Much like mentioned in this really great video I found a while back, I'm one of those anti crimp connector people. Mostly because it's way easier to keep a couple supplies on hand in quantity than to keep most of that stuff plus a ton of fiddly overpriced connectors well stocked. For a pro shop it's great, as a DIYer I will stick to other methods, and the points brought up in this video I think are particularly useful for this repair:



I realize a vacuum isn't a race car, but they both experience vibration. If the manufacturer had followed some of this advice you wouldn't be dealing with this issue. Having the wire unsupported and bent around before the crimp connector in a high vibration environment caused the wire to fatigue and fail. If this isn't addressed it will fail again. One trick I've been using on cars is to cut two pieces of shrink tubing, grab E6000/Amazing Goop/Shoe Goo or similar glue, and I will put glue on the solder connection to keep out moisture, short piece of shrink tubing over the repair, and then longer shrink tubing over the whole thing as a strain relief. In this case you might not have to go quite that far and perhaps just use a dab of epoxy or anything to keep that wire from flopping around, work hardening it to failure.

I agree not to cut both zip ties at the same time. It may be possible to cut the one off, lift the wire/connector up, add new zip tie, repeat on second zip tie to get it out to work on. I also will purposely flip one end of zip ties 180* so they snug things down but pull apart later, instead of fighting with the clip or ruining the zip tie.

If you have trouble fitting your hands in there it might be worth a coffee, beer, whatever to someone with appropriately sized hands for the job.

Edward Norton wrote: There is no sticker over a screw invalidating warranty that you find on computer gear

Just an FYI, in the US they passed something stating that is no longer a valid excuse for refusing warranty service or refunds. I remember maybe 20 years ago when some dealerships were refusing to replace bad transmissions because people changed to an aftermarket air filter. I bet you can still find places trying to convince people it's their fault when they touched something they "shouldn't" have touched even when the failure had nothing to do with what was touched. This goes both ways. I've seen people buying things like broken computer processors on ebay when the seller knew it was broken, it was their fault, and they sold it for parts at pennies on the dollar. They get bought up to turn around and get a free replacement and people seem to be proud of this fraud. Overall it is a net win, but between them still putting sticker on things to scare people and scammers trying to rip off businesses it still isn't a perfect situation.

EDIT - I guess with some of the confusion outside the US, this recent Great Scott video can help clear up some confusion and show the strengths and weaknesses of wire nuts vs Wago connectors:

I'd imagine the reason why mapping things out is so prevalent might be in part because of PDC's. They often have people plan things out to show they understand the concepts they are trying to learn. Some teachers may be sticklers on the math side, while other might be fine with a more South Park approach to layout.

There's no reason you can't cut out pictures or shapes to roughly plan things out for yourself. Maybe sit at a table with spice jars to use them as stand-ins for plants and take a photo for later reference. Some people might prefer to just go outside and put plant pots or some other marker down to help visualize how things will work out in 3D space. Again, pictures would likely be helpful.

If you take a PDC and try to sell your designs to other people, I'd imagine most of them would want a design on paper before they unleash you on their property. With planting, it may not be as big a deal if you can juggle everything in your head, but I certainly wouldn't let anyone with an excavator loose on my land without a very detailed plan in advance.

And that brings up another point - excavator operators often aren't familiar with permaculture and might not comprehend your reasoning for doing uncommon earthworks to the point they may go rogue thinking they are helping. Giving them plans and making sure they understand they are not to deviate from said plan if they want to get paid can help avoid counterproductive earthworks.

Fox James wrote:there is lots of info suggesting  once ‘ any ceramic fibre’ is  super heated it becomes a dangerous carcinogenic  product! The fibers can change in chemistry and produce very fine air born particles that can even enter the body through our skin!
I dont know how dangerous that might be but  there is no doubt in my mind that ceramic fibre is not a heathy option!

From my limited understanding following some metal casting forums, many people using ceramic fiber blankets will coat it in some sort of high temperature clay slip, refractory cement, 'water glass', or specific products from manufacturers designed to harden high temperature work surfaces and prolong the life of forges, or in this case rocket heaters.

ITC-100 refractory coating Q&A

How much area will ITC-100 cover in a forge?

ITC-100 will cover 6 to 12 square feet per pint, or 3 to 6 square feet per half pint.  If you apply a basecoat of Satanite to your forge first, you can get by with the larger number for square feet coverage.  An additional benefit to doing this with Satanite first, is that Satanite is cheap and by building up a 1/4" layer of Satanite over you Inswool liner before applying the ITC-100 your forge will be more robust.

With inswool Liner being an "Alumina-Silica fiber blanket for high temperature applications." I'm pretty certain, as mentioned above in the portland cement section, you could probably use cement, steel, or other materials as a skeleton. Then insulate it and use refractory cement or some other coating to strengthen the wool or other insulating layer like insulating bricks. If you build it yourself and keep leftover materials then you can do your own repairs. It would seem very wise to use proper safety equipment when building or repairing anything using ceramic fiber blankets.

And let's touch on another aspect of hardening the surface of the blanket - airflow. If you went up to a house and stripped away the interior and exterior walls so all that was between you and the outdoors was a roll of unbacked fiberglass insulation, that insulation wouldn't do you much good with its ability to breathe. Especially if the wind picks up, without layers to block airflow the insulation is almost 100% worthless. Would this not be the case for loose ceramic fiber in a rocket heater riser designed to contain combustion gasses? It isn't able to insulate if it there is nothing to stop it from breathing. At that point it's just a carcinogenic blanket not doing much good in my eyes. A skeleton covered in insulation and coated to be relatively air tight seems like the way to go when using ceramic fiber blankets. They also make ceramic boards which wouldn't allow gasses to permeate and might be better for certain applications as well as quick experimentation.

This is along the lines of something I am interested in doing. I'm going to try a brushless DC motor with solar, but the same idea. I'm thinking of going with a kit for a Ford Crown Victoria, or similar in the sense that it is a fleet vehicle with great parts availability and affordable. They have kits for around $200 - $300 which would also require a certain amount of accessories beyond the basic kit like the condenser, evaporator, hoses/hard lines, pressure sensor and such. Ideally a donor vehicle or a junkyard can provide serviceable parts as it gets costly buying everything new, and you mention using a donor SUV which is handy.

I figure it should be great for cooling something at the size you are using since you can have options with insulation. I think the restrictiveness of the system stuffed under the dash of a car, plus the inadequate filter setup isn't the best unless you have free access to the parts as in your case. A wood or sheet metal box could be fashioned to hold the blower motor, blower controller, and filter. Make a drain pan for the condensate. I'm going to look for a decent quality house filter of a common size like 20" x 20" which should be an easy upgrade to the vehicle setup. I'd imagine heat would come from a different source so the blend door and actuator aren't needed. If using a vent I wouldn't trust an old actuator to work for long. All that's really needed is a thermostat and a switch to power it.

You can use a thermostat made for controlling car AC. You can find universal ones or certain models in the 80's and earlier had a knob and copper temperature probe to control the pulley clutch. It really depends on what vehicle you get things from if you reuse the car setup. It might not work stand alone since cars for a lot of years now have everything tied together with onboard computer systems. You could try a cheap Arduino controller to run things like I'm investigating, but it doesn't have to be complicated. I'm also looking at eliminating the clutch with electric drive, but yours looks like it will work well with the AC clutch and alternator combination.

You can also lengthen the lines to move the noise of the motor further away. I think they have formulas online for lines of certain lengths and diameters needs X amount of refrigerant and oil. I wouldn't go crazy with it but an extra 25 feet and a little hut to muffle the noise, or at least moved to the opposite end of the container from where you work could be an option. Put the condenser with its cooling fan out there with it and run the evaporator lines and controls inside just like central air in a house. Here's a little bit of inspiration in the form of a repurposed blower motor:

Max Wagner wrote:
My biggest struggle is:
It would not add any more intake than my current design, which I assume is the main problem.

The stack effect can help cure this problem. I wish I knew exactly where I saw it, but there was a paper from some school that did some testing and they used exhaust stacks of 1, 2, and 3 feet long (~305, 610, and 925mm). The smallest one did the worst by far and the longest did the best. The biggest one worked somewhat better than the middle one. Yours is 300mm. If you could make it at least 500mm I think the extra stack effect would roughly double (or more) the air draw once you get it burning well. The extra airflow creates better combustion which creates more exhaust in the stack and draws even more air, so doubling the size will more than double performance if everything else is working well.

