e-bike

26 Articles

Fixing The Failure Of The Reevo

June 8, 2026 by 40 Comments

There are a lot of traditional features of a bike that rarely change. The spokes, the chain, and the inability for it to take off like a rocket, to mention a few. None of these are features of the Reevo, a bike that tried, and mostly failed, to innovate the traditional electric bike. [Berm Peak], an individual with more time on two wheels than the entire Reevo team ever had, tried his hand at fixing the Reevo’s many problems.

[Berm Peak] has had a go at the Reevo before, but this time he had to go a lot deeper. Before any real work could be done on the Reevo, the controller needed to be jailbroken since the only way to use most features required an app that wasn’t available. Surprisingly, the controller boards were found to be well labeled, and with some trial and error, the protocols could be reverse-engineered.

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Toybox Tractor: Plywood, Lathe Hacks, And 350W Of Fun

February 5, 2026 by 14 Comments

When you think of a toy tractor, what probably comes to mind is something with fairly simple lines, maybe the iconic yellow and green, big rear tires, small front ones. Well, that’s exactly what [James] built, with simple, clean lines and a sturdy build that will hold up to driving around off-road in the garden. This Tractor is a great build, combining CAD, metal and wood work, some 3D printing, and electronics.

Starting at the power plant for the build, [James] went with a 350W DC motor powered by a 36V Li-ion battery from an e-bike. The motor turns a solid rear axle he made on a mini-lathe, connected to a set of riding lawn mower wheels. The mini-lathe spindle bore was too small to accommodate the shaft, and the lathe was not long enough to use the tailstock, so [James] had to get creative, using a vice and a piece of wood to make a stand–in tailstock, allowing him to turn this custom rear axle. The signature smoothly curved bonnet was made possible with plywood and body filler, rather than the sheet metal found on full-sized tractors. In fact, most of the build’s frame used plywood, giving it plenty of strength and, once painted, helping give it the appearance of a toy pulled out of a toybox.

This build had a bit of many domains in it, and all combined into a fantastic final result that no doubt will bring a smile to any face that gets to take the Tractor for a ride. Thanks [James] for documenting your build process, the hacks needed to pull off the tough bits along the way in making this fun toy. If you found this fun, be sure to check out another tractor related project.

Sleeping Rough In Alaska With A USPS Cargo Bike

January 4, 2026 by 31 Comments

Out of all 49 beautiful US states (plus New Jersey), the one you’d probably least want to camp outside in during the winter is arguably Alaska. If you were to spend a night camping out in the Alaskan winter, your first choice of shelter almost certainly wouldn’t be a USPS electric cargo trike, but over on YouTube [Matt Spears] shows that it’s not that hard to make a lovely little camper out of the mail bike. 

We’re not sure how much use these sorts of cargo trikes get in Alaska, but [Matt] seems to have acquired this one surplus after an entirely-predictable crash took one of the mirrors off. A delta configuration trike — single wheel in front — is tippy at the best of times, but the high center of gravity you’d get from a loading the rear with mail just makes it worse. That evidently did not deter the United States Postal Service, and it didn’t deter [Matt] either.

His conversion is rather minimal: to turn the cargo compartment into a camper, he only adds a few lights, a latch on the inside of the rear door, and a wood-burning stove for heat. Rather than have heavy insulation shrink the already-small cargo compartment, [Matt] opts to insulate himself with a pile of warm sleeping bags. Some zip-tie tire chains even let him get the bike moving (slowly) in a winter storm that he claims got his truck stuck.

While it might not be a practical winter vehicle, at least on un-plowed mountain roads, starting with an electric-assist cargo trike Uncle Sam already paid for represented a huge cost and time savings vs starting from scratch like this teardrop bike camper we featured a while back. While not as luxurious, it seems more practical for off-roading than another electric RV we’ve seen.

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Making The World’s Smallest E-Bike Battery

September 1, 2025 by 25 Comments

Often times, e-bikes seek to build the biggest battery with the most range. But what if you want to take a couple lunch loops on your bike and only need 20 minutes of charge? That’s [Seth] from Berm Peak set out to find out with his minuscule Bermacell battery.

