Last Wednesday I received a missal from Parcel Force, kindly letting me know that my eagerly-awaited ebike kit was in their Plymouth depot and, if I wanted it delivered, I'd better cough-up £12 vat & £8 handling charge:
Bummer!.... But they had me by the much-quoted, so pay-up I duly did; to have the (rather small) package delivered on Friday afternoon.
No instructions whatsoever: Not even a wiring diagram, but the controller leads each had a little paper label, so that's all-right then.
As expected, the motor sits below the bottom bracket, reducing ground clearance, with no option to mount it ahead of the down-tube. As I'm fitting it to a full-susser with good clearance & don't intend stump-jumping or other knutt-cracking acrobatics, this shouldn't be a deal-breaker.
However, the fact that it's only anti-rotation fixing bolts to the horizontal chain-stay most certainly could be, because the bike don't got one! (or 2, as do most hard-tails).
But, I'm getting ahead of myself - Never a great idea when dealing with ebikes
So, having previously wipped-off the pedals, cranks & bottom bracket (odd name for a threaded hole), offered-up the motor unit.... and it wouldn't fit! The down-tube on the saracen is oversize & oval, terminating in a fairly large flat bottom, which the motor mounting-plate was fouling.
Out with the small angle-grinder with a thin cutting disc & chopped-out about 10mm of the pretty substantial steel mounting plate. I cut this a bit deeper than strictly necessary, but didn't want to have to haul it all off again if something else should cause it to foul if I needed to change the angle-of-dangle of the motor.
D8veh gave a lovely write-up on removing & replacing the bottom bracket & this kit follows the same procedures - Thanks d8veh.
Where it now digresses is that there is only one chainring with this kit & the bike's chain goes 'round the new chainring, OVER the motor sprocket & under the idler; so you will need to split the bike's chain & add a few links, so get a couple of joiners now: I added 7 links, but I think that was probably a couple too many - Time will tell.
I threaded the chain wrong side of the motor sprocket first off & didn't realise I'd cocked-up until I tried turning the pedals, so had to split the chain again & do it proper.
Now for the seriously non-standard bit - How to stop the whole shebang rotating about the bottom bracket & very probably diving into the back tyre, with predictable results. I hope I've solved the problem with about 200mm of 25mm stainless angle, welded into an L and bolted from 2 of the motor mounting plate, to a short vertical tube on the main part of the frame. The alternative would be to fabricate a stay from the front of the motor mounting plate to the down-tube & U-bolts, I guess.
The full-grip throttle supplied is mounted on the left handlebar, as I quite like the twistgrip gearshift on the right: This means it's working fore-side-back, but should be rectified when I get a thumb throttle.
The controller fits quite nicely under the rear damper & the cabling will be tidiedup once the speedict arrives from China. The battery will probably have to go on a seat-post rack, unless anyone can suggest a better mounting point that I've missed.
The controller is marked 36v: 250w: 31.5v(presume LVcutoff): I think it's 16a by the type no.
Does anyone know the dimensions of the 350w brushless motor? This one's body (without endcaps) measures 102.5mm dia. x 450mm: Just pondering whether the 2 might be the same internally
Haven't had chance to get it on the road yet, but will report on performance, noise etc. as soon as I can.
![rps20121202_motor right[1].jpg](/forum/data/attachments/3/3278-767af7943a1af70a20f304ce28b7b895.jpg)
![rps20121202_bracket[1].jpg](/forum/data/attachments/3/3279-2c40b6c867cc507b2c202d252c96ab73.jpg)
![rps20121202_controller[1].jpg](/forum/data/attachments/3/3280-b7591580c7927130589c52398ce7f9f6.jpg)
![rps20121202_saracen right[1].jpg](/forum/data/attachments/3/3281-9de07c0bf4dad4a4adeb868eb257be64.jpg)
Bummer!.... But they had me by the much-quoted, so pay-up I duly did; to have the (rather small) package delivered on Friday afternoon.
No instructions whatsoever: Not even a wiring diagram, but the controller leads each had a little paper label, so that's all-right then.
As expected, the motor sits below the bottom bracket, reducing ground clearance, with no option to mount it ahead of the down-tube. As I'm fitting it to a full-susser with good clearance & don't intend stump-jumping or other knutt-cracking acrobatics, this shouldn't be a deal-breaker.
However, the fact that it's only anti-rotation fixing bolts to the horizontal chain-stay most certainly could be, because the bike don't got one! (or 2, as do most hard-tails).
But, I'm getting ahead of myself - Never a great idea when dealing with ebikes
So, having previously wipped-off the pedals, cranks & bottom bracket (odd name for a threaded hole), offered-up the motor unit.... and it wouldn't fit! The down-tube on the saracen is oversize & oval, terminating in a fairly large flat bottom, which the motor mounting-plate was fouling.
Out with the small angle-grinder with a thin cutting disc & chopped-out about 10mm of the pretty substantial steel mounting plate. I cut this a bit deeper than strictly necessary, but didn't want to have to haul it all off again if something else should cause it to foul if I needed to change the angle-of-dangle of the motor.
D8veh gave a lovely write-up on removing & replacing the bottom bracket & this kit follows the same procedures - Thanks d8veh.
Where it now digresses is that there is only one chainring with this kit & the bike's chain goes 'round the new chainring, OVER the motor sprocket & under the idler; so you will need to split the bike's chain & add a few links, so get a couple of joiners now: I added 7 links, but I think that was probably a couple too many - Time will tell.
I threaded the chain wrong side of the motor sprocket first off & didn't realise I'd cocked-up until I tried turning the pedals, so had to split the chain again & do it proper.
Now for the seriously non-standard bit - How to stop the whole shebang rotating about the bottom bracket & very probably diving into the back tyre, with predictable results. I hope I've solved the problem with about 200mm of 25mm stainless angle, welded into an L and bolted from 2 of the motor mounting plate, to a short vertical tube on the main part of the frame. The alternative would be to fabricate a stay from the front of the motor mounting plate to the down-tube & U-bolts, I guess.
The full-grip throttle supplied is mounted on the left handlebar, as I quite like the twistgrip gearshift on the right: This means it's working fore-side-back, but should be rectified when I get a thumb throttle.
The controller fits quite nicely under the rear damper & the cabling will be tidiedup once the speedict arrives from China. The battery will probably have to go on a seat-post rack, unless anyone can suggest a better mounting point that I've missed.
The controller is marked 36v: 250w: 31.5v(presume LVcutoff): I think it's 16a by the type no.
Does anyone know the dimensions of the 350w brushless motor? This one's body (without endcaps) measures 102.5mm dia. x 450mm: Just pondering whether the 2 might be the same internally
Haven't had chance to get it on the road yet, but will report on performance, noise etc. as soon as I can.