Another issue if the area of the tubing as you look at it from the end. It has a rough area of ~ 6400 square mm which is a hair larger than a 3" (76mm) tube. If you have something smaller than a 4" (102mm) tube (with an area of ~8100 square mm) it doesn't create enough heat to really get air moving which makes it have trouble consuming the wood. Since this is a stove and not a house it wouldn't make sense to go too big, but it you could find find 100mm square or 120mm (~4.72") tube then you could get the type of fire going that is needed to really make it sing. Once you get it close it will start to create a rather uniform wall of flames and no smoke.

With those two things holding you back plus being outdoors it will be a struggle to keep lit and smoke free. Not to mention the smaller size needs even more attention paid to it to keep the fire going. I made a few similar to your K shape above using old cans for the shape and some refractory clay mixture left over from building an aluminum melting furnace. It worked fantastic but was too fragile for long term use. I wish I could make it work better without using steel because the auto wood feed feature, coupled with a sloped bottom so it automatically dumps ash into a bucket was really handy. Many people here use the J tube because it is tried and true. If you are building a mass heater, you definitely don't want to wast a ton of materials on an unproven design. With smaller scale stuff it's not as big of an investment but can be very educational.

One last tip from that paper I can remember is that if you try to choke the air from the bottom it tends to smoke more, but if you restrict it at the top it seems to work better and can burn slower before starting to smoke. Seemed to work that way for me in my experience. I punched a hole in the bottom of a cheap charcoal grill and converted it into a rocket grill with a 4" (102mm) tube and a stack that was 2 feet (610mm) tall. It worked really well except for that you couldn't walk away for more than 5 minutes without it burning out. The insulated combustion chamber I made would stay hot since it has thermal mass from the clay I used. That made it burn hot, but also relight easily if I did let it go out since it stayed hot for a while. I would also save used cooking oil to dip some sticks in and that would help it burn a bit hotter and longer if I needed to step away for a few minutes. I hope that you find something useful here to help with your build.

Has anyone here tried the method people use on YouTube where they use a welder to recondition batteries? There was a popular one not too long ago from  Uncle Tony's Garage:



and the follow up here:



I haven't tried it myself and usually in the past I just replaced batteries for people because they tend to get very impatient when their car won't work. It isn't perfect for all situations, as from what I understand the sulfation can fall to the bottom of the battery and bridge between cells creating a short. But if it's dead anyway and you have all the tools and safety equipment, it seems like a worthwhile option even if it only buys you a few months of battery life.

My county has a similar allowance, but there are other laws regarding height and living on the land without a domicile of 600 sq. ft. or more. These restrictions may be in a completely different part of the building code. I don't recall exactly, but I think it was something like 13 feet above finished grade to the highest point on the roof in my county. You might be able to get away with it being a few inches off (just say you're going to lay sod raising the finished grade), or berm up the base as mentioned above.

It's a bit funny how many absurd things I see on the side of the highway driving all the way down to my property, then hearing (and in some cases dealing with) horror stories about angry neighbors calling cops, the town/county, and complaining to everyone under the sun about someone way down the road from anyone doing the smallest of things in ways they don't approve. Everyone has to do their own risk management, plus things and people can change over time. I've had to do some amazingly unnecessary things to accomplish goals without further raising the ire of these bad apples.

Another thing is that my county has different rules for agricultural land, and my land is considered ag and residential. If the area you are looking at has similar rules and you are doing something ag related you may have more freedom with certain building requirements.

I'd be interested in hearing more as well. I'm in Northeastern-most FL and have an acre inland a bit between St. Augustine and Daytona. I'm not looking to move but it would be nice to share ideas and help move good ideas forward. I'm mostly interested in solar, electric bikes, trees and would like to get involved in aquaculture/aquaponics. Hopefully I'll have more of my ongoings to share on here very soon, and it would be great to hear more from others given how different things work here versus most other places in the country.

Coydon Wallham wrote: Also, are there ways to form the mortise and tenon that they hold without glue?

The way people put mallets together is basically that. A slightly wedge shaped mortise with a saw kerf in the tenon to drive a wedge in. You can also put a dowel in from the side but there are some tricks to that so it stays tight and doesn't loosen up easily. Recently I've been playing around with smaller scale stuff and using toothpicks and bamboo skewers and drilling holes a bit too small so it has a solid friction fit. If I make it too tight it won't drive in without breaking. I can always drill it out if I want to pull it apart. The same can be done on a larger scale if you are careful not to go too far and split the work piece.

David Huang wrote: However, I'd be concerned about not having the ability to get the equivalent of "higher gears" that a standard diameter tire might offer.

The trikes in that video had pedals fixed to the front wheel. All of the mountain bikes have gears specifically made to work with the wheel diameter of the bike. Also, most of the motors I have seen for smaller diameter wheels are wound differently to give a higher RPM. With a different circumference and RPM, it might not be exactly the same speed, but there is some compensation. A top speed should be listed with any bike you buy.

The smaller diameter does have the advantage of lower effective overall ratio for starting from a standstill. While beneficial, I'd imagine there is a certain point where lack of traction will negate the benefits of ultra steep gear ratios.

With any uncommon size wheel, especially with the popularity of fat bike tires, spares on hand are a necessity to keep a bike going. There are also products like FlatOut or tire inserts that work much better than slime for stopping leaks or preventing punctures in the first place. I would also look at other wear items like brakes to see if they are commonly available.

I don't have much experience with prebuilt ebikes, but two warrantied bikes sounds better than one. The only thing that would weigh heavily for me is if any of them would use a local authorized shop to do warranty repair vs shipping parts, waiting for new parts, then assembling yourself or paying out of pocket for repairs.

I strongly agree with the points mentioned above. The only issue is that this is likely to be a community bike, where numerous people of different skill and knowledge levels will be using whatever bikes are available. If someone there is ready to become a bike mechanic, then using a quality standard bike (with standard, affordable, easy to find parts) will be much cheaper to buy and to maintain. If not, then having a bike with a warranty might be the only good option for the moment. I'd really like to see a lot more going on with bikes up there to reduce the need for gas powered vehicles going back and forth. Hopefully I can lend a hand, or at least some knowledge going into next year.

For just working on it as simple scaffolding it is probably fine as-is. Try grabbing it and shaking it back and forth. It probably won't shake much in one direction, but shake a fair bit more in the other. Certain repeated pushing, pulling, or hammering motions will cause it to oscillate more and more until it starts to walk across the floor with continued motion. Make certain to tack down whatever boards you put across the top to walk on. If you need to hold a large amount of material weight (more than your body weight plus yourself), or using it regularly to sleep on in the very near future, then you could probably L brace the bottom and add 1x4 or 1x6 diagonal bracing. If you are just working with a few tools and a few dozen pounds of materials or less, I would just be mindful of how much sway it has and build it up strong later if you want it to last a long time.

Using it as a loft to sleep on or hold a bunch of supplies means it might get awkwardly loaded without much thought. If you have your wits about you and test it out to see how it reacts before working on it temporarily it should be sufficient. I've had to work on much, much scarier scaffolding setups in the past. Fortunately I'm fairly light weight and perhaps a bit lucky.

The next handful of weeks should be quite hectic. This week I have a few bike specific goals planned and then more bike plans mixed in with other projects. Without getting too far ahead of myself, I'm going to try to rebuild the dead battery that came with my fat bike first, followed by fixing up the sibling of the red and white bike above. I already got most of the parts in for the bike, and everything for fixing the battery pack. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to go about fitting it back in to the bike, as I rewired things to get it running when I bought it. I might just go ahead and tear the fat bike apart and fix everything some time soon.

But for now the battery pack is on deck. It was going to be around $550 plus shipping to replace it which is why I was able to buy the bike for cheap. Since it had ocean water damage, I opened the pack shortly after bringing it home. Water had damaged the bottom of the pack, causing corrosion on some of the cell interconnects. Unfortunately a few of the cells had also started to leak, and the BMS (battery management system) died as well. I decided the best course of action would be to reconfigure the battery from 48V to 36V.

The original battery was a 13S6P configuration, or 13 sets of 6 parallel cells, each strung in series. I removed 3 sets of 6 cells to change it in to a 10S6P battery. This leaves me with a battery that is still pretty decent (36V nominal, 12AH) and removes most of the corrosion. The areas that were still corroded on top I sanded, cleaned with vinegar, and repeated until it was mostly clean. I may end up having to solder one small spot where the bridge between two cells was significantly weakened, and use a few dabs of anti seize on the other spots to protect it from corroding further. I will have to check it out after a while and make certain it doesn't start rusting again. I'm hoping to get a spot welder and nickle strip for future battery packs, and may need that stuff to go back and fix this correctly. I'm pretty confident it won't be a problem in the short term, but I won't leave it for years on end without giving it a good look.

