BL-36, enhancements to standard system

The BL36 should be fine at 48V.

I don't know about the controller. If you take it apart and look at the ratings on the capacitors and the part numbers on the FETs then you could probably figure it out.

RCA? You mean like the A/V cables on my TV? Never seen that before. The three prong on the 48V charger is really only a two pin, since the third isn't used. They make different kinds of charges for different chemistries and some use that third pin for something like a thermistor. You can just cut off the XLR connector on the charger and splice the wires to an RCA jack. Make sure you get the polarity right, though.

Assuming your rack can take the additional weight, then no. If it can't you'll either need to get a new one that can, or find a place to mount the fourth battery. Best way to mount the batteries is weld up some battery boxes to the frame, but not too many have the tools to do that. :P

Your problem is exactly why I keep recomending the brushed hub. You see a lot of people with less expensive brushless hubs that are not happy with 15-20 mph. We have been waiting for a brave soul to take the plunge with 48 volts on the brushless controller. I suspect if you have a good controller it will work, and if you got a weak one, it would blow pretty soon at 36 volts. Even the chrystalite controllers have had some problems with this. If it is a problem and 48 volts blows it, let us know for sure. You can get a 48 volt chrystalite controller if the WE one can't handle it. When you look at the little cans in the controller, capacitors, if they have 42 printed on them or something like that, you will have to stick to 36 volts. If the capacitors have 60 on them or more, the controller will be likely to handle 48. You could take a pic or two to show us the insides of the controller. Either way, let us know how it goes. I found the rca charger plugs last about a day. If you ever switch positive and negative, when the bare end touches anything you will see some welding. Get a plug to match the new charger. Electricscooterparts.com has a good selection.

If it does blow, e-crazyman on eBay sells this 48V 28A brushless controller for only $60. People have also modded this with success.

63V caps, so those are good for a 48V pack. Can you read the part numbers on the FETs (those screwed down black things with three legs)?

Ah, I see. Well, given that most 36V controllers can take 48V without issue, I'd give it a try.

If it blows, then it's modding time. }:)

tad, i went thru this process allready.....i have this posted in a different forum, short read, i think its worth reading, peace, randy.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=387961

Cool, I had no doubt, somebody had done it, but couldn't find it at ES. Could you start a new post with more details, like top speed before and after, how it affected range, the handling of the bike etc.

dogman, the link i posted answers most of your questions.....since that other forum is so slow, i will answer any ques here. my set-up is proven in 90f plus tempuratures with a heavy load. shortly i will post controller, hub, and battery temps, as i have a infra-ray temp gauge. peace, randy.

Great to hear. My top speed at 36v is 19.5 MPH (flat surface). I do not know how many miles, I have yet to drive any great distance. I am encouraged to hear you get 24 MPH. I am at 242 lbs.

I just dropped the bike off at performance bikes in Sorrento Vally (San Diego), and they are truing the wheel. The bike will be ready for pick up Monday.

tad, my sli batterys are getting stronger as i use them.....i hear its called "conditioning" them....since i posted that my level ground speed is at 27mph. as you read im a lead bottom @350lbs. man im so happy with this set-up.......just love riding it. peace, randy.

hello fellas, wanted to get some temp readings today. air temp was 76deg.f. the ride was 9mi. in length. on flat ground. throttle was held wide open at all times, with no peddeling......well a half pump for taking off....really worked the system ad hard as i could.....

my rig.....

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temp reading results...

battery temp

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controller temps...

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motor temps....

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all temp readings were done immediately after ride...as i know it would be closer to the real temp. in the controller photos you could see the temp starting to rise, as it was not being aircooled just sitting. with such a hard ride, and the load the system is carrying...did i say i weighed #350lbs. yet??lol....i will conclude this system is bullet-proof. i will test temps agian at 90deg.f .....in michigan that could be awile, lols. peace, randy.

Awesome! I so love it to see us guys who so unwisely bought that supposedly cheap and unreliable WE hubs getting away with 48 volts with no mods to the controller at all. Our stuff seems to run just as good as the expensive ones. Im still curious about range though, I think the brushed hub is not so inefficient as it is fast. On flat ground my brushed hub would go 6 miles on full throttle, going about 26-28 mph initially, and then slowing to about 25 after the first mile. And slower still by the last mile. That was with the 12ah lead batteries that came with the kit at 36 volts. I would assume that run hard like that a bl36 would go 8 miles or more at the same speed on 48 volts. Does it do much better than that or not? I like brushed, to get up the hill I have to climb, but I'm curious.

dogman, as of now 9 miles is my longest ride. i have a few more months to test brfore the coolness of michigan fall comes along. just for the record.....i would have paid alot more than i did to get brushless....way more efficent, nothing to wear out and fiddle with......as far as power it pulls my fat from a dead stop without peddle power. and maintaines its speed. i would love to see a 200lb light weight ride it....peace, randy.

tad, that was all i rode.....i just wanted to torture test the components.....i figured the system was as hot as it was gonna get. i know it will have a very nice range.....i havent tested it yet for mileage, just testing to prove the system can take the voltage. with a very heavy load....safe to say if ther are no failures with me....its a proven set-up. when summer hits full stride here, i will do another temp test to compare to this one. meanwile i will start doing some mileage testing.....when you get your bike back, we can compair range results......randy.

