13 ms·

Long Range E-Bike (2021)

181 points by birdculture 8mo ago

adrianN 8mo ago
I would be a bit worried that the extra weight compromises the structural integrity of the frame. 2kWh are heavy
- elcapitan 8mo ago
  I would be more worried charging that huge home built battery pack. I'm sure OP knows what he's doing, but I wouldn't want to bet my house on it.
- BizarroLand 8mo ago
  high quality heavy 18650s weigh about 2 oz. 190 of them would weigh about 24 lbs. Throw in another 6-10 lbs for bms, wiring, casing and errata and it's not that bad.
- Forge36 8mo ago
  Bikes typically have a weight rating. Mine has 150lbs of cargo capacity (is a cargo bike).
  - analog31 8mo ago
    I don't know if this figures into the engineering formulas, but an e-bike needs to be stronger due to the higher speeds and power levels. On a human powered bike, if you're hauling 150 pounds, you're probably going pretty slow. My friends who have e-bikes go through a lot more "consumable" parts such as chains, tires, brakes, cogs, and bearings.
- oulipo2 8mo ago
  That's why at https://infinite-battery.com https://infinite-battery.com we designed a fireproof and waterproof casing for our repairable batteries
- loeg 8mo ago
  There's significantly more variation in weight between riders. If you're under the frame's weight limit, including battery, you're fine.
stevenhubertron 8mo ago
It does feel like this is such an untapped market. Think commuters, credit cart tourers, tourism around a spread out city. Something that is safer than a motorcycle and faster than a bike.
- adrianN 8mo ago
  It’s only safer than a motorcycle if you have bike friendly infrastructure.
  - tim333 8mo ago
    The fact they are kind of slow and you can take them on trains helps compared with motorcycles.
    - adrianN 8mo ago
      Being in a train certainly improves safety, but being kind of slow is not very safe when you're forced to share the road with cars going at least twice your speed.
- nicbou 8mo ago
  In Germany at least the routes are a lot prettier because they go through forests and villages. It's what got me to cycle more and ride my motorcycle less.
- MagicMoonlight 8mo ago
  It's not safer than a motorcycle. Motorcycles have lights and signals and can accelerate away from danger. Plus the riders are generally covered head to toe in safety equipment, whereas nobody is ever going to wear leathers on a push bike.
  - loeg 8mo ago
    The speed limiting alone makes them safer than motorcycles.
golson_kindmind 8mo ago
Respect: that's a beautiful pack. I'm a total sucker for ebikes and built my first ebike around 2006, powered by 40lbs of lead acid motorcycle batteries. I recently outfitted a trailer with a large battery made for an efoil (my other obsession) where the non-battery components went bad, the company went out of business, and "Hey, this would make a bitchin' ebike battery. Here's me cruising around the Oregon back country with said setup last summer: https://imgur.com/a/lmvJSBW https://imgur.com/a/lmvJSBW
- sriacha 8mo ago
  Wow. What is your total capacity and range with that setup?
jdboyd 8mo ago
In my city, travel habits and condition, I find I wish for more torque and lower speed. Every place I want to go has significant hills that the motor can't handle, and easing climbing hills is the main reason I want an ebike. My ebike's minimum speed for the motor is 15kph, which is ok by myself, but my family likes to go slower, so I have to go fully manual with them. When I look at ebike ads it feels like nobody else cares about these two areas of performance. When I talk to local ebike shops they are unprepared to talk about torque and minimum speed.
- rsingel 8mo ago
  It was too early and a bit of a dangerous design, but the StokeMonkey was built for torque and worked great at low speeds. Some pedicab folks in Austin used to use them. Hill climbing video YouTube https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux Design info https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux
- pmyteh 8mo ago
  I fitted a Bafeng mid-drive motor to my city bike and it's fabulous for hills. Because the power goes through the existing drivechain you can get high torque simply by switching to first gear. No minimum speed, power kicks in after half a turn of the pedals. Coupled with hub gears you can change at rest it's a marvel. Even at the European street legal limit of 250W it makes acceleration trivial.
- tokai 8mo ago
  Doesn't it help changing gears? You can even get sprockets changed to lower the gearing for more torque.
  - kibwen 8mo ago
    Depends on the bike. On some bikes the motor is mounted in the rear wheel, in which case there's no gear between the motor and the wheel. On other bikes the motor is mounted between the pedals and sent to the rear via the chain, in which case shifting works as you expect. But the latter style (a.k.a. mid-drive) demands custom frames (because mid-drive motors are nonstandardized), which increases costs and decreases repairability. In contrast, rear-wheel motors can fit on literally any frame, so they're much more accessible.
WarmWash 8mo ago
Sort of a hijack, but it rides on the awesomeness that e-bikes can bring about. They truly are incredible if you have never gotten to ride one. E-bikes with throttles should not be refereed to as e-bikes E-peds, e-motos, electric motorycle, whatever. Just don't call them ebikes. The problem is people (especially kids) getting what are essentially electric motorcycles, thinking they are ebikes, and then causing all sorts of chaos on roads and bike paths. This inevitably leads to the public hating "e-bikes" and the government passing totally confused laws about "e-bikes". This also leads to kids getting killed because mom and dad bought them an "e-bike" and let them loose on the roads with it. Pedal assist ebikes are incredible, and really just turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists, while still providing exercise. It's a revolution for society, but we have to be careful to not totally fumble it with electric motorcycle death machines.
- Aurornis 8mo ago
  I agree. I thought the electric motorcycle problem was overstated by people complaining online at first. Then they became popular around my house and I agree it’s a huge problem. I’m fortunate enough to live around a lot of walking and mixed use trails for bikes and pedestrians. Recently they’re unsafe to use in the evenings because you have to be ready to jump out of the way of groups of kids (plus a few adults who should know better) going 45mph on electric bikes with throttles. They don’t even pretend to be e-bikes any more. The big problem is that there is zero enforcement. If there was at least a chance that someone breaking these laws could lose their bike or have to pay thousands of dollars in fines I think we’d see a lot less of it. Right now everyone knows that they’re not going to get caught, so it’s a free for all.
  - euroderf 8mo ago
    Try speed bumps ?
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - estebank 8mo ago
    I believe this to be growing pains. Legislation hasn't yet fully adapted, some of the legislation I've seen makes the mistake of conflaing these, and enforcement is nonexistent in most places. I suspect that as time passes, we'll find ways of allowing ebikes to flourish. Around me the biggest thing I've seen is parents on cargo bikes taking their kids, and that's a demographic that elected officials tend to listen to.
comrade1234 8mo ago
I think that size of battery would move it into requiring a motorcycle license here in Switzerland, just based on the size alone. And if it goes faster than 45km/h then definitely. I have my motorcycle license and have been considering getting something that I can ride all day. Only problem is that if it's classified as a motorcycle license I don't think I can take it in the train like a bike if I run out of juice far away.
