Daniel Schmidt

Since I am no longer in Florida with all of my old bike stuff and spending much of my off-boot time in the basecamp shop/classroom, I guess the ebike blog will be probably be moving over to a new boot thread with a bunch of new repairs on mostly prebuilt ebikes. One thing I never documented before leaving Florida was the last iteration of the trike. The chain tensioner broke and I decided to remove the 3 speed internally geared hub from the middle and mounted the motor there like most cheaper rear wheel drive electric trikes tend to use. The frame definitely took a bit of persuading and some custom filing/grinding on washers and adapter pieces to fit properly and stay in place under full torque.

Along with that change I added in a 26" fork and front direct drive motor. The added weight of the hub motor helped to plant the front wheel a lot more, while negatively affecting the steering. The extra front end rake cause by the taller wheel and fork, as well as the extra weight meant it had more of a tendency to plow forward at slightly lower speed and less steering angle. It also stiffens up the steering under acceleration. Since the vast majority of my ride to Jacksonville was very long straight roads, this was mostly a non-issue.

Being able to hit the rear drive throttle and not have the trike try to take a hard left turn was nice. It could still do it, especially on an incline, but it took much less leaning forward to keep the front end on the ground. The acceleration before was great, but with the same batteries now spread across two motors it was rather absurd. I put the higher voltage battery on the direct drive motor for a higher top speed but limited starting torque, and the rear geared hub motor still using the extra gear reduction of the 18 tooth sprocket to the 24 tooth axle sprocket. The first few feet at launch didn't give much from the front wheel, but just enough to help limit the rear tire from losing traction. More traction = more torque to the ground. As speed increased, it would hit a certain point where the rear motor wasn't adding to the speed and I could rely on the more efficient direct drive front motor to get up to a top speed of about 26MPH. This helped to cut my travel time down by 20 minutes to about 2 hours flat.

The dual throttle setup was fantastic. I was going to get a proper left hand throttle, but that wasn't what I had on hand, so I flipped a right hand one upside down and had to twist my wrists in opposite directions. It was very easy to get used to, even if it looked a bit odd as I set up to accelerate from a stop. Having fully independent control of the different motors is amazing.

I'm still firmly in the camp that front wheel drive is best for all scenarios, and having the rear drive as an addition is a bonus. Riding the Rad Power bikes has only galvanized my position. If the front wheel digs in to anything, it fights you and the rear motor spins out and lays the bike down. I've had to catch myself with my left hand more than half a dozen times, and the first time the bike slammed my leg and bruised it pretty good. Rear wheel drive only is fine for flat pavement, but sucks pretty bad in comparison front wheel drive for everything else I've encountered over the years.

Hopefully in the next day or two I will start getting pics of things and sorting them out for a new thread to link to from here.

Jay Angler wrote:
This makes it sound as if in less than 5 years, all the electric bikes have enough problems that they aren't working?

It is very much #2 from your list - infinitely too many things going on, Paul spends gobs of moneys when people say they will do stuff, and ultimately basic things like changing a tire or finding the parts once bought simply never happens. The only serious problem that wasn't a basic assembly or maintenance issue was weak spot welds on the #7 connection to the BMS on one bike. Fortunately it was a fun issue to diagnose and I brought my battery spot welder with me. I had to turn it up and pulse it multiple times to get it to stick. The same bike also happened to have the wheel off because the tire had been beaten up. The dust around here is much finer and rougher on the brakes than the sand of Jacksonville, which lead to two of the calipers no longer being able to adjust. I'm sure with proper maintenance it would have had a longer service life.

The BMS issue was caused by the fact that they solder pads on to the BMS which adds too much thermal mass and make the spot welds weak, but that's the only one that has had an issue. All of the other bikes appear to have been ridden to the point basic maintenance was no longer an idea but a necessity, and then left for someone else to deal with. With all of the perpetual tool maintenance, care of growie systems and more, plus the availability of 4 wheeled vehicles, the ebikes were never going to make their way on to the list of daily tasks. I've had lots of trouble with my leg and foot in the past, so getting a bike going to help me get around was very much a necessity so I don't wear myself out too fast, and it became my top priority for my first Saturday here last weekend.

