X-Treme XB-500 what can be done to increase performance?

Im looking for the same thing here. I thought maybe swapping a motor and wiring from the XM-2000? or a gear swap or something might work. Not very knowledgeable in this area yet but looking into it. My stuff is more computers than conventional mechanics. But i emailed some cust service places asking them about the possibility of the motor swap nad they should get back to me in... oh one to two months. X( we will see. ill let you know too. meanwhile love to hear more... so keep us up to date if ya hear anything.

its the xb-500, so i just have what i found on the website for xtreme scooters. yeah i emailed one place at scootersupport.com and they told me that "no, none of the motors are interchangable." so i think it was just a blanket denial. there was no response to further inquiries after that.
they said its the 500 watt brushless for the xb-500... ?

thanks for the welcome too!!

i emailed one place at scootersupport.com and they told me that "no, none of the motors are interchangable." so i think it was just a blanket denial. there was no response to further inquiries after that.

Man, with a page like that, I doubt the owner can even find anything.

generationxile - I would imagine you could likely swap in the motor from the XB-600 (this would take you from 500 to 600 watts).

However, you'd need to do quite a bit more significant work to swap in an XM-2000 motor into an XB-500.

John H.
Blue XM-2000
Ann Arbor, MI

How do you figure scootersupport and Coleco are related?

I don't like scootersupport's main website (I've noticed other branches) because it's such a mess and their X-treme page takes nearly forever to load.

Gman, before you do some serious mods have you thought about just selling your complete working scooter and buying something better?

---
Avatar taken from http://www.electricmotorbike.org/
My KZ750 Project: here

GMan - I was answering generationXile who asked about fitting the XM-2000 motor in the XB-500. As far as I know the XB-500 doesn't have a solenoid shifter. So, if you put an XM-2000 motor in an XB-500 you will either need to retrofit the shifter as well or always run in high or low.

John H.
Blue XM-2000
Ann Arbor, MI

** DELETED by JDH - Paypal cart shows COLECO **

John H.
Blue XM-2000
Ann Arbor, MI

PayPal shows ecoleco.

(extreme vs x-treme)

[...]Coleco Industries, Inc. ran a promotion about 14 years ago before going bankrupt that included the scholarship. But after bankruptcy the company settled all debts under bankruptcy laws and went out of business about 12 years ago. The company IS out of business permanently. There is no one to talk to.
Some companies, like Hasbro, bought the rights to continue the manufacture of Cabbage Patch dolls and other things. The word coleco can be short for a lot of things. Originally it was Conneticut Leather Company as the company you did business with, or otherwise known as Coleco Industries, Inc. Other companies, e.g., Cole Company, have used coleco to convey their name. There are hundreds of coleco [at] whatever.com addresses and it means nothing as far as any connection with the business activities of the original corporation that went bankrupt.

I ordered one of these bikes to ship to Canada. 825 $ to door delivery.

Guys here is the question.

Can I change these old style SLA batteries and install let's say NiMh batteries on this bike with the same AMP and voltage to have more performance and life?

Who could know this?

I found here the batteries

http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=988

And as far as I understand if I install 4 of these batteries this would give me the same 48 VOLTS but 40 AMPS instead of 48 with SLA.

And is it going to work ? What about motor? Or it is built to work with only SLA batteries?

Please I need advice.

My daily commute is 33 KM each way . Thus: one way is constant downhill and so another way is constant uphill. The ANGLE/ELEVATION is not that tough. On that 33 KM the elevation is about 120 meters. The elevation on one end is 220 meters and on another end is about 100 meters (difference is about 120 meters). In my understanding this is very very low angle hill.

I am explaining this to understand if the bike is able to get me to and from.

And if it cannot what batteries can be purchased to make it more powerful, long running and long living

Thanks for support :)

Should work fine to use 10Ah of NiMH in parallel with the existing SLA. I've done something similar with a Voloci and it worked well. Just remember to disconnect the NiMH from the SLA while charging.

This won't make your bike go much faster, but it will increase the range. To make the bike go faster, you will have to modify or replace the controller and/or add a battery in series with the existing SLA.

Thanks for commenting.

Maybe I will look so dummy (I am new in e-bikes etc.) but what do you mean by saying

"Should work fine to use 10Ah of NiMH in parallel with the existing SLA"

Do you mean to somehow connect both SLA and NiMH batteries while riding and this will significantly increase travel time?

And how to connect. I am not sure I am good in engineering, electricity. If there are some guides doing so please help...

Was reading your post with a dummy stupid face :)

BTW I do not need a higher speed. All what I need a higher running distance. distance of 40 KM with no pedaling would be a great thing.

and if using 10 Ah of NiMH how many volts should I use? still 48 as my SLA or I can just add one 10 Ah 12 Volts ? Won't it ruin my e-bike motor or something else?

Don't worry about being new to e-bikes. The only thing dumb is to NOT ask the questions.

How are you trying to improve performance? More range? More speed? Better hill climbing ability?

Replacing the 12Ah SLA with 10Ah NiMH won't increase your performance a lot. Some, maybe, but not a lot. The big benefit you would see is that you won't damage the NiMH batteries if you occassionally use 100% of the charge or if you leave it uncharged overnight. The SLA you will want to charge soon after you finish using the bike, or the batteries will not last long.

