which conversion kit to buy/build, specifically for a George Longstaff Trike

[Geoff9]

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Bike conversion information
Best Trike conversion kit possibilities.

Hello all, chose this forum idea as a result of reading the following link
“Electric Conversion Kit, Which to choose? Compatible with folding bikes?”

Brief history explanation first. I’ve been cycling for 49 years now, since I was 9.The last 13 years have got increasingly difficult as I was diagnosed with MS and that threw a spanner in the works. However I have refused to stop cycling and I moved to a Trike [see my gallery] to help balance issue. Now I have to consider modifying the Trike to a powered Trike [hence this forum], and the need for help/advice.
My weight approx 73kg
Trike weight approx 13kg max [see gallery for Trike picture]

So with the advice of d8veh here I have begun my listing of ideas/components as follows.
201rpm 36v Q100 kit from BMSBattery
Thumb Level Throttle
http://www.bmsbattery.com/ebike-kits/291-250w350w-q-85100sx-motor-e-
bike-kit.html
The choice of this kit is as d8veh commented, lightness/low torque/less gyroscopic action [important as tipping is an issue]
Does this kit provide, in descent translated English a connection manual of any sort?
I have contacted BMSBattery but there reply was very limited.

Battery brick think would be best, need to spread weight at lowest
point of Trike across wheel base to add stability to machine. Geometry
of Trike is such that corners and cambers of roads cause potential
tipping, personal experience and broken shoulder confirms that.
As the photograph in gallery shows there is a built in carrier on this Trike which although having a Carradice carrier on at present would still have room, possibly underneath or even directly in front of the carrier, for a battery

Controller readout would have to be mounted direct from headset as the Trike has a Klik fix mounted
front handlebar bag.........[this is also used on my mountain bike if
I can ever get back on it].Connecting to the handlebar stem mounting would just need some sort of mounting bracket.
at present the typical controller /readout in mind would be like the
Oxydrive or such....basically would replace all the typical standard
bike readout items [odo/trip/speed/max/avg etc] whilst also adding the
power readout of wattage and battery power left.
I have looked at 1 briefly on “saneagles” new build, namely the speedikit readout…very neat.

SO:
Motor/Controller...perhaps as above
Battery:...no idea or what size. Perhaps about 10ah
readout:...perhaps as commented above
charging kit…but of course

ALL advice appreciated as summer is on the way and I want to get it all done preferably before end Feb.

Please bear in mind that although my history is as an aerospace research engineer, because of the MS doing any delicate physical work is now beyond me…..but I always try.

Thanks for any help /advice and particularly to d8veh for his valuable help so far [get in touch dave please].

PS; to give an idea on budget, i have been considering the Oxydrive kit, generally excellent except the battery is frame mounted and as said above putting that weight on the carrier lowdown would be more beneficial. Price on that approx £850, would like to spend a little less [say about £600 +- £100].

 

[banbury frank]

Hi I just posted this on the forum


Kalkhoff Agattu Electric Trike 53cm frame | eBay

We can supply a fantastic kit BUT not in your budget Cost with 48 volt 20 AH battery 1,000 watt front wheel £1400

Frank

 

[Geoff9]

Hi I just posted this on the forum


Kalkhoff Agattu Electric Trike 53cm frame | eBay

We can supply a fantastic kit BUT not in your budget Cost with 48 volt 20 AH battery 1,000 watt front wheel £1400

Frank

Nice system, but not what Im after.

My picture shows I already have a Trike [aka £2500 worth of George Longstaff ] so it's unnecessary for me to buy complete. A kit to adapt my Trike is what I'm looking into and require the assistace/advice about.

thanks for the message though.

cheers
Geoff

 

[Cyclezee]

Hi Geoff,

You might want to consider an eZee kit, they may be over your budget, but we.......and others think they are worth it. You can see more info here eZee Conversion Kits - electric bikes and conversion kits

Regards,

 

[Geoff9]

Hi Geoff,

You might want to consider an eZee kit, they may be over your budget, but we.......and others think they are worth it. You can see more info here eZee Conversion Kits - electric bikes and conversion kits

Regards,

Nice kit, now that is a good comparison with the Oxydrive kit that I've been looking into.At the moment I have sent an E-mail to Oxydrive/Andrew to get some more information with regard to my Trike and my health condition [MS].