Ok I must be wrong then. The brushless is that much less efficient. It's hard to compare when they run such different speeds. But brushed 36v and brushless 48 seem pretty close. So now I know. When I read WE's website it strikes me as a sales pitch for the more expensive kit. I have read a lot of posts where the purchaser of low end brushless hubs of all makes are dissapointed with the speed, especially if they have hills. I see a lot of noobie posts asking how do I go 30mph for 15 miles for $1000. If you have a bike allready, $300 for a WE brushed hub from batteryspace, and about $700 for a 48volt,20ah ping battery is how. But now we know, if just a little slower is ok, the Brushless kit will take you 10 miles at good speed by buying just one more lead battery. And with a 48 volt ping, you could go at least 20 or more miles at a pretty good speed. And best of all, no expensive new controller. No expensive x5 motor leave some bucks left for the real improvement,litium. I'm still going to stick to brushed since it is perfect for my big hill, a mile of 10%, and mr Ping gave me the range.

Oh and nice bike too! And thanks for the info. Not long ago there was a real dearth of good info in this section of the forum. Too many of us happily riding along with no problems to write I think. I know the chrystalites are good products, especially when it comes to service from a shop that sells it. But cheapskates like me want to know if the bargain stuff can get you there too. A few of the cheaper ready to ride bikes have trashed the reputation of all e bikes by now.

ok dogman......here it how it went down......money had nothing to do with it with me.....like i said before, im large at 350lbs. for health reasons i wanted to start riding my bike to work as i did before.....didnt care about the ride home.......but on the way ther i didnt wanna show up smelling like a sweaty pig......decited to call bernson ev......i was doubtfull if a ev bike would pull my fat over weight frame.....after i seen he was a neighbor, we talked for a long time about this issue. at first he recomended a crystlite "brute" to pull my #350 .....after it was said and done....he told me a wilderness kit would do the same job at a cheaper cost. he was real convicted with this info......he said it would do the same job... the kit he sold me was a 36volt kit....everything went well with 19mph. i just wanted to go faster....called him back to inquire about 48volts.....he told me i was on my own with that, as he said he really didnt know.....so to my knowledge im the guinna pig for wilderness enegery......so be it, i figured if i cooked it.....i would just go with the crystalite brute. so i got another 12volt cell, a 48v charger, and here i am.....peace, randy.

Well we are all glad you took the plunge. I just this minuite responded to a post from a guy who wanted to know exactly that info, and he's in a hurry since it's an ebay deal. I've been so pleased with my motor I bought two. My only problem was range, but my ride would eat the battery on any brand of hub. My only regret, shoulda bought the 48 volt ping battery. But at 36volts I'm only slow on the big hill.

Hi All,

This is my first post/reply to this site. I've been reading all of what you've had to say on the WE BL36 vs BD36. Speed vs Range.

I went ahead and bought a BL36 kit from Bernson EV and installed it last week. Today is day 4 of riding.

I commute 10 miles to work and 10 miles back. I charge my pack while at work. My commute consists of mainly a flat bike path with alot of stop signals. I don't have a speedometer on my bike yet so I don't know exactly how fast I'm going. I use full-throtle and pedal at the same time. It feels like 10 to 15 mph. Even if I don't pedal, it still goes the same speed. It has gone faster after different charge cycles. I haven't tried the commute without pedeling for fear that my range would be limited to 6 or 7 miles and I'd be left having to pedal my anchor of a bike to work. So, I just do some average pedaling... It's pretty good exercise. I'm about 190lbs. The downside to this kit is that it doesn't feel that fast. I wish it could go faster. I've seen kits that claim sub-light speed, light speed, ridiculous speed, and ludicrous speed (FalconEv) and I was tempted to go that route. But for it's worth ... This BL36 does the job. I decided to add an extra 12v battery to the pack. I wedged it on top of the pack between the handle strap and the pack sideways and reinforced with a tie-down strap around the bag and bike rack. I have to say. I love it! ... When I rode using 48 volts it felt like ludicrous speed. When I got to about 9 miles range my battery pack started to weaken and I was going about 15 to 20 mph again. I have the standard 36V 3amp charger. I think I made a mistake by charging 3 of the 4 batteries with the 36V charger and after a complete charge I took the discharged 12 v I had set aside and swapped it out with a charged 12 v and then recharged it the pack again. I hope I didn't damage my batteries by doing that.