In any event, I only have two major tasks left to get the battery functional - Add in the BMS and reconnect the cells where I lopped off the end. Because I removed an odd number of parallel packs in the middle of the series string, I have positive next to positive instead of alternating like they used to. I need to run a wire around to the opposite side to reconnect the string and get full voltage from beginning to end. After that I will remove the old BMS wires and put the new ones in place. I've been using XT60 connectors on all of my batteries because that is what I had on hand from playing around with some solar powered devices, so I'll end up using that again. They are common amongst the RC community and with the relatively low amp draw (under 30A) of my bikes it seems to work perfectly fine for my needs.

I also ended up with enough good cells to make a 5S2P pack which would be comparable to a so-called 20V (4AH) pack used on cordless tools. I haven't bought a BMS for doing that yet, but with several different bikes, solar, and tons of cells floating around, that project is going to be put off for a few months.

Coydon Wallham wrote:You brought up another important point about pocket screws that I had forgotten to ask about- torquing them in.

Also, when you use deck screws for pocket holes, are you using a jig to drill the holes? For larger dimensions are you using a regular bit, then following up with the long bit you mention?

My father had me turning wrenches when I was a small child, so I just go by feel. In this case, if you predrill, start light, and keep snugging it up until the joint isn't loose then it should be tight enough. Since you already have screws going straight into the ends, and none of the wood appears to be splitting, it should be plenty strong. I honestly never use the adjustable torque feature on drills. If you predrill everything and slowly increase the torque until the boards tighten together and don't flex apart from basic handling then it is tight enough. I usually will grab scrap pieces to test whenever I change materials or screws to make sure everything appears to be working as expected.

I generally use the jig and just pull it back off the end enough so the screw comes out in the right spot. You don't want it poking through way too far to one side or the other as you can end up with a loose connection. One option is to purposely have it come out a bit offset and then use a pocket hole on either side, this way the diagonal screws in opposite directions complement each other. This doesn't work on end pieces, but the joists in the middle can benefit from this. I've also been known to freehand it by drilling in at 90 degrees and then adjusting to the angle I need when working with pieces that are cut at different angles, such as 2 x 22.5 degree pieces to go around a 45 degree corner.

I have built temporary scaffolds in a similar fashion, and I can tell by looking at it that below the point of the bracing, those 2x4's will flex and will get a bit bouncy when doing certain actions standing on top. All of your legs have the 2x4's in the same orientation (1.5" sides all facing the same way, as are the 3.5" sides). If you take more 2x4's and make them into an L shape, that is, leaving the existing 3.5" side as-is and putting the 3.5" side of new boards to the 1.5" side (making an L shape 5" in one direction and 3.5" in the other) it will be more sturdy than just doubling up the 2x4's into a 3" x 3.5" block. You will have much less flexing below the line where the braces attach. Adding another set of diagonal bracing to the other two sides supporting the joists will further increase rigidity and make it feel quite solid.

T Blankinship wrote:
Could you post more about this. Thanks

Supposedly the ebike rebate is wrapped up in a bill that is currently being modified in the Senate. I first heard of it from the Bolton ebike podcast, and there is some information out there. Since it could be changed or entirely removed from the bill, I can't really say anything else about it with certainty. A google search would yield up to date information. I haven't kept up with the politics, so I don't know exactly how likely or unlikely it is to pass,  how long it could be hung up, or how long it would take to go in to effect. I just know that ebike sellers are backed up because of supply shortages, and that ebike sales are likely to continue to outpace expectations if the bill is passed with any form of an ebike rebate in place. I'd imagine the first weeks of the new year will bring new information about how that is going to pan out.

The thing about pocket holes screws is that it is what is called a 'toenail' attachment. Toenailing, as the name implies, can also be done with nails. There are a number of pro's and con's to toenails versus nailing or screwing straight into a butt joint. I framed houses for a number of years and by far the main reason to using nails was the speed a nail gun can assemble a house. Toenailing is a stronger method of attachment, but with a nail gun it is awfully easy to split the wood, which makes it weaker. Predrilling and not over torquing screws is very strong.

I have also used pocket hole joinery and deck screws to attach 2x4's and 2x6's. I built a large workbench with some pocket hole joinery maybe 15 years ago that is still as solid as the day I made it. Getting the jig positioned properly, adjusting the depth of the drill bit, and getting the appropriate length of screws figured out on scrap pieces before you start is key to success. There are lots of other small but important things to know when attempting to do this. If the head of the screw isn't flat underneath then it can potentially split the wood. This is one of the things that causes failure for most people who attempt to use screws that aren't from Kreg and just use whatever screw they have on hand. I personally just never fully tighten the screws with a drill or impact driver. I drive them most of the way in and then tighten by hand.

Another trick is to get a long (~6") bit of appropriate thickness for the screws (maybe 1/8" to 3/16") to drill the hole the rest of the way through. The Kreg bit has a small nub sticking out that works fine for 1/2" wood, but thicker stuff really needs that hole punched all the way through to avoid splitting the wood, or having threads grabbing to both pieces and not wanting to snug up. This usually gets people to drive it home with a drill, ensuring failure and becoming disheartened with pocket holes. Having a second drill so you don't have to constantly stop and switch bits greatly speeds things up.

Another trick is to glue the end grain. Most people say this never works, but multiple tests on YouTube indicate that it can add substantial strength. The problem with end grain is that it soaks up glue and dries it out before it can set up. If you glue the end grain, let it soak in for ~10 minutes, and add more glue it can add quite a bit of strength. Combining this with pocket screws can be a very strong method of attachment. Assembled incorrectly it won't be very strong at all. I've never tried it, but on a house I'd imagine quality construction adhesive would be a better option than yellow wood glue.

More traditional joinery methods are also extremely valuable. Using a rabbet (or rebate) or mortise and tenon is very strong and doesn't require glue or fasteners. But it often requires special tools and special skills. If you have the time it is great to practice different methods and learn as much as you can. It's virtually impossible to suggest a good course of action without a lot more details for what you have planned.

Emeril Lagasse once said that he could spend his whole life learning to cook and only know a small fraction of what there is to know. Woodworking is very much the same. There are easily thousands of ways to get a project completed so it serves you well, and probably even more ways to do it and fail. The internet is full of people hopping up and down trying to convince others that their way is the only way. If your main goal is to build a loft, find someone who has been successful numerous times and try out their method. If you want to learn how to use pocket hole screws in unconventional ways, there are probably less videos on that. You might want to check out a woodworking forum and ask people that use them regularly.

If you want I can try to get some pictures to give you a better idea how I have gone about using pocket holes with construction lumber.

You may want to look in to the federal rebate on ebikes that may be coming soon. A 30% rebate is quite a chunk of change for something that expensive.

Today I want to get into some of the details regarding lithium ion cells and my thoughts on what are good practices for ebikes. There will also be a lot of crossover for solar. I haven't actually made a lithium ion only solar power setup, but I have used my 145 watt panel with a pair of 50AH gel cell batteries that were donated to me to charge my laptop, cell phone, and a couple USB boost packs that all had lithium ion cells, so I do have experience in this area.

I mentioned previously that I had made a smaller 36V 8AH pack as a backup to extend my range. Normally this would be a bad idea with standard output 18650 cells (the kind that look like oversized AA alkaline batteries). The reason for this is voltage drop. Even if you go by the specs of the cells and it says it can provide a certain amount of current doesn't mean you won't have problems trying to design a system that will expect over 90% of that current. Batteries have chemicals in them that take time to react. Pushing them to their limit regularly not only causes excess heating of cells (which is why you mostly hear of high performance EV's and high power electronics having battery fires) and shortened cell lifespan, but the cell voltage will drop substantially. This means under heavy load you won't have the same amount of power that you would with cells not being pushed as hard. It also means that the low voltage cutoff of the motor controller will kick in sooner because the voltage drops below the minimum voltage threshold.

In my case I had bought cells much larger than typical 18650's and they were designed to output much more current than what I use without experiencing significant voltage drop. They had a great deal on them and it's cheaper to ship them in bulk, so I bought 80 cells. I used 10 in series (3.6V nominal for a 36V pack). For a one-off as my first pack it was a good learning experience, and it is great for a secondary pack I can take with me to extend my range. In my case, all of my bikes tend to get about 2 miles for every 1AH of battery capacity (on flat ground and other conditions specific to riding in my area). One of the things about buying used cells is finding good deals when they come along and jumping on them. There are a lot of pro's and con's to using these cells. While I do plan on using the rest for a large trike, I wouldn't use them for a bike because the cells don't lend themselves to being assembled in a shape that is good for most bikes.

