jbond

Does raise the question, again, of why there's no UK/EU supplier equivalent of BMSBattery and Greenbikekit that can source the most common 8fun and Cute motors, wheels and bits and pieces. Even on eBay. Going direct does work, but shipping takes ages and costs a lot. And you always seem to get caught on the VAT/Import taxes. Or is there a reliable European source and I just haven't found it yet?

Is there a UK supplier who can source the Cute/QBK 10 CST in a 700c wheel?

. Ah. I assumed it was an Aurora as the thread was originally about that. But perhaps not.

Go and check BMS Battery or GreenBike, http://www.bmsbattery.com, http://www.greenbikekit.com/ and look for a battery of the same size and shape, 36v, LiNMC. As far as I can tell they come in two lengths for 36v-15Ahr and 36v-10Ahr. But the locking mechanism and extrusion hasn't changed so it should fit straight into your existing rack. As above in the thread, you may end up having to change the plug/socket connection to the controller. eg this one. https://bmsbattery.com/ebike-battery/162-36v10ah-li-ion-alloy-05-case-ebike-battery-pack-battery.html or this one. https://bmsbattery.com/ebike-battery/232-36v15ah-li-ion-alloy-05-case-ebike-battery-pack-ecitypower-battery.html

Interesting that on endless sphere, the first comment recommended the Q128 with the usual "more is better" view. My current ride is an Alien Aurora with the big BPM motor. What I'm trying for is a better quality bicycle that's lighter and more discreet but with about the same performance or a little more. And I was encouraged by a recent sale ad on here for a Q100CST wheel. I can see I'm now heading down the rabbit hole of research again. Not least because the various suppliers don't necessarily have all the options available. This week. Next week they might. I was planning on getting the controller and battery from EV3EM as they do suitable 6-FET controllers with upgraded FETs for a ~50v system.

Decisions. Decisions. Which would make a better base for a stealth 48v-15A rear drive motor on a bike with mechanical 160mm disks and Shimano Acera 9sp rear mech? The Cute/QBK 10 CST using the existing 9 speed cassette, or the Bafang/8Fun SWXH with a DND 9sp freewheel. The Cute has a LHS cable exit which might be a bit neater. And the CST using the existing cassette which might fit and work better with the existing drop outs and mech. Conversely the Bafang might be more robust and cope better with being overdriven. There may be some differences in disk clearance, spoke dishing required, drop out width and so on. The bike is a Genesis Tour de Fer. Road touring bike with 700-35c Marathons. Anyone got any direct experience of the comparison? GBK-100CST 36V 250W e-bike cassette freewheel kit http://www.greenbikekit.com/electric-bike-kit/rear/100cst-cassette-freewheel-e-bike-kit-36v-250w.html Bafang SWXH 36V 250W Rear driving conversion kit http://www.greenbikekit.com/electric-bike-kit/rear/bafang-swxh-250w-36v-rear-driving-e-bike-conversion-kit.html 9SP DNP 11T FREEWHEEL http://em3ev.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=41_56&product_id=113

Well I fitted a 13g one. We'll see how it works out. Probably better than using the old one with the end turned over into a U.

The 13g tiller spokes turned up and they're just right except it looks like the originals are 12g not 13g. I'm drawing a blank on finding another source. There are a couple of places in the USA that do Sapim 12g for BMX but only in short lengths. johnc46 the head popped off. I've PMed you.

It's always slightly puzzled me about this that lighter weight spokes are less likely to break.

My much loved and much abused Alien Aurora has broken a rear spoke. These seem to be heavy duty BMX spokes and look like 194mm, stainless, possibly 13 gauge or even 12 gauge. My local bike shop can normally supply custom spokes but his thread cutter/roller doesn't go up to that diameter. Given that Alien has gone out of business, here's the questions. Does anyone know the actual gauge, and does anyone have any ideas on where to get a replacement? [later]. Looks like 13g 2.3mm straight, 190mm, 5mm nipples. So I've ordered 6 from here. http://www.tillercycles.co.uk/page2.html#Anchorleader13g I'll let you know if that worked.

The battery came with the plug. I used the existing controller that came with the bike.

Happy ending to this. I bought this from BMSBattery. 36V15Ah Li-Ion Alloy Shell EBike Battery Pack - BMSBATTERY The mount is exactly the same. It slides onto the existing Alien Aurora rack plate, the lock pin locks into the same hole in the plate. The one catch is the need to remove the panel mount connector and replace it with the kettle plug that came from BMSBattery.

Sorry, we did this once before. The battery uses a panel mount female socket. What's needed on the bike controller side is a panel mount shrouded male and that's the one that's hard to find. [later] Found it. Schurter Group - Home - Components - Connectors - Connectors (Inlets/Outlets) - 6048

http://www.bmsbattery.com/36v/232-36v-15ah-lithium-ion-electric-bicycle-battery-pack.html The design is almost exactly the same as the original, just a bit longer. It fits onto the same base plate and the lock engages in the same way. The connectors are in the same place at both ends and the only real difference is the use of a standard kettle plug rather than the weird plug used on the original.

Yes it did. It's a cable connector, but it fit neatly in the hole left by the stock one. Even if BMS hadn't supplied they're easy to find from Maplin or such like. What's nearly impossible to find is a panel mount female plug.

