ebike

46 Articles

Plug Your Ears And Hop On This Jet-Powered EBike

November 26, 2018 by 30 Comments

Ah, the simple pleasures of a bike ride. The rush of the wind past your ears, the gentle click of the derailleurs as you change gears, the malignant whine of the dual electric jet turbines pushing you along. Wait, what?

Yes, it’s a jet bike, and its construction was strictly a case of “Why not?” for [Tech Ingredients]. They recently finished up a jet engine build using a hybrid design with electric ducted fans as compressors and fueled with propane. It was quite a success, and pretty spectacular, but left an embarrassment of riches upon its passing in terms of spare parts. The ducted fans, monstrous 90-mm 12s beasts, along with dual 150A ESCs found their way onto a mountain bike by way of a rear luggage rack. Pannier bags on each side hold the batteries, and a quick control panel went on the handlebar. The video below shows the build details and a couple of test rides, which show just how fast you can go with this setup. It may not be very practical compared to a more traditional hub motor, but it’s nowhere near as cool. Just be sure to wear your hearing protection.

Is this the first jet engine on a bike we’ve featured? Of course not. But for an impromptu build, it’s pretty impressive. Continue reading “Plug Your Ears And Hop On This Jet-Powered EBike” →

Power Steering Pump Repurposed For Great Speed

August 29, 2018 by 45 Comments

Electric bikes are getting a lot of attention lately. Pretty much anyone can buy a kit online and get a perfectly street legal ride with plenty of range. But if you don’t want to take the kit route, and you’d rather take a tack that will get you noticed more around these parts, take some notes from [Jule553648]’s recent build that definitely isn’t using any parts from a kit.

The motor from the build is an electric power steering pump from a junkyard car. This gets mounted on a one-off rear bike rack and drives the rear tire with help from some gears from a pocket bike gearbox from eBay. A lot of the parts in this build were designed and built using CAD and a machine shop, and the parts for the battery and the power controller were sourced via China to save on cost.

The whole build has a homemade vibe that we find irresistible. The bike can go 35 km/h on level ground without breaking a sweat and has about 40 km of range which is nothing to scoff at. It might even be street legal depending on the wattage of the motor and whether or not you live in Europe (where throttles are generally not allowed on electric bikes). If you’re lacking a machine shop, though, we featured a very well-built kit ebike a while back that you could use as a model to get your feet wet.

Continue reading “Power Steering Pump Repurposed For Great Speed” →

Electric Bike From The Ground Up

August 8, 2018 by 21 Comments

Electric vehicles are getting more traction these days, but this trend is rolling towards us in more ways than just passenger vehicles. More and more bikes are being electrified too, since the cost of batteries has come down and people realize that they can get around town easily without having to pay the exorbitant price to own, fuel, and maintain a car. Of course there are turnkey ebikes, but those don’t interest us much around here. This ebike from [Andy] is a master class in how to build your own ebike.

Due to some health issues, [Andy] needed a little bit of assistance from an electric motor on his bike, but found out that the one he wanted wouldn’t fit his current bike quite right. He bought a frame from eBay with the right dimensions and assembled the bike from scratch. Not only that, but when it was time to put the battery together he sourced individual 18650 cells and built a custom battery for the bike. His build goes into great detail on how to do all of these things, so even if you need a lithium battery for another project this build might be worth a read.

If you’ve never been on an electric bike before, they’re a lot of fun to ride. They’re also extremely economical, and a good project too if you’re looking for an excuse to go buy a kit and get to work. You can get creative with the drivetrain too if you’d like to do something out of the box, such as this bike that was powered by AA batteries and a supercapacitor.

Testing DIY battery pack on E-bike

[GreatScott] Tests His DIY Battery Pack On His E-Bike

May 28, 2018 by 19 Comments

[GreatScott] has now joined the ranks of Electric Bike users. Or has he? We previously covered how he made his own lithium-ion battery pack to see if doing so would be cheaper than buying a commercially made one. But while it powered his E-bike conversion kit on his benchtop, turning the motor while the wheel was mounted in a vice, that’s no substitution for a real-world test with him on a bike on the road.