- devsda 8mo ago
  I know we all carry fully charged batteries in our pockets and sometimes keep them in our ears too. But something about travelling in crowded and closed space like train with a fully charged diy (or even commercial) battery pack sounds risky. This is one of the reasons I didn't go for a diy replacement of TWS pair with dead batteries.
  - nickorlow 8mo ago
    I'd be worried about getting into a crash on this bike. (still an awesome project)
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    I would never take that pack on a train (or any other closed transport). That would be criminal, but then again, I think that that's the case for all e-bikes. I've seen way too many videos of packs going up without a warning and there is a ton of really bad advice out there from well meaning individuals who have absolutely no idea what they are doing. The welds on this pack are very good, I have checked and re-checked all of them, inspected the pack using a FLIR while running at maximum charge / discharge just to make sure there is no hidden jump in resistance or a bad cell. The whole thing is wrapped in shock absorbent foam but it still is a massive pack and if it were to go into thermal runaway there is just too much energy there to be dealt with. It stays outside and is charged outside and I'm monitoring the cells groups to mV precision to make sure that they're not misbehaving. I'm not taking any risks with 170 charged 18650s, if I would so much as drop or bump the bike I would discharge the pack and dismantle it.
skyberrys 8mo ago
The article mentions using Trespa, which I had to look up. It's a type of cladding that is fire resistant but is also not metal. It's a laminate type. The author is in the Netherlands, the infrastructure there must be really good to be able to ride 160km on an e bike between cities.
- tokai 8mo ago
  EuroVelo will blow your mind. https://en.eurovelo.com/ https://en.eurovelo.com/
davidw 8mo ago
eBikes are such a game changer. I do most of our family of four's grocery shopping with ours. Because of the assist, I find myself more comfortable in a wider range of weather conditions: * If it's hot, I use more assist and there's an instant cooling effect. Much better than climbing into a hot car. * If it's cold, I dress up to be warm outside and if I start to warm up on the ride, I use more assist. I don't have to try and balance staying warm and not getting sweaty. * Same thing if it's wet out: I can wear heavier waterproof gear and not get sweaty.
- theultdev 8mo ago
  I think we have different grocery habits. Food, beer, and cat litter would be too heavy for a bike.
  - loeg 8mo ago
    Are you sure? https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/load5-75/ https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/load5-75/
    - theultdev 8mo ago
      How many of those have you seen in the US? None, because noone wants to bike 5 miles for 3 bags of groceries.
      - estebank 8mo ago
        I see loads of those around my neighborhood, usually ferrying kids. At the same time, I don't need to go 5 miles for groceries, so you might be picturing using a cargo bike in sparse suburbs. If your built environment is car centric then almost definitionally using any other mode of locomotion is going to be subpar.
      - loeg 8mo ago
        We’ve moved the goalposts from “Food, beer, and cat litter would be too heavy for a bike.” Also, my grocery stores are 0.7, 1.1, and 1.6 miles away, not that it matters. 5 miles is just not very much time at 20-28 mph. I think theft and weather/comfort are bigger obstacles to most people than distance.
Mashimo 8mo ago
I bought an entry level ebike and the range is about 100km on lowest power on flat land, and of course it increases if you drive above 25 km/h. I don't know what the difference is with what op has, but for me it's no extra issue to drive above the top speed. It's a gradient transition. I use mine daily and charge it every two or three weeks.
- KeplerBoy 8mo ago
  The highend ebikes are actually worse at this style of riding with minimal assist, since they are 30 kg behemoths which ride like shit without plenty of motor power.
HelloUsername 8mo ago
Original post and discussion in 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205
- dang 8mo ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 - Nov 2021 (615 comments)
renewiltord 8mo ago
Very cool. Thanks for sharing. I have an ebike myself and have considered just strapping extra battery packs to the frame so that I can just swap when required. In the end, I mostly take shorter trips (I’ve had it since Dec and my odo only reads three figures). Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. And those have a flat area in front on the frame where you can host a few parallel to the floor (hard in a normal bike frame). One annoying constraint is that it’s hard to find a place here in America where people won’t tacitly kill children. As more people here become online only child-free characters driving large EVs they don’t think too much about killing children and will only delay someone’s license for a couple of years for doing so. The hard problem seems to be other people.
- jandrese 8mo ago
  I was disappointed to discover that my e-bike could not charge and power the drivetrain at the same time. Visions of range extending backpacks were dashed in an instant.
- loeg 8mo ago
  > Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. I'm planning to buy one of these (Load 60 or 75). I think they can mount two battery packs (2x 800Wh = 1600Wh) on the frame.
simonebrunozzi 8mo ago
The title should say (2021). Great article.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
lukasm 8mo ago
If I'd want more range, I'd go with an extra battery in a backpack.
utopiah 8mo ago
... put your (e)bike on a train, that's where the range come from. Very cool experimentation but in term of making the practice sustainable best to rely on the infrastructure. It's a bit like in sports having to use the big muscles, e.g. you climb with your legs, not with your fingers no matter what super strength grip you have.
- hirsto 8mo ago
  Not everyone lives near mass transit nor in a city
  - utopiah 8mo ago
    Not everyone, no, but the majority of people do, since mid 20th century, cf rural flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight . That being said, IMHO sadly, most cities do not invest enough on mass transit infrastructure. That's what politics is for though.
- cortesoft 8mo ago
  Where exactly is this train that I should put my e-bike on?
  - utopiah 8mo ago
    Typically by the train station.
- twocommits 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - Gigachad 8mo ago
    99% of the time it's food delivery workers who have to live in the outer edges of the city while all the orders are in the inner city. The solution to this problem is to run enough trains that they aren't so crowded a bike wouldn't fit. These people are paying for tickets so their usage should be funding the running of more services.
jeffbee 8mo ago
The aerodynamic situation of a bicycle is so disadvantageous that the easiest way to get a long range e-bike is to simply ride more slowly. People internalize beliefs about energy-range ratios from electric cars, but they don't translate well to bicycles.
- jandrese 8mo ago
  It is kind of a shame that recumbent bikes are expensive and bike nerd coded. A recumbent e-bike with an aeroshell would be fantastically efficient and useful in so many situations, but if you tried to buy one today it is going to cost as much as a car and have everybody else sneering at you.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    They're also a great way to get really badly hurt.
