Hi from Warfield, Berks.

[Geofft]

Hi, a quick potted history,,

As an incurable tinkerer, I needed to find a use for that old Claud Butler that was taking up room in my shed, so an electric conversion seemed like an interesting project. Living at Warfield Park, which seems to be a local high point means you can't avoid a return hill, so this gave me the justification needed to spend some cash.

I initially bought a £199 ebay kit, pretty much a far east copy of the Currie (ezip?) rear hub drive. This was actually pretty good and it included a 10Ah sla battery and carrier. Did the job pretty well, albiet a little rear end heavy with its rear mounted motor and sla, and of course the usual limitations of a single gear.

Soon decided that a crank drive setup was the way to go though, and have now moved the motor (MY1018 24v 450w) amidships to drive a diy constructed freewheel crank assembly. This, coupled with replacing the sla with a lightweight 15Ah LifePO4 battery has now given me a fun alternative mode of transport which easily climbs most hills almost unaided and will bat along at 25mph if you're brave enough with skinny tyres and bicycle brakes.......

The range is a useful 15-18 miles, but to be honest the 450w motor has ample torque, I might reduce this to a 350w and give myself a bit more mileage. Anyone got a 350w MY1018 for sale?.....

So that's about where I am at the moment, will post some photo's of the setup if anyone's interested and look forward to hopefully contributing to your forum....!

Geoff.

 

[Old_Dave]

Hi Geoff

Welcome to the forum, yes photos are always interesting

 

[flecc]

And a welcome from me Geoff, photos would indeed be welcome and interesting. Other members have also converted hub motors to crank drive, notably d8veh recently, and it's always good to see the various methods and solutions.

 

[Geofft]

Ok guys, if I can work out how to do it I'll post some photos within the next day or so....

 

[Deleted member 4366]

You can get that motor from Aliexpress, but the shipping's expensive:

Aliexpress.com : Buy MY1018 24V 250W electric bike motor retail price from Reliable electric bike motor suppliers on Yueqing Onlybo Instruments Co., Ltd.

The cheaper black motors often come up on ebay:
350W Electric Motor 36v Bike, Scooter 36 volt Gear | eBay

or you can get the whole kit for not a lot more:
24v 350w Mini Electric Bicycle Kit Scooter Brush Motor Engine Charger By Air NEW | eBay

or this one with all the parts for crank drive:
mid mounted 350W

or if you want some real fun, try the 450w brushless one for £270 delivered.
mid 450W (brushless)

We want photos of what you've done. Upload them to a host like photobucket and paste the link, then we get better quality images.

 

[Geofft]

You can get that motor from Aliexpress, but the shipping's expensive:

Aliexpress.com : Buy MY1018 24V 250W electric bike motor retail price from Reliable electric bike motor suppliers on Yueqing Onlybo Instruments Co., Ltd.

The cheaper black motors often come up on ebay:
350W Electric Motor 36v Bike, Scooter 36 volt Gear | eBay

or you can get the whole kit for not a lot more:
24v 350w Mini Electric Bicycle Kit Scooter Brush Motor Engine Charger By Air NEW | eBay

or this one with all the parts for crank drive:
mid mounted 350W

or if you want some real fun, try the 450w brushless one for £270 delivered.
mid 450W (brushless)

We want photos of what you've done. Upload them to a host like photobucket and paste the link, then we get better quality images.

.....I'm probably being a bit too specific in my requirements with the motor, ideally I want a 24v 350w MY1018 (the silver one). There are plenty of these around at 250 and 450w, but the 350w (in 24v) seems to be a rarer beast.

I have in fact tried a 350w version of the MY1016 motor (the black one). This was ok, sufficient torque and the 9.8:1 gearbox was probably better suited to my gearing, but boy was it noisy. It would squeal it's arrival from quite a distance and start dogs barking all round, it just had to go.

I don't really know why, but the 7.2:1 gearbox on the MY1018 motor (the silver one) is noticeably quieter, hence the reason I want to stick with one of those. A 250w one went on ebay last week for 36quid, I didn't go for it thinking that 250w just wouldn't cut the mustard, but I'm wishing now that I'd given it a try.

Thanks for your links though, I'll go through them in case there's an option I've missed, but I'm sure one will pop up on the bay before too long. It's far from an urgent necessity, and tbh what I have now works perfectly well really.....