Both the kit you show on your link and the Oxydrive are almost the same in cost area and performance.

One of the items I have to look at is, my Trike geometry has a tendency to tip ....[english road camber and being too enthusiastic on some bends]....broken shoulder and collar bone proved that. So as a result I will be looking into the possibility of putting the battery onto the rear carrier to bring the weight ballast lower .This will probably involve slighly longer cables to connect to as well unless the supplied cables are fairly generous.



Also I am getting in touch with my local MS society to see if any financial assistance is available.they have already contacted back saying yes,but the process has to be sorted first.They [MS society] are intrigued with the whole electric bike idea and have asked me if i would be prepared to give a talk when Ive built a kit into the Trike...which I have gladly said yes too.
This would be a thankyou to them for any assistance they can give me and a great advertisement to whoever I buy the kit of [free advertiisng if you like].

thanks for the link anyway , all infomation is useful.
geoff

 

[JuicyBike]

That's a lovely trike you have there Geoff.
Your tipping problem will always remain the greatest issue with that frame but I can see how you are committed to keeping it. Lowering the battery is a good idea but will never solve the tipping tendancy of a fixed frame.
It is possible to get a tilting frame: Batribike have one and we ourselves have a sample bike purchased as a special for a customer. Such frames allow the front wheel to lean into a bend and so help prevent tipping. I've never seen one with wheels larger than 24" and ours has only 20" wheels all round, so probably not for you.
Interesting project though and I wish you every success. If our kits would be useful to you let me know.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

That's a lovely trike you have there Geoff.
Your tipping problem will always remain the greatest issue with that frame but I can see how you are committed to keeping it. Lowering the battery is a good idea but will never solve the tipping tendancy of a fixed frame.
It is possible to get a tilting frame: Batribike have one and we ourselves have a sample bike purchased as a special for a customer. Such frames allow the front wheel to lean into a bend and so help prevent tipping. I've never seen one with wheels larger than 24" and ours has only 20" wheels all round, so probably not for you.
Interesting project though and I wish you every success. If our kits would be useful to you let me know.

Any chance of a picture of your tipping trike Bob?

 

[Cyclezee]

Nice kit, now that is a good comparison with the Oxydrive kit that I've been looking into.At the moment I have sent an E-mail to Oxydrive/Andrew to get some more information with regard to my Trike and my health condition [MS].

Both the kit you show on your link and the Oxydrive are almost the same in cost area and performance.

One of the items I have to look at is, my Trike geometry has a tendency to tip ....[english road camber and being too enthusiastic on some bends]....broken shoulder and collar bone proved that. So as a result I will be looking into the possibility of putting the battery onto the rear carrier to bring the weight ballast lower .This will probably involve slighly longer cables to connect to as well unless the supplied cables are fairly generous.

View attachment 4898View attachment 4897

Also I am getting in touch with my local MS society to see if any financial assistance is available.they have already contacted back saying yes,but the process has to be sorted first.They [MS society] are intrigued with the whole electric bike idea and have asked me if i would be prepared to give a talk when Ive built a kit into the Trike...which I have gladly said yes too.
This would be a thankyou to them for any assistance they can give me and a great advertisement to whoever I buy the kit of [free advertiisng if you like].

thanks for the link anyway , all infomation is useful.
geoff

Good evening Geoff,

In terms of performance, the eZee kit is one of the most powerful 'legal' kits on the market and has a worldwide reputation. It is also very versatile with a range of batteries to suit all needs that could be mounted quite low down to help keep the trike stable and the centre of gravity low.

If there is anything that I can help you with Geoff, please let me know.

Regards,

 

[banbury frank]

Hi Geoff

our new Kube Baby 20AH 48 volt battery will fit strait on your bike we can supply a front motor to special order about 4 weeks same price as rear kit


Commuter Baby

or our more powerful kit we keep this in stock front wheel

Commuter Kube


Frank

 

[Geoff9]

Any chance of a picture of your tipping trike Bob?

