two (at least) different motors during the brief life of v3 kits. I landed the first; later were planetary geared apparently.

Externally the motor drive/output sprocket used either an off-set output drive shaft or centred.

PS May not matter but I received the kit and then 3 subsequent repairs (claytons!) all via CouriersPlease. Anyhoo you aren't the only one apparently to have stuff "lost in the mail" regarding him. My assumption would be "lost" be buggered, never sent probably.

Regards.

PS PS RTBM!!!
Not too sure what the "five nuts" re motor are about but re-reading I guess these might be something you wanted for sprocket reference...

 

[Stumper]

I will certainly take apart the gearbox, and post pix. In Canada we are allowed 500w assist, so I could buy just a Cyclone motor and mount from Cyclone-USA. They offer 48V. From the xray view it looks like I might not be able just to use the Cyclone gearbox (9.55:1), but we'll see.
Otherwise, the output cog of the eLation (dEjection?) is 11T and the Cyclone is 14T, and I will use Dow's questionable freewheel cranks, cautiously.
Hope you can get motorized soon.

Hi Biekola
I've read through your posts and I think we have the same problem (sprague clutch bearing). I'm still trying to fix mine or just by a hub motor to match the rest of the elation kit and be done with it. (You can see photos of the inside of my gear box on one of my threads)

Did you have any luck with the cyclone gear box? I want to know if it fits on to the motor okay. If it does then there will be a chain tensioning issue. It might need some sort of fix like the idle sprocket does for the cyclone kit - to get the chain tension right. I don't know if the mounting bracket for the elation kit will leave enough room for the idle sprocket etc, and may need to then employ the cyclone mounting bracket as well.

Another factor in the gear reduction will be the different size chain ring that the cyclone goes onto compared to the elation.

I'd like to hear if you came up with any solution.

Thanks, Stumped!

 

[bikeola]

Hi Stumper et al,
Still waiting for the motor to be returned. Sent it surface mail on Sept. 9., but Aussie and Canuck Post say it will return, and I get to pay the return postage too!
Then I will take it apart...

 

[Stumper]

I asked Paco at Cyclone if his gear box will fir the elation V3 Mk1. He said no . . . . . .hmmmmm

 

[Stumper]

I've started another thread on how I'm trying to fix my elation kit with a Cyclone 14T sprocket and freewheel and a custom engineered output shaft to replace the sprague clutch:

EDIT: August 2012, check out end of my thread, I made a fix for my dud sprague clutch gear box:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=36905

 

[VinceNM]

Hello,

First, excuse me for my english, I'm french.

I also have a Elation V3 kit which has suffered little on my Tribike Nihola Cigar Family.
I have already fixed it but I'm searching some spare parts if I need them further.
Have you repaired your motor ?
If you want I'm interested on the parts of your kit.
Thanks for your reply.

Vincent (Nantes - France)

 

[Stumper]

Hi Vincent
I'm still painfully awaiting a local engineering shop to complete my motor gearbox adaptation. I call him every week - but he's pretty poor in his service.
Cheers