The 18650 cells (the number stands for 18mm x 65mm, 0 for cylindrical shape) do have a bit of wasted space when trying to pack them together, but the numerous small cells allow for many different configurations for the overall shape of the finished pack. If you look at the packs made for certain bikes, they are sometimes stacked up to make a triangle to fit inside the frame of a bike. That plus the availability and low cost makes the 18650 cells a good option for an ebike. In my case I have been using 36V systems, and there are all kinds of various scooter packs of that voltage so you don't have to start from scratch assembling each individual cell if you don't want to go that route. Many scooter packs are a bit too small for running an ebike by itself. One option is to get multiple packs and attach the cells in parallel. For instance, I built a pack from 4 smaller packs of 10 in series and 2 in parallel (10S2P) to make one with 10 in series to keep the voltage the same and 8 in parallel (10S8P), increasing the total AH of the pack and all of the benefits that come with it (increased range, less voltage drop, less battery heating and stress for longer life).

It looks like it was originally lead acid batteries similar to what is used in a computer UPS and runs in at 24V. I've found some info online regarding changing to a lithium ion pack and other than mounting without the original case it should be pretty straightforward. Most of my spare parts are for 36V, so I will have to order a few things after the holidays. I can show what I do to build the pack on my ebike thread next month and go over the differences between what I've previously done and what your bike needs. I'll check back in when I get that far with it.

Is there any chance I could get detailed pictures of the ebike and the battery connector for the ebike you have that is missing a battery? Or any information on the brand and model? I would like to look into building a battery pack for you to get that thing going. I started a blog on here to share some of my experiences building and fixing ebikes, and plan on putting up more info about building battery packs. Depending on the design of the old battery I may or may not be able to make one that looks exactly the same or fits the old mount, but I'm certain I could build a pack much cheaper than buying new from the manufacturer and get that thing going again. I can even add a charging port so the battery never has to leave the bike!

I'm well versed with all things electrical (graduated from Morris County (NJ) School of Technology in Electrical Trades in 1998) and would love to make it up there sometime next year to teach people about residential electrical, ebikes, and solar energy systems, and help out where I can.

This time around I am going to give an overview of what I did to get a used ebike working. I think this might be the way a lot of people would want to go if they aren't willing or able to afford a brand new ebike, and with sales of ebikes going through the roof, there will eventually be more and more deals somewhat comparable to what I found.

My goal was straightforward - I wanted a fat bike. I was willing to do all sorts of things (and still working down some of those avenues), but after seeing just how absurdly expensive or complicated (meaning special tools, ultimately leading to complicated = expensive) I decided to hunt craigslist to find my fatbike. After many months of searching I managed to find a good deal and jump on it before it disappeared.

While this wouldn't have been much of a deal for someone to fix by replacing with OEM parts, this thing was a screaming deal for me! The reason for the deal was pretty simple - the previous owner put about a thousand miles on it exclusively going up and down the beach, and one day while wading in the ocean a wave hit it and knocked the bike over. It worked for a little bit and then the charger went up in smoke and the thing wouldn't run. I knew just buying the wheels complete with tires and tubes would cost in the neighborhood of what I paid for the whole bike, so I was determined to make this work.

I dragged it home on a Friday and by midday Sunday I was testing it out. The original battery pack had a small amount of water damage, enough to ruin a few cells. Of course I didn't have any cells to fill in for the bad ones, and reconfiguring the pack was a task for another time. So I used what I had on hand, my spare 36V 8AH battery pack from the previous post and a spare motor controller I bought for my first bike when I thought it had a problem. This bike was a 48V system, but I knew the motor would work at 36V and the new controller works with both voltages. The old controller was also messed up pretty bad and was extremely small. The new motor controller was larger, so much so that I had to modify the case and tap it in to place with a block of wood. I do intend on changing the setup down the road since there is no way to keep the large controller in there without the big connectors hanging out the top hole, and it is far from waterproof. Then again the original setup was supposed to be waterproof and the Atlantic Ocean strongly disagreed.

The rear brake cable had completely seized and the front was on its way out, so I ordered new cables. Eventually I will have to replace the pads and the calipers have some wear from the harsh conditions and have to be treated with Liquid Wrench lubricant regularly. I already refurbished one pad that came apart with a piece of automotive brake material I cut out with a coping saw and some JB Weld. It makes a bit of noise at medium brake pressure, but it grabs hard and quiet when more force is applied.

I really like the adjustable gooseneck. This bike, being a beach cruiser style, also had those outrageously terrible boomerang shaped handlebars which were immediately tossed to the side. I had found a mountain bike beaten to bits in an area where garbage is commonly dumped that had a few useful parts, including the handlebars which make this bike feel so much better. The upright riding position and step through design make it so much more enjoyable to ride. No more neck or back pain, no more worrying about spilling over. I do have to be careful with the new battery pack being dumped in the basket the way it is, because if you leave the wheel straight the weight will invariably swing the front assembly to the side with the slightest of disturbance. I will be replacing that with a frame mounted design after I get all of the quirks worked out on the other pair of bikes I am fixing up.

As is, this thing is an absolute beast going down the road. The only noise you hear is the low growling of the tires since they aren't a street tread. The original mountain bike I heard nothing but complaints from people about how it looks and this thing seems to be much more socially acceptable. I'm just so much happier with the comfort. Sometime in the future I will probably buy a new front suspension fork so I can ride a little bit harder without destroying the battery pack. I mostly baby the thing and have probably put around a thousand miles on it this year. It would easily be triple that if I hadn't been laid up with injuries all spring, because this thing feels like a Caddy compared to my first bike. It begs to be ridden and I oblige.

Next on deck is one of a pair of bikes I am fixing up. They were basically bought new and put away in a garage for over a decade. A bit of rust on the chrome and rot on the tires, but the frames are in very nice condition. I currently have it strapped together just to make it work and use it as a backup for my main ride.

The battery attached to the rear tray in the cardboard box is very small for the task (36 volts nominal, 8 amp hours), and it is the first battery pack I built with individual cells and a battery management system. I spent over 6 hours assembling that small thing, but I get about 16 miles out of it, and the high current draw cells have no problem dragging me up and over a large bridge completely by itself if I decide not to pedal. I've had tons of fun piecing things together and pushing them to see what they can do, and so far I've been really happy with the performance.

My goal is to start making front 'baskets' that do not attach to the handlebars, but rather to the frame itself. I hate the feeling of a heavy basket as I try to steer and feel like I can barely control it under any condition that isn't perfectly straight. I've tried making a few prototypes that have all been failures. Not so much that they didn't function, but that they didn't look good. I seem to have a huge disconnect regarding other people's perception of positive or negative looks. I guess there is an uncanny valley where something very 'homemade looking' has a charm to it, but nothing I make ever captures that charm. I usually try to go for more of a professional look, but I don't have a factory of people and equipment to turn out my ideas, just myself and the tools I have on hand. I always go for function first, and most people I encounter seem to be of the form first variety.

After attempting two different styles and having to abandon them due to cost reasons, I extremely reluctantly bought a tool box to store important electrical bits. I'm glad I waited and found something better than the options other people told me to get, but I guess time will tell on that one. I was told to buy a fishing tackle box or some other stuff I though would be terrible. I either wanted something that matched the colors on the bike, or simple plain black. I don't know much about matching colors to make 'pleasing' combinations other than countless previous instances of negative remarks from others for getting it wrong. I couldn't possibly see some random tan, grey, or green (or mix of such colors) looking good, so I got this Harbor Freight Apache Case. I'm currently modifying it so I can add a headlight and turn signals, and bolt it to the front of the bike and possibly make a custom basket on top.

As it is, the bike is really fun if you disregard the horrible beach cruiser handlebars. The sweeping shape may be pleasing to someones eyes, but burying your elbows in your sides like a T-Rex and bending your wrists outward as far as they can go while bounding down the road is unpleasant at best. The acceleration and deceleration are really great, and the only thing missing is lights. Motorists around this area tend to either abandon all reason and slam on their brakes when they see a bike, or get aggressive with yelling and horn honking. And after seeing how bicyclists here tend to also be aggressive or completely carefree, I can see why it is a problem. I feel that if ebikes had turn signals like cars it would grab attention and be more obvious from a greater distance. Being the one with metal between my legs instead of wrapped around me, I want my intentions on the road to be obvious.

I bought several 'used' battery packs in perfect condition so I can add lights to several bikes, and I figure it could be used similarly to a car, where I could add a phone charger, radio, or other small power draw devices of convenience. I even made a power pack with four of those 8AH batteries in series to power a mini air compressor. Not that you need something that overkill for a bike, but it has come in handy on multiple occasions when journeying out to work on a car. I feel like this space has tons of room for growth and innovation, and I want to be there to see and help construct this foundation.

I'm currently in the process of getting ready to tear down and rebuild all of my bikes at the moment, so I went ahead and took a few pictures to let people see where I came from and where I am headed. I've recently come across a few of older bikes in really good shape with aluminum frames. Some of the old rubber is shiny but cracking, and the brakes need to be replaced, but once fixed up they should be decent transportation for getting around the beach.