    - trelliumD 8mo ago
      No, that is not true. If you ride a velomobile, you are protected by its aeroshell. Consider it a full body helmet. You are rather flipped/ pushed away, than coming under a car. Of course you are not happy after a crash, but you mostly survive. And you also have other benefits, such as weather protection. In heavy rains you are sitting dry in your bicycle, listening to your radio, where your fellow ebiker gets soaking wet. And did i mention carco capacity :-)
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        A Velomobile is not a socially acceptable vehicle, it is very fast compared to a normal bike but still limited to bike infrastructure and other cyclists absolutely hate them. Yes, they solve the leg suck problem and if all of the cars would be gone and you could use the roads then that would be a great solution. I lived right next door to the guys that developed it and in the Groningen country side you could see them zoom by with some regularity. But where I live now I think I've seen exactly one in five years and that was after it had bowled into a mom on a cargo bike... the stigma roughly identical to driving a Canta on the bike path.
gcanyon 8mo ago
It's weird that these restrictions apply: 25km/h, 55km range? The Evolve Carbon skateboard tops out at 50km/h, and 80km range. Granted, you have to be a little bit crazy to ride that fast on a skateboard, and having owned an earlier version, I guarantee it's not pleasant riding that far on one. But people do it. Someone must be putting out faster/longer distance bikes that don't look like/ride like mopeds. Okay, a quick google and this seems somewhat moped-ish but 200 mile range, 28mph top speed: https://aniioki.com/products/aniioki-aq177-pro-max-electric-bike?variant=43173289164951 https://aniioki.com/products/aniioki-aq177-pro-max-electric-... Crazy price, but a real bike with 300 mile range and 36mph top speed: https://shop.optibike.com/shop/r22-everest/ https://shop.optibike.com/shop/r22-everest/
- mcc1ane 8mo ago
  2021?
- bgnn 8mo ago
  Ebikes cannot go faster than 25 kph in the Netherlands, where the author lives. Also they cannot provide power assist without pedalling.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    The blue one is actually an S-Pedelec, governor kicks in at about 43 kph and indeed, you need to keep pedaling and quite strongly if you want to maintain that kind of speed.
- loeg 8mo ago
  The Europeans love a nanny state and ebike licensing is no exception.
- KeplerBoy 8mo ago
  That skateboard is legally a toy and you cannot ride it on the street. You will be on your own if you cause an accident with that thing. Insurance will nope right out; chances are you will serve jail time if anyone is seriously harmed.
reactordev 8mo ago
Man: “How much power that thing got?” You: “Yes.” Right after the pandemic of 2020, I joined an “outside squad” of OneWheel enthusiasts, PEV daredevils, and E-bike low riders. We would ride around the city in 70 man packs. It was the most fun I’ve had as a grown up. :) Even broke my olecranon in a nose dive but rode my wheel out of the hospital. Best money spent.
dwedge 8mo ago
I know a guy who tried doing something like this and burnt his house down. One of the batteries exploded and took the others with it.
- elliottkember 8mo ago
  I was working on an LED project that involved some reasonably-sized lithium batteries, and the guy in the hardware store said "I don't want to hear about you in the news tomorrow". That really stuck with me, and I say it sometimes when I think someone's going to do something dangerous.
- ray_v 8mo ago
  I was just looking for the comment telling me this is _probably_ a bad idea, so thanks!
  - fgfarben 8mo ago
    Driving a car down a busy highway is way more dangerous than assembling one of these packs and storing it in your garage.
    - ray_v 8mo ago
      Sure, life is all about risk - no doubt about that. But I guess I'm not tooling down the highway in a DIY contraption I built in my spare time with little regard for safety from plans I found on an Internet forum and parts bought from Ali Express. Not to say that _you_ shouldn't do this ... just be careful out there!
- jandrese 8mo ago
  Yes, always have a fire plan in mind when starting a lithium battery project. They go up very quickly and generate a ton of choking smoke. It only takes one oopsie with a screwdriver or dropping a cell to start a fire.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  That's why you don't touch Lithium Ion packs unless you know what you are doing. I've repaired many Bosch packs before I tried building my own and seeing the guts of professionally designed and robotically assembled packs after they're a few years old is a very sobering exercise in what to do and what definitely not to do. There are a bunch of youtubers that go out of their way to give massively dangerous advice to people and I always wonder what their liability situation is.
cbdevidal 8mo ago
I think of e-bikes as a kind of "electric horse." * Goes about as fast as a horse * Goes about the same distance as a horse * Sitting on a saddle like a horse * Out in the weather like a horse * But no feed or vet bills * No need for lots of land or infrastructure * Little ongoing maintenance * Little skill needed to ride :-)
- loeg 8mo ago
  Faster than a horse at long distances. Humans can outrun horses at distances as short as 26 miles.
Tepix 8mo ago
> My first e-bike, a pretty crappy one but enough to get my appetite whetted had a 500 Wh battery, enough for a 55 km trip one-way, and it would be dead on arrival, range anxiety to the max. What? 55km with a 500Wh battery? Was he not pedaling at all? Why does he even have range anxiety on an ebike? You can just pedal if the battery is low.
- jandrese 8mo ago
  E-bikes suck pedal if the motor is not helping. Also, someone going that far is almost certainly doing it at the maximum speed of the bike, and power use goes up quadratically with speed. You could probably do that trip with plenty of power to spare at 15kph or arrive with no charge remaining at 30kph.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  Yes, I'm pedaling just fine, thank you for asking. The range on this thing is not that large even when you are pedaling strongly, it just uses a lot of power. As you probably know the power consumption of a bike goes up considerably as the speed increases, this is NL and while we don't have hills we do have wind, and plenty of it. Add in a 40 to 45 kph top speed and you can see the battery dwindle in real time. As for pedaling if the battery is low: I have a bad leg, which is why I ride these to begin with, they help me to get started at traffic lights, which we have a lot of. Once at speed I can ride just fine but getting up to speed really hurts.
  - Tepix 8mo ago
    On my ebike the power consumption goes to zero when traveling faster than 25kph because then the engine is not allowed to assist you past that speed. Anyway, if you use high power settings due to your bad leg, I understand. With assist set to low or even medium, you can get a lot more than 55km out of a 500Wh battery.
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      Yes, but this is an S-Pedelec, top speed is 43 and then the assist goes completely off and I am not strong enough to maintain that speed without assist for more than a few minutes on this bike. With assist set to low or medium I would end up with a hospital visit after a single ride. I have half an Ikea in my right leg, two 40 cm long pieces of steel and a massive number of screws to hold it all together so I really can't risk another fall or overloading it.