A long time ago when I began riding a Trike I found this picture of a tilting trike:

could not find any other information on it, but an interesting piece of Trike engineering just the same.

Out of interest i've just been away....out of UK cold [better for my health]... and was studying hand operated recliners....there set ups would allow tidy modification to e-powered systems.Although i'm not yet at the stage of no leg use .

Anyway just info.

cheers
g

 

[RobF]

Rolling resistance is not so important with electric power, so you could run wider tyres which should help stability.

 

[JuicyBike]

Any chance of a picture of your tipping trike Bob?

Here you go Dave... Not great pictures but show the mechanism for the front frame tilt.




We actually bought this bike in especially for a gentleman who eventually didn't look safe at all riding it, so we didn't sell it. He didn't like the tilt...

 

[RevO wheels]

Hi Geoff,

I'd like to propose our RevO pedelec conversion kit, but I suspect your trike has a 28"/700c wheels and, whilst we will have more 28"/700c and 20" RevO's in stock next month, we only have 26" left in stock at present.

We launched the RevO wheel at the London Bike Show last week and received a really positive response.

The RevO is an integrated pedelec conversion kit with 250w brushless motor, 8.8Ah Li Ion battery and wireless controller, housed within the "solid" front wheel. It communicates wirelessly to the "wireless" controller attached to the to the handlebar which in turn has a wired connection to the sensor on the bottom bracket.

The 26" wheel weighs a shade over 8kg and is well balanced - we had a 26" and 20" RevO wheel on the test track at Excel last week and the feedback was all good.

The RevO website (Revo Wheel) is currently under development but happy to answer any queries sent to info@revowheel.co.uk and can supply pics etc.

Regards,

Geoff.

 

[GaRRy]

Hi Geoff,

I'd like to propose our RevO pedelec conversion kit, but I suspect your trike has a 28"/700c wheels and, whilst we will have more 28"/700c and 20" RevO's in stock next month, we only have 26" left in stock at present.

We launched the RevO wheel at the London Bike Show last week and received a really positive response.

The RevO is an integrated pedelec conversion kit with 250w brushless motor, 8.8Ah Li Ion battery and wireless controller, housed within the "solid" front wheel. It communicates wirelessly to the "wireless" controller attached to the to the handlebar which in turn has a wired connection to the sensor on the bottom bracket.

The 26" wheel weighs a shade over 8kg and is well balanced - we had a 26" and 20" RevO wheel on the test track at Excel last week and the feedback was all good.

The RevO website (Revo Wheel) is currently under development but happy to answer any queries sent to info@revowheel.co.uk and can supply pics etc.

Regards,

Geoff.

and the price is ?

 

[RevO wheels]

Hi GaRRy,

List price for the 26" with 8.8Ah battery is £699.

Promotional £100 discount during the London Bike Show and we're happy to extend this for a few more weeks - so £599.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I went to see Geoff today now that he's finished his trike. He has the new Oxydrive kitthat now comes with the Japanese Dapush motor, Dapush LCD display, hidden wire brake sensors and Oxydrive 8.8aH bottle battery with Samsung cells. Geoff's workmanship is superb and has resulted in a very neat installation. Hopefully, we'll get a report on how it performs in the near future. Here's some photos:

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Geoff has a hollowtech crank, which means a bit of jiggery pokery to install the pedal sensor. Here's the solution that works with most pedal sensors. The centre of the magnet ring was drilled/turned out to 25mm to go over the shaft; remove the spacers from behind the bearing holders to make the space for the magnet disc; remove the sensor from its metal bracket and fix it from the other side. This gives the right spacing and clearance as you can see from the photo:

Installation of brake sensors is very straight forward with the hidden wire type if you have cable brakes.

 

[Geoff9]

Yes and thank you D8veh for the photos......can also be seen on my gallery.

My intention is to use this thread as a history for the Trike giving such details as ride/distances/average mph/voltage change from fully charged etc.

i believe this information would be invaluable to a lot of you for deciding what to build in relation to your own requirements.

obviously the nature of this will mean an ongoing subject and probably quite a long one.
Andrew of Oxydrivre states that the battery should be good for approx 700 charges.........so I'll use that as a guide line and will post once a month as to progress.

