NGO in Africa seeks ebike advice

[spinningmagnets]

Here's your chance to help. Advice appreciated from builders who have hands-on experience with several systems, and long-term durability ebike systems.

Hi Ron,

I enjoy reading your work on electric bikes. We at Care for Life (please see http://www.careforlife.org/), a U.S. based NGO with 501(c)3 tax status need some advice. CFL has been licensed and working in the Beira/Manga area of central Mozambique for about 15 years. The CFL programs in Mozambique are large and growing in the number of families reached.

One of the problems we face is in our ability for our professional staff to reach their assigned areas quickly and efficiently. I have been asked to look into low cost ways of achieving this objective. I believe that electrical energy produced through wind or solar is the optimal way for us to proceed with the generation of electrical energy and that electric bikes the best way for the CFL staff members to carry out their duties.

We are looking for really hard working, rural dirt road capable, eBikes. We like the new UBCO 2X2 out of New Zealand but it is very expensive and New Zealand is a long way from southern Africa. Anyway, we are wondering if you have any thoughts on an eBike that could stand up to daily use in a rural environment.

Thanks, Don

Dear Don, I am quite flattered that you would email me with such an important request. If you don't mind, I will contact the chat forum that I frequent, and there are many people there who are very passionate about electric bikes, and we will gather suggestions that may help you.

Is the region you wish to service fairly flat, or does it have frequent steep up-hills?

Also, countries like Mozambique typically have an existing infrastructure of small displacement mopeds, often a 50cc gasoline-powered light motorcycle. I mention that because flat tires can be the weak link in an expensive ebike system, and it would be wise to leverage existing supply lines of popular products, such as moped tires...and such a choice would not only reduce the number of flat tires, any tire damage you do experience could be quickly and cheaply repaired if the tire type was common in the local villages.

Since I expect the roads to be in a "challenging" condition, any electric power system should be a fairly low-speed and high-torque version that would be used primarily for the hill-climbing portions of any trip. Pedaling extensively on the flattest portions of the trips would greatly extend the range of any battery that you might use.

My initial thoughts are that [if I were pedaling across Mozambique], I would want a longtail cargobike with a steel frame. I would recommend looking at images of the Yuba Mundo and Xtracycle Edgerunner for inspiration. Such a style of bicycle can easily and cheaply be made by welding two common frames together in that country, rather than shipping a retail frame from the Utah to Africa.

I mention steel because it should be easy (or rather "easier") to repair any frame damage in many more places by welding, compared to torch-brazing an aluminum frame. I will will post your request and this response on the chat forum to stimulate conversation, and I will get back to you as soon as we arrive at a consensus.

http://www.careforlife.org/

 

[spinningmagnets]

Hi Ron,

Thanks so very much for writing back. The Xtracycle looks promising. The Care For Life staff of about twenty meet every morning at their central office in Manga (near Beira) in central Mozambique. The then disperse for their assigned communities. Maybe 5 miles of pavement and then 10 to 15 miles of dirt roads. In the dry season it is powdering dirt and in the wet season a lot of puddles and other standing water and mud. It is very flat everywhere.

I do worry about the chain drive in these conditions but there probably is no reasonable alternative. I like the UBCO because both wheels are powered but it is very pricey. I agree that steel would be better although I do have a colleague in Beira who received a welding education/training in Berlin years ago.

The CFL staff would benefit from the ability to carry things with them, not always people but sometimes a toilet, a bag of cement, food, training materials and so forth. My idea would be that all bikes would be returned to the locked CFL compound at night, batteries recharged and repairs and cleaning done. I would like to use as much solar and wind generation as possible but I don't know exactly how that would be done except that we might have a good sized solar panel that the staff members could unfold when at their villages and use to charge up while otherwise occupied.

I will seek an initial grant to buy the eBikes and have them shipped to Johannesburg. We could then truck them to Mozambique. I would like to establish a solar energy training facility at the same time so that some young Mozambicans can learn to rely on solar energy sources--a big part of becoming energy independent.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Jonathan in Hiram]

I've got a solar charging rig that can mount on my trailer, mostly I leave it behind because I don't really need it but I do have remote solar charging capability. I have set my system up so that I can use my solar charged ebike battery for emergency power by reconfiguring the pack to 6s24p and that's how I justified the panel and electronics...

There isn't really a good off the shelf solar charging controller that does lithium cells at ebike voltages (~48V), or at least I haven't found one. Genasun says they do custom charging voltages but their highest stock V is 4s and I'll be surprised if they can go to 12s. Unless you reconfigure the battery each time then charging remotely is going to require custom electronics.. I used an Arduino and custom code driving a switching boost regulator but that's not a feasible solution for a developing country where reliability is paramoount, I can nurse along stuff I build because I understand it.

Which is a long winded way of saying, leave the solar panels at the compound and put more battery in the bike, all they will gain is headaches trying to drag a large-enough-to-be-useful solar panel into the bush and sooner or later someone is going to reconfigure the pack wrong and give themselves a KFH.

Evidently cost is an object and a large enough pack to do what they want is going to be expensive, perhaps they could ship discarded laptop batteries and build recycled 18650 packs there after testing and matching. I have a post up about building an individually fused 6s12p pack with recycled 18650 cells in a low tech manner that could be done in a developing nation with indigenous materials.

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=58363

I think there's a lot to be said for as much of the building of the bikes as possible being done locally, if they build the packs there someone local will understand what to do when the inevitable problems from hard daily use arise. I wouldn't expect someone to repair a controller in that situation but locating and swapping out a dying cell in a string is doable, particularly if thought has been put into making that easy in the first place.