fattybob 8mo ago
That’s a fantastic build, I only wish e-bike manufacturers would offer similarly spec’s bikes, a days ride is very rarely 30 km, so 200 min or more like 200 km range would be a bike worth investing in. I feel similarly about electric cars too, charging mud route or at destinations is rarely possible so 300 miles or greater are the only vehicle ranges I see as remotely practical. ( yes, I cycle in km and drive in miles , weird maybe) Oh yes an edit - speed, who rides so slowly, those ebike speed restrictions are crazy low.
- loeg 8mo ago
  You can get off-the-shelf ebike batteries at least half as big as the author's. Speed restrictions are somewhat better in the US -- class 1 is allowed to assist up to 20 mph, and class 3 is allowed to assist up to 28 mph. Both are higher than 25 kph (15.5 mph).
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 8mo ago
So, this got posted again I see. A few years later: the pack is still going strong and has not - so far - shown any signs of wear. I've put close to 15000 Km on it now and there is no degradation worth mentioning, though I suspect that if I do a precise capacity measurement that it would definitely show some reduced capacity. The really neat thing is that at the end of a long ride the cell groups still track to within 2 mV of each other, which is a strong sign that all cell groups are discharging equally fast and that there are no cells or welds that are causing problems. Of course with 17P the cells are only mildly exercised compared to what they would be going through in a regular pack.
- jadenPete 8mo ago
  I'm curious, how much does this weigh? I've ridden e-bikes a few times, and it's always surprising how much heavier they are than ordinary bikes. I can't imagine how heavy this must be.
  - medi8r 8mo ago
    Yeah the assistance you get from a bike being light is huge. I wonder if expensive light bike > assisted bike in terms of saving human effort per trip. Obviously if the e-bike requires no pedalling at all it wins but then that is not legal everywhere.
    - Panzer04 8mo ago
      Human effort just isn't worth very much. The strongest humans on earth can manage about 400W for an hour. Even very small ebike motors are usually capable of 500w continuous/forever, so long as the motor does not spend too much time stalled or at very low speeds. For a normal human, a "legal" 250w motor is easily doubling or tripling their normal power output, so hauling around an extra 20kg on top of the existing ~100kg body + bike is not a big deal.
      - fgfarben 8mo ago
        A heavy battery makes an ebike extremely unpleasant to pedal manually. You should try it. I built almost exactly the same size pack (2 kWH) as Jacques in 2020 on a hybrid road bike and hated it so much that I only rode it 20 times or so. The battery still sits in the corner of my house doing nothing.
loeg 8mo ago
Sick. Would be interested in any followup. The off-the-shelf pack I was looking at if I had to make an ebike for commuting (if my employer ends WFH) was about 1100 Wh (about half the homemade pack in the article): https://www.ebikessentials.com/collections/batteries/products/52v-21ah-whale-shark-ebike-battery-lg-3500-18650-cells https://www.ebikessentials.com/collections/batteries/product...
oceanplexian 8mo ago
Reading the comments here, let’s take a moment to mourn another technology that so called HN hackers want to see regulated en masse by their big daddy government. Like drones, 3D printing, and now the simple pleasure of building your own e-bike. It seems like a certain demographic of NIMBY/Karen has taken over and is hell bent against makers and anything remotely cool, DIY, that could even be slightly more dangerous than a game of Pickleball.
- presentation 8mo ago
  Like it or not, if people who aren't big brained HN genius hackers like yourself do reckless things with powerful technology, like a stupid teenager killing someone's baby by running them over with an e-bike at max speed on a sidewalk around a sharp corner, then broader society will hate that technology, and then that woke freedom you crave will get wiped out by those small brained normies. The point is that it is better to set some rules ahead of garnering that hatred, so that the whole practice doesn't get wiped out by the 95% of the public who are those aforementioned idiots (at least as you see them). But as a morally righteous big brained HN edgelord, feel free to live your anarchist life on a seastead in the middle of the ocean running drones into icebergs and enjoying the whiz of throttling your exquisitely powerful ebike on the deck of your boat if you please.
  - nozzlegear 8mo ago
    > like a stupid teenager killing someone's baby by running them over with an e-bike at max speed on a sidewalk around a sharp corner, Replace e-bike with bike or tricycle and you still have a smushed baby.
    - lmm 8mo ago
      Not if the bike goes significantly slower than the e-bike. Which is the whole point.
      - nozzlegear 8mo ago
tiahura 8mo ago
How does this compare to adding a small bike trailer and tossing on 3 12v 100ah lifepo?
ornornor 8mo ago
I have two failed EM3ev battery packs. The BMS is toast after less than 50 cycles over 6 years. I’m looking for a replacement BMS (52V, 14S5P) but can’t figure out which would be more reliable. I would prefer to avoid buying a replacement from them because I dont think they should have failed so early and with such a light use. How to find a suitable BMS that does Bluetooth and will fit the existing connectors, including the SoC indicator and power button? That’s an 8 wires daughter board that uses actual SoC information to display the value rather than voltage alone.
trelliumD 8mo ago
electric bicycles, are just smartly marketeered motorcycles as bicycles. Give it the health sauce of a bicycle, and the comfort of a motorcycle. You excercise but dont get tired at all, you dont sweat, the bike works for you... to me that sounds like electric fitness, where you do power assisted weightlifting, so that you can do more reps, and lift more weight. Beeing a cyclist who regularly cycles with an unassisted bike distances over 200 km i see no added value of an electric bicycle over a normal bike. Disclaimer, it is a velomobile
haritha-j 8mo ago
I personally don't agree with the 25kmph is not enough logic. I live in Cambridge, which has fairly decent cycling infrastructure. In my experience, I''m nearly always faster around town on my bike than my friends driving around, once you account for finding parking as well. I never cycle above 25, certainly not inside the town. And I dont think I would want to share cycling lanes with people doing more than that either, and I cycle faster than most people here. Cycling routes are safe because people are cycling at reasonable speeds to get to where they want to go. I haven't lived in the US where everything is much farther apart, amybe it makes more sense ther, but at least for where I live, 25kmph is plenty to get to where i want to go in time, while enjoying the views along the way.
- nielsole 8mo ago
  We have speed pedelecs (45kmph) where I live with extra restrictions compared to normal ebikes which are capped at 25kmph. On the countryside 25kmph just doesn't get you places fast enough. > And I dont think I would want to share cycling lanes with people doing more than that either The regulation I wish for is for speed pedelecs to be allowed to use cycle paths whenever the street has a speed limit > 50kmh. Being on a 70-100kmph road as a 45kmph bike is needlessly dangerous when there's a usually idle bike path next to it.