Anyway, I looked for chargers out there and couldn't find a cheap 48v charger so I ordered a cheap 12v 1amp charger with overcharge prevention and I'll just use that on the side for the extra battery. The charger says it can also charge up to 5 12v batteries in parallel.

you should get more than 10 miles on the bl at full throttle. Its the BD that goes 6 to 8 miles. Partly because its faster. So go ahead and let er rip. One thing about hub motors is you really cant speed them up much by peadling. Its feels wierd and it's hard to understand at first, but essentially if you peadal enough to spin the motor faster than the current going throuhg it, the motor starts to resist that. Pedaling at the same speed as the motor does help though, by helping it spin at the rate it wants to go. I don't think you really add a lot of range that way at all though. But you melt fat, dialate your blood vessels and get all the health benefits of what they call spinning at the gym. If you ride too long without peadaling your legs may fall asleep depending on the saddle. If you do want to peadle to extend range, peadle while the throttle is off. Then the motor is free to spin as fast as you can peadle without resiting your input. Also, when the motor is climbing, it is spinning slower than it wants to, and your peadling can speed it up then. But when you are rolling along at top speed, It adds less force to peadle, and in my case, I often can't keep up anyway in my highest gear. Essentially, if you run the motor with the wheel off the ground at top speed, that is your top speed with the trottle on. Even on a steep hill, you won't go too much faster than that with the throttle on. But throttle off, it will coast faster and further. I bet you are going faster than you think, I was suprised when I first found out how fast my bike was. I was guessing 15, and going 25.

48 volt chargers at ebay or monsterscooterparts for about $50

superduck, my advice is run your bike.....run them cells good.....charge the cells each for about a hour or so. get a meter and measure the voltage.....starting with the lowest volt cell, charge a couple mins. keep checkin to match the highest voltage cell. and do that with all them.....what your trying to do is match all the voltages on all 4 cells. after you get all 4 mached, series them up and charge with a 48volt charger....and dont seperate them agian, they should be matched good enough now for the life of your sli's. btw bernson sells cheap 48v chargers. think i got my crystalite for $80...or as i look at it 20gallons of gas...randy.

Good advice for sure, pack balancing is not just for lifepo4! But you have me confused now, a 12 volt battery has 6 cells but only two terminals. How do you charge individual cells on lead batteries? If you mean charging the 12 volt batteries individually that is what the 12 volt charger he bought will be very handy for. On my sla bike, I mostly run 36, but occasionally run 24, or 48, and use my 12 volt charger to either charge the odd battery, or about monthly I use it to charge the batteries individually to help stay balanced. I can't say I fuss with the voltage though, I just let the 12 volt charger run overnight on each battery.

Oh and by the way superduck, your sla's are not fully broken in yet. Mine took about a week to develop thier full charge and both speed and range improved a lot after that.

Good advice for sure, pack balancing is not just for lifepo4! But you have me confused now, a 12 volt battery has 6 cells but only two terminals. How do you charge individual cells on lead batteries? If you mean charging the 12 volt batteries individually that is what the 12 volt charger he bought will be very handy for. On my sla bike, I mostly run 36, but occasionally run 24, or 48, and use my 12 volt charger to either charge the odd battery, or about monthly I use it to charge the batteries individually to help stay balanced. I can't say I fuss with the voltage though, I just let the 12 volt charger run overnight on each battery.

Oh and by the way superduck, your sla's are not fully broken in yet. Mine took about a week to develop thier full charge and both speed and range improved a lot after that.

dogman, when i am talking about the cells, im just talking about 1 - 12volt battery........i have 4 12v batterys for my 48v pack. so i call it 4 cells.....my bad, sorry. peace, randy.

Randy, thanks for you advice about balancing the batteries.

So, what did you end up doing to the female RCA connectoron the pack and/or what did you do the plug on the charger? The 36V 3amp charge has a male RCA connector...

Just curious, should I buy a new connector to replace the RCA connector on my battery pack to couple with the new 48v charger's connector sold by BernsonEV and what connector/gender would I buy?

Also, was there any mention of an ideal battery arrangement to the pack on the rack?

I saw a picture of a bike and it's rack having a wood or cardboard enclouser on top of it and then I saw the standard 36V bag on top of that... What was that about?

Thanks,
Danny

You can use just about anything to make the charger connection as long as the positive side won't be able to ground and spark like crazy. One way to go would be to match whatever the new charger comes with. Or you could pick out a plug you like and put it on both the pack and the new charger. electricscooterparts.com has a great selection of charger plugs.