I purchased an electric drive kit for my bicycle. I paid about $400 for the lithium ion battery and about $800 for the whole kit. It will do 20 miles on the level with some peddling. I can peddle on the level but I wanted the drive to go fast at points where I have to merge with local traffic and to climb hills. This use depletes the battery in about 10 miles or less. My friend has a cheep ($200) gas powered conversion. It has a longer 70 mile range and can maintain high speed throughout the entire range. The 2 cycle 49 cc gas engines does not provide power at low speeds. It just stalls when engaged below 5 mph. My electric provides power from creep speed to pull out speed.
I wanted to learn about the technology and I did through the school of hard knocks. The shaft twisted in the bike frame, pulled the wires out the drive. The resulting short circuit blew out the hull effect position sensors, the electronic drive, and the the throttle. I replaced them. $$$ down the drain. The internal electronic drive that came with the motor smoked 3 times and cost money to replace each time. I installed an external 2KW controller and welded a open end box wrench to the motor's shaft. The other end of the box wrench was C clamped onto to the bike frame. I also put on torque arms to to keep the shaft from slipping again. Torque arms with not hold the shaft down on there own. The shaft tends to wiggle on loosen up the wheel lugs. The torque arm then strip out. The wrench stopped this and the bolts now remain tight. Blue lock tight also helps. The power of the 2 KW drive was nice but the battery depleted faster. The 2KW external drive had trouble starting without the hull sensors. It went into reverse upon start up many times and finally broke 5 spokes. I replaced the spokes and cut a hole in the drive casing and replaced the hull effect transducers. I used ones with a mos output. They did not work. I had to use a hull effect transducerxs with latch and a by-polar output. These things are cheep and neat. Installing them in the drive was a 5 hr pain. When the shaft twisted in the frame it overloaded the $400 battery it made a bang. The battery is equipped with low voltage protection to prevent a cell from becoming polarized with a reverse charge. The short blew out the protection transistor. I took apart the battery bypassed the now ruined output transistor. This saved the battery and I now watch it manually. I did not like the protection circuit cutting out the battery when I was pulling out in local traffic. It reminded me of my old carburetor car that would stall out in traffic when I was trying to pull out in a tight situation. At least I could still peddle the bike. I also had to replace the battery key switch, it also smoked. I used a cheep battery isolation switch. What will go wrong today. I really want to ride and not to fix. I have a sore heal planters facites. I want the bike to get some exercise with. It let me down. I hear that electric cars brick. A term to use when they let you down in the middle of an intersection. If there is any good news in the this I have learned about lithium ion drives and permanent magnet motors. Frank Znidarsic -----Original Message----- From: Chris Zell <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Oct 10, 2013 9:35 am Subject: [Vo]:Batteries Never will ?????!!! http://www.controldesign.com/articles/2013/what-killed-the-electric-car/ Wow! Hoist the white flag folks. The Laws Of Physics say really good batteries will never happen. Really?