This was the bike I started with. It was given to me about 15 years ago by someone moving away. I would occasionally get on a kick of riding it around, always thinking of how to electrify it with lead acid batteries but it never seemed worth the headache. Once I got it set up with the brushless front hub motor, I started riding it around constantly. Rode it so much I wore down the tire pretty far. It wasn't the best tire ever made, but it was soft and grippy. Certainly better than my other tires. Not too bad for something thrown in with the motor kit.

You can see the hub motor up front with a different tire, and the wiring all wrapped up on the handlebar as I start to harvest it for parts. The large gap between the rear deck and the tire held the battery and motor controller. There were a lot of things patched together to make the thing run, and I certainly got a lot of use out of it. The brakes were barely adequate, and one of the main reasons I am decommissioning this ride is because the lighter bikes can stop a lot quicker. There are tons of other benefits, but being able to stop safely from full speed is my main goal.

I'm also really partial to step through bikes when trying to drag any cargo around. It is a major pain having a load tied up high on a bike and having it want to spill over as you attempt to get on. I know there are a ton of other changes I need (and plan) to make regarding cargo and battery placement, but it is really nice to easily step on, and makes it easier for others to try out my bike, especially if they aren't as tall as I am.

Next up I am going to dive into the non-battery components needed for a DIY ebike build. This is going to assume you already have, or at least have in mind, a bike which will be the platform you build upon.

One of the first things that needs to be decided is what type of drive system you want to use. Old brushed motors made for lead acid systems with a wonky chain drive are out of the question. Every one that I have seen was a far inferior product to a brushless motor, and the minimal cost savings doesn't seem to be worthwhile. With brushless motor systems there are generally 3 types - front hub motor, rear hub motor, and mid drive motor. While there are DIY mid drive options, I will not be covering them. There aren't many DIY options, some of them require frame modifications or a custom frame, they are in general much more difficult to install, and I have never ridden a mid drive bike.

Initially I was going to build a brushless rear hub motor ebike, but at the time the one I wanted was out of stock, I really wanted the cheapest minimal viable product as a functioning proof of concept, and then next one up in price was more than I wanted to spend. I begrudgingly bought a brushless front hub motor kit. I cannot tell you how glad I am that I got that kit! I know things will be different for everybody, but at my age I am really starting to appreciate giving things an honest try before saying you don't like something. If you haven't ACTUALLY given it a seriously try, then you don't ACTUALLY know.

My favorite part right away is that when you hit the throttle, it forces the bike to understeer and stand up straight coming out of a turn. With a rear drive, there is a certain point where you hit the throttle and it wants to fold the handlebars and kick the rear end out from under you. I've purposely pushed my newer rear drive bike to the limit on several occasions and I can tell you if I hadn't been fully prepared for it that I would have been thrown to the ground. I live at the beach in Florida and there is a fair bit of sand at the intersections of every road. This means every turn you make is on ground with less than ideal traction. As long as a car isn't coming the other way I can hit full throttle starting into the turn and the wheel will feel like a front wheel drive car in the snow. It understeers and powers through. Obviously, this isn't something you want to do all of the time as it is nice to stay on your side of the road and spinning your tire will cause excess wear. But it's really nice to know that if my balance is a little off or there is more sand than usual, I can just throttle my way out of the predicament if there isn't any oncoming traffic. Don't get me wrong, I love many other aspects of my rear drive bike, and having a heavy hub motor on the front means using more arm and shoulder strength to control a front drive bike, but I just love the way it feels in turns.

Installing the front hub motor kit was pretty easy. It comes with new brake handles that have cut off switches so you aren't accidentally pushing forward while trying to stop. You don't 'have' to install them but I would strongly advise you do. The kit I got had no display, which was fine by me. I just measured the battery voltage and used a preset path of known length to gauge my range. It came with a throttle and a sensor for pedal assist. Unless you have a problem using the throttle I really don't see the point of pedal assist with this setup. I can twist as hard as I want or pedal as hard as I want, and mix the two as I see fit. Because it is front hub drive and rear pedal drive, it is effectively a two wheel drive system, so you have more traction than a rear pedal/rear hub design.

I already had a DIY cargo shelf on the rear of my bike consisting of 2 aluminum angle brackets tying down into the frame where the rear wheel bolts on, and a piece of scrap pressure treated plywood I found and cut to fit the bike with a funky setup to clamp it to the seat post. This sat a little low down to the tire, so I made a bracket to lift it up a couple inches and cut up a rectangular cat litter bucket to stuff my batteries in and slung it under the shelf, just above the rear tire. I screwed the motor controller to the bottom of the shelf behind the battery box, routed the wires from the front to the back with cable ties, and it worked!

I immediately had to replace the brake cables and pads. The rim brakes are barely adequate at stopping the bike when they are perfectly adjusted. It seems like every bike I've looked at had flex in the frame around the rear brakes when they are applied hard, and as such never seem to stop as well as the front brakes. Maybe the bikes I've seen are just lower quality. It does look like someone with some skill could make a large metal plate with a huge cutout for the wheel to fit in and bolt/clamp to the frame in that area to reduce flex and increase braking power. There are also DIY caliper mounts for disc brakes, and the hub motors all seem to have a place for the disc, but I'm thinking the welded on mounts are far superior to clamp on brackets. My newer bike with front and rear discs is much larger yet slightly lighter, and brakes so much better than the old steel frame mountain bike. The disc brakes come with their own set of quirks, but they stop the bike very well.

As for the actual kit, I just grabbed the cheapest brushless front hub motor kit available on Amazon at the time. I've easily put over 2,000 miles on the setup and other than the battery management system issues with the first battery packs, it still runs great. There are two types of hub motors - geared and gearless. The geared ones are a bit more expensive, smaller in hub size and weight, and have a lower top speed. My rear drive bike is a geared type and does about 19 MPH, whereas the 2 bikes I've built using the gearless front hub motors are heavier, slower off the line, but top out at about 23 MPH. In both cases it seems that the motor controller is limiting the RPM, as I can load the bike up pretty heavily and still reach the same speeds. Both are considered 500 watts, although for various reasons I will delve into later, the rear drive one is more comparable to a 350 watt motor.

The exact kit I bought doesn't seem to be available, and the prices have gone up a fair bit since that time, but most of the kits are similar. Some have different wheel sizes and different voltages. I'm using 26" wheels with 36 volts nominal batteries. It is possible to find a motor controller made to handle a certain wattage motor and different input voltages, which is what I ended up doing with my rear drive, but that story is for another day. I will have to take a bunch of pictures and explain how all of that went down tomorrow.

Now that I've given a run down of how I got started, let's take a look at some of the resources I used to learn and what parts I have had success with. I'll start with Battery Hook Up. batteryhookup.com has been great for me. I have purchased batteries from them on several occasions now. Shipping has taken under a week and packages have shown up undamaged. You can certainly find people online complaining about packages showing up damaged, and maybe they weren't as thorough about securely packaging things in the past, but my experience has always been positive.

Because of the nature of the business, they buy in lots and once something is sold they may or may not get any more. There are certain batteries that exist in absurd amounts, but take labor to extract (for example from all of those scooters that got plastered across cities and then banned). Others are backup batteries for critical infrastructure like telecommunications or medical devices, and there will be waves of these hitting the used market as they get decommissioned. Other times there will be packs made for a specific product and because of a design error they don't fit. Instead of redesigning an electric car, it is cheaper for them to sell the battery packs and buy new ones that fit. While you can find plenty of batteries in like-new quality, others may have been more heavily used and are usually sold at a lower price to reflect this drop in quality. For certain applications such as DIY ebikes or small off-grid solar, this can sometimes be one of the best deals. I guess the hardest part is figuring out what you want and waiting for the right time to get it. I've been very lucky that each time I bought batteries was right before they sold out of what I wanted. There are always battery packs of the same or similar type coming and going, and if you miss out it could be months before you find exactly what you want again.

Batteries come in many forms. From massive packs to a single cell. Some come without a case, some have a heavy duty case that is difficult to open or too oddly shaped to use on a bike. Some packs are sold knowing there will be some dead cells and a bad BMS, others have a guarantee that everything is functional. Some cells are metal cylinders, others are pouches. Some are not much bigger than my thumb, others are larger than Kindle tablet.

There are also different battery chemistries. I personally would suggest sticking to lithium ion (Li-Ion) because they are the easiest to use and are perfectly safe when used with proper safety equipment like fuses and a BMS. It is equally possible to make a very safe battery pack or a very dangerous one. Some of the methods I have employed in the past were not at the peak of safety, and you can find many more stories about how not to do something than you will about things actually going terribly wrong. There are far more armchair safety experts that spread doom and gloom without any experience than ones with experience. I will point out my mistakes and encourage others to do what is best for them. I've done thousands of things in my life that weren't by the book, but I had enough knowledge, understood the odds, and take my chances carefully. I briefly played the lottery when I was young and quit when I had more money than I lost. Being aware of the odds of any situation you find yourself in is better than being unaware.

