Electric bicycle

[Ray Scheufler]

Last night we were talking about silly electric vehicles.  I have decided that if I am going to build something then I want to have at least some purpose for it.  To that end I think it would be fun to build an electric assist bicycle.  The first step of this is to acquire a bike.  Does anyone have a good source for a cheap (<$50, ideally free) bike?

I looked up the laws for electric bikes in Iowa and to remain a "bike" the electric assist has to be <=750W and less than 20mph on electric power alone.  I do intend to keep this as legal as possible.

I'm pretty sure that I am going to design around the Kobalt brand drill battery packs because they are cheap and eaily available.  I suspect that I will run two in series to give me 48V nominal (12S).

I'm not sure on my motor / motor controller combination.  I woud like to go with BLDC since the law is based on power and brushless is more effiecent than brushed.  It is possible that I will buy a kit of both motor and motor controller, ebay has a combo that is $160 that includes pretty much everything I want.  It is possible I may go with an alternator.  I may also see if I can find the hub motors that we had at one point and just go with it.

Ray Scheufler

[Bailey Steinfadt]

Bike Collective is a great place for cheap bikes of many varieties. Otherwise, Craigslist. 

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[Zeke Egherman]

I have a couple of old bikes i would be willing to donate to this project. They both need a little maintenance iirc. I can send some pictures if you are interested.

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[David Champion]

I have some plans from the Atomic Zombie site. Was thinking about building a tandem recumbent trike with electric assist.

http://www.atomiczombie.com/

-dc

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[Ray Scheufler]

Bailey, I will try to swing by the bike collective this weekend.  I didn't realize they had open hours and did sales.

Zeke, what kind of bikes do you have?  I'm looking to build something that I would ride around, so an adult sized bike.

Dave, if you get a frame together and need help with electric, I'm glad to assist.  For this project I kind of want to do something simple and start with an already existing bike.

Ray Scheufler

[Kai]

For batteries, check into typical used for R/C car racing. I convert my drivers to these when their original batteries die, turning batteries into ink jet gold annoys me. LiFe might not be a bad idea, not as much juice as LiPo but does not catch on fire as easily.

https://hobbyking.com/ is what I typically use for batteries. Yes, it's mostly from China. Yes, they do have a USA warehouse that decreases ship time for many items. But very inexpensive. Recommend the Turnigy brand, though I'm not sure about their new Nano stuff, haven't run those yet.

Another bit, look into electric motors and controllers used for 1/5 scale R/C cars, might be able to pick up some used.

For cheap bike, can try Goodwill and so forth, roll the dice. Maybe a local salvage yard, imagine they get a few wrecks that can be patched together to something decent. Probably too late for the we-found-these-bikes police auction. Reminds me of a pile of $5 bikes I had long ago.

Kai e'Kael

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[David Champion]

Bike Collective has some decent bikes and the prices are not bad. They might even be willing to give us a deal on one if you explain what we're doing (or remind them about storing all of those donated bikes?). I can go with you some time if you'd like some input. Stay away from any crappy Huffy or Murray bikes, anything like what they sell at Walmart.

-dc

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[Bailey Steinfadt]

I am hoping they'll give us a spare work stand when we call in that favor! People donate those to them on occasion. 

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 10:22 AM David Champion <dcham...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bike Collective has some decent bikes and the prices are not bad. They might even be willing to give us a deal on one if you explain what we're doing (or remind them about storing all of those donated bikes?). I can go with you some time if you'd like some input. Stay away from any crappy Huffy or Murray bikes, anything like what they sell at Walmart.

-dc

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 9:10 AM, Kai <kai....@gmail.com> wrote:

For batteries, check into typical used for R/C car racing. I convert my drivers to these when their original batteries die, turning batteries into ink jet gold annoys me. LiFe might not be a bad idea, not as much juice as LiPo but does not catch on fire as easily.

https://hobbyking.com/ is what I typically use for batteries. Yes, it's mostly from China. Yes, they do have a USA warehouse that decreases ship time for many items. But very inexpensive. Recommend the Turnigy brand, though I'm not sure about their new Nano stuff, haven't run those yet.

Another bit, look into electric motors and controllers used for 1/5 scale R/C cars, might be able to pick up some used.

For cheap bike, can try Goodwill and so forth, roll the dice. Maybe a local salvage yard, imagine they get a few wrecks that can be patched together to something decent. Probably too late for the we-found-these-bikes police auction. Reminds me of a pile of $5 bikes I had long ago.

Kai e'Kael

On 05/10/2018 08:46 AM, Ray Scheufler wrote:

Last night we were talking about silly electric vehicles.  I have decided that if I am going to build something then I want to have at least some purpose for it.  To that end I think it would be fun to build an electric assist bicycle.  The first step of this is to acquire a bike.  Does anyone have a good source for a cheap (<$50, ideally free) bike?

I looked up the laws for electric bikes in Iowa and to remain a "bike" the electric assist has to be <=750W and less than 20mph on electric power alone.  I do intend to keep this as legal as possible.

I'm pretty sure that I am going to design around the Kobalt brand drill battery packs because they are cheap and eaily available.  I suspect that I will run two in series to give me 48V nominal (12S).

