Fatal Leg Syndrom (Bum Leg) A Perssonal How I Got Into E-Bikes Story.

I hadn't considered writing about this in previous months, although I may have mentioned a few times about my aching leg. 

What I think is going on, is a surgery I had almost a decade ago needs some attention. A family on their way to a Hawaiian holiday crashed into me on my way to work on the 405 freeway by LAX while I was riding my motorcycle. Broke my ankle in several places. Basically left my foot dangling by the ligaments and muscle. This was two years of my life in hell to say the least. Anyway, after the lawyers and hospital took their cut, I had a few bucks left over. Rather than spending the money on a bunch of toys and throwing it all away, I attempted to start a business. As it turns out, I'm not a good business man. Believe it or not, loving what you're doing, and getting over a million hits per day on your blog is not a recipe for success.

So I went back to plumbing as a master plumber with the union for a few years, then the work stopped. Yeah, I was building an orthopedic hospital in Santa Monica when I was hit. The work stopped long enough that I couldn't keep up with my dues after a couple more years from hell. I took a job with a motorcycle buddy of mine as an apprentice electrician. It payed some bills, Thanks Larry at South Coast Electric! 

I was desperate when I saw the add for bicycle assembly from Beachbikes here in Torrance. I was working part time as apprentice electrician and apprentice A&P mechanic / Mechanics helper at Torrance Airport when I saw the add for Beachbikes. I was still a teenager the last time I had that airport job! Yeah, I'm too old for that now. Too boring without Chief Lineman status anyway. Just a bunch of avgas and a rag! If you've been there, done that, then you know what I'm talking about.

So, to keep this story from being too long, what's happening now is that I can hardly walk. My bum leg is starting to interfere with my work. I can't finish one bike without having to sit down to rest my leg. When work gets busy next spring, the company may need another guy to pick up the slack. Less money for me to pay the bills. I can forget about loading up pallets from stored returned bikes to sell at discount. I'll try loading them right off the truck for a while straight onto the pallet for resale, but that may not work much longer. Hell, I can barely walk the 50yds to my carport or trash dumpsters this week. Disability (a dirty word to me) has been mentioned by family. I WOULD RATHER JUST BUILD AND SELL BIKES AND ELECTRIC BIKES! 

I don't know what's going on yet. I'll have to go to a county hospital to figure it out. Not looking forward to that! This is the slow sales season in the bike business, and I may not have the cash till the spring for such luxuries as medical attention. I may even go down to Old Mexico. At least south of the boarder medical services have not been affected so badly by mandatory insurance, and all the other BS like it has been here! Yeah, not looking forward to that either!

Lets face it. When you're faced with a major disability like this (can't walk), it's time to make some big changes in your life!

I'm not ready yet to do a go fund me account. If I were to do that, it would be for some bad ass ebikes to sell, not for my personal needs.  I like to work for my money! I'm not opposed to giving to charity, but as long as I can, I'm opposed to taking any! 

E-Mountain Beach Cruiser

I wish I could convince the owner of the bike company I work for into building a frame for the ebikes with disk breaks.

Photo for inspiration. 27.5" wheels would be great! Decent front suspension would also be a great option! Base model could come without electrics or a suspension set of forks.

I could add 5" to the wheel spacing of one of the models we already have along with the disk breaks and a modern style 1 1/8" threadless neck and 3-pc crankset and 11speed rear freewheel. That would be AWESOME! A bike like that would fly off the shelves! 

This is a customized single speed version of the bike. I've been planning on customizing one of the 7 speed versions for a while now. Just a 5" stretch between the axles would make this bike perfect for people like myself 6' 2" tall.

The above bike is the model I'd like to get modified. It's cool the way it is, but a little too short for a stable ebike capable of faster speeds. I've been wanting to do another 2wd bike out of the 7 speed version, but I may do a BBSHD first. 

The bike I want built could come with many options. Rear hub motor, 2wd, mid drive with either a BBSO2 or BBSHD. 

New BBSHD City Commuter Bike Sixthreezero Pave N' Trail

I've been having a ton of problems downloading photo's recently. My laptop has just missed my desire to chuck it out the window a dozen times now, and missed getting crunched under foot a half dozen times! 

I started a post last week where I took apart the In The Barrel bike I had the HD motor in that I've been riding every day for over a year, but the photo's didn't load to the computer. Probably for the best because after all the time I spent trying to get the photo's to the post, I had a bit to drink and started talking some truth. If I ever recover those photo's, I'll try again. Some interesting and good info about how to adapts a Bafang mid drive to a typical beach cruiser to be had using standard symmetrical BB adapters instead of having to locate the fancy overpriced eccentric adapters.

So let me start out by saying that I love this bike! I'm just not in love with it for me. I'm 6'2" @ 240lb. I feel a bit cramped. Probably best for people up to 6' tall. It hauls ass with me on it, but If I were to make her my everyday bike, I would change the rear wheel spokes to 13/14 single butted for strength elasticity and long life. If you're under 200lb, I wouldn't worry about it. Since I'm a bike mechanic these days anyway, I just torqued down the spokes on the rear wheel as far as they would go without pushing threw the rim or going full taco. This condition is as strong a setup as you can get, as long as you true the wheel while torquing the spokes down.

