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Saturday, May 26, 2018

SBP Cyclone 2000W

Great deal on the 2000W Cyclone motor at Sick Bike Parts for $189! 



I need to order the heavy duty replacement parts from SBP for the crummy factory parts anyway. I think the BIG price difference is due to the SBP motor offered with square taper BB, and the one I got from Luna is set up for an ISIS BB. Next one I get will have the square taper from SBP so I can tell for myself if the ISIS setup is worth the extra money. It is smooth as silk with zero chain ring side to side movement when pedaling.

I got so excited when the 3000W motor became available, I ran down to get the bigger motor and forgot to take photo's of this one with the motor installed. This is the company sales photo of the bike without motor.

I've sort of skipped past my 2000W motor in my build process. I have it mounted on a 7 speed Firmstrong Bruiser. I mounted it to the bike sometime around last Halloween 2017 before getting started on the 3000W motor around Christmas. After I finish the first mock up on the 3000W motor I'll get back to the little monster.

I think these little guys have a lot of potential on different model bikes due to their small size. Much smaller than the 3000W Cyclone. They can be used at under 1000W (as if anybody wants to do that) up to 2000W and beyond with some overvolting.

I'll probably use a suspension front end and add a set of ape hangers to the project. I'll also change the controller and throttle and use a 60V battery in a custom case. This is what I want to try out for the controller on this bike. https://lunacycle.com/asi-bac-800-controller/ This heavy duty controller is so small that I may be able to hide it under the bottom bracket. 

Little motor mounted in frame up against the seat tube, little high power controller, and one BIG battery! This will be one fun bike! Should be capable of 50+mph! In the future I'll be adding tubless tires to all my ebikes. It just makes sense. Why waste time fixing flats when miles from home or late to work?





Higo Connectors

 I'm saving this here for quick reference.

Zip ties on frame don't cut it! On this model bike and several others, the wires will go in frame for a clean look.

I'll be building my own ware harnesses for my own bikes, but that's just not going to happen at the shop where time is money. We need to keep my labor costs down enough for me to build two or three ebikes per day. That and I don't really have anywhere to do the soldering at work. It's a busy shop in the warehouse and the warehouse gets priority. For that reason I'll need to get some quotes on custom harnesses from these guys. Plug and play with a wire harness that fits the bike and looks good! Not that bird nest look bikes get with any Bafang kit harness!

From the Higo site. 
 

Challenge us with your special cable assembly requests

25 August 2017
A&C Solutions is a true specialist that fully customizes any e-bike assembly or connector design. Our priority is to find the right solution that puts a concept or system fully in place.
You’re at the right address when you need:
  • Special cable lengths
  • Customized splitter cables
  • A combination of multiple connector brands into one cable assembly

 

Friday, May 25, 2018

Arduino Spot Welder for 18650 Battery Welding

I'll finally be able to make my own ebike batteries!

 Such a small electronic device!

I've been wanting to pick one of these up for a long time now! I finally ordered one with all the accessories to use two power setups. This isn't a $20,000 18650 spot welder. It's only a little over $150 USD with all the accessories, and outperforms the cheap Chinese transformer spot welders. 
Made in Germany.


The case for the unit.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

3000W Cyclone Ebike Progress

The bars came on Saturday. Put them on along with springer forks today.

Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about! This is the look for the bike I've been wanting to see! 


I'll need to make the cables longer to fit, but I figured I would have to do that anyway, so no big deal. I've been waiting to do all my custom wire harnesses until I found a set of ape bars I like. Now I've found them, time to start the custom wiring!

I'm thinking about changing the beach bars on the BBSHD to a nice set of mountain bike bars. The ape hangers won't allow me to pop a wheelie the normal way, but the Cyclone should be able to do that all by itself.



I figured out how to hide the wires and plugs today after I finished what I could with the controls and bars. Until I make the battery box (still need to get a few tools) I'll fabricate a small box the same shape as the controller and mount it on top of the controller. This should work great to hide the birds nest until I come up with the in frame battery box.




 Above photo of what the bike looks like from the factory in it's stock form. I have this one for sale right now without ebike kit. I'm letting it go for half price $200 if anyone is interested.



Wednesday, May 16, 2018

3000W Cyclone Bike Project Update

It's been a long time now since I've started this project bike with the 3000W Cyclone motor! It's about time I got started on finishing it!


From my first post on this project. Judging by the two bikes in the background with the bows on them, this must have been Christmas day.

Luna is great at a lot of things. For me, It's usually being out of stock on everything I want! So I ran down to the warehouse the first day the 3000W Cyclone was back in stock! I wanted to ride up this Thursday to pick up a couple BBSO2's for the bike shop, but guess what? Out of stock...

Fact be known, I've been too busy selling bikes and torture testing the BBSHD bike with my daily commute to and from work. I'm bored with the HD, so now is the time to finish project 3K Cyclone! 
Quote: More Powwwweeeerrrrrr!