 

[Old_Dave]

I think your right about the 24v / 250w and the mustard, so look at it as an expense that you have saved rather than anything else... it wouldn't of been long before you decided to stick an extra 12v on it to compensate.

If the only downside to your existing set up is 'the range' then maybe the easy option is if your battery can be taken apart and an extra 5Ah put in parallel.. maybe.

but boy was it noisy. It would squeal it's arrival from quite a distance

Grease in the gear box helps

 

[Geofft]

Grease in the gear box helps

..... tried lithium grease, EP90 gear oil, etc, none really made any difference.

Hmm, just tried to upload a few photos to the "members photos" area but they haven't appeared.

Seemed to work ok, is there some vetting delay or have I cocked up....?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

It's much better to upload your photos to a host and then copy and paste the links. This way you're not limited in size or format.

 

[mtb1956]

.....I'm probably being a bit too specific in my requirements with the motor, ideally I want a 24v 350w MY1018 (the silver one). There are plenty of these around at 250 and 450w, but the 350w (in 24v) seems to be a rarer beast.

Hi Geoff, I know there are many electrical experts on here and I ain't one of them, so please excuse the naive question. Can't a 450W motor be run as a 350W motor? SDoesn't that entail just reducing the voltage under which it runs? It's probably not as simple as P = V x I with a three phase motor but is there a way of modding the controller / battery to get the desired result?

 

[Geofft]

It's much better to upload your photos to a host and then copy and paste the links.

Yes, if the photos don't appear I guess I'll do it that way..

Hi Geoff, I know there are many electrical experts on here and I ain't one of them, so please excuse the naive question. Can't a 450W motor be run as a 350W motor? SDoesn't that entail just reducing the voltage under which it runs? It's probably not as simple as P = V x I with a three phase motor but is there a way of modding the controller / battery to get the desired result?

....doesn't sound naive at all, actually quite a good idea. It would entail limiting the max current from 24A down to around 18A. I wonder if replacing the existing controller with a 350w one would do the job, I suppose the Chinese ones are cheap enough to give it a try. Or maybe simply restricting the thumb throttle travel would do the same job, though I imagine that having more power that you can't use would be a constant source of frustration.

Thinking about it though, you could have a selectable stop which you could use when you need the extra range, and simply deselect it when you don't, and have full power available.

Or maybe just stop being so bleedin' lazy and do a bit more peddling...! I think you've just convinced me to stick with what I've already got.....

 

[Geofft]

Photos are now in "Members photos".

 

[Blew it]

Link to Geofft's photos below.

click the thumbnails to enlarge, then click the photo for super-size

Member's Photos - Pedelecs Electric Bike Showcase @ The Leading Electric Bike Community

 

[mtb1956]

Looks very neat! Great job

 

[Old_Dave]

Is it me... or is that drive chain running at a funny angle ?

 

[Geofft]

Is it me... or is that drive chain running at a funny angle ?

Not quite sure what you mean, it actually all lines up pretty well, I guess it's just an effect of the camera angle.

The only real problem I get is that if you catch a trouser bottom in the drive chain it throws it off pretty quick, I'll have to make a guard up sometime. Or maybe just wear a cycle clip...

 

[flecc]

Very neat indeed, and a nice solid motor mounting. Definitely well worth putting some thought and effort into making a practical chain guard for the offside to make it more user friendly and stylish.

 

[Geofft]

Thanks for all your comments guys.

Flecc, you've convinced me about the chain guard which is now under construction....

 

[Deleted member 4366]

If you want to reduce the current from your controller, you can file notches in the shunt/s. It's best done with a watt-meter/ammeter so that you can see how far you've gone, and if you want to increase the current, you can add solder to it/them. Your controller has probably got 2 shunts, but uou need to open it to see.

Here's a thread on ES that gives some idea of what your aiming at. You might also want to read the section on non-hub motors, which might give you some ideas for the future.

Endless-sphere.com • View topic - Limit controller max amp draw

Endless-sphere.com • View forum - E-Bike Non-hub Motor Drives

 

[Geofft]

....Thanks for those links d8veh, lots of great info there, the kinda nitty-gritty stuff I was really looking for.

I suppose the Chinese controllers are so cheap that even if you 'let the smoke out' it's not the end of the world - time to attack my controller methinks.....