Rather than taking off the front derailleur and breaking the chain, I went the lazy route and left it on. I'll call it a chain guide. Don't need one with the Lekkie 46T narrow wide sprocket, but there it is. Chain has NO chance of dropping with this setup!

I haven't had a chance to take it for a real trial run yet, and I haven't added a shift power interrupt yet, but it feels a lot faster with the 7 speeds and 700c wheels than with the 26" wheels I've been using it with. I would of done one or two things different when building the next one, but overall she came out nice. That's what prototyping is for. Work out the bugs and find the best way to assemble the project. It only took me 3 hours to assemble. Most of the 3 hours was spent making the factory wire harness roughting look clean with some well placed zip ties.

The bike itself took longer to assemble since it was a poorly repacked returned bike from a customer with no mechanical aptitude. This should only take 1/2 hour to assemble and tune, but because of the bikes condition, it took almost 4 hours to restore to original condition. I hate it when that happens!

I had to change the rear shifter to use the ebreaks. The stock breaks and shifters are integrated on this model.

Aaaaand I forgot to take the last photo with the crank arms and pedals installed. So this is it! For now.

Bike Sales Job Listing

Ever wanted to make some easy cash selling bikes? I have a deal for YOU!

 

The bikes are Sixthreezero brand. Check out the link and you'll see that they are way below wholesale prices. I usually resell them at half price for the ones I build and sell. The link. https://www.sixthreezero.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA5qTfBRAoEiwAwQy-6S-VrvMLFwwztwzk7MqwbvAhg5QU1GQ4hv0IoCZbJVxVpmCJGDj4jBoCwa8QAvD_BwE

The bikes are all returns. Many of them only have a box that got crinkled a little in shipping, or have a wheel axle or the end of another part like a kickstand sticking out of box. Many of them are perfect. Most of them are still in factory wrapping. All in factory box. Some of them have scuffs needing touch up paint. I even get them that were returned only because of overstock on some bikes. The most common reason I see for the 7 speed bikes is the customers overestimated their ability to tune the breaks and shifting. Occasionally we get the ones from people who got the bike in the spring, then return in the fall taking advantage of our "forever warranty." I go threw the boxes and remove these bikes if they are not in great condition or rebuild them myself if it's a highly sought after model, or something I want to turn into an electric bike.

I sell these bikes myself here on FB and on CL. We've been getting more returns than our small warehouse wants to store, and I can only build and sell so many bikes by myself. I already have one guy who buys ten to fifteen bikes per week from me. I could use another two guys like him.

The details:
*Minimum order is 10 bikes (One Pallet) my pic (what we have too many of).
*Buyer is responsible to check over the bikes to make sure it's good for them. A missing pedal or reflector is not a reason for exchange. If a frame is dented or bent, I will exchange for similar bike at next pickup.
*Single Speed bikes go for $60.
*Three Speed bikes go for $75.
*Seven Speed and 21 Speed bikes both go for $90.
*All pallets are mixed speeds and models. When they come into the warehouse, I check them over (open box and inspect condition) and load only good bikes onto pallets for pickup. The last thing I want to do is load junk bikes for re-sellers and have to deal with it later. It's as much in my best interest to inspect the bikes and only provide good ones as it is yours.
*All sales are final! Unless as mentioned above, if a bike has a messed up frame that we both missed with our box inspection. It does happen occasionally.
*Absolutely No refunds. Only exchanges are available for the above mentioned reasons.
*Some extra parts are sometimes available at no extra cost with a pallet pickup. If we have extra stuff I add it to a pallet. I don't believe in throwing perfectly good new stuff away. I would rather give it away than chuck it into the dumpster.
*No shipping! Only pickup from our warehouse.

So there it is. Christmas is coming! Time to stock up! Last Christmas I had over 60 bikes in my garage. I sold about 50 of them during the month of December from $100 (1sp) to $250 (3,7, and 21 sp) each. This year I rented a big storage and it's already full. This is a great opportunity that doesn't come around very often.

First come, first serve. After I get a couple more guys wanting to do weekly or bi-weekly pickups, I'll close the opportunity. We have a lot at the moment, so it's free for all until they're all gone.

I loaded a 10 bike pallet this afternoon and it's ready to go now!

Buss Drivers Really Hate Me Now! 2wd 2500w KISS Bike

First commute to work on the new bike today. Yeah, a buss was involved!

So this A-Hole sees me flying way in front of him doing at least the speed limit. I see him behind me starting to change lanes to go around and flooring the thing to do it! So what does he do after he just gets past me? Pulls over and makes me go around! Hahahaha, what a turd! Saved 1/2 second on his time by cutting me off in traffic! Thanks Gardena Jerk! 

Don't need no stinking gears, or speedometers! This bike is on or off, flip the throttle and GO by the seat of your pants! Super Simple Stupid!

So this bike is much faster than I expected. I'll say maybe 3x the torque and 10mph faster than a BBSHD for around 1/2 the price! At about half throttle it felt the same as the HD motor! That's not to say that the Bafang HD is crap. Plenty of people don't want to go 2x faster for half the price I'm sure! I just don't know any of them who want to pay more for less performance. 

As far as the battery range goes, the HD would use up an average of 3V out of my 25Ah pack to work. The 2500 2wd bike uses only 4v while hauling ass at full throttle! THAT'S BETTER THAN I EXPECTED! The only measuring device I'm using at the moment is the charger with Volt display. I'll figure out the Ah and Wh later. 

