Ive taken spare parts off a second sunbird rad2go electric scooter, and ghetto rigged them to my mountain bike. I took the wheels and fit them onto the mountain bike, but I had to bend the rear fork to fit the hub motor, and the band brake wouldnt fit, there wasnt enough space for it. I took the plain front wheel and slapped it on the front, and the result was a short funny looking yet fast electric bike. the motor I think is 250w, and the controller was a 36v, but the controller burned out on me, and now im looking to replace it with a larger one. ive been looking at the ones here http://www.electricscooterparts.com/speedcontrollers.html#48v and this 60v version here http://tncscooters.com/product.php?sku=101218
Ive got 2 hub motors, and If thats too much current, could I ease the stress on the motor by adding a second one on the front forks?
Ive got:
2 250w 10" hub motors for a sunbird
5 12v 10ah Sealed lead acid batteries
3 12v 7.5ah SLAs
1 3 wire hall effect throttle
Should I purchase the 60v controller and just wire the batteries together, and If I do, should I connect both hub motors, or just one?
My friend, you are talking about pumping 60 volts in to a hub motor designed for 36 volts. When I visualize what you are suggesting, I see a lot of smoke and burning rubber and I don't mean from the tires! As I have pointed out elsewhere, controllers and motors must be matched. When I ran out of spare controllers for a particular model once, I tried several other brushless 48 volt controllers and none worked properly. I think your best bet would be to talk to the friendly folks at tnc and ask them which controllers would work with the Sunbird motor. Then I would try using two controllers and 6 batteries for 36 volts per motor. Only foreseeable problem will be that this will make the bike heavier too and decrease the power to weigh ratio, Right? Also I am having a little trouble visualizing where you will put all those batteries on this contraption!
Techdude at http://www.scooterbatteries.net
Here are some pictures of the bike setup.
The batteries rest on that metal plate rivited to the frame of the bike. Its not very stable, but its good enough to support all the batteries.
Before the controller broke out on me, I was putting 48v into that controller quite fine for quite some time. The controller got wet from a sprinkler overnight and started acting up, so I figure Id just rig up a 48v motor to pull a little extra power out of the motor, or a 60v for the 2. Why would this be a bad idea? please understand, im still learning about electricity.
um, thats just scary looking! no rear brake, backwards pointing kickstand, all those wires around the pedals..... way scary...
You shoulda been there when a small wire melted because of too much current. I used too small a wire to link the motor to the controller, and first the insulation melted, then the wire itself. had to walk it like 30ft home though. It works, only it bottoms out when you hit speed bumps, and the pedals cant be allowed to go much further than level with the horizon, because they will scrape the street, but once you start going, its actually a nice scenic ride. It dosent go very fast, and when you kill the throttle, the motor slows the bike down, and when you need to stop, drop your feet flinstones style. Its not exactly "safe" but what damage it can do is minimized by its low speed, and almost complete lack of traffic whare I ride it.
On the last picture, in the back up against the wall are the 2 wheels that the bike is supposed to have, but they somehow rusted to oblivion overnight, as did everything else on the bike. So I took them off and used parts laying around to build the ghetto bike.