I'm not sure on my motor / motor controller combination.  I woud like to go with BLDC since the law is based on power and brushless is more effiecent than brushed.  It is possible that I will buy a kit of both motor and motor controller, ebay has a combo that is $160 that includes pretty much everything I want.  It is possible I may go with an alternator.  I may also see if I can find the hub motors that we had at one point and just go with it.

Ray Scheufler

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[Ray Scheufler]

I'll try not to call in that favor but might hint at it.  Dave, I'll probably go sometime Sunday afternoon if you are available then.  I havn't shopped for a bike in a long time.

Ray Scheufler

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 10:26 AM, Bailey Steinfadt <runne...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am hoping they'll give us a spare work stand when we call in that favor! People donate those to them on occasion. 

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 10:22 AM David Champion <dcham...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bike Collective has some decent bikes and the prices are not bad. They might even be willing to give us a deal on one if you explain what we're doing (or remind them about storing all of those donated bikes?). I can go with you some time if you'd like some input. Stay away from any crappy Huffy or Murray bikes, anything like what they sell at Walmart.

-dc

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 9:10 AM, Kai <kai....@gmail.com> wrote:

For batteries, check into typical used for R/C car racing. I convert my drivers to these when their original batteries die, turning batteries into ink jet gold annoys me. LiFe might not be a bad idea, not as much juice as LiPo but does not catch on fire as easily.

https://hobbyking.com/ is what I typically use for batteries. Yes, it's mostly from China. Yes, they do have a USA warehouse that decreases ship time for many items. But very inexpensive. Recommend the Turnigy brand, though I'm not sure about their new Nano stuff, haven't run those yet.

Another bit, look into electric motors and controllers used for 1/5 scale R/C cars, might be able to pick up some used.

For cheap bike, can try Goodwill and so forth, roll the dice. Maybe a local salvage yard, imagine they get a few wrecks that can be patched together to something decent. Probably too late for the we-found-these-bikes police auction. Reminds me of a pile of $5 bikes I had long ago.

Kai e'Kael

On 05/10/2018 08:46 AM, Ray Scheufler wrote:

Last night we were talking about silly electric vehicles.  I have decided that if I am going to build something then I want to have at least some purpose for it.  To that end I think it would be fun to build an electric assist bicycle.  The first step of this is to acquire a bike.  Does anyone have a good source for a cheap (<$50, ideally free) bike?

I looked up the laws for electric bikes in Iowa and to remain a "bike" the electric assist has to be <=750W and less than 20mph on electric power alone.  I do intend to keep this as legal as possible.

I'm pretty sure that I am going to design around the Kobalt brand drill battery packs because they are cheap and eaily available.  I suspect that I will run two in series to give me 48V nominal (12S).

I'm not sure on my motor / motor controller combination.  I woud like to go with BLDC since the law is based on power and brushless is more effiecent than brushed.  It is possible that I will buy a kit of both motor and motor controller, ebay has a combo that is $160 that includes pretty much everything I want.  It is possible I may go with an alternator.  I may also see if I can find the hub motors that we had at one point and just go with it.

Ray Scheufler

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[Jason Bentley]

I would also like to build an electric bike as well. I have a spare frame mostly together, and have a work stand and wheel truing stand that I'm out of room for. My plan was to donate them after the move, but am willing to donate them now if we have space for them.

[Ray Scheufler]

When you say spare frame, do you mean a spare that you want to electrify for yourself or a spare that is in addition to any plans that you already have?

If you need to temporarily store the work stand / truing stand, I've got plenty of room in the barn.  I suspect that right now adding more to the pile that needs to be moved isn't a great idea.

Ray Scheufler

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 8:49 PM, Jason Bentley <jasondav...@gmail.com> wrote:

I would also like to build an electric bike as well. I have a spare frame mostly together, and have a work stand and wheel truing stand that I'm out of room for. My plan was to donate them after the move, but am willing to donate them now if we have space for them.

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[Taylor King]

I'd be interested in building an electric drift trike while your building your bike so I can sap that electronics knowledge. Haha

[Ray Scheufler]

I'd be glad to help with whatever, just know that I am much better at electrical than mechanical.

I'm going to have spotty internet access for the next week or so, if I don't respond just be patient.

If I get really ambitious, I'll video / blog / document this build. If I do so it will be in enough detail that replication should be easy.

Ray Scheufler 

On Tue, May 15, 2018, 12:48 PM Taylor King <wilag...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'd be interested in building an electric drift trike while your building your bike so I can sap that electronics knowledge. Haha

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[Taylor King]

That's alright because I'm more mechanically inclined. 😀 You can let me know if you'd like any help.

[Ray Scheufler]

I'm not horrible at mechanical things, just not as proficient. I'm actually kind of trying to do a build that is easy to replicate which means limiting the tools and techniques to pretty simple things. I'd like to do minimal modifications to the bike itself because I plan on using a pretty cheap donor and seeing if I like it. I may decide in the future to upgrade donors.

When I get back I'll schedule a time to be down at the space to go through my plans.

Ray Scheufler 

On Tue, May 15, 2018, 3:08 PM Taylor King <wilag...@gmail.com> wrote:

That's alright because I'm more mechanically inclined. 😀 You can let me know if you'd like any help.

[Ray Scheufler]

A friend has acquired a bike for me. I don't think that it will be up to Dave's standards but should get the project rolling. I'm planning on being pretty open about when I am working on it down at the space so if anyone wants hands on experience hacking together am electric vehicle, watch the list for build days.

Ray Scheufler