I was told the ecells bike had a whole host of issues, but I haven't even touched it yet. The shower shack, lab pump house, and other things to make life easier for all of the boots is more important at the moment. As someone who has DIY'ed a dual motor setup, I have lots of thoughts on how to go about things that likely differ greatly from however the ecells bike actually operates. I would greatly prefer the larger 26" fat tires like my old fat bike for the handling, and depending on how the front motor engages compared to the rear motor it probably could help with staying upright going through rough terrain. But I'm really not a fan of prebuilt ebikes because they do things in ways I never would. DIY all the way for me. Unfortunately I never got a pic of the final form of my trike before leaving Florida, but having dual throttles for a rear geared motor and direct drive front motor was pretty amazing. Grin Technologies has a great video on the subject:

I recently harvested one of the Rad Rover bikes at basecamp to get the others going. Two of them are functioning, one needs new pads, and the one I took parts from needs tires, calipers and pads. Some spares of those parts and tubes would be handy. I also fixed the loose spot weld on one battery's BMS, though I haven't actually load tested it just yet.

I was told the ecells bike has a multitude of problems that were listed out somewhere here on the forums, but I have yet to find these posts. If anyone 'in the know' could drop a link here I would greatly appreciate it versus figuring it out the hard way.

I have a bus ticket to arrive 7am on the 2nd. I'm trying to pare down what I have to carry so I'm not beating myself up. I can always have more tools and stuff shipped up at a later date. I have a lot of inherited tools with no home to go to. Hoping to feed the tool monster at some point.

I was told boots were being accepted on the first Sunday of the month in the bootcamp thread yesterday. I would have to travel in the heat today for 5 hours round trip by trike if I needed to cough up another $100. I was just trying to avoid an extra trip like that if possible. Thanks!

paul wheaton wrote:i think i found it ...

ten years ago ...  

something about "paid for by sister"?

yes this is it. I've been hunting around for hours on mobile and been completely lost. I think things were split up because this wasn't a wiki back then. There was some deal to "dine with the duke of permaculture" with a cabin rental to hustle up funds when your neck was really bad. I got my bus ticket. Thanks for the help!

paul wheaton wrote:I think I understand the question. So the answer is: if a person does the Sepper  program, it is as if they have paid the gapper fee. So when their stay is complete, they could choose to stay on longer as a gapper. Or, they could go home and return later as a gapper - the $100 gapper fee would be waived because they already know the lay of the land. Just as no gapper pays the fee more than once.

I don't know if I or anyone has record of me sending in money to rent a cabin back when you had a deal when your neck was injured. I don't care about the rental, I just want to know if I have to hunt down another $100 to pay my bootcamp fee. If you need the Paypal address used I can get that and pm it.

Are you still targeting the first Sunday of the month? Are spots still available? I'm pretty certain going one man army on my land is futile and sharing my electrical and other skills would be one way of providing value to something I want to see in this world - a better foundation for future boots.

I made certain to list as many things as I could to get them all knocked out of the way while shopping for my mother, and since this is what people want, it made the list!

I'm only going down the road of trikes because of very particular circumstances. I will have to turn this in to a separate thread with pictures at some point (If I haven't made a new thread by next week, feel free to ask about it, I've largely written up a bunch of posts and moved projects along, but I'm the worst with pictures). My post above explains how I feel -

Daniel Schmidt wrote:I wish there were easier ways to quantify how unstable 'delta' style trikes are

The front wheel does not contact the ground in a way that is conducive to steering if you can't lean. Finding out as the thing plows you forward in to an accident is too late. There are a dozen of other issues (did you test the brakes before plowing in to a turn?), which make them unfit if you are doing this because of mobility limitations. The seat moves much, much more than a bike seat and you must move before the trike shifts, or all of the weight will shift at once and lifts one or more wheels.

I nearly blacked out from complications with my head injury while riding the fatbike in March. I've also had seizures in the past. That on top of the flat tires and already having the trike on hand pushed me in to using it. The new trike will perform mostly better, but every change makes a more significant handling challenge than on a bike in my experience.