181 points by birdculture 8mo ago

adrianN 8mo ago

I would be a bit worried that the extra weight compromises the structural integrity of the frame. 2kWh are heavy

elcapitan 8mo ago
I would be more worried charging that huge home built battery pack. I'm sure OP knows what he's doing, but I wouldn't want to bet my house on it.
BizarroLand 8mo ago
high quality heavy 18650s weigh about 2 oz. 190 of them would weigh about 24 lbs. Throw in another 6-10 lbs for bms, wiring, casing and errata and it's not that bad.
Forge36 8mo ago
Bikes typically have a weight rating. Mine has 150lbs of cargo capacity (is a cargo bike).
- analog31 8mo ago
  I don't know if this figures into the engineering formulas, but an e-bike needs to be stronger due to the higher speeds and power levels. On a human powered bike, if you're hauling 150 pounds, you're probably going pretty slow. My friends who have e-bikes go through a lot more "consumable" parts such as chains, tires, brakes, cogs, and bearings.
oulipo2 8mo ago
That's why at https://infinite-battery.com https://infinite-battery.com we designed a fireproof and waterproof casing for our repairable batteries
loeg 8mo ago
There's significantly more variation in weight between riders. If you're under the frame's weight limit, including battery, you're fine.

stevenhubertron 8mo ago

It does feel like this is such an untapped market. Think commuters, credit cart tourers, tourism around a spread out city. Something that is safer than a motorcycle and faster than a bike.

adrianN 8mo ago
It’s only safer than a motorcycle if you have bike friendly infrastructure.
- tim333 8mo ago
  The fact they are kind of slow and you can take them on trains helps compared with motorcycles.
  - adrianN 8mo ago
    Being in a train certainly improves safety, but being kind of slow is not very safe when you're forced to share the road with cars going at least twice your speed.
nicbou 8mo ago
In Germany at least the routes are a lot prettier because they go through forests and villages. It's what got me to cycle more and ride my motorcycle less.
MagicMoonlight 8mo ago
It's not safer than a motorcycle. Motorcycles have lights and signals and can accelerate away from danger. Plus the riders are generally covered head to toe in safety equipment, whereas nobody is ever going to wear leathers on a push bike.
- loeg 8mo ago
  The speed limiting alone makes them safer than motorcycles.

golson_kindmind 8mo ago

Respect: that's a beautiful pack. I'm a total sucker for ebikes and built my first ebike around 2006, powered by 40lbs of lead acid motorcycle batteries. I recently outfitted a trailer with a large battery made for an efoil (my other obsession) where the non-battery components went bad, the company went out of business, and "Hey, this would make a bitchin' ebike battery. Here's me cruising around the Oregon back country with said setup last summer: https://imgur.com/a/lmvJSBW https://imgur.com/a/lmvJSBW

sriacha 8mo ago
Wow. What is your total capacity and range with that setup?

jdboyd 8mo ago

In my city, travel habits and condition, I find I wish for more torque and lower speed. Every place I want to go has significant hills that the motor can't handle, and easing climbing hills is the main reason I want an ebike. My ebike's minimum speed for the motor is 15kph, which is ok by myself, but my family likes to go slower, so I have to go fully manual with them. When I look at ebike ads it feels like nobody else cares about these two areas of performance. When I talk to local ebike shops they are unprepared to talk about torque and minimum speed.

rsingel 8mo ago
It was too early and a bit of a dangerous design, but the StokeMonkey was built for torque and worked great at low speeds. Some pedicab folks in Austin used to use them. Hill climbing video YouTube https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux Design info https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux
pmyteh 8mo ago
I fitted a Bafeng mid-drive motor to my city bike and it's fabulous for hills. Because the power goes through the existing drivechain you can get high torque simply by switching to first gear. No minimum speed, power kicks in after half a turn of the pedals. Coupled with hub gears you can change at rest it's a marvel. Even at the European street legal limit of 250W it makes acceleration trivial.
tokai 8mo ago
Doesn't it help changing gears? You can even get sprockets changed to lower the gearing for more torque.
- kibwen 8mo ago
  Depends on the bike. On some bikes the motor is mounted in the rear wheel, in which case there's no gear between the motor and the wheel. On other bikes the motor is mounted between the pedals and sent to the rear via the chain, in which case shifting works as you expect. But the latter style (a.k.a. mid-drive) demands custom frames (because mid-drive motors are nonstandardized), which increases costs and decreases repairability. In contrast, rear-wheel motors can fit on literally any frame, so they're much more accessible.

WarmWash 8mo ago

Sort of a hijack, but it rides on the awesomeness that e-bikes can bring about. They truly are incredible if you have never gotten to ride one. E-bikes with throttles should not be refereed to as e-bikes E-peds, e-motos, electric motorycle, whatever. Just don't call them ebikes. The problem is people (especially kids) getting what are essentially electric motorcycles, thinking they are ebikes, and then causing all sorts of chaos on roads and bike paths. This inevitably leads to the public hating "e-bikes" and the government passing totally confused laws about "e-bikes". This also leads to kids getting killed because mom and dad bought them an "e-bike" and let them loose on the roads with it. Pedal assist ebikes are incredible, and really just turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists, while still providing exercise. It's a revolution for society, but we have to be careful to not totally fumble it with electric motorcycle death machines.

Aurornis 8mo ago
I agree. I thought the electric motorcycle problem was overstated by people complaining online at first. Then they became popular around my house and I agree it’s a huge problem. I’m fortunate enough to live around a lot of walking and mixed use trails for bikes and pedestrians. Recently they’re unsafe to use in the evenings because you have to be ready to jump out of the way of groups of kids (plus a few adults who should know better) going 45mph on electric bikes with throttles. They don’t even pretend to be e-bikes any more. The big problem is that there is zero enforcement. If there was at least a chance that someone breaking these laws could lose their bike or have to pay thousands of dollars in fines I think we’d see a lot less of it. Right now everyone knows that they’re not going to get caught, so it’s a free for all.
- euroderf 8mo ago
  Try speed bumps ?
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- estebank 8mo ago
  I believe this to be growing pains. Legislation hasn't yet fully adapted, some of the legislation I've seen makes the mistake of conflaing these, and enforcement is nonexistent in most places. I suspect that as time passes, we'll find ways of allowing ebikes to flourish. Around me the biggest thing I've seen is parents on cargo bikes taking their kids, and that's a demographic that elected officials tend to listen to.