Since then he’s designed and 3D printed an enclosure for his DIY battery pack and mounted it on his bike along with most of the rest of his E-bike kit. He couldn’t use the kit’s brake levers since his existing brake levers and gear-shift system share an enclosure. There also weren’t enough instructions in the kit for him to mount the pedal assistance system. But he had enough to do some road testing.

Based on a GPS tracker app on his phone, his top speed was 43 km/h (27 miles per hour). His DIY 5 Ah battery pack was half full after 5 km (3.1 miles) and he was able to ride 11.75 km (7.3 miles) on a single charge. So, success! The battery pack did the job and if he needs to go further then he can build a bigger pack with some idea of how it would improve his travel distance.

Sadly though, he had to remove it all from his bike since he lives in Germany and European rules state that for it to be considered an electric bike, it must be pedal assisted and the speed must the be progressively reduced as it reaches a cut-off speed of 25 km/h (15 miles per hour). In other words, his E-bike was more like a moped or small motorcycle. But it did offer him some good opportunities for hacking, and that’s often enough. Check out his final assembly and testing in the video below.

Continue reading “[GreatScott] Tests His DIY Battery Pack On His E-Bike” →

Make or buy lithium ion battery pack

Comparing Making To Buying A Lithium Ion Battery Pack

May 1, 2018 by 31 Comments

At Hackaday we’re all about DIY. However, projects can have many components, and so there’s sometimes a choice between making something or buying it. In this case, [GreatScott!] wondered if it would be cheaper to make or buy a lithium-ion battery pack for his new eBike kit. To find out, he decided to make one.

After some calculations, he found he’d need thirteen 18650 cells in series but decided to double the capacity by connecting another thirteen in parallel. That gave him a 5 Ah capacity battery pack with a nominal voltage of 48.1 V and one capable of supplying a constant current of 40 A. Rather than connect them by soldering the nickel strips, he purchased a kWeld battery spot welder, adding to the cost of the build. He charged his new battery pack using his bench power supply but being concerned about uneven charging of the cells over the battery pack’s lifetime, he added a Battery Management System (BMS). The resulting battery pack powers his eBike motor just fine.

After adding up all the costs, he found it was only a tiny bit cheaper than prices for comparable battery packs on eBay, which were €24.4 per Ah (US$29.5 per Ah). The only way it would be cheaper is if he made multiple packs, spreading out the one-time cost of the battery spot welder. So that means it’s really up to your preference. See his video below to judge for yourself if you’d rather do it the DIY way. And then let us know what you’d do in the comments below.

Continue reading “Comparing Making To Buying A Lithium Ion Battery Pack” →

Impressive Electric Quad Bike

October 3, 2017 by 37 Comments

[EV4] is a small Polish company that makes electric vehicles, like this rather cool electric quad It’s an impressive build, including two 1 kW motors and a tilting turning system that makes it more maneuverable than most quad bikes. It has big, wide tires, a raised battery and longitudinal arms that mean it can climb over obstacles. That all makes it great for off-road use, and it’s just 60 cm (just under 24 inches) wide, which is much smaller than most quad bikes. It also has a top speed of 35 km/h, which would make it somewhat illegal to use on the public roads in many places. As someone who can’t ride a two-wheel bike because of a lousy sense of balance, I’d love to build something like this. Has anyone got plans for something similar?

Continue reading “Impressive Electric Quad Bike” →

Hackaday Prize Entry: Smart Electric Bike Controller

September 9, 2017 by 9 Comments

One of the more interesting yet underrated technological advances of the last decade or so is big brushless motors and high-capacity batteries. This has brought us everything from quadcopters to good electric cars, usable cordless power tools, and of course electric bicycles. For his Hackaday Prize project, [marcus] is working on a very powerful electric bicycle controller. It can deliver 1000 Watts, it’s got Bluetooth, and there’s even an Android app for some neat diagnostics.

The specs for this eBike controller are pretty much what you would expect. It’s able to deliver a whole Kilowatt, can use 48 V batteries, has regenerative braking, Hall sensors, and has a nifty Android app for settings, displaying speed, voltage and power consumption, diagnostics, and GPS integration.

How is the project progressing? [marcus] has successfully failed a doping test. He lives on the French Riviera, and the Col de la Madonne is a famous road cycling road and favorite test drive of [Lance Armstrong]. The trip from Nice to Italy was beautiful and ended up being a great test of the eBike controller.

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