I currently have no intentions of messing with other battery types at this time. Most of them have drawbacks (lower power density, higher price, charging restrictions) that don't fit my gear or my use case. There are tons of resources elsewhere to learn more, just be aware of the pro's and con's before buying.

While I have only used Battery Hook Up, I have seen others on YouTube building packs for various projects from a number of other places and nearly all of them have been happy customers. The vast majority of times that I have seen someone unhappy it has been because they didn't understand what they were buying and were sore about it. Heck, I wasn't the happiest person when I realized I had to reconfigure my packs and buy tools and supplies to make things work properly, but I was fed bad information from a YouTube video. I wasn't really mad at anybody and I'm thrilled with the price to performance ratio with what I have now.

There is another place to buy batteries that I haven't tried, but the guy has tons of informational videos. I do intend on buying from him in the future, kind of as a 'thank you' for the info he provides. Jehu Garcia's channel has lots of info for all sorts of battery setups, from cars and ebikes to power walls for houses. He often has the same types of batteries that many other sellers have, as they all buy by the pallet at auction from some of the same resources.

I already have tons of experience with electrical (2 years of school, 2 years apprenticeship, rewiring cars, 10 years of powering small things from solar in my shed) so the places I go to for information tend to go far above and beyond what is needed to build an ebike battery. I would strongly encourage anyone interested in this to learn all that you can or find someone knowledgeable. These things can be quite complex and require strong math skills and experience with batteries, wiring, and proper safety. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone with a car try to do what worked for somebody on YouTube, possibly even got things working temporarily, and ended up towing their car or dragging me and my tools to try to fix it. I almost always just undo whatever they did rather than try to make a poorly designed system work. "Everybody's got a car, everybody's got 12 volt systems, this stuff is easy!", and they have an expensive paperweight. The world has more and more paperweights as we use less and less paper.

I don't want to discourage anyone from wanting to try new things, but this is an investment. It takes time, tools, money, and learning a few lessons the hard (and often expensive) way. I've sent a few things up in smoke in my day, but I've gained enough skills where I spend a great deal of time keeping things from being scrapped. If you are only looking for cheaper batteries, but don't want to make an investment of time or money, then I would strongly encourage you to find someone else who can benefit from this information and possibly help you with your ebike goals in the process. The key to cheap cost, reasonable quality ebikes is cheap price, good quality batteries. Buying the batteries is easy, assembling them in a way that suits your needs is the part that takes a substantial amount of knowledge.

About two years ago I bought the parts to assemble my first DIY electric bike (ebike). I have since built or rebuilt a few more and would like to share my experiences. I started to prepare this info last week but life chaos interrupted me. I'm thankful that Paul brought this topic up on the podcast, as I now have the time to give this the attention it needs. This is such a vast topic and I have tens of thousands of words to write up to convey half of what I want to share, so this is going to be a blog and not a manual. I intend on putting in several hours and dumping several posts in succession.

I want to preface this with two notions. First, I tend to jump into things and figure them out as I go. I have a very strong mechanical and electrical background, as well as experience with construction. I never saw a set of house plans that didn't have at least one discrepancy between different pages and had to figure things out on my own, so I gather information until I satisfy any design questions I have at the outset and run with it. The nature of DIY means using various things of various dimensions. If you need help with that aspect, your best bet is to find someone in person who is handy. This is more of a story of my journey so others can learn from my successes and failures.

Second, I fell (not riding a bike) and broke my skull and other bones in March. If I don't make sense somewhere then please don't hesitate to point it out. I will try to list resources so people can learn from the same places that I did so you can see where I am coming from. I sometimes do things in ways other people wouldn't or even shouldn't, and I will try to point these out and alternative methods to reaching the goal of a functioning ebike.

At the outset of my ebike building journey I was using an old but decent shape mountain bike. I almost made the mistake of buying lead acid batteries because the cost of new lithium ion batteries was too high and you can't tell the quality of the cells from most places. Things seem to have gotten a little better nowadays, mainly because people are willing to pay more for better quality and the market is providing that quality, but it is still possible to spend a lot of money and get ripped off. I guess the easiest way to ensure you get a quality product is to buy a name brand ebike, but those things are thousands of dollars. Most of the ebikes in the ~$1200 and under range tend to not be much better than a DIY ebike, have custom parts that are costly or impossible to find should they break, and you can't just transfer all of your parts to a different bike should you decide to upgrade in the future (I would strongly advise you use a bike with tubes and brakes that are easily sourced. You don't want to have an expensive paperweight because you can't find common parts that wear out from normal use).

Everything changed when I found out about used lithium ion batteries. Most batteries seem to either sit around hardly used/unused or get decommissioned when they have lost less than 20% of their original capacity. You can also greatly extend the life of lithium ion batteries by not pushing them to either extreme of fully charging or fully discharging the cells.

That last point is very important. I almost never fully charge or discharge my cell phone and have little discernable loss in battery life after 4 years. If you currently have a laptop or cell phone and find yourself constantly pushing it to the extreme all the time, and expect to do the same with an ebike, then you won't extract nearly as much value from buying used batteries. Or any battery for that matter. The faster you charge or discharge a battery, the more heat it produces since it is making a chemical change to store and provide power. Always charging to 100% and pushing until the battery is dead will severely reduce lifespan. It's possible to extend the life of lithium ion batteries by 7 times or more if you generally plan to only use around 60% of the total capacity, and only pushing to the extreme when you absolutely need it. Lithium ion batteries are pretty forgiving in this respect, but anything that is abused will have a shorter useful life. I would strongly advise building a much larger battery pack than you generally need, or make multiple packs to switch between versus expecting 100% capacity for every trip. If you plan for where the battery capacity is going to be in a few years then it will serve you well. If you expect more from it than it could ever give then it will be a bad experience from day one.

I caught wind of Battery Hookup on YouTube and followed the advice of someone to buy a certain type of battery pack that had the same voltage (36V nominal) as what I wanted to use on my bike. There were some things I didn't know at the time that caused some headaches involving the battery management system (BMS). Firstly, it isn't advisable to use multiple BMS's in parallel. In some cases it may work fine, but I would personally use one BMS, or use separate packs and switch between them. If one pack can't power your bike by itself then you can combine two packs and control it with a single BMS of sufficient output. Because an ebike motor is an inductive load, it can have current surges that are substantially larger than the nominal current draw specification, so I would recommend going with at least 30% higher BMS capacity. For instance, a 22 amp motor plus 30% (6.6 amps) is 28.6 amps, so a 30 amp BMS should work. A 25 amp BMS might cut out under heavy load. A 35 amp BMS might be an even better idea. You can always use a fuse of the same rating as the BMS or smaller if you choose. Too small of a fuse can be easily replaced. Too small of a BMS will definitely cause a lot of headaches.

The first batteries I bought came in smaller packs with a lower power BMS and the info I was given was, "Put two in parallel and it will work." Well, it sorta worked, but I couldn't hold the throttle down for more than a few seconds at a time, and it was worse at slow speeds where the motor was straining. I initially thought there was a problem with the motor controller and bought a replacement, but still had the same issue. Eventually I figured out the problem and learned enough about building battery packs to make my own. I took 4 of the smaller packs I bought to combine it into one large battery with 40 miles of range. I've tried the pack out on two extremely different bikes and still got the same range when testing. I live in Florida so this was on flat land on days with no strong wind.

Obviously I invested a lot of time learning to make this battery pack, but I probably spent around one third the cost of a new pack to build this one that has about 85% of the original rated capacity. Plus I can carry that knowledge forward to build my own packs and maybe help others to put them on a path to reaching their own ebike goals.

The best bet would be to figure out the largest load you have, size the breaker to that, and calculate a wire size capable of handling that amperage with a maximum voltage drop of 5%. If you only have devices with standard plugs, it would be cheaper to replace the breaker with one rated at 15A like standard residential branch circuits. Following the formula shows you would need 8 gauge wire. If you need more than that it might be substantially cheaper and easier to run two circuits using two 8/2 direct burial cables. Beyond that would mean much heavier cables, likely need to be in PVC conduit, and greatly increase costs.

Depending on the electrical panel you might be able to add a double breaker that fits in a single breaker slot if no more slots are empty. It really depends on a number of things (brand, amperage of service, etc), so it might be worthwhile to find an electrician to go over everything. Never work on live circuits or expect that a circuit isn't live. I personally have been zapped from guys way more experienced than me telling me to work on something and then forgetting and turning power on.