This bike just took safety and fun to the next level! Safety because I don't have to worry as much about getting hit from behind. Fun factor is going FAST! Fast is FUN! I would much rather eat pavement because of some loose gravel in the road, than get hit from behind by some freak texting dick pix to his friends while driving down the road! 

Yesterday I changed the forks and breaks on the front end. I'll be upgrading them to a set of Suntour 100mm suspension disk break forks as a X-Mas present to myself. I like to stop on a dime! I didn't touch the rear Sponge Bob breaks yet. I can change the levers to get more break by leverage, but I think I'd be better off eliminating some of the cable housing by brazing on a couple end holders. Even if I spent the money on better cable housing, they would still be Sponge Bob. Better to eliminate the housing for crisp breaking.

Better bullet connectors are on the way, and I should get a chance this weekend to work on swapping the worthless display the motors come with. I'll also have to order some 5 pin connectors to make hooking the two motors controllers less of an effort and more sanitary. The first two guys who test rode it at work want one, and I'm not about to go threw all the extra work I did on this bike and not have the wire bundle look nice even though it's out of sight.

So not a bad first day out of the gate! I got two orders, and a buss battle! Win Win IMOP!

Next Project BBSHD?

I wanted to do a 2wd bike out of one of these a couple months ago. Now I'm thinking after having slept on the idea, that it would be better suited to a Mid drive or rear hub motor instead. 

Sometimes I get excited about an idea and overthink it. The 2wd for this bike may of been one of those moments. Sticker price for the bike is $400. RWD 1000w motor would be about $200, 1500w RWD motor would be around $235. Battery for these motors would be a 48v 17.5Ah pack or a 52v 20Ah pack with the option of upgrading to the EM3ev 25Ah 52v pack. Price range for battery packs are from $400 to slightly over $1000 depending on cells requested for the higher end EM3ev packs. I don't charge markup on parts, only for my labor. You're more than welcome to have your motors and batteries shipped to me for installation. I actually prefer that you do! That way all the manufacturers warranties are in your own name.

The Pave & Trail makes a good entry level ebike. Upgrades are always available in motors and or battery packs.

I should have the BBSHD model ready for test rides by the end of next week, since I now have a spare motor and 17.5Ah pack just lying around like some old ghost. Yeah, I already miss my old daily commuter bike, but the new version with 2wd just kicks it's ass by so much, and I can't stand just seeing it laying around as a back up bike. It's time to breath some new life back into this motor with a new bike! It's the perfect street legal motor that's capable of getting you a ticket none the less! I've turned many heads while hauling ass with the BBSHD, including the cops! Buss drivers must HATE me!

 The frame on this bike is perfect for either a traditional hard case 48v battery or a bigger better triangle pack from 48v to 52v! It's always better to get the biggest battery pack you can afford! They last years longer if you take care of them, and motor upgrades are easily available with a larger pack! It should be against the law to sell anything less than 12.5 Ah 48v!

 This week looks like it'll start out slow at work, then pick up pace by Friday. That should give me plenty of time to build this bike and make the ebike BBSHD conversion. It should provide me with a bit more speed with the slimmer 700c tires. For anyone 200lb and over, you will need to upgrade the rear spokes to 13/14 single butted for an additional $100 including labor. 

The bike will be 7 speed with any mid drive motor. With a rear hub motor it can keep the 21 speeds or be turned into a more simple 3 speed bike.

Project K.I.S.S. Acryonim Changed To PITA!

It's a week later than I wanted to be finished with assembly and taken my first ride, but I got her done today and went for my ride!

First of all, this bike is fast! It feels like it has about twice the torque of the BBSHD, and I'm guessing about an extra 5mph over the BBSHD! Yeah, that's a gas to ride! 2wd is the way to go for 1/2 the price of a BBSHD! Even with these cheap $200 motors!

Sorry about the blurry photo. I was going to wait until tomorrow to take photo's, but decided to rush out my front to take a few tonight. I'm still excited about the first ride, and knew I'd want to post about it tonight.

It's not done yet. I started the build with a bike I parted together with a different set of forks. As it turns out, the axle is that much bigger than a regular bike that my break pads fall short of reaching the rim strip. I'll need to swap in the correct forks with factory break mount. So no front break for the moment! The rear breaks I swapped onto the bike don't work very well either, but I had to give them a try since I had them on the shelf. If I used a complete bike rather than one parted together with spare parts, the break issues wouldn't of happened.  A bike this fast needs both breaks that work better than just good enough!

That mirror has to go! Makes the bars and all the effort I put into keeping them clean looking worthless! The mirror just sticks out all over the place. I'll swap it out with the simpler and cheaper one I was using on my BBSHD bike.

In the above photo you can see how well the EM3ev bag works in this bike frame. Not very well. I'll be making hard case battery boxes for these bikes. You can also see in the above photo how I decided to mount the larger rear motor controller to the front of the seat tube. This looks better and eliminates any potential disasters of the rear tire destroying it in case of a blow out if I decided to mount it behind the seat post with only 3/8" clearance. It did shorten the seat post a bit by placing it up as high as I did. The seat post would of been an issue had I decided to keep it mounted to the rear anyway. I hid all the wires in the cheap controller bag I got with the front 1000w motor. It works for now under the battery bag.