comrade1234 8mo ago

I think that size of battery would move it into requiring a motorcycle license here in Switzerland, just based on the size alone. And if it goes faster than 45km/h then definitely. I have my motorcycle license and have been considering getting something that I can ride all day. Only problem is that if it's classified as a motorcycle license I don't think I can take it in the train like a bike if I run out of juice far away.

devsda 8mo ago
I know we all carry fully charged batteries in our pockets and sometimes keep them in our ears too. But something about travelling in crowded and closed space like train with a fully charged diy (or even commercial) battery pack sounds risky. This is one of the reasons I didn't go for a diy replacement of TWS pair with dead batteries.
- nickorlow 8mo ago
  I'd be worried about getting into a crash on this bike. (still an awesome project)
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  I would never take that pack on a train (or any other closed transport). That would be criminal, but then again, I think that that's the case for all e-bikes. I've seen way too many videos of packs going up without a warning and there is a ton of really bad advice out there from well meaning individuals who have absolutely no idea what they are doing. The welds on this pack are very good, I have checked and re-checked all of them, inspected the pack using a FLIR while running at maximum charge / discharge just to make sure there is no hidden jump in resistance or a bad cell. The whole thing is wrapped in shock absorbent foam but it still is a massive pack and if it were to go into thermal runaway there is just too much energy there to be dealt with. It stays outside and is charged outside and I'm monitoring the cells groups to mV precision to make sure that they're not misbehaving. I'm not taking any risks with 170 charged 18650s, if I would so much as drop or bump the bike I would discharge the pack and dismantle it.

skyberrys 8mo ago

The article mentions using Trespa, which I had to look up. It's a type of cladding that is fire resistant but is also not metal. It's a laminate type. The author is in the Netherlands, the infrastructure there must be really good to be able to ride 160km on an e bike between cities.

tokai 8mo ago
EuroVelo will blow your mind. https://en.eurovelo.com/ https://en.eurovelo.com/

davidw 8mo ago

eBikes are such a game changer. I do most of our family of four's grocery shopping with ours. Because of the assist, I find myself more comfortable in a wider range of weather conditions: * If it's hot, I use more assist and there's an instant cooling effect. Much better than climbing into a hot car. * If it's cold, I dress up to be warm outside and if I start to warm up on the ride, I use more assist. I don't have to try and balance staying warm and not getting sweaty. * Same thing if it's wet out: I can wear heavier waterproof gear and not get sweaty.

theultdev 8mo ago
I think we have different grocery habits. Food, beer, and cat litter would be too heavy for a bike.
- loeg 8mo ago
  Are you sure? https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/load5-75/ https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/load5-75/
  - theultdev 8mo ago
    How many of those have you seen in the US? None, because noone wants to bike 5 miles for 3 bags of groceries.
    - estebank 8mo ago
      I see loads of those around my neighborhood, usually ferrying kids. At the same time, I don't need to go 5 miles for groceries, so you might be picturing using a cargo bike in sparse suburbs. If your built environment is car centric then almost definitionally using any other mode of locomotion is going to be subpar.
    - loeg 8mo ago
      We’ve moved the goalposts from “Food, beer, and cat litter would be too heavy for a bike.” Also, my grocery stores are 0.7, 1.1, and 1.6 miles away, not that it matters. 5 miles is just not very much time at 20-28 mph. I think theft and weather/comfort are bigger obstacles to most people than distance.

Mashimo 8mo ago

I bought an entry level ebike and the range is about 100km on lowest power on flat land, and of course it increases if you drive above 25 km/h. I don't know what the difference is with what op has, but for me it's no extra issue to drive above the top speed. It's a gradient transition. I use mine daily and charge it every two or three weeks.

KeplerBoy 8mo ago
The highend ebikes are actually worse at this style of riding with minimal assist, since they are 30 kg behemoths which ride like shit without plenty of motor power.

HelloUsername 8mo ago

Original post and discussion in 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205

dang 8mo ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 - Nov 2021 (615 comments)

renewiltord 8mo ago

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. I have an ebike myself and have considered just strapping extra battery packs to the frame so that I can just swap when required. In the end, I mostly take shorter trips (I’ve had it since Dec and my odo only reads three figures). Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. And those have a flat area in front on the frame where you can host a few parallel to the floor (hard in a normal bike frame). One annoying constraint is that it’s hard to find a place here in America where people won’t tacitly kill children. As more people here become online only child-free characters driving large EVs they don’t think too much about killing children and will only delay someone’s license for a couple of years for doing so. The hard problem seems to be other people.

jandrese 8mo ago
I was disappointed to discover that my e-bike could not charge and power the drivetrain at the same time. Visions of range extending backpacks were dashed in an instant.
loeg 8mo ago
> Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. I'm planning to buy one of these (Load 60 or 75). I think they can mount two battery packs (2x 800Wh = 1600Wh) on the frame.

simonebrunozzi 8mo ago

The title should say (2021). Great article.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

lukasm 8mo ago

If I'd want more range, I'd go with an extra battery in a backpack.

utopiah 8mo ago

... put your (e)bike on a train, that's where the range come from. Very cool experimentation but in term of making the practice sustainable best to rely on the infrastructure. It's a bit like in sports having to use the big muscles, e.g. you climb with your legs, not with your fingers no matter what super strength grip you have.

hirsto 8mo ago
Not everyone lives near mass transit nor in a city
- utopiah 8mo ago
  Not everyone, no, but the majority of people do, since mid 20th century, cf rural flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_flight . That being said, IMHO sadly, most cities do not invest enough on mass transit infrastructure. That's what politics is for though.
cortesoft 8mo ago
Where exactly is this train that I should put my e-bike on?
- utopiah 8mo ago
  Typically by the train station.
twocommits 8mo ago
[flagged]
- Gigachad 8mo ago
  99% of the time it's food delivery workers who have to live in the outer edges of the city while all the orders are in the inner city. The solution to this problem is to run enough trains that they aren't so crowded a bike wouldn't fit. These people are paying for tickets so their usage should be funding the running of more services.

jeffbee 8mo ago

The aerodynamic situation of a bicycle is so disadvantageous that the easiest way to get a long range e-bike is to simply ride more slowly. People internalize beliefs about energy-range ratios from electric cars, but they don't translate well to bicycles.

