Andy

I don't know if I have the energy to start legal proceedings and so forth at the mo. Even if they took the things back, I'd still lose a load of money to P&P charges (£15 to send it to me, maybe another tenner to send it back...). So far one of the three batteries is knacked, that's £35. Not worth my time for the sake of a tenner - they should have sold me decent gear in the first place. The main thing is to ensure that others are warned as to this company and don't get ripped off by them. What Trading Standards office would I contact - my local or their local?

Don't buy from fun2ride - they will rip you off! I hope you didn't end up buying anything from Fun2Ride, as I just got ripped off by them myself. They don't offer any kind of warranty, only a 7-day money back (minus exporbitant postage of course), so if their cheap and nasty goods break down you are on your own. Either shop locally or look in your local freeads paper if you want a cheap bike - I've been riding since 2007 on an even older Sakura! Andy

Whatever you do, don't by anything from Fun2ride, either bikes or parts. I made the mistake of buying a battery pack from them. They sold me duff batts and have refused point blank to take them back after only 2 weeks. Apparently their warranty is only good for one week! In conclusion, Fun2ride are thieving, scummy maggots and should be driven off the face of the earth. Shop there at your peril!

Thanks - what do you think about modding?

Hello there - thinking of buying a Lithium or maybe NiMH powered Ebike. I already have a sort-of-Ebike, it's one of those scooter type things that looks like a moped but as it doesn't have gears and has a large road footprint thought I better upgrade before I venture out of town. I need it to do at least 30 miles between charges so I can visit my friend who lives in the country and go to night clubs in Bath :-) What do you think is the best one? I was looking at the Powacycle Salisbury LPX, but I note that it's got quite a low operating voltage (24v), is there a better bike on the market? What do people think of the Alien brand bikes with front wheel drive? I'd really prefer a 36v bike as it would be compatible with my existing scooteroid thing.

Well mine are definitely from powabyke. I see from your graph that they end up at around 13.75 each, the same as mine. The voltage while charging is over 14v though, which is to be expected. Looks like I probably don't have a problem but I'm going to try getting a different charger anyway as mine is quite elderly. As long as the batts last at least a year I'm fine with it, in fact with my usage of the bike they'll probably last a lot longer as I rarely do over 10 miles in it without charging.

Oh, absolutely - I check after every charge (not individually though; that would be going too far) According to Battery University one should leave it on overnight!

I don't know - someone told me that 42.4, at the very least 41.4v or I'll run into "balance issues and early failure."

I've got a charger question running in another thread - this is another idea I've got for my bike Would I be doing more harm than good if I stuck some solar panels on my bike to keep it trickle charging when I'm out using it? Also What if I tried to run the whole bike that way, with very slow, constant voltage from solar panels rather than a jolting charge every now than then? Would that break the batts quicker, or make them last longer? (The batteries are 3 x 12v, 15ah, sealed lead-acid Panasonics from Powabyke btw)

Hi, I have just fitted three new Panasonic 15ah sealed lead-acid batts from Powabyke. I notice that when they've finished charging they're only about 41 volts or so, should they be higher? And if so how urgent is it that I change my charger? I'm using the charger that came with the bike, an old Sakura running on 14ah batteries - should I get a special charger for the 15ah ones? Or will a generic 36v 2ah charger off of Ebay be OK (as long as it uses staged charging obviously)?

Exactly everything that's wrong with this country. Do they have this nonsense on the Continent? When I lived in spain there was this velo-solex type thing called a mobylette, it was essentially a petrol version of the e-bike (moped type). Pretty sure it could go faster than 15 mph! This technology could solve our traffic congestion problem and save people tons of petrol money at a stroke, loads of people would ride them to work if it wasn't for that poxy speed limit. Isn't there a petition I can sign or something?

Hmmm, thanks guys, you've put me off the probably suicidal idea of spending tons of money on NiMHs to replace the SLAs. But what about range extension? I might start a new thread soon...

Oooh, thanks. That sounds bad, considering I'd been trying to improve performance... What do you think of these: E-Bikes Kit & Batteries - 48V Battery pack Alternatively: What about using 2.6 amp, 48v AA clusters to augment the main battery? Should give me more range, maybe another 4 miles or so I reckon. I could build a switch and use a plug-in thermometer to turn it off if it gets too hot, and blocking diodes to stop it sucking power out of the main battery. Has anyone tried this?

Hi there - I'm new! I have this Sakura S200: Andy Wade's 2004 Sakura S200 and I want to replace the 36 / 48v, 13amp SLA with 40 10 or 11 amp NiMH D-cells (and maybe a bank of AAs or another bank of D Cells to supplement that up to over 14 amp if neccesary - my calculations show that I need at least 10 amp though) Am I right in imagining that this is actually possible? I'm hoping that I can get increased performance and range by losing the weight penalty of the lead-acids, and / or increasing the amps available. It seems like a pretty simple bit of DIY, but when I talked to the dozy Sakura bloke on the phone he claimed that switching to the Sakura's own Lithium batteries would require a re-wiring job. I can imagine this being the case with Lithiums what with their tendency to blow up and all, but what about NiMHs? Surely if I've got the amps and don't overheat my battery pack I can do it? BTW, I was going to use AAs but then I read a load of articles linked to on your forums which proved to my satisfaction that they're more trouble than they're worth, what with the internal resistance and overheating and stuff. Thanks to the guys who did that and put it on the web - you've saved me a packet!