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He has lead batteries! He might struggle to find any with Panasonic cells. Is your advice a bit confusing for him?

We need more people with questions like yours to keep us entertained. Get the popcorn in, then ask about the best brakes, whether crank drive is better than hub-motor, derailleur gears vs hub gears, helmets or illegal bikes.

Building a battery is a brilliant learning experience, but it certainly won't be cheaper than buying a ready-made one. There's an awful lot of stuff you need, not just the cells.

One other thing that I forgot to mention. You can see that some of the manufacturers of the normal hub-motored bikes are on the ball. 13g spokes are now oldskool. 14g rules.

I think 5 amps should be Ok. From what you extracted from the listing, that battery is OK for partial charging. Is it expensive? My thoughts are that I'd only charge at 5 amps if I needed to. I'm doubtful whether spending all the extra on the charger and battery will give you a return on your...

If you're thinking about a 20 mph cruising speed, I'd say £550 to £600 for a Yosepower cassette motor kit and decent battery. You need a 48v kit and I think Yose Power always seem to have stock problems with them. To source the same stuff from alternative (Chinese) suppliers will cost maybe...

Those direct drive kits are cheap, but they're not very good. Don't get me wrong. I'm not an ebike snob. I'm just trying to make you aware of what they're like. Many people want to go fast. I've built 45 mph ebikes and ones with over 6KW of power. I'm a motorcyclist, so used to going very fast...

I saw you there, but I didn't say hello. You can't go wrong with a Wisper. I'm sure that you'll be happy with it.

You can only charge to 90% if you have a special BMS that doesn't use top-balancing. Be careful!

Rear sprockets are standard. You can get them from any bike shop, Ebay, Amazon, etc. There are two types - free-hub and free-wheel. You need to identify which type you have before considering a replacement. seven or fewer gears is probably free-wheel and eight or more is probably free-hub. From...

Are you sure about that? Doesn't it use the motor torque to engage/disengage? It says zero drag in the listing. How does it achieve that? Bike Radar seemed to like it, though I take everything that any magazine or newspaper says with a pinch of salt. They said that the motor disengages...

If you're going to go with one of those big heavy cheap direct drive motor kits, don't waste your money on any bike that costs more than £50. Look for one of those cheap catalogue bikes, ideally with a steel triangular frame and disc brakes. Buy it used. you can find them in second-hand shops...

I managed to buy a few for my shopper.

It must have been some sort of bevel-drive motor that turned the bottom bracket, like the Vivax system. I think she said that there was a demonstrator there, but I forgot to try it. Someone else that goes there must try it.

I guess you want to get one of those 1000w direct drive kits, or is it a BBSHD? If the former, it's not too late to change your mind. In either case, you want a battery that's listed as having a rating of at least 40 amps. Have a look at what Eclipse Bikes offer in the UK.

Yes. Make sure that you replace them with electric vehicle batteries, not the type that are used for alarms. They're about £25 each.

I went today. As always, there was old stuff and new stuff. Electric bikes are now starting to appear on lots of stands instead of just in the general electric bike area. I'll post some photos tomorrow, but some things to look out for that I found interesting were: 1. Double chainwheel on one...

There are so many good bikes these days that it's difficult to choose. I like the NCM Moscow. It's 48v, so plenty of power. They use Das Kit parts. Das Kit has been around for a while and they've expanded from China into Europe. I was talking with the guys from NCM at the Cycle Show today, who...

He's only 100kg all-up. A Q128 at 48v can easily cope with that. My bike has often been loaded more than that when dealing with very steep hills. If OP is not bothered about speed, the lower speed motor will always be better, but the 201 rpm maxes out at 18 mph when the batteries full. That'll...

There might be some nice kits in USA. You have to ask locally about them. If you want to make a nice conversion, the 328 rpm 48v Q128C motor from BMSbattery.com; the 17 amp sine wave controller along with the LCD, PAS, and throttle from PSWPower.com; and a 48v Dolphin battery that must be...