But if you put the 48v, 10Ah of NiMH batteries in your seat, for example, and connect it in parallel, which is + to + and - to -, you should be able to more than double your range. Just unplug the NiMH batteries when you charge the NiMH or SLA batteries.

You get 48v 10Ah of NiMH by connecting the four 12v NiMH packs to each other in series, which is + to -. So you have:

- 12v NiMH +- 12v NiMH +- 12v NiMH +- 12v NiMH +

For a 48v by 10Ah pack.

Now, if you just want to increase speed, you can try to connect a single 12v x 12aH SLA in series with your existing pack. Then you will be running your scooter at 60v. Not all scooters are made to handle the extra voltage, so as a newbie, I would suggest that you not do this unless you know that someone else ran an XB-500 at 60v successfully. Adding a sixth battery and running at 72v would probably blow something.

OK step by step bocabikeguy

First of all. My daily commute is going to be 33 KM one way (66 each way). The way is continuous uphill one way and correspondingly downhill the other way. I cannot say is that too much or not but on this 33 KM the total elevation is about 120 meters. So if the starting point is 100 meters above the sea level the end point has 220 meters. And as I said the way is not going ups and downs all over the 33 KMS it is more or less continuous up/down-hill. This is about the description of ways where I will use the bike.

Now about the speeds. I won't need speeds as because the 25-30 KPH is OK for me which this bike seams to be providing anyways. So the main issue is length of travel. As long as better.

The specifications of road makes me believe that I can use pedaling or occasional accelerations on one way (downhill) to save power so the main issue is uphills. We need to somehow with the minimum expenses make this bike go longer.

Suddenly I thought about adding an extra 4x12 VOLTS SLA battery packs (just like the batteries it is coming originally).

What do you think is it possible to do so? Benefits are cost of batteries and there is no need to buy another charger for NiMH I can charge with my SLA universal charger one pack and than another pack. Another plus is cost of batteries itself. SLA cost lot less than NiMH.

I red that NiMH maintenance is hard when charging need to use some "smart" charger not to overcharge since this is going to damage battery. And as you say fully running out of NiMH is very common problem and it could damage battery too.

What about the SLA? For example can I charge SLA battery and not use it? Should it be automatically discharged after some time and if yes is it going to damage future life of the battery? How should I maintain SLA batteries? always keeping them charged and used or discharged? What about winters? It is impossible to use bikes in Canada in Winter so what should I do with batteries?

As much I think the less maintenance batteries are SLAs which are way too heavy but I do not care. I am about 70 Kg (155 LB) which I do not think is that much this bike can care and so better use cost effective mantelpiece free batteries to reach the goal.

Another question is this should I just keep the extra battery set in seat (let's say I decide to buy another extra pack of SLAs) and when one goes down just replace with the another set and ride the rest of the trip or there is a way to connect all 8 batteries and have all 8 working and giving me double length of travel.

Thanks again for your help bocabikeguy

Since you are looking to increase range, you are on the right track considering adding an additional set of batteries.

The difficulty charging NiMH batteries might be a problem for someone building a battery pack and charger, but should not be a problem for you as a consumer. It seems that NiMH batteries cost at least twice as much as another set of SLA, but they should last at least twice as long, if you use your scooter a lot for a long time. But NiMH is a big initial outlay of cash, so I am less likely to recommend them to someone first starting to commute by e-vehicle. It is a bigger commitment. SLA batteries work fine on a scooter, but they are easier to damage (by leaving them uncharged) and need to be replaced more often.

You should check to see if you can fit an additional set of SLA batteries under the seat in your bike. NiMH batteries are smaller and weigh less, so they might fit where SLA won't, and that would affect your decision. You are better off separating the packs to charge and using two chargers, but you are correct that it is possible for you to charge both packs at the same time with a single charger if they are both SLA. There is an issue called "cell balancing" that I will not discuss here, except to say that you should not worry much about it for now. It is just that there are ways to make your SLA batteries last longer.

Whichever batteries you choose, you should use them both at the same time. Because of something called the "Peukert Effect" you will get more range from both batteries connected in parallel than from using one pack at a time. If you run both batteries at the same time, you will use less current from each battery, which is more efficient for the batteries because less energy is wasted on heat. Your batteries will also last longer.

You should charge at work so you don't damage the SLA batteries, and might even have to charge at work to get the range, depending on how steep your hills actually are.

hey guys is it possiable to bypass the speedo controler so that with a flick of a switch it will sut down the speedo controler which will then open the bike to get some more speed

let me know

Hi everyone I'm new to the forum and I just have a couple of questions/concerns:

I bought my xb500 when i lived in a location that was plain, so it had no problems like going uphill, but i just recently moved to SF Bay Area, and my xb500 is just not cutting it on the uphill. I have looked around the forum, and I am wondering what would be my best solution and I would really like suggestions. I'm considering either upgrading to an xb600 and then attempting a 60V mod, or just doing the 60V mod to the xb500. I don't know if the 60V mod can be done to the xb500, or if it would be enough, or if the xb600 with the 60V mod would be enough either. Right now, I just have a normal xb500, and looking for something that will make it uphill. Thanks a lot.

What you might need is more current instead of more voltage. First look into the "coat hangar" current limit mod to the controller. And then if your bike still is too slow, you can add another battery.

you could try buying the xb600 watt motor, I think its priced at $160! and or the controller for it or try the controller you have if the wiring works. the controller is $75 I think.