This winter I'll be adding a hard case battery box to clean things up. The front motor controller will be mounted to the underside of the box just above the BB. The box will get a hard wired charging plug, and a two speed switch. Street legal, and what I'm doing now speeds.

This display is completely worthless! Since it's made for a 48V battery, it will show full charge until after I want to stop and charge my 52V battery for long life! It needs to show battery Volts! I was just at Luna the other day and I should of picked another one up, but for now I'll just swap in the unit I got with my 3Kw Cyclone motor with key switch. The remote key switch will be mounted to the new battery box. Rather than a On and Off switch, I may wire it as a two speed switch. Off would be full power, and On would be street legal 750w. I just have to figure out what wires I really needed to hook up today to make the bike work. I think I may not of had to hook up three of them. After the white wire wasn't enough, I hooked up the red and black. When that didn't work, I hooked up the yellow and brown and it worked. I think I can leave out the red and black wires so I can hook up the Luna Volt display with thumb throttle. Yeah, I don't like the full throttle these kits came with any more than the displays. It needs a thumb throttle!

So I still have a bunch of work to do. Tomorrow I'll change out the forks and take care of the break issues. After that, I'll be riding it to work all next week to see how she does. Then next weekend I'll be changing out the display, and tuning the wheels. For the first couple of weeks, at least, I'll be truing and tightening both wheels. I don't trust these 12ga spokes. When I first looked at them I was impressed by how much better they were than the photo's in the sales adds on Amazon/Ebay. When I took a closer look, I noticed some bend in them at the rim. Not a good thing. 

Overall, I got what I payed for. In the future I may just get the bare motors from Nexus. The wires are so thin from these motors that I don't dare think about overvolting them for more top end speed. The bike has plenty of torque! If I was any lighter and not leaning forward, I would be getting some unexpected wheelies out of it. The 2wd feels more stable than a rear wheel only bike. More like a little motorcycle. 

At my first light in traffic, I had a guy in a work truck next to me. I took off and got out in front of everyone (yeah TORQUE), and I could hear the guy floor it to get up speed to pass me. All I could think of was how much that gallon of gas cost him to get out in front of a guy on a bicycle! Hahahahaha!

So the advantages of a 2wd bike vs 1wd. You can get motors with high speed winding's to keep it a fast bike, and get double the torque of a bike using high torque winding's. Motors share in the work, so you don't need to get a mega big ass motor that does everything and watch your battery volts drop like crazy when you take off full throttle and decide to keep it at full throttle! Even these cheap motors just blow away the overpriced BBSHD! Period.

Both Wheels Installed On Bike Project Amazon K.I.S.S.

I had a little too much celebration last night, so I got a late start on things today.

Only a couple problems came up. First was the front wheel fitment on the forks. The axles are so much larger than a standard bike axle that it made tightening things down a bit dodgy. The forks have a generic safety feature where they are dished in to fit a standard bike axle washer. The larger ebike axle washers wanted to slide part way into that recess but not evenly. I used a couple of the C washers that come with the torque arms, but they didn't help since they just squished into the recess unevenly. I got it to work after chucking the C washers in the trash, but it was a pain in the ass.

The rear controller is close to the tire, but just makes it with 3/8" space.

Second was the cheap torque arm fitment on the rear wheel. Just not a good way to do it. I don't see these arms doing much good. Not a big problem though since I was planning on making my own custom set from the beginning anyway. Custom torque arms on the front motor will also take care of the washer issue. They would work great if I welded on some tabs instead of using the stupid hose clamps provided with the kits.

The bike looks great with matching wheels! Tomorrow I'll mount the controllers and measure for the wiring I'll be soldering connectors to. If I have time, I'll probably paint the controllers flat black to match the bike as well. Even though the rear tire and controller have just enough space to clear each other, I'm still considering flipping the larger controller around to the front side of the seat tube. The battery bag I'm using for the moment comes nowhere close to filling up the in frame space, so I think it would look better with the controller taking up some of that void. The smaller front motor controller can be bolted to the bottom of the battery bag and be hardly noticeable behind the chain guard.


More update photo's tomorrow.

PARTS HAVE ARIVED! Project Amazon K.I.S.S.!

WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!

Too late to get started on anything today, so it's Jamison and Newcastle for tonight! Celebrations are in order!

I think that from now on, I'll treat myself with this when all the project parts have arrived! A Duke's Moto Electric tradition has just been started! With all the hassle of getting parts for every project, I think it's a good idea to let loose with a bit of quality before getting to the dirty work of making a quality bike. Even if all the parts were ordered from Amazon!

Tomorrow, Saturday Oct 27th, I'll sneak down to the storage unit before anyone is awake, and put the front motor on the bike. It's not that it's a secret, just that I have family stuff to do as well. Then on Sunday, I'll go for a ride down to the 630 warehouse with the controllers and solder on some XT-90 connectors and make a split harness for the bike. My storage has no power, and all my supplies and soldering tools are over at 630. I should be riding the K.I.S.S. bike to work on Monday! 


Yeah, it kind of makes you feel like this when all the parts come together!

.

Custom Wire Harness

I thought I posted this link before, but all I could find was a post about a place that supplies HUGO connectors. 

So here it is for future reference.