jandrese 8mo ago
It is kind of a shame that recumbent bikes are expensive and bike nerd coded. A recumbent e-bike with an aeroshell would be fantastically efficient and useful in so many situations, but if you tried to buy one today it is going to cost as much as a car and have everybody else sneering at you.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  They're also a great way to get really badly hurt.
  - trelliumD 8mo ago
    No, that is not true. If you ride a velomobile, you are protected by its aeroshell. Consider it a full body helmet. You are rather flipped/ pushed away, than coming under a car. Of course you are not happy after a crash, but you mostly survive. And you also have other benefits, such as weather protection. In heavy rains you are sitting dry in your bicycle, listening to your radio, where your fellow ebiker gets soaking wet. And did i mention carco capacity :-)
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      A Velomobile is not a socially acceptable vehicle, it is very fast compared to a normal bike but still limited to bike infrastructure and other cyclists absolutely hate them. Yes, they solve the leg suck problem and if all of the cars would be gone and you could use the roads then that would be a great solution. I lived right next door to the guys that developed it and in the Groningen country side you could see them zoom by with some regularity. But where I live now I think I've seen exactly one in five years and that was after it had bowled into a mom on a cargo bike... the stigma roughly identical to driving a Canta on the bike path.

gcanyon 8mo ago

It's weird that these restrictions apply: 25km/h, 55km range? The Evolve Carbon skateboard tops out at 50km/h, and 80km range. Granted, you have to be a little bit crazy to ride that fast on a skateboard, and having owned an earlier version, I guarantee it's not pleasant riding that far on one. But people do it. Someone must be putting out faster/longer distance bikes that don't look like/ride like mopeds. Okay, a quick google and this seems somewhat moped-ish but 200 mile range, 28mph top speed: https://aniioki.com/products/aniioki-aq177-pro-max-electric-bike?variant=43173289164951 https://aniioki.com/products/aniioki-aq177-pro-max-electric-... Crazy price, but a real bike with 300 mile range and 36mph top speed: https://shop.optibike.com/shop/r22-everest/ https://shop.optibike.com/shop/r22-everest/

mcc1ane 8mo ago
2021?
bgnn 8mo ago
Ebikes cannot go faster than 25 kph in the Netherlands, where the author lives. Also they cannot provide power assist without pedalling.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  The blue one is actually an S-Pedelec, governor kicks in at about 43 kph and indeed, you need to keep pedaling and quite strongly if you want to maintain that kind of speed.
loeg 8mo ago
The Europeans love a nanny state and ebike licensing is no exception.
KeplerBoy 8mo ago
That skateboard is legally a toy and you cannot ride it on the street. You will be on your own if you cause an accident with that thing. Insurance will nope right out; chances are you will serve jail time if anyone is seriously harmed.

reactordev 8mo ago

Man: “How much power that thing got?” You: “Yes.” Right after the pandemic of 2020, I joined an “outside squad” of OneWheel enthusiasts, PEV daredevils, and E-bike low riders. We would ride around the city in 70 man packs. It was the most fun I’ve had as a grown up. :) Even broke my olecranon in a nose dive but rode my wheel out of the hospital. Best money spent.

dwedge 8mo ago

I know a guy who tried doing something like this and burnt his house down. One of the batteries exploded and took the others with it.

elliottkember 8mo ago
I was working on an LED project that involved some reasonably-sized lithium batteries, and the guy in the hardware store said "I don't want to hear about you in the news tomorrow". That really stuck with me, and I say it sometimes when I think someone's going to do something dangerous.
ray_v 8mo ago
I was just looking for the comment telling me this is _probably_ a bad idea, so thanks!
- fgfarben 8mo ago
  Driving a car down a busy highway is way more dangerous than assembling one of these packs and storing it in your garage.
  - ray_v 8mo ago
    Sure, life is all about risk - no doubt about that. But I guess I'm not tooling down the highway in a DIY contraption I built in my spare time with little regard for safety from plans I found on an Internet forum and parts bought from Ali Express. Not to say that _you_ shouldn't do this ... just be careful out there!
jandrese 8mo ago
Yes, always have a fire plan in mind when starting a lithium battery project. They go up very quickly and generate a ton of choking smoke. It only takes one oopsie with a screwdriver or dropping a cell to start a fire.
jacquesm 8mo ago
That's why you don't touch Lithium Ion packs unless you know what you are doing. I've repaired many Bosch packs before I tried building my own and seeing the guts of professionally designed and robotically assembled packs after they're a few years old is a very sobering exercise in what to do and what definitely not to do. There are a bunch of youtubers that go out of their way to give massively dangerous advice to people and I always wonder what their liability situation is.

cbdevidal 8mo ago

I think of e-bikes as a kind of "electric horse." * Goes about as fast as a horse * Goes about the same distance as a horse * Sitting on a saddle like a horse * Out in the weather like a horse * But no feed or vet bills * No need for lots of land or infrastructure * Little ongoing maintenance * Little skill needed to ride :-)

loeg 8mo ago
Faster than a horse at long distances. Humans can outrun horses at distances as short as 26 miles.

Tepix 8mo ago

> My first e-bike, a pretty crappy one but enough to get my appetite whetted had a 500 Wh battery, enough for a 55 km trip one-way, and it would be dead on arrival, range anxiety to the max. What? 55km with a 500Wh battery? Was he not pedaling at all? Why does he even have range anxiety on an ebike? You can just pedal if the battery is low.

jandrese 8mo ago
E-bikes suck pedal if the motor is not helping. Also, someone going that far is almost certainly doing it at the maximum speed of the bike, and power use goes up quadratically with speed. You could probably do that trip with plenty of power to spare at 15kph or arrive with no charge remaining at 30kph.
jacquesm 8mo ago
Yes, I'm pedaling just fine, thank you for asking. The range on this thing is not that large even when you are pedaling strongly, it just uses a lot of power. As you probably know the power consumption of a bike goes up considerably as the speed increases, this is NL and while we don't have hills we do have wind, and plenty of it. Add in a 40 to 45 kph top speed and you can see the battery dwindle in real time. As for pedaling if the battery is low: I have a bad leg, which is why I ride these to begin with, they help me to get started at traffic lights, which we have a lot of. Once at speed I can ride just fine but getting up to speed really hurts.
- Tepix 8mo ago
  On my ebike the power consumption goes to zero when traveling faster than 25kph because then the engine is not allowed to assist you past that speed. Anyway, if you use high power settings due to your bad leg, I understand. With assist set to low or even medium, you can get a lot more than 55km out of a 500Wh battery.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    Yes, but this is an S-Pedelec, top speed is 43 and then the assist goes completely off and I am not strong enough to maintain that speed without assist for more than a few minutes on this bike. With assist set to low or medium I would end up with a hospital visit after a single ride. I have half an Ikea in my right leg, two 40 cm long pieces of steel and a massive number of screws to hold it all together so I really can't risk another fall or overloading it.

fattybob 8mo ago

That’s a fantastic build, I only wish e-bike manufacturers would offer similarly spec’s bikes, a days ride is very rarely 30 km, so 200 min or more like 200 km range would be a bike worth investing in. I feel similarly about electric cars too, charging mud route or at destinations is rarely possible so 300 miles or greater are the only vehicle ranges I see as remotely practical. ( yes, I cycle in km and drive in miles , weird maybe) Oh yes an edit - speed, who rides so slowly, those ebike speed restrictions are crazy low.

loeg 8mo ago
You can get off-the-shelf ebike batteries at least half as big as the author's. Speed restrictions are somewhat better in the US -- class 1 is allowed to assist up to 20 mph, and class 3 is allowed to assist up to 28 mph. Both are higher than 25 kph (15.5 mph).