Interesting that the controller "just works" at 48v. Two possible issues that somebody could comment on. 1) the 4 led battery capacity display. This is going to be calibrated for a 36v LIMn or LiNiCoMn battery. Presumably it will always show all 4 lit no matter how much of the 48v batteries capacity has been taken. 2) Over and under voltage cut off. You're going to be relying on the BMS in the battery to cut the battery off if the voltage drops too low. I'm not sure this is really a problem as the controller cut off is a bit belt and braces. If it works presumably there's no over voltage cut off! The Aurora controller uses a multi-wire link to a splitter on the handlebars. The actual links on other controllers are probably very similar but the connectors will be totally different. So swapping to another style of controller is likely to be a fairly major re-wiring job. People have run the Lyen 6Fet controller running the BPM at 1500w and higher with no real problems. If I was doing that stuff I think I'd go that route with a BMS 48v-10AHr LiFePo headway battery. My original battery died the death. So I bought a 36v-15AHr LiNiCoMn ally cased battery from BMSBattery. All I needed to do was swap the controller side battery connector for a kettle plug. The battery then slid into exactly the same rack mount. The extra capacity means it's a little longer ans so sticks out the back a bit but works fine. The extra 50% capacity is much appreciated. It's mostly rid me of any range anxiety as 35 miles is easily achievable without any special effort to save power.

The Aurora really needs an LED rear light. So I created one out of a broken bulb, some spare LEDS and a resistor.

Very happy with my Avid BB7 180mm on the front. It just works. I've stuck with the original brake on the back as it works well enough. The main thing is it's still quiet.

The comment about 25A was not about whether the BPM could take it, but about the judder you get. If you use an on-off throttle or an on-off PAS, and you start the motor from stationary or walking pace, the startup judder as the sensorless circuitry works out which direction to power the motor get too aggressive with high currents. Alledgedly. And as reported by the German guy who used to post here. As for HighC, cellman on endless sphere makes custom packs with a BMS of A123 cells. HighC, plug and play and safe. But expensive and heavy. At which point, Lifebatt LiFePO4 - JozzTek is selling 10AHr LiFeBatt cylindrical cells for £9.99 each. These are rated at 10c continuous I believe.

I think the thread on endless sphere about this controller has a couple of posts from me! ISTR Lyen saying that 25A continuous is fine and 30A is just about OK. So you're pushing it. It's a standard controller but with updated FETs pretty much as I believe NRG and others have done. These have lower resistance and so generate less heat for a given current. It's also got higher voltage caps so the max voltage is higher. I dare say you could get somebody here to do this work, and that's really what you're paying Lyen to do. 1/3 for the basic box, 1/3 for the new components and 1/3 for the manual work feels like a pretty reasonable price to me. I've also seen someone here state that anything over 25A with the sensor-less BPM makes the startup stutter a bit aggressive. Now we need some High-C battery packs that are plug and play.

Happy update. Cleaning up the contacts and gently cutting away some melty plastic has resurrected the bike. The connector on the controller side was fine. It was one half of the female on the battery side that was causing the problem. And it looks like Jim at Alien can get me a pair of new connectors as a more permanent repair. Meanwhile we still don't know what those connectors are. Longer term there's going to come a time when I'll want a battery-replacement upgrade. And I think that's the time to look at a higher current controller and bigger capacity. I like the idea of building one of the bms battery shrink wrap packs into the triangle. eg 36V 15Ah Li-Ion Shrink Tube EBike Battery Pack - BMSBATTERY

I've wondered something similar. BMS sell batteries in ally cases that look very similar and might well fit the Alien rack. Perhaps just with a change of slide. But I haven't seen any detail about what connectors they have. Like this one for instance. 36V15Ah Li-Ion Alloy Shell EBike Battery Pack - BMSBATTERY

Phylion Hi-energy Battery XH370-10J DC 37.0v S/N AJJCJC100006 Nominally 36v 10AHr, LiOn. Probably Li/MnO2 arranged as 10s with rectangular cells which are probably each 2p 5AHr each. Built in BMS. I've had this particular battery apart. The cells are actually arranged 3x3 with the 4th row being one cell, a space and the BMS. That last cell wasn't very well supported and flapped around enough to break it's tab connection to the other 9. I mended that a year ago, added some packing and inverted the pack so that the one end cell was on the bottom when the battery is fitted. It's been fine since. I don't think that repair job disturbed the power connectors in any way. If you peer closely at the photos you can see that one of the terminals on the battery has some heat damage. I hardly ever remove the battery so I think the contacts just corroded a bit increased the local resistance and generated a bit of heat. The melty plastic re-hardening has then probably made it worse until there's a really marginal connection. I think I've now cleaned it all up so that it'll probably work ok. We'll see. I've also contacted Alien to see if they've got any spare connectors lying around in the workshop. If you remove the cover, the cells and BMS are separated from the cover by bullet connectors, so it's easy to work on the switch, connectors and fuse well away from any stored power in the battery. Oh, and the battery was a warranty replacement with an already broken warranty seal!

Logically, the battery outlet should be an Outlet style female socket with shrouded connectors. Flush with the battery end. It's then pretty damn hard to put the battery down on something or get something conductive between the live pins. That then means a panel mount male inlet that stands proud of the panel. The closest thing to that seems to be a right-angled cable end PX0685 where the actual connector part is separate from the main body and can be placed in 4 positions. So trying to achieve the same basic, male-female, shrouded/flush as the Alien battery in the pics above, but using IEC layout. I've never looked at the battery connectors on bikes with a vertical battery like the Whispers. Presumably both sides of the connectors are fixed. What do they use?

Here you go. http://www.voidstar.com/images/battery1.jpg http://www.voidstar.com/images/battery2.jpg http://www.voidstar.com/images/battery3.jpg http://www.voidstar.com/images/battery4.jpg