 

https://www.e-bike-technologies.de/index.php/en/wiring-harness/bafang-bbs/bafang-bbs-wiring-harness-detail

Amazon K.I.S.S Project Moving Forward Again! 10/24/18

Front 1000W motor kit ordered AGAIN!

This time from the same company I ordered the rear 1500W motor kit from! Voilamart, distributors of fine cheaply made Chinese lawn furniture, and a few motor kits! Hahahaha! 

These motors only claim 80% efficiency, so I'm not expecting them to have very tight windings or high quality magnets. I'm also not expecting the controllers to handle more than 48/52V, but I'm sure they will last until spring when I plan on upgrading them so I can overvolt the motors to get some real speed out of them. While working together as a 2wd, they should never have any overheating issues with the 52V battery I'll be using.

EDIT: I also assume stamped steel plates instead of aluminum stater framework. At this price what else could they be? Ferro Fluid and making them water tight is not an option when we get around to overvolting the Project Amazon K.I.S.S. motors next spring!

Project K.I.S.S. Delay #1

"Your Amazon.com order of "26" 48V 1000W Ebike Front..." has been canceled due to a seller pricing error." 

Error my ass! The price was already at the high end for what these kits go for! 

" We're writing to inform you that your order xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx from Rocky's Rocket has been canceled because the price for the item(s) was not set correctly by the seller. In most cases, you pay for items when they are shipped to you, so you won't be charged for items that are canceled." 

BS! The money was taken out of my account at the time of purchase. Now I'll have to go to the bank and see if it's been returned by seller. PITA! I wouldn't buy anything from Rocky's Rocket again even if they are the only guys with what I need. Better off waiting for someone else to get them back in stock. Funny thing is, the day after I placed my order, the company I wanted to get it from got them back in stock and if I just waited one more day, I could of had the motor by last Friday!

Beat Up Old 3 Sp Bike BBSHD One Year Review, Why Project K.I.S.S.

What a mess! I haven't kept it up very well lately. You can't see all the road crud stuck on it from the photo. The city of Torrance hired some con artists to resurface Western Blvd. Worse than it was, and will need to be done again this spring! Probably a cousin of some city council member...

I'll still use this bike as a backup, and because of the rack to pick up Pizza, but considering the price of components to make it work great, I think I'd of saved money on paying for delivery. Project K.I.S.S. in the background.

Last time I changed the tires as routine maintenance and added flat resistant tubes, I never put the chain guard back on. No big deal. It shows the expensive Lekkie chain sprocket better without the guard. 

 Just too much shit on the bars! Even without the light, it was too cluttered with the controller and it's remote unit. With the BBSHD, it goes faster without the speed sensor working, so who needs the expensive LCD? POS!

One of the reasons I'm changing from mid drive bikes to Direct Drive is the expense of other parts needed to make them work great. Every Bafang motor needs a better chain ring. Why don't they just add ones that work? Yeah, nasty email sent, but they don't care. Cyclone motors need a bunch of stuff! Freewheels, etc, that are crazy expensive. Just show me the cost savings when you add all this stuff. Lets not even get into a conversation about chain stretch or drop! Hell, even my BBSO2 toasted a Bafang sprocket with good chain line until I coughed up the cash for a Lekkie to replace it! I'm done with Bafang. Suck it up buttercups until you answer my email without BS Google translate Chinese jive!

 I kept the bars as clean as I could, but I still think it's overcrowded. The SA IGH 3 speed shifter helped out a lot, but with the DD setup, you don't even need that. Just a volt meter for the battery is all you need with a simple non bulky throttle. Why do they want to keep putting cheap crappy bulky looking key switches on them? Must look cool in China? Not here!

Having said all that, this BBSHD motor cost me about $1000 with all the extra goodies to make it good, and has lasted me about one year of five day per week commuting to work and back. To get the eccentric adapter needed to make the change, forget about it! It's like pulling teeth from the only company that has the $15 part made for them that charges $40 for it! Always out of stock, even half way between one order! Maybe you get the whole order or just half of it you payed for? Makes me want to say fuck mid drives and any seller promoting them! Pain in the ass! Not worth the time and trouble! Let them eat invisible cake! 

More of the same as last photo. Can't clean it up more than it is. All I use the big LCD for is battery volt monitoring. I don't use the pedal assist, and the speedometer, forget about it! Bike goes much faster without the damn thing hooked up! And for some reason, whenever I need power, like when I'm crossing an intersection in traffic about to run me down, it all looses power and needs to be started again. This happens with both 48V 17.5Ah battery and 52V 25Ah battery, so it's a Bufang quality issue.

One thing good to say about the BBSHD from Bufang, is that you can get an aftermarket controller for it and really stress that plastic gear with some toque and high speed! That will cost you another $300 and a ton of drive train parts when they break. This motor heats up enough sometimes with factory controller I don't want to put my hand on it for long with a short commute. That heat is the same with 48V and 52V battery setup. 

So why project K.I.S.S.? Dependability and price. The BBSHD bike will spend the rest of it's life collecting dust in the back of my storage unit on a hook. This winter it'll be saved from the hook just as an emergency backup bike. The 2wd K.I.S.S. bike with 2500W cost about half the price. Yeah, it'll weigh a bit more, and have better handling everywhere, but for at least a $500 savings, more power, and no drive train issues, the weight is not a problem! Do you have any idea how many bikes I need to work on to make that extra $500? At least thirty! In the last two weeks I've only built 36 bikes! That's the life of a bike mechanic this time of year.