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 8mo ago

So, this got posted again I see. A few years later: the pack is still going strong and has not - so far - shown any signs of wear. I've put close to 15000 Km on it now and there is no degradation worth mentioning, though I suspect that if I do a precise capacity measurement that it would definitely show some reduced capacity. The really neat thing is that at the end of a long ride the cell groups still track to within 2 mV of each other, which is a strong sign that all cell groups are discharging equally fast and that there are no cells or welds that are causing problems. Of course with 17P the cells are only mildly exercised compared to what they would be going through in a regular pack.

jadenPete 8mo ago
I'm curious, how much does this weigh? I've ridden e-bikes a few times, and it's always surprising how much heavier they are than ordinary bikes. I can't imagine how heavy this must be.
- medi8r 8mo ago
  Yeah the assistance you get from a bike being light is huge. I wonder if expensive light bike > assisted bike in terms of saving human effort per trip. Obviously if the e-bike requires no pedalling at all it wins but then that is not legal everywhere.
  - Panzer04 8mo ago
    Human effort just isn't worth very much. The strongest humans on earth can manage about 400W for an hour. Even very small ebike motors are usually capable of 500w continuous/forever, so long as the motor does not spend too much time stalled or at very low speeds. For a normal human, a "legal" 250w motor is easily doubling or tripling their normal power output, so hauling around an extra 20kg on top of the existing ~100kg body + bike is not a big deal.
    - fgfarben 8mo ago
      A heavy battery makes an ebike extremely unpleasant to pedal manually. You should try it. I built almost exactly the same size pack (2 kWH) as Jacques in 2020 on a hybrid road bike and hated it so much that I only rode it 20 times or so. The battery still sits in the corner of my house doing nothing.

loeg 8mo ago

Sick. Would be interested in any followup. The off-the-shelf pack I was looking at if I had to make an ebike for commuting (if my employer ends WFH) was about 1100 Wh (about half the homemade pack in the article): https://www.ebikessentials.com/collections/batteries/products/52v-21ah-whale-shark-ebike-battery-lg-3500-18650-cells https://www.ebikessentials.com/collections/batteries/product...

oceanplexian 8mo ago

Reading the comments here, let’s take a moment to mourn another technology that so called HN hackers want to see regulated en masse by their big daddy government. Like drones, 3D printing, and now the simple pleasure of building your own e-bike. It seems like a certain demographic of NIMBY/Karen has taken over and is hell bent against makers and anything remotely cool, DIY, that could even be slightly more dangerous than a game of Pickleball.

presentation 8mo ago
Like it or not, if people who aren't big brained HN genius hackers like yourself do reckless things with powerful technology, like a stupid teenager killing someone's baby by running them over with an e-bike at max speed on a sidewalk around a sharp corner, then broader society will hate that technology, and then that woke freedom you crave will get wiped out by those small brained normies. The point is that it is better to set some rules ahead of garnering that hatred, so that the whole practice doesn't get wiped out by the 95% of the public who are those aforementioned idiots (at least as you see them). But as a morally righteous big brained HN edgelord, feel free to live your anarchist life on a seastead in the middle of the ocean running drones into icebergs and enjoying the whiz of throttling your exquisitely powerful ebike on the deck of your boat if you please.
- nozzlegear 8mo ago
  > like a stupid teenager killing someone's baby by running them over with an e-bike at max speed on a sidewalk around a sharp corner, Replace e-bike with bike or tricycle and you still have a smushed baby.
  - lmm 8mo ago
    Not if the bike goes significantly slower than the e-bike. Which is the whole point.
    - nozzlegear 8mo ago

tiahura 8mo ago

How does this compare to adding a small bike trailer and tossing on 3 12v 100ah lifepo?

ornornor 8mo ago

I have two failed EM3ev battery packs. The BMS is toast after less than 50 cycles over 6 years. I’m looking for a replacement BMS (52V, 14S5P) but can’t figure out which would be more reliable. I would prefer to avoid buying a replacement from them because I dont think they should have failed so early and with such a light use. How to find a suitable BMS that does Bluetooth and will fit the existing connectors, including the SoC indicator and power button? That’s an 8 wires daughter board that uses actual SoC information to display the value rather than voltage alone.

trelliumD 8mo ago

electric bicycles, are just smartly marketeered motorcycles as bicycles. Give it the health sauce of a bicycle, and the comfort of a motorcycle. You excercise but dont get tired at all, you dont sweat, the bike works for you... to me that sounds like electric fitness, where you do power assisted weightlifting, so that you can do more reps, and lift more weight. Beeing a cyclist who regularly cycles with an unassisted bike distances over 200 km i see no added value of an electric bicycle over a normal bike. Disclaimer, it is a velomobile

haritha-j 8mo ago

I personally don't agree with the 25kmph is not enough logic. I live in Cambridge, which has fairly decent cycling infrastructure. In my experience, I''m nearly always faster around town on my bike than my friends driving around, once you account for finding parking as well. I never cycle above 25, certainly not inside the town. And I dont think I would want to share cycling lanes with people doing more than that either, and I cycle faster than most people here. Cycling routes are safe because people are cycling at reasonable speeds to get to where they want to go. I haven't lived in the US where everything is much farther apart, amybe it makes more sense ther, but at least for where I live, 25kmph is plenty to get to where i want to go in time, while enjoying the views along the way.

nielsole 8mo ago
We have speed pedelecs (45kmph) where I live with extra restrictions compared to normal ebikes which are capped at 25kmph. On the countryside 25kmph just doesn't get you places fast enough. > And I dont think I would want to share cycling lanes with people doing more than that either The regulation I wish for is for speed pedelecs to be allowed to use cycle paths whenever the street has a speed limit > 50kmh. Being on a 70-100kmph road as a 45kmph bike is needlessly dangerous when there's a usually idle bike path next to it.