Two circuits would probably be wise for the new tiny house, especially if you have any electric kitchen appliances. You could split the loads so neither line gets overburdened and avoid tripped breakers. Putting refrigeration and lights together would let you know that when the lights go out the fridge is also out, and a separate circuit for kitchen countertop loads or any other large 'continuous load'. A safety disconnect box should be more than sufficient for safety should you need to cut power in an emergency. Going to a full sub panel will greatly complicate things and increase costs. I would treat it like any outdoor load such as a detached shed, pool, or air conditioner unit. Safety disconnect, outdoor rated waterproof boxes and connectors, and GFCI. If GFCI breakers are overly expensive, what we used to do was run power from a normal breaker to a GFCI receptacle, and then wire appropriately from there so everything on the load side is protected.

When sizing wire, on top of voltage drop consideration, you want to factor in the maximum current draw allowed by the breaker. If you undersize the conductor it could lead to a fire or damage to the wire insulation and cause an electrocution hazard. It's been a number of years since I was an electrician, but I'm fairly certain that hasn't changed. Also keep in mind that many electrical inspectors are not electricians, and as such will often err on the side of saying no to things they don't understand or are not comfortable with. Even doing everything 'by the book' and would otherwise be passed by most inspectors doesn't mean your local inspector will approve.

I would never recommend someone size a conductor for what they use 'most of the time' and then attach a larger breaker. The breaker size determines the maximum current by which conductor size is calculated (I believe the word in the code is 'shall', conductors shall be be sized larger than the maximum current of the breaker). Back when fuses were popular, some people would just install a larger fuse, or jam a penny under it, and many houses burned down or were on the verge of it. It's part of the reason the National Electrical Code book looks like a large novel compared the the children's book size of the first edition.

I read up on it and the formula for figuring out CSA (Cross Sectional Area, in circular mils) doesn't seem to have changed, nor the maximum 5% voltage drop for residential branch circuits. Doing the math for (KIL)2/Voltage Drop=CSA shows me the closest appropriate size wire for ~200 feet @ 30A would be 5 gauge (which would likely be hard to find locally) so you would need 4 gauge wire. This page goes over everything:

https://www.mikeholt.com/technnical-voltage-drop-calculations-part-one.php

The trick of using a 240V circuit as 2 x 120v circuits with a single neutral is referred to as an Edison circuit. If the neutral ever becomes disconnected, it tries to push 240V across when things are plugged in on both sides. If there isn't anything plugged in on both sides, there will be no power. Once you connect something to complete the circuit to both sides there will be a huge power spike, with varying results depending on the type (resistive, inductive) and size of load. My electric shop teacher had a sheet of plywood with this kind of setup and showed how to ruin things using an Edison circuit. They aren't allowed by code in residential wiring as far as I am aware.

Is there any way to get one of those nifty automatic underline things when the forum sees 'BRK' so the tooltip spells it out and links to the relevant thread? I've been out of the loop and never connected BRK with 'Biological Reverse Kickstarter' and also seem to have a hard time associating that with the benefits for boots taking pictures of stuff, even though I've listened to most of the podcasts. Some of that may just be health issues and brain overload on my end, but apparently I'm not alone in the misunderstanding.

You could potentially make a larger hole for the roof penetration and run several ducts inside it. I don't know about making one for 10 ducts potentially 6"+, and unless it was perfectly central then I'd imagine it might be a bit long of a run for the furthest heater. If the design is going to use an Oculus, then I don't know how that will affect things. It might not look great to have all of the ducts go up the center, and I don't know how wind could come in to play with having exhaust ducts next to a large opening in the roof. It might be better to run a few ducts side-by-side to a few larger roof penetrations towards the perimeter.

The idea of minimizing the number of holes in the roof is a good one. Instead of punching 10 separate holes evenly spaced around the roof, having fewer holes would reduce the chance of leaks and minimize troubleshooting any leaks that do crop up. If the building were freestanding it might be good to have them exhaust individually through the wall, but I guess that wouldn't be any better for earth berm walls.

I see is the birdshit one in Chrome and Firefox on Lubuntu 19.04. Had to screenshot and magnify to notice that it matched your pic. Also the extra space on the quote button.

More or less reiterating what others have said, I use baking soda for odor control and peppermint oil before going out. It's probably too harsh for many people, but I just put on straight baking soda and it kills the bacteria that make odor. It works better and lasts longer than deodorant sticks which I gave up several years ago. When I sweat it will run down my sides, so if I have any injuries the baking soda will make it burn.

My understanding of organic oils is that the smells coming from them are volatile organic compounds (VOC's), and as such they oxidize rather quickly. Especially applied to a warm body, or clothes on a warm body, and particularly in a warm climate, they will oxidize even faster meaning that applying them for a better smell will be short lived. Of course my experience is that many people are trained to believe that if a person doesn't exude a strong pleasant smell then they must smell bad without ever smelling anything repulsive. I did some minor testing with it and specifically asked people after I started using baking soda and people smelled nothing positive or negative. By putting oil on before going out someplace, they get that initial impression that I smell like peppermint which appears to trick them in to thinking I smell good even after the scent wears off.

I have been using rosemary as sort of a door step. I have a series of random pads I've acquired to brush off my feet when coming inside and will step on a dried out rosemary branch to give off a nice smell. They will last for a number of weeks this way. I wonder if a tiny pouch with rosemary or other leaves kept in a pocket or on a necklace or something would be useful. Just tap it a few times to give off a strong scent.

I've given some thought about this today and hopefully can bring up some points that will be beneficial. I think there are a few things with your goals and Wofati style building that need some consideration. First about your goals:

1. Live debt free  

I love this! Minimizing debt and doing things for yourself to minimize unnecessary future spending is the gift that keeps on giving. Paying attention and practicing is a great way to reach that goal.

2. Energy efficiency

This is probably closer to my heart than anything else with permaculture. Not wasting personal energy is nice, and minimizing outside energy inputs goes hand in hand with reducing spending. There are a number of things from electricity to thermal mass and insulation that can be used to increase efficiency, or misunderstood and reduce efficiency.

3. Self built as much as possible  

Given the later line saying that you are not builders tells to me that you probably need some hands on time with building before building a house you expect to spend your life in, and you need something more straightforward to start with. The earthbag idea seems good for learning a few things while creating a structure that will serve you well in the future without outrageous upfront costs. A small scale model of the home you want to build might be another exercise that could enlighten you to some pros and cons before committing to the final build.

4. Build with what's available, natural, repurposed or reused

This is one of the main tenets of Wofati building. If anyone is interested in building a Wofati style structure, it seems paramount to me that you look closely at the Wofati definition and give each aspect serious consideration before trying to modify it, doubly so if your building skills are limited. Too many changes can end up defeating the original purpose of the design. The Wofati Page gives a detailed explanation which I will summarize:
"Woodland" I'll let others debate on whether it is possible or not to build in this style without being in or near a woodland and on or not on a slope. I'd imagine earthworks and creating a food forest could be beneficial, and having plenty of cheap or free lumber for the structure is critically tied in with another part of the definition.
"Oehler" is for Mike Oehler inspired underground house design.
"Freaky-cheap" This ties in with being in or near a woodland. If you can get all of your logs without paying for the logs themselves, just the cost of working them in to shape and moving them, then you can achieve Freaky-cheap materials. You may need to pay for top tier skilled labor to make this work, which might be a great place to spend your money if you aren't well versed with timber framing or underground structures. I would be looking for examples of actual timber framing and references before hiring someone.
"Annualized Thermal Inertia" I believe this is where the rubber meets the road, and flies in direct contrast to so-called 'common knowledge' and conventional building. Just adding insulation randomly to a thermal mass can have deleterious consequences to the point of negating most of the benefits of the mass. From what I can tell, no insulation and more mass is both cheaper and more effective than using insulation. The mass regulates the temperature inside, and as such must contact the interior space you are trying to regulate in order to work. Insulation inside, in the walls, or between the walls and the mass will break contact between the interior and the mass and defeat the thermal inertia.

In the case of the Wofati's at the Lab, they were made to face away from the sun to prove that the thermal inertia can work without passive solar gain. For anybody else that wants maximum efficiency, you probably want to take advantage of the passive solar heating by facing the opening South towards the sun. A large mass, plus a rocket mass heater, plus passive solar should yield a space that is more efficient to keep warm than nearly any other house design. If you go for a lighter roof without earth, you can likely still make use of the rest of the ideas. I personally would look into adding something to the ceiling inside to reflect radiant heat back to the floors and walls to keep it in. Rocket mass heaters, passive solar, and thermal mass give a great deal of radiant heat, and certain reflective materials can reflect over 97% of radiant heat back into the living space. I'm not certain about what kind of testing has been done in this space with all natural materials, but aluminum, mylar, and steel can all reflect radiant heat back quite well.