And yes. I know it's spelled Bafang, but my new pronunciation is Bufang. Figure it out for yourself.

K.I.S.S. Update #2

Update Number Two!

The only thing worse than sitting around waiting on parts to show up in the mail is not having the available funds to order them in the first place! I would of preferred to use Mxus 3Kw motors, but funds are not available this time of year for that project. Funds were available for this project, and now the waiting game has begun.

Added and changed a few parts.

I had the chance to do a little work on the project today. I changed the crank setup from silver to black, much better! I added a single speed freewheel, changed the silver rear breaks to black, and added a nickle plated KMC chain. All these parts except for the freewheel were off my shelf, so it cost me about $9 for the freewheel.

Silver breaks replaced with black.

I wound up using a set of breaks I'm not too fond of. I threw away the pads they come with, cleaned off all the old sticky Chinese grease from the pivot points and replaced it with nice marine grade grease, then replaced the pads with a good set, and they work great. I won't use them much after I change controllers. It'll use regen breaking with the new controller, but it's still nice to have something in back that works well.

One speed freewheel.

Now that the drive line is complete, I took it for a quick ride in front of my storage unit. It's geared a little high for foot power alone, but like I've said in previous posts, this bike won't be getting much use of the pedals beside ghost pedaling.

The new pedals with a close up of dorky looking temporary black sprocket.

I love these pedals. I need to order more of them so I don't have to keep taking them off one bike for another. I stole these from my 8-Fun BBSO2 powered 7 speed Firmstrong Urban beach cruiser. The O2 motor will be getting stolen out of that bike as well to be used on my girlfriends Nashiki Mixte hybrid road bike. I'll wind up using another 1500W rear drive DD hub on the Firmstrong bike, and getting more of these pedals for it. 

So now I'm just waiting on the front motor for this bike along with a few parts to show up in the mail.

LED Voltage Display $5.

 Posting this here for future reference. 

Not the easiest part to find. 99% of them available have the bulky key switch built in. They also have the half throttle with or without key switch. For $5 it's worth getting a couple extra for future projects, or to let the customer decide between thumb and half throttle. My 3Kw Cyclone kit came with this (below photo) and a super cheap remote key switch. A simple on off button would be nice tucked in under the display, but we can't always get what we want. 

The Luna Cycle version with remote key switch $27 USD.

The controllers I'm using with the current project have two speeds available. on=750W limited power, off=full power 1000W Front, and 1500W Rear motor. A simple on off button would let you go from 750 to full power while on the go. I don't need or want all the fancy stuff the LCD displays have. All I want to know is how much power my battery has remaining. If I'm paying any attention to other stuff on a LCD, then I'm not paying enough attention to the road when going fast! I know how fast I'm going and don't need a LCD to tell me. 

When you add shipping, if you only want one, the Luna version is the way to go. If you're getting 10 or more, these guys have them.

http://www.topbikekit.com/thumb-throttle-with-lcd-digital-battery-voltage-display-p-539.html

The Quick & Easy Solution To The TSDZ2 Motor

"Problems Need Solutions TSDZ2 Motor BB Adapters Cruiser Bikes"

Gift it to a relative and forget about it! Junk motors!

Only good these kits are is for a relative who wouldn't shoot you for giving them one for free as a gift. Even then I'd still be concerned if they owned a shotgun!

Amazon KISS Bike Progress 10/18/18

So I wanted to post all the parts and the bike before I got started putting it all together. That photo will wait for another project!

1500w Amazon motor kit wheel with a real tube and tire on it. Factory tire and tube were junk. Yeah, torque arms are required! I'll be making a custom set to fit this frame.

Bike sales pretty much go to shit after Labor Day, so it's been slow enough at work I've been taking Wednesdays off. Same reason I'm doing the Amazon KISS bike instead of a 2wd Mxus 3Kw V2! Things will pick up next month at the bike shop until X-Mas. After X-Mas, consider the bike business dead as the horse in the desert with no name, that never had a chance to feel good out of the rain. Old song, but sums it up. That's the long way of saying I had yesterday off work to do some stuff on the project.

Rear wheel on, BB changed out, bars changed, basic factory controls added to bars.

First day of changing stuff on the bike. Bars and rear wheel for starters, then the one piece crank set with adapter from 1 piece to three with a sealed square taper BB cartridge. Front wheel/motor is still in the Amazon mail. I won't be using this crank set. I just wanted to test fit with color on something off the shelf before buying another part. I went back & forth for a while about black or silver/chrome parts on this bike considering the chrome spokes and machined break rim's. Considering how much chrome and machined silver the wheels add to the bike vs it's usual Blk on Blk, it was worth consideration. I could still use silver crank arms if the sprocket was black, and add other silver/chrome stuff. Another project. The silver crank set just looks goofy behind that chain guard! 

