Battery upgrade to powabyke folder

[marx175]

Hi everyone I am new to the forum and have 3 electric bikes as due to a disability I cannot pedal properly.(2 will be sold soon). My newest and best bike is a powabyke folder with a 36v 7ah battery pack. I have 3 x 12v 12ah batteries lying about and was going to make a spare battery pack that would last a little bit longer, BUT the current battery box is only 7 ah. My question is will I damage the bike by running 36v 12ah through it. I have searched for a fuse on the bike but I cannot find one as I thought about checking it or upgrading the fuse also? It doesn't appear to be in the main box between the handle bars where all the electronics are.
My bike is also quite different to those listed on the web. It is silver and has a welded handle on the frame and looks alot more modern than the folding powabykes listed? Any ideas what model it is? I know it's not the brand new versions as it used sla batteries.
Sorry for such a long post!
Mark

 

[flecc]

No, that won't damage it Mark, any battery capacity in Ah can be used. You can think of the Ampere/Hours as being like gallons of petrol, a tank holding more gallons just lets you go further before running out.

As far as I know all the SLA Powabykes are still current models, they just have a lithium battery option, and there are two X model's that are lithium only.

I don't know about your particular folder variant though. Since Powabyke now have new owners, there may have been some specification changes.
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[marx175]

Great thanks for the reply. I was confused as I thought fuses were rated as amps not volts? I assume that that is different to ah (amp hours?).
As an aside does anyone know where the fuse is on my bike? It's got a silver module between the handle bars with the pedelec/assist button on it. And also as I don't have a manual, it has red leds on top I think there are six and 2 of them are further to the right. I pressume they just go out in order when under load/battery runs lower, but why are the 2 on the right spcaed further away? Sorry I don't have a manual as I bought the bike second hand.
Mark

 

[flecc]

Yes, the fuses are amp rated Mark. Basically, a motor will take what it needs in amperes of current and the fuse is rated to cope with the motor need. The battery only needs to be the right voltage. The battery Ah rating is a measure of the amps that a battery can theoretically deliver in one hour, but of course that capacity doesn't have to be used in one hour. From a 10 Ah battery, the 10 could be taken in one hour or 5 in each of two hours for example.

I don't know your bike model, but usually the LEDs in a row (four in your case) are the battery level indicator, gradually going out as the content is used. When there are other LEDs like those odd two, they can be different power levels if the bike has a facility to switch the levels. However, it's not unknown for these consoles to be standard ones with some of the LEDs not used on certain bike models.

You could try sending an email to Frank Curran at Powabyke to ask him for more information on this console:

fcurran@powabyke.com
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