Make the pack big enough to easily handle a worst case ride and a BMS is superfluous if daily maintenance is being done, further saving money and eliminating a potential failure source. Laptop cells make building a big pack cheap enough that putting big packs in the bike doesn't cost much, just labor which is what they more than likely have the most of. Natural geeks are everywhere and finding a few to build and/or maintain packs shouldn't be hard, find the kid in the village who's taken apart everything that's not nailed down.

On edit: After thinking about it a little bit more the whole build a pack there from laptop packs idea strikes me as something that could be an ongoing enterprise, suitably sized low cost lithium packs would be great for lighting, radios, tv and so on and there might be a local market beyond ebikes for such packs.

 

[Hillhater]

Be careful not to assume or over estimate the level of skills or basic resources available in the region.
Even simple things that we take for granted or can source easily may be unheard of in some countries.
Assembling kits of parts, even welding frames together may well test the resources, but I fear building battery packs, testing cells, etc would be a huge ask even in many first world locations.
At the least, fully pre tested kits of components, with detailed simple instructions ( think" IKEA". style ) .
A reliable Ebike, with a 40+ mile range...mostly off road...is a challenge for anyone to build and maintain, so I do wonder if it is the right tool for the job.?
For me, I would rather consider a light weight "moped" like a 4 stroke Honda 50 cc that serves as transport for most of India and Asia.

 

[Jonathan in Hiram]

You are absolutely right, a Honda 50 would be a far more pragmatic choice, I doubt the original message writer is ignorant of the fact moped-oid bikes are essentially ubiquitous in developing nations.

It depends on how you look at "the job", I see it as being more than simple transportation but rather trying to move not just the staffer from one place to another but the society from one level to another, that takes knowledge and knowledge is viral, it spreads from point of infection like a virus.

Sending gas mopeds would be giving a man a fish, sending the batteries, parts, supplies, tools and most importantly knowledge to do the job of solar propulsion is teaching the man to fish, quite a different kettle of fish. If you were on the receiving end, being the person you are, which would you rather get?

Don't underestimate how spoiled we are in the region.

As far as my own bike I'm surprised at how reliable and hardy my 12s12p battery made from recycled laptop cells has been. When I first started using it I had a few fuse wires get broken, possibly during installation, I fixed that in April of 2014 and it held balance within about 80mv all winter long storing out under the porch with rides when weather was kind. I think I've rebalanced twice so far since spring, basically about every 1500 miles and I've put air in the tires. Ebikes haven't been a priority for me this year but I'm going upgrade my controller to sine wave and battery to 72V soon so I'm back here again.

Anyhoo, never mind me, an invitation to flap my gums is simply irresistible.

 

[Hillhater]

.

It depends on how you look at "the job", I see it as being more than simple transportation but rather trying to move not just the staffer from one place to another but the society from one level to another, .

I admire your vision, but I suspect you are a few steps ahead of the actual task.
I read a request for some cheap, reliable, durable, low maintenance, transport for the professional support team , ( probably nurse , medics, social workers, etc) ..unlikely to be technical types.
I didn't see this as a technology "seeding" opportunity, especially not in a region where most of the basics ( power, batteries, electronics, etc) Are not common.
I suspect even a puncture repair may be cause of serious searching for materials !

 

[Chalo]

My take is that regular bicycles are waaaay more cost-effective than e-bikes, and significantly more practical in places where tools and technical skills are limited.

For the price of a marginally OK e-bike without battery, you can get two equal or better pedal bikes, and for the price of a marginally OK battery you can get a third pedal bike.

There isn't much the e-bike will do for you that the pedal bike won't.

 

[spinningmagnets]

The Care For Life staff of about twenty meet every morning at their central office in Manga (near Beira) in central Mozambique. The then disperse for their assigned communities. Maybe 5 miles of pavement and then 10 to 15 miles of dirt roads. In the dry season it is powdering dirt and in the wet season a lot of puddles and other standing water and mud. It is very flat everywhere.

They are already using pedal bicycles, and are evaluating if ebikes would help when they want to transport heavy cargo. I am pro-ebike, but I fear the dream of charging them with a solar-powered will prove to be too expensive and difficult, along with being fragile.

the photo (please see attached) shows me hefting a cement bag in a wheelbarrow. The cement is given by CFL to villagers upon their attainment of certain self chosen goals. It is on ground like this that the electric bikes would have to traverse most of the time. As I say there is some pavement but the majority of the time this is what you would see

 

[Hillhater]

I dont see the picture SM,..... but i can guess what the state of the "road" is like from personal experience.
Anyone who has travelled some of these remote parts of Africa will know the difficulties of just moving around..even if you have a off road vehicle !
The thought of pedal cycling 15-20 miles off road, just to get to a workplace would leave most of us shattered..even ignoring the heat/rain/ mud etc.
Any power assistance would seem like a huge benefit, but if its an Ebike, it will have to be a lot more durable than any i have seen.
battery alone for a 40 mile round trip ( rough terrain) would need to be 1-1.5kWhr for reliable , long life use.

 

[Rodney64]

This solar kit in Perth may work. I haven't used it but I've purchased kits off Matt a few years ago.

 

[Jonathan in Hiram]

Found someone doing solar longtail cargo bikes..

http://mysolarelectriccargobike.blogspot.com/

Evidently he has ridden this bike up Mt Washington..