Funny. I thought I would get some grief from the storage employee about working on the bike, but instead I was hit on for bikes and bike repairs from everyone I didn't want to deal with on my week day off meant to give me pleasure working on my ebike project. I don't mind helping people out with their bikes. Just the opposite. That's why I sell brand new bikes at around 50% off retail. I'm just not a bike shop out of a storage unit at the moment. I don't have room to take in used bikes to sell on commission. Sorry, but I don't have room enough for new bikes at this time, let alone my ebike projects or regular bikes for sale. Gotta have priorities. Honest answers to real questions left more than a few unhappy faces yesterday. I hate doing that, and I even waited around for over an hour for one old guy who never showed up. Is what it is. Didn't ruin my day, but sometimes you need to just have fun with your creativity and not think about business. I'm glad I took these photo's today so I can just look at them without interruptions. I left the storage unit yesterday with some half assed ideas about how to hide the wire harness out of the controllers (see photo's). That's why they call it prototype.

 The cleanest ebike bars you ever seen? 

Probably close to the cleanest ebike bars I've ever seen, but I still have changes to make. At the most, you'll see a Bafang universal style thumb throttle on the LH side along with a three speed switch if I decide to use the Cyclone style half throttle with remote key. So many options, so few ways to keep these bars clean as fuck! Clean as fuck is what they will get one way or another! CAF/KISS!

 Who hates Spaghetti wires all over the place? I do!

I hate Spaghetti wires all over the place on an electric bike. I also hate zip ties all over the wire harness! The zips in the above photo are temporary prototype zips! I still have wires to add. Finished product will have fabric wrapped shrink wrap protecting where all the zips are now. Looks good and is race car strong! 

I actually built this bike early last summer from spare parts to sell before the move to the new location took up all my time. It's been moved to three locations/storage since I built it, then it got forgotten about. I was just about to start this project on a new bike when I noticed it hanging from a hook in the storage. "Where did YOU come from?" I hate moving! I think I must of lost brain cells from this last move it was so stressful and long lasting! Only reason I forgot about this bike on the hook!

Parts still in the Amazon Mail! Can't wait till the front 1000w motor kit shows up! I'll post about controller placement in the next update.

Amazon Project Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)

KISS parts have all been ordered. Rear 1500W motor got it's tire & tube today! 1000W motor for the front wheel is in the mail!

Except for custom made torque arms (bike specific parts), and an upgrade on controllers, everything is in the Amazon mail! I installed a 7 speed freewheel today, and it'll be coming off tomorrow. I don't need or want the added mess of shifters on the bars! KISS requires a single speed freewheel! I'm not going to be pedaling this beast anyway, so why bother? This isn't a mid drive bike!

The Bike. Sixthreezero In The Barrel 7 speed (for the factory breaks. KISS).

The 1500W rear motor only comes with chrome spokes, so I hunted down a front 1000W motor with the same spokes. What a Pita that was! Getting things to match in the ebike world is just a pain in the ass! It's necessary to keep me from having to lace new spokes on a perfectly well built wheel with motor hub. That would go against the KISS concept and cost more for the customer. This bike is not meant to be expensive. That's why it's getting the Amazon motors. A bike with Leaf or Mxus motors would be 3x as much! 

Voilamart 26" Rear Wheel Electric Bicycle Conversion Kit, 48V 1500W 135mm.

1000W front wheel motor 100mm.

At first I'll try the factory provided 2 speed controllers just to see how well they work. They are limited to 35A, and will eventually be replaced with 40 or 60 Amp units. Since the two motors share the load, they should work well together. The factory controllers don't support LCD screens at the moment, but I don't care. All I want to know is how many volts I have left on my battery so I can charge up to 90% and stop discharge around 40% remaining for extended battery life. 

I'm thinking that the Cyclone thumb throttle with LED battery readout will be perfect on this bike! I just happen to have a spare one laying around someplace. Luna photo shows it upside down.

I wouldn't mind getting a Cycle Annalist 3.0, but that's too much junk on the bars for the KISS bike, and more info than it will need. It would be nice to program different parameters between the front and rear motors, but the front motor and rear motor should work well together considering their different power levels, windings, magnet width, etc.

That's it for now. I'll post about it again when all the stuff arrives.

How To Build Ebike Wheel

For anyone who wants to lace up their own wheel with a hub motor.

Another 1500W Project

Yeah, I need another project like another hole in my head at the moment, but this motor kit just showed up at my door, and I want to torture test it for a while before doing any of the planned upgrades to the kit.

The cheapest 1500W kit available on Ebay!

The point of this project is to make the most affordable ebike that blows the socks off of the weak big factory bikes. To accomplish this, the max voltage is 1500w. This motor can also be used in street legal 750w with pedal assist for long range rides. Some of the components will be changed for the full 1500w power and reliability. I just don't trust the factory controller to do that! By overvolting the motor, a 1500w can be impressive, but I think (at the moment) that a better motor such as a Leaf or Mxus would be better suited for high performance builds. The wires coming out of this motor are pretty small compared to the Mxus! I'll be changing them to 12ga from the motor to controller as well as from the controller to the battery after I'm done torture testing the kit in factory form for a few weeks. Then I'll torture the kit some more until I burn up the controller. I need to know it's limits!

I bought this kit to use on THIS bike, but will be using it on this bike instead (below photo). If it passes the torture test for a month or so, then I'll order another kit for the other bike, and change the kit's wheel and spokes to 700c. For the other bike I won't be using the ebrakes either since they are integrated into the click shifters. I'll use a break interrupt instead along with a Bafang thumb throttle.

I will have to use a different gear shifter on this bike with the kit's throttle. I think I have something that will work. If not, I'll just order something. I'm not a fan of Rev-o-Shifters anyway.