The battery is made from only 14 18650s, this tiny 52V batty is nearly as small an e-bike battery as can be made. Each cell is 3000 mAh making a total battery capacity of 156 Wh. All the cells were welded in series with an off the shelf BMS and everything was neatly packaged in an over-sized 3D printed 9V battery case. [Seth] plans to make another smaller battery with less then 100 Wh of capacity so he can take it on a plane, so stay tuned for more coverage!

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A Drone Motor Does E-Bikes

April 5, 2024 by 37 Comments

On paper, the motors from both an electric bicycle and a drone can both take about 500 watts or so of power. Of course, their different applications make them anything but equivalent, as the bike motor is designed for high torque at low speed while the drone motor has very little torque but plenty of speed. Can the drone motor do the bike motor’s job? [Pro Know] makes it happen, with a set of speed reducing and torque increasing belts.

The build takes a pretty ordinary bicycle, and replaces the rear brake disk with a large pulley for a toothed belt, which drives a smaller pulley, and through a shaft another set of pulleys to the drone motor. The bracket to hold all this and the very large pulley on the wheel are all 3D printed in PLA-carbon fiber mix.

When it’s assembled, it runs the bike from a small lithium ion pack. That’s not unexpected, but if we’re honest we’d have our doubts as to whether this would survive the open road. It’s evidently a novelty for a YouTube video, and we’d be interested to see how hot the little motor became. However what’s perhaps more interesting is the choice of filament.

Could carbon fibre PLA be strong enough to print a toothed belt pulley? We’d be interested to know more. We saw the same filament combo being tested recently, after all.

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300 Amps Through An Open Source Speed Controller

November 30, 2023 by 23 Comments

Sometimes, a little puny matchbox-sized electronic speed controller (ESC) won’t do the job. If you find yourself looking for something heftier, say, in the range of hundreds of amps, you might look towards a design like the MP2 ESC. [owhite] has built an example of the design that can deliver some serious power.

[owhite’s] build has some serious specs: it’s rated to offer up to 300 amps at up to 150 volts, though thus far, it’s only been tested at up to 100 V. Like the original MP2, which hails from the Endless Sphere forums, it’s designed to be compatible with VESC code using the STM32F405 microcontroller. It’s intended for driving high-powered traction motors in applications like e-bikes and electric scooters, as you might have guessed by its potential output power being well into the tens of kilowatts range.

If you’re eager to build your own, you can do so, with the design files on GitHub. Just note that you’ll need some hefty parts to handle the juice, including beefy MOSFETS and juicy capacitors rated at 160 V.

Open source motor controllers abound of late, and we’ve featured a few in recent times. Just remember that astute design and using parts within their means is the key to avoiding letting the smoke out! Continue reading “300 Amps Through An Open Source Speed Controller” →

E-Bikes Turned Solar Car

October 9, 2023 by 20 Comments

There is something to be said for a vehicle that gains range just by standing outside in the sun. In the video after the break, [Drew Builds Stuff] demonstrates how he turned a pair of bicycles into a solar-powered vehicle.

The inspiration for this build started with a pair of 20″ steel framed fat tire bikes [Drew] picked up in a liquidation sale. He welded up a simple steel chassis, and attached the partial bicycle frame and forks to the chassis, using them as steerable front wheels. A short arm was welded to each of the fork, linking them together with threaded rods and rod ends that connect to centrally mounted handlebars. The rear driving wheels are from a 20″ e-bike conversion kit, with the disk brake assembly from the cannibalized bikes.

The solar part of this build comes in the form of three 175W flexible solar panels mounted on cedar frames, coming in at 10 lbs per mounted panel. [Drew] considered using conventional rigid solar panels, but they would have been 4-6 times heavier. The two panels mounted to the rear of the vehicle are on a hinged frame to allow easy access to the electronics below. Battery storage is made up of two 24V 100Ah batteries wired in series, connected to a 60A solar charge controller and the e-bike motor controllers.

The vehicle has a top speed of about 45km/h and 100km range on batteries alone. It might not be fast or engineered for maximum efficiency, but it looks like a ton of fun and relatively simple to build. As [Drew] says, it’s not a how-to for building a perfect solar-powered vehicle, it’s how he built one.

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