 The daily commuter bike with the BBSHD motor mounted in frame.  I use back pack battery.

I've been beating the hell out of this bike for the past six months! All good! They don't see or hear me coming, but they DO see me passing them! Sometimes I get stuck at a light that's long enough for them to catch up. Then all the same questions are asked. "What is that" "How much" "How far" etc.


 Progress so far. Looking good!


I made some time this week to work on it after work. Normally I'm building and selling regular bikes, but sometimes you need to take a break. Especially on Mothers Day Sunday when everyone is waiting on you, and you're waiting on two customers who never show to pick up the bikes! Yeah, that's a pisser! "No bike for you!" Time to pay retail or get some rusty old junk for the same price I'm selling these brand new bikes!  I really enjoy selling new bikes at 1/2 price to people. I like happy customers! I'm taking the whole week off from selling bikes. I haven't been feeling well the past week or so, and don't have the patience for no shows, tire kickers, and nit picking penny pinchers. Half price just ain't good enough in this age of entitlement. I get so many offers for $50 for a brand new $400 bike that It gets me angry. Then they get offended when I laugh at their offer! Get a clue! Anyways, that's what's been going on the past week, and why I've had time to work on this bike.


Chains, chains, everywhere there's chains! Primary & secondary chains.

Last Monday I was on a mission to make some progress no matter what. I had two doughnuts at work for breakfast, then nothing until I was done working on the Cyclone bike around 8pm. I started with the chains.



Yeah, the factory chain tensioner is gonna go, and so is the factory freewheel bearing! Sorry Cyclone, but they are junk!

At the moment I just want to get her running. I've purchased a new tensioner, and will install it when I take it back apart to change the bearing with a SBP Heavy Duty unit. I already knew I would be replacing these two parts before I started building the bike, but I believe in testing almost all of the factory parts myself before making changes. The Cyclone supplied ignition switch on this build will be the exception. It's not even junk, it's complete garbage! I have a spare part I'll use for a key switch from the last Harley Davidson Shovelhead bike I built that will work perfectly. It's even smaller than the cheap garbage that came with the motor, and metal! I'll also be using a 3 way switch from the same bike. I used it to go from high beam to low beam on the headlight. Now it'll be used to go from low speed (beach strand cruising), medium default speed, and high speed modes. I'll mount them in the battery box I still need to build.


Cut out of Luna 52V 24Ah battery.

Until I start making my own batteries, and just to get her running around 40mph, I've decided to get the Luna 52V battery. The box I make for it on this bike will also fit the BBSHD bike, so no effort will be wasted to do this temporary installation. In fact, the boxes will be the same for both bikes in the end. The HD will get the 52V, and the Cyclone will get the custom made 72V. This bike has a lot of room in frame to stuff everything, but a 20Ah 72V battery will take up every inch of space with the 3k Cyclone motor!


Batman battery display, SA three speed thumb shifter, Cyclone thumb throttle, and ebrakes with half grip.

This bar setup was as simple as I could make it. Less is more when talking about stuff on handlebars! I hate bars all filled up with stuff! Now I'm waiting on a set of mini ape bars to finish the deal and start with the wiring.  Nothing wrong with beach bars, I just like the mini ape bars better. 

The SA three speed shifter makes this all possible. 

This bike comes with a half twist shifter. I wouldn't of been able to use the Cyclone thumb throttle without the SA mod. Even without the thumb throttle on the right side (I need to find a LH thumb throttle) I still use the SA on my three speed ebike builds because it's so much nicer than the rev o shift half twist units that come with the bikes! With a Bafang style RH thumb throttle mounted on the LH side the way I like it, I could use full sized grips both left and right. ADHD don't like half grip on right and full grip on left!


"Chain Line" In the frustrated voice of Col Klink From Hogan's Hero's!
You can tell by my shoes that all my money goes into bikes and bike parts!

Next mod? I don't like the chain line. Before I do any of the other mods to the factory parts, I need to see if it works. At worst, I'll have to get the 44/44/32 Triple Chain Ring, swap the inside 32 ring with the middle 44 ring, and consider the 32 ring as a spacer. Assuming it's possible to swap those two rings! Mo money! That would do a nice job at correcting the chain line angel. Also, I would have to relocate the controller. You can see from the above photo how little clearance the chain has from the controller the way it's set up now. No big deal, just a matter of learning how this bike model likes to be set up. I doubt that 3/8" chain line deflection will be a big deal on this rigid extended frame bike, but it may be? Only one way to find out. Get er done and running! If this were a 7 speed bike, I would already have relocated the controller. 


BBSHD Sixthreezero Around The Block 3 Speed bike in front, same bike with Cyclone 3k motor in back.