I still have one of the older models left. On the newer models I'll have to change wheels and breaks to make into ebike. The front wheel will need to be laced, but at least the rear wheel is taken care of by the motor kit. Same wheel as the older models came with. I'll probably get started on it tomorrow at work. I prefer shorter bars to the beach bars, but the boss likes his beach bars, so I may have to extend some wiring to reach the controller. The rear rack will also get changed to a model that will hide the controller underneath. Controllers don't belong in bags! The kit was missing the controller bag anyway.

I was immediately impressed by a couple things as soon as I opened the box. 
1. The wires don't come out the end of a hollow axle! They actually come out of the thicker part of the axle next to the disk break mounting area! From 1-5 on the rating scale, that's a solid 5! For this price I just expected a hollow axle and the usual cheap way the wires are run.
2. The spokes look good in the wheel! If you look close to the photo's on Ebay, they look like shit! They are not set in the hub worth a damn, and look like they would start breaking the first ten miles.

Things that didn't impress me at all when I opened the box.
1. The tire and tube. They look like they would attract every flat tire imaginable! They are already in the garbage.
2. The controller. No surprise. I plan on changing it anyway to better handle the full 1500w motor and a LCD display. I have a feeling the factory controller won't last long with a 52V battery going full throttle for any real distance. It's probably just fine for the 750w mode. This motor needs to go 40mph for 5 miles to be a good commuter bike for my needs. Better yet would be to go 40mph for ten miles with a large enough battery.
3. The pedal assist was missing a magnet. It's sitting in the trash next to the tire and tube. I think it's worth replacing with a better unit for cursing the beach or bike path. Some people want it, and others don't. If you're going to use the 750W mode and want better mileage, you will want it, if you're planning on riding throttle down in 1500w mode, you couldn't care less about it.
4. The ebreaks are junk. Bad casting on one of them. I think it's better to use a break sensor anyway. It helps to cut down on bird nest of wiring on the bars. I hate bird nest wiring on bike bars! They should be as clean as possible or the bike looks like junk!

I know this motor will be a pig about sucking battery's empty, so I'll be abusing (testing) it with two different packs. A 48V 17.5Ah pack, and a 52V 25.5Ah pack. This motor won't be as efficient as a BBSO2 mid drive motor, but the 17.5Ah pack should work great when in the 750w mode for some pretty decent range figures. Using some pedal assist, that should get you from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica and back up and down the beach bike path. With the larger pack, I would still use the 750w mode for most of the ride, but haul ass where I can by Hyperion in the 1500w mode, and still have plenty of power to get home, and do some city riding at either end of the ride in either 750w or 1500w modes.

I'll be taking the motor apart after it passes my torture testing and adding FF with some sealant to make it water proof. I'll drill a hole to add the FF threw one of the disk break holes. That way the break disk bolt will act as the plug.

Expect to hear more about this project with some photos by this weekend.


//

Another Hub Drive 1000W - 3000W - 6000W Project Bike!

Too many projects, not enough time, just became an understatement! 

While I was tooling around on the net today doing my usual Saturday, all day R&D, I came across a bunch of disk break equipped bikes that I would like to use for the same sort of project I posted about yesterday using the Sixthreezero bike. It came down to this or a Motobecane. The bike I decided to use is the Poseidon 'Atlas' Hybrid Urban bike. 

What made my decision was the Hydraulic disk breaks vs mechanical. Then I noticed the quality of the front crank set. You can change sprockets on the Poseidon, but I can't tell if it's possible with the Motobecane because of the plastic cover. I'll guess probably not. The fact that the Moto comes with a suspension set of forks made it a contender, but it's not like they are made by Rock Shocks! I can always add the same forks to the Poseidon as an option for less than changing the breaks on the Moto to Hydraulic! 

 That one cable mount on the back of the seat tube is a PITA! That's where I would like to mount a controller for a 1-wd setup! And then I would be stuck with the two on the backbone tubing to remove. It's either that, or upgrading the 3 sp crank to a better one, along with hydraulic breaks. Too much work and money to keep the price down where it should be.

Then as another consideration was the cable routing. With the Moto, I would like to swap the generic 3 speed front sprocket set with a single 36T, but then I'm left with cable holders to dispose of, then touch up paint. Forget that! The more work I have to do to make the bike, the more expensive it will be. I want to make nothing but bad ass affordable ebikes, so the Moto is out of the equation! 

 Yeah, having multiple sizes to choose from instead of one size fits all is a BIG DEAL!

Unlike the Sixthreezero bike that only fits riders between  5’4” - 6’, (I'm 6'-2" and it fits me just fine) the Poseidon comes in several sizes to fit everyone! This is a bit of a game changer for me when considering bikes to build for customers. With ebikes, bike fit isn't as big of a consideration because the motor does most of the work, but it is still a consideration. A good fitting bike, even with a motor, is something that's hard to describe. It's like comparing night and day, or hard apple cider and orange juice with pulp added.  

I think this bike will do fine. I'll offer it with one wheel drive rear hub motor, or two wheel drive with 1000W, 1500W, 3000W motor options.

 Poseidon in the other color option of Blizzard with a better view of controls and room for much taller and wider tires for more comfortable ebike riding.

The Poseidon may loose the front 3 sp crank set to make better room for a thumb throttle? The above photo shows what room you have for ebike stuff on the bars.