Keeping the Lafree on the road

[flecc]

The new issue of A to B magazine going out now has an article on keeping the Giant Lafree bikes on the road.

A to B have arranged for a number of new motor drive sprockets to be made at £15 each, less than half Giant's last price for these.

They have also cracked the problem of a failed mainboard by finding a suitable sensorless controller to replace it externally, making it a throttle controlled bike with 18 mph top assist but slightly reduced hill climb ability.

Of course the motor driven speed can still be changed by altering the rear sprocket, and there will be no early power phasedown with the independent controller.

With this information coupled with all the technical information on my Lafree website, most eventualities are now covered.

A to B Magazine
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[frank9755]

A very useful article for those looking to keep Lafrees going.

I was very interested by the idea of adding a sensorless controller, given that my dabbles with Tongxin motors have led me to get through quite a few of them! When I was looking last year there were very few alternatives available. In fact I only found one other apart from Tongxin's own, after a lot of searching.

The one that AtoB are using looks like one I had which I think is the Shenzen / e-Crazyman one. I got it to replace Tongxin controllers which had died. Unfortunately this one didn't do any better and burned out after half a dozen uses. However, the new Tongxin controllers seem to be performing far better. I've not noticed any failures reported by Cytronex owners, and JohnP on this site says that of the few dozen he has sold there have been no failures so far.

So, if I were looking for a controller to upgrade a Lafree, or for any other sensorless application, I would now go for a Tongxin one.

Frank

 

[flecc]

I'd had a small involvement with that A to B project and was waiting for publication before bringing my Lafree Twist website up to date.

I've revised the Technical section Motor Unit Repairs and Spares pages to reflect the changes in repair options and spares availability, and at the same time brought the battery options information more up to date. To coincide with A to B's mention of gear hub change options, I've also reintroduced a former page of tips on fitting the SRAM P5 gearhub to a Lafree.

flecc's Lafree Twist Website

Although at least three of us including A to B have shown that the standard 6.5 Ah Panasonic battery can last many years, albeit with range getting very much shorter with time, batteries are now the greatest problem with keeping these bikes running. I don't have a Lafree Twist any more to experiment with, but hopefully some brave and moneyed soul will take up the challenge and find a lithium cellpack option that will fit within the battery case and work ok, preferably a lithium-iron-phosphate one.
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