e-bike

I've added a new project to the pile of things I'm mucking around with:  Building a hybrid e-bike.

A while back I saw a "Zhejiang Nicom Electric Vehicle" or e-bike parked on the street out front of the Princess of Whales Theatre in Toronto.  I liked the look of it and though I don't need an e-bike, I thought it would cool to have one.

These bikes are sold under a wide variety of brand names; Switch 100, Top Prince, E-Road, Sprinter, Motorino VTS, Celtic Beetle, ezcruzr, etc.  The result of various e-bike retailers importing it, and other e-bikes, from China and slapping their own brand onto them.

After joining the Toronto Electric Riders Association forum to brush up on my e-bike knowledge I checked out the prices for new Nicom bikes - decided that over $1000+ was too much - and started snooping around on Kijiji and Craig's List for anyone selling a used one.  I found a 2010 "Switch 100" going for $400 so I drove out to have a look.

Fortunately the SLA (Sealed Lead Acid) battery pack was so worn out that the bike could only move under pedal power, so the seller readily agreed to $300 for it as-is.  Perfect for a bike that I was planning to strip and rebuild anyway.. fixing a little rust and having to rejuvenate or replace the battery pack would be part of the fun. ^_^

I'd brought along my tool box and was able to quickly partially disassemble the beast and cram it into my smart car.  (Only breaking one of the bike's mirrors in the process.)

The one thing that really impressed me about this bike is how HEAVY it is. >.<  The battery pack, frame and motor wheel are just massively heavy.  I am going to put it on a diet.

After driving home and drafting my husband into helping me haul the heaviest bits into the basement, I finished stripping it down to the frame.

And investigated the battery pack, which turned out to contain four batteries crammed inside of the plastic case.  Unfortunately for my "rejuvenate" plans they turned out to be gel based SLA batteries, which do not respond well to desulphination circuits and they were also too far gone for desulphination to make much of a difference.  C'est la vie.  Off to recycling the went.

Which leaves me having to buy a new pack.. perhaps the most expensive part of an e-bike.  Ouch.  But I kind of expected this to happen.. if you're picking up a 2nd hand e-bike you can be pretty sure that the original owner is getting rid of it 'cause the batteries are kaput and they're put off by the cost of getting new batteries for it.  I imagine we'll see much the same trend in the future with electric cars.

Would you want to spend $$$ on a new engine for your 5 year old car, or invest that into a new vehicle instead?

I decided against going for the cheap option of just buying a fresh set of SLA (apx. $200+) and decided to get lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) instead.  Just about any e-bike dealership also sells battery packs, that being the first part of an e-bike that needs replacing, so I thought it wouldn't be difficult to find someone selling a ready-made pack for my bike.. and I'd also need a new charger since the one for lead acid batteries wouldn't work with the different chemistry.

But after looking around I couldn't find anyone selling a battery pack that looked plug-n-play for my bike.  Which I suppose isn't that surprising since there are a lot of different e-bikes on the market and trying to keep a bespoke pack for each model on hand would be a bit of a logistical nightmare.

While browsing around various e-bike maintainance and tech sites I came across this page which shows a LiFePO4 battery pack being made inside of the plastic battery case from a Switch 100.

After some more hunting around I found a few different retailers of those big blue Headway batteries and kits for assembling different sizes of battery packs - such as Headway Headquarters - with prices that varied considerably.  I noticed that the US places tended to charge quite a bit more for the batteries, and though they would be less for shipping if I lived in the US, I'm Canadian, so it made more sense to buy from China.

That's what I've done; just over $675 for a 48v 15Ah battery pack kit from ev assemble via their eBay store.

It will have the batteries, BMS (Battery Management System), charger and various bits and pieces for assembling the batteries into a pack.  Should be fun to put together. ^_^

Yes.. this means I've nearly spent as much on a two year old rust bucket as I could've spent on a new bike.. which probably doesn't make any sense to some people.  It does to me for a few reasons:  That new bike price would be for one with a SLA battery pack, which only last a couple of years, whereas this LiFePO4 cell should have a much longer life and be a fair bit more powerful as well, extending the bike's range.  In addition I'll end up with a custom bike that is unique, and an expression of my creativity.  I'm also reducing waste by taking something that otherwise might have been discarded or recycled and making it useful again.  Finally it's just fun to do this.. mucking around with the guts of some old heap and bringing it back to life again.  It's a hobby.  It doesn't need to make money or sense.

While I wait for the batteries to arrive I've begun cleaning up the rest of the bike.

I hope no one minds bike parts in the shower...