I'm about all out of steam for the night, so hopefully that gives some more food for thought.

Amy Rising wrote:
We need to build quickly.

Amy Rising wrote:
Low cost is a must.

I believe the saying goes something along the lines of, "Good, fast, cheap - pick two." If you demand fast and cheap then it would be amazingly difficult to also get something good unless you can do it yourself. All of the other aspects mentioned can be worked through to get what you want, but there isn't any way I know of to create more time between now and a fixed point in the future. The wofati's (wofaties? wofatii?) at the lab were built by people given specific instruction and still had many issues because Paul was too busy to just sit there and micromanage everyone. The effort and money was invested and there were still very many issues that took a good bit of time to sort out.

I worked doing conventional house framing for a number of years, as well as part of many phases of conventional construction and have noticed a lot of things along the way. I have never seen a set of plans that didn't have at least one small discrepancy from one page to the next that needed to be deciphered on site. It takes awareness and skill to catch and rectify small issues early on before they become big problems. Even with the best plans and 3D models, there are always things people wish they knew beforehand and now have to live with because it is too late.

One thing that throws off virtually everyone unfamiliar is how fast early construction phases go compared to the total construction length. Excavation can usually be done in days at most. Framing can usually take weeks to months at most. Even with framing, getting the bulk of a small house together may only take a few days, then sheeting, engineering reinforcement, and adding in dead wood for sheetrock can end up taking weeks. The uninitiated might think the framing is 'done' after the crane comes to set roof trusses, but there is plenty of work left. Seeing the hole dug and the skeleton go up quickly makes people think it will be done 'soon', and a year later there are still multiple tradesmen showing up for work every day.

Houses take a long time to make completely livable. The houses on either side of me, one built new and one a remodel, have taken two years each to complete when the owners thought they would be done in months. That is with people skilled in each field, all of the tools they could ask for, and in a port city that is (in square area) the largest in the country, where materials are easily sourced. If time is genuinely that limited, and you and your family absolutely must survive the winter in whatever gets built, then you may want to give serious consideration towards how confident you are of making any structure livable in the allotted time frame.

Do you have a backup plan? Is there a place you can take your family if you can't meet the deadline? If not, would temporary housing work until you can build what you want? Tiny houses or a pole barn that could get you through the winter and be useful in the future might be a better option than putting all of your eggs in one basket. It's one thing to go for broke and suffer the consequences alone, but if you have to live with other people then there is a huge mental tax when everyone has to struggle through a situation.

Don't let all of this discourage you, I'm very cheap and cautious. If you can find a close friend or family member you can trust that has enough skill to manage a project like this then you may be able to pull it off. If you go in without anyone knowing a clear plan of what they are doing then the end result will be way off base from the initial vision.

Necromancy is raising the dead. Most other forums tend to view bringing up threads more than X days or weeks old as a negative thing, and is considered posting to a dead thread, thread necromancy, or necro for short.

This forum is quite different, where knowledge is curated and adding useful info that is on topic to a thread of any age is welcomed. I can understand why some other places with very time sensitive topics wouldn't want people to keep reviving old threads, but it always struck me as being very curious when a thread that is filled with knowledge where someone could make a meaningful contribution would get locked simply because it sat idle for a few days, scattering information around and making it extremely difficult to find important nuggets of knowledge. Compound this with forums changing their file structure and breaking all old links, and you could spend years trying to learn something complex and be left essentially sabotaged. I clearly know this from experience and am extremely grateful for this site!

I showed up to the party late, but it's good that things are working out. I too have been spending years now doing elderly care and it takes unwavering physical and mental fortitude. Many people have no idea how difficult and intricate daily life can be for a caretaker.

And on that note, perhaps for forum nomenclature the word "caretaker" under the community banner would be a way for all types of caretakers to find relief and perspective, as opposed to something that has names in it pertaining to those being cared for.

I guess the more on topic idea that I have involves the 'floating tiny house in place aspect'. The number one aspect to me about a tiny house on wheels is that, wait for it - it's on wheels! You don't let a glacier mow it down, you move it! I realize floods are much faster than glaciers, but if you see the flooding starting, and can have a solid evacuation plan in place then you could move it way from the storm or perhaps to a lake where a few feet of water isn't going to be any more dangerous. If you get flash floods, frequent sudden flooding, or otherwise can't evacuate a tiny house quickly then  perhaps a different plan for evacuating yourself and possessions would be better. If you have a rainy season and any way to store some things away from flooding danger then that's an option. Ideally no one would build in such a dangerous place, but I realize life throws situations at people that are far from ideal.

I understand why some others aren't crazy about trying to anchor in place, as that has a host of hazards. If someone is confident they may have random flooding but won't ever get that dangerous then maybe this is an option. I'd hate to see this be used as a band-aid to hold back a raging torrent and someone end up stuck in a bad situation. Perhaps it could be used on sheds (as mentioned above) for things of lesser value you can't evacuate with and just hope for the best.

One other thing about house boats is that they are boats first. I remember reading about this a while back, and my understanding was that the Coastguard can board at any time and you cannot refuse a search. I don't think that counts on land. It might be wise to learn about the laws at different levels of government concerning boats and bodies of water if you are interested in living in a house boat.

Brainstorm time! My main reason of liking this isn't specifically to do with flooding, but I do have some ideas on that. The more attractive aspect to me is the lack of a permanent trailer. I'm not particularly crazy about the idea of buying a trailer to build tiny houses on that will be moved into position and sit there. This gets compounded when someone decides to get the biggest possible trailer and expand the 'tiny house' limits to be as big as possible which seems against the spirit of tiny homes; large steel beams and triple axles complete with wheels. That seems to be a waste of a trailer, and all of the resources involved in making, buying, and moving the trailer in place just to sit there with the sole purpose of avoiding building codes. I hope for that to become the exception and not the norm.

One of the things I saw when reading about some of the places that are allowing tiny houses is that they want them on foundations for tax purposes. I know that you can remove axles and mount the steel frame on a permanent foundation, but again it seems like an excessive investment for something that may never be used again. Perhaps if more communities pop up, they could just have someone local that keeps axles and tires on hand for loaning out to fit a standardized frame and not need multiple axles and wheels on each and every house.

I'm not sure about how much more expensive (both cost and investment of materials) pontoons are, but I could see the possibility of some designs that use less materials. Designs that work well with foundations. Possibly even removable pontoons. This also leads in to my idea of having some standardized sizes for tiny houses where one person builds the house, one tow company has a trailer made to fit, and another can build the foundation to a straightforward standard that doesn't need special permissions and engineering review for each house since there is a precedent with an approved design.

Of course with standards, there can easily be many that compete to say that they are the best, but in this case I think there may already be some guidelines in place. I've seen pontoon boats being towed down the road, so I imagine they must fit within some size requirements in the same manner that tiny houses on wheels do. This means there must already be some level of standard for companies making these pontoon boats and the trailers that tow them. Maybe they would need some reinforcement or an extra axle to carry the extra load of a tiny house. If there are already common sizes for these pontoon boats and trailers then these sizes could be used for tiny houses. It could possibly minimize the materials and expense involved with current tiny house trends and allow for easier placement on foundations so they can be part of their community instead of playing a game of cat and mouse with local governments.

I don't have any actual experience, but I have heard of others using some of the open source software available with positive results, such as GnuCash. These people used it on Linux based operating systems, but it appears to be available for Mac and Windows as well. I used a list of alternatives for desktop software here - alternativeto.net

Edit - You can click on the links in that page for different software options and find the official homepages from there. Hopefully something there is useful to you.

I seem to have seen the usage without the 's' when talking about a single item, such as a butcher block table or countertop. Whereas if someone was just referencing it in general they might say, "I'm thinking of going with butcher's block" obviously not saying the apostrophe aloud. Common usage may be regional and subject to influence from popular sources.

Also, just because one use may be popular doesn't specifically mean it is correct. I'm all for using words in different ways to express an idea. This is how language evolves, no matter how much it irritates the experts. The point of language is to convey a message. The ones that get me are ones that seem to be picked up by mishearing something. Gallery instead of galley, or chunk instead of chuck, both of which seem to me to be used improperly more often than not. It isn't appropriating old words for new uses as much as being misheard and misused. I have terrible hearing, but I guess I'm self motivated and fortunate to have easy internet access to learn and double check what I think I know.

Out of curiosity, I checked The Butcher Block Wikipedia Page and saw what I was already thinking. For instance, "Butcher's block in modern American kitchen." and "Proper care of a butcher block" where the singular version drops the apostrophe "s".