I'm laughing about this. The Cyclone bikes seat is randomly high enough in the above photo as though I would ever need to pedal the bike. The BBSHD bike seat is also too high for that motor. I never pedal it! When the mini ape bars show up, I'll drop them both all the way down. I mean, whom I kidding? Hahaha! Don't need to pedal either of these bikes unless you want to get some exercise!


Da Bars! 

Notice the 1" clamping point for the neck! Good luck finding these yourself! Only took me over one year to find them! I have the fist two sets on the way! Forget about the Electra mini ape bars! $50 because you have to get the bars for $30, and a $20 BMX style neck to make them work due to the 7/8" (22.2mm) size clamping point! Haha! Haha! Hahahaha! Score! Now if only the crappy Cyclone thumb throttle will fit! If not, then I'll go in the opposite direction and do a set of race bars styled like an old set of board track racer bars. I want to do this anyway, so no loss. It's just one of those things I need to know before making a custom wire harness jig to fit all bars on all bikes. I don't want to make a wire harness jig to fit every bike. "There can be only one!" 1980's movie quote from Highlander, but it's the fact with wire harness jigs!


 Springer forks actually add a nice little bit of bounce to a front end! This bike was using a BBSO2 750W motor. The motor is mounted under frame for lack of eccentric BB adapters at the time. Can be mounted in frame same as the BBSHD in some above photo's with the adapter set.

I'll also be using a repop set of Schwinn style springer forks on the Cyclone bike. Same as in above photo. These repop springers are good quality. For $10 less, you get bent up junk that never aligns correctly. Same springer forks for $40 more, and you get a set of safety washers and two drilled holes in the tubes. I found a couple brands of rim breaks to work with them and I'm going to give them a try. If they don't live up to my expectations, then a front SA drum or Hydraulic disk break will be used.



Friday, May 11, 2018

What a Friday!

I've been hustling bikes pretty hard just to come up with the money to move into a new place.

Today was crazy. I sold 22 bikes by lunch time, then skipped having lunch to build 9 bikes at the bike shop, and built two of my own bikes to sell tomorrow after I got home from work, then sold another bike. Now I feel like I'm going to die from exhaustion.

I found myself short one black fender for a bike and wound up painting it myself. Three coats of Rustolium Satin on top of how ever many coats the factory puts on them, then three more coats of Rustolium super rust stopper matte black to finish the job. This one little front fender is now 6x more protected than it was from the factory! Should hold it's matte Black color threw a nuclear war! Unfortunately because of the wind, I hung it in the garage between coats. I had to go into the garage again and again to get parts, check paint, etc. When I finished all I could smell was paint fumes. Killed a few brain cells for sure. Headache is fading away.

For tomorrow, Saturday 5/12/18, I have a few brand new bikes at home ready to go at half retail price. First one is a brand new Sixthreezero 7 Speed Scholar. First $200 gets it! This bike is perfect in every way! Not a scratch or dent and Zero shipping damage! I didn't get a chance to take my own photo's but I'll add them tomorrow. It was too dark by the time I finished building and tuning the bike. Here's a bad factory photo.


Up next is the LAST 7 speed EVERjourney Men's bike I have available. I don't know when I'll get another one, and if I do, it will be new stock. I like the older ones better. I started hording these last fall expecting to make them all into ebikes, and I'm glad I did! I wound up with fifteen of them, and this is the last one! Photo is second to last one already spoken for. The last one is going for $250 and will be built to order.







I'll post more tomorrow. I'm too tired to continue. I start getting long winded when I'm tired.







Saturday, May 5, 2018

Bike Season Is Officialy Here!

Yeah, it's bike season here in So-Cal! 

Everyday when I get out of bed, my feet hit the floor running! I haven't been able to keep up with demand. I've had the bikes to sell, I just haven't had enough time to assemble and tune them. Requests for bikes have been backlogged a bit. A couple nights last week I didn't even have time to eat dinner.

This evening I finally got caught up on orders, I put my tools away, come upstairs to finally get some food, sit down and BAM, another order! It's great, but I'm not going to be able to keep up this pace all summer. 

I've been clearing the inventory from my garage because we need to move at the end of July. The landlord wants to rent the place out to family, as the story goes. The truth is they want to get more for the place we've been in for the past ten years. Yeah, I'm pissed about that, but we've been wanting to get out of this dump for a long time anyway. I'm just concerned that we may not find a place with a large enough garage. Wish us luck!

For posterity's sake I took some photo's of the garage last night just before putting everything away for the day. Enjoy!


A couple photo's of the inside of the garage with it almost empty. 
When it's full, you can't fit your foot inside with all the bikes.

Little red decided to come down just in time to be in the way. Cats love getting in the way under foot at just the right moment. This little guy owns everything and he knows it.


A couple photo's from the outside.

After a long day at work, and a long evening building bikes at home, the 1/2 pint of Jim Beam and the beer are needed! When I get home from work, I sit down to answer emails for bikes. By the time I'm done, my body starts to stiffen up. That's where the JB comes in!