If things go as i would like then in the not too distant future I will build my old Mountain Bike [trek 700], whether this will be for others benefit or my own i'm yet too find out [MS might not allow me to ride/balance on two wheels anymore unfortunately].

so to start things off at present after the initial 6 miles i have completed 21 then 26 miles , in both cases the battery strated at 41.7 volts and finished at approx 38.7 volts.an average speed of 11.4mph. There were initial teething problems , not too be discussed as yet.
the PAS setting was at 1 and as the advert says....it does what it says on the tin.

more later.

cheers

 

[Electrifying Cycles]

This would be very useful. We sell electric trykes but they come in the same form as if you made the Trike from scratch i.e. two boxes and you put the entire Trike together. Therefore there is a case for combining best value kit with the best value motor/battery. Looking forward to hearing more about how you find the system.

 

[Geoff9]

Feb History 1st entry

OK as promised, the ongoing history of the Trike.

i'll do it by calender month, will make things more uniform.

Entry 1 - Feb.

Ride-Setting-Distance-Acc. Dist-mph-preV-postV-Batt.ind-Ch.time-Charge
1.......PAS 0/1.....6..........6.........10.....................................................1
2.......PAS 1.......26........32.........11.6..40.6..37.7.....4/5........3hr
3.......PAS 1.......21........53.........11.6..41.8..38.6.....4/5........3hr........2
4.......PAS 1.......23........76.........11.6..41.5..40.5.....4/5........3hr........3
5.......PAS 1.......26.......102........12.3..41.6..38.5..... 4/5........3hr.........4

This is the FIRST entry and obviously had a few minor issues....loose coonections/1 loose spoke. under the circumstances and it being the initial running in period i would consider these all very minor issues.

Until i have ascertained the total mileage available for a battery it is my intention to keep cycling at this level of PAS 1 [a range of 5 is available, [making the assumption that each PAS level is 20% of total i.e. 250 W - so PAS 1 would be 50W from 0mph up to max speed setting?]]. Since I have gone the way of a Trike then e-trike my targets now are much less....i.e. 12.5mph for a maximum of 50 miles.[MS makes you appreciate the limits of your capability.]

I would appreciate any comment regarding the spoke size , including the key size. As i have a lot of cycling tools i have not come across this key size in quite a while and do not have one. Also has anyone built their own wheels utilising smaller gauge spokes and high grade rims?.
I do know that in major races [Tour de France] a maximum level of 500 watts is used for training when racing up major hills, so would assume that if that power is used for standard racing gear systems on very light wheels, then I can see no reason why motored wheels up to 500 Watts [my Oxydrive is 250W] cannot be built with light rims and light spokes [spoke length excepted].

Regarding the display supplied by Oxydrive [it is now different and for me a better arrangment] you can change the readout from Km/hr [default] to mph. I am not sure whether that changes all readings [question has been asked]. I have set the maximum speed to 16 [mph/Kmph ?].
by leaving my original Casio display on as well i have an accurate readout which I can use as my default. this is showing that the controller to the motor is shutting down at approx. 13.5 mph....difficult to be exact as the motor is very smooth and quiet too.

D8veh did explain that it would be best to set the maximum speed setting because of non-smooth shut off/start up of the motor becoming awkward to deal with whilst riding.As yet I have not noticed any awkward surges when the motor comes back in so will keep as it is.

Obviously by keeping to PAS 1 and not having my maximum speed any higher than necessary, this will save excessive use of the battery and extend the cycling distance...remember 12.5mph & 50 miles is the target.

The terrain for all rides is countryside lanes, undulating. there are some difficult hills [approx 1:4 - 1: 6] in places , especially ride 5 over the Cannock Chase . For the first time in many years [had MS 13 years now] i was able to climb up this at a respectable pace.....yes it was not all powered , some was still me , as I want it to be.

There is a lot of information here, and I hope it will be of use.

as already stated it will be my intention to give a monthly update of progress, if anyone sees any other information that would be of benefit then let me know, and please the info on the wheel/spoke sizing would be greatly appreciated.

cheers
Geoff