Dillenger 1000 Watt, 48 Volt, 10Ah, Front wheel kit

[Kinninvie]

Hi, My name is Bob and I am an unfit,mid fifties,17 stone bloke in need of some exercise .

I live in Teesdale England which is very hilly so decided I needed an electric bike so that after riding away from home I could return(uphill) without having a heart attack so I bought a very second hand Cyclamatic.

It’s better than my standard Trax mountain bike but not by much as most of the hills round here are 14% or steeper so I decided to buy a 1000W kit.

After a couple of months research I decided on the Dillenger 1000 watt kit with a 10Ah battery.
http://dillengerelectricbikes.co.uk/shop/1000w-10ah-high-powered-electric-bike-conversion-kit/


It came this morning and I fitted it in a couple of hours but didn’t bother with the RPAS or brake levers yet as I wanted to know how well it would cope with the hills first.

It was an extremely simple kit to fit except that the rear rack mounting bracket was too big for my seatpost!

I made a temporary fix with some “O” rings and insulating tape and have now sourced some rubber to make a better fix tomorrow.

The battery took 3 hours to charge then it was time for a first test,wheel up in the air and throttle wide open it reached 69.5Kph which was a bit of a nice surprise.

The motor does have a bit of drag but its very little and the bike(Halfords Trax 18 speed budget mountain bike) can be pedalled unpowered without too much effort.

I should maybe point out here that the kit came with a torque arm although it was not on the kit list.

First run up the road with quite a strong side wind gave me 33.8 Kph on the flat and 24.3 Kph going up a 10% hill of about 300 metres,not bad as that was all without touching the pedals.

I then did a further 4K on slight hills pedalling with the throttle wide open and in top gear I was pedalling as fast as I could downhill to try and keep up with the motor,on the slight uphills it was still possible to stay in top gear as well.

Next I went down the 14% Billy bank and got halfway up the 24% hill at the other side(in 2nd gear but still going) when I got a puncture(in the rear wheel). I had to push the bike over a K home up the hill but it was not too bad as the kit has a “walking” setting where you hold a button on the lcd and it powers the bike at 6Kph.

I have ordered a pair of Kenda puncture resistant tyres now and they are 1.5 wide smooth tread rather than the 1.95 knobblies that were on so may give me an extra Kph or 2.

The biggest problem with the current setup is the disc brakes which are pretty pathetic but luckily there is quite a lot of engine braking when you roll off the throttle.

I will try and repair the puncture tomorrow so I can have another go but if its not successful I may install the pedal sensor so I can try that out when the new tyres come.

My goal is to be able to pedal to my local pub(3 miles away all downhill) and then be able to make it all the way home with ease.

 

[Sam458]

Hi Bob, great review thanks! I've been looking at them and getting close to making a decision. This review has helped a lot!

How does the front wheel feel on the way up the hills? I was tossing up between front or rear and between 6.6Ah and 10Ah. Sounds like the 6.6Ah isn't too bad!

Sam

 

[Deleted member 4366]

You should upgrade your front brake to a hydraulic disc. You can get them for about £30 to £40 from Ebay. The other thing to bear in mind is that the efficiency of a motor drops off once you go below 50% of the max no-load speed, which is 35 km/h in your case. The lower the efficiency, the more rapidly the motor heats up, so it's quite important that you don't let the motor slow down up hills. To put some figures to it, at 25 km/h efficiency will be about 55%, so over 14 amps (728w) will go to heat your motor. By the time you slow to 15 km/h it rises to 19 amps (988w).

 

[Kinninvie]

Thanks for the info, I read about this before so always try to pedal to the maximum speed and if I can't I always throttle back so its just pulling slightly.
I am thinking of buying a decent mountain bike to put this kit onto when I get round to it but will have a look for a hydraulic one in the meantime.

 

[Kinninvie]

Hi Bob, great review thanks! I've been looking at them and getting close to making a decision. This review has helped a lot!

How does the front wheel feel on the way up the hills? I was tossing up between front or rear and between 6.6Ah and 10Ah. Sounds like the 6.6Ah isn't too bad!

Sam

Hi Sam
The front wheel was no problem on hills even though the roads here had new chippings put on last week.
Which battery you choose depends on what range you want but you wont get very far with the smaller battery.
I chose the front wheel motor for my first kit as its easier to fit and I wont be going offroad with it, if you are going to use it offroad the rear wheel would be the one to go with.

 

[Kinninvie]

 

[Kinninvie]

 

[Deleted member 4366]

That Trax is just about the perfect bike for that kit. You can't put it on a decent mountain bike because the forks won't be strong enough. The drop-outs on your bike are strong and made of steel. The weight og the motor would cause a lot of problems with the suspension on decent aluminium forks.

Everything else on the bike can be upgraded - brakes, bottom bracket, drive train, rear wheel, handlebars, changers, levers, etc, so you can make it as good as you want. I just changed the brakes and the bottom bracket on mine. Everything else works fine.

I can't see whether your rear rack is made of steel or aluminium. If it's aluminium, it'll break due to metal fatigue some time in the future. Whatever it's made of, you should add some struts to triangulate it. I used this very strong tube that you can get from Wickes. The bike will handle better if you can get the battery a bit lower anf further forward too. If you're lucky, you can chuck the seat tube clamp and use the rack's QR clamp to clamp the seat tube. It worked on mine:

 

[Kinninvie]

Good idea that, to use the rack clamp in place of the seat clamp will sort that.
The rack is aluminium and comes with steel tubes to mount to a hardtail so I may be able to use them for a bit of strengthening,it certainly looks a bit delicate at the moment.
I had a look at a Diamondback with the intention of using that until I saw that it had aluminium forks.I have had a couple of disasters in the past with aluminium handlebars on motorcycles including once when one side snapped off at 60mph on the motorway!!
Luckily I got stopped but had to ride home with the broken half taped up as it was the throttle side.
I am going to get a hydraulic front brake sorted next job then some wider handlebars as the throttle side is a bit crowded with the gear shifter it has on.

 

[Kinninvie]

Just repaired the rear puncture.
It was caused by a tiny road chipping,couldnt believe such a small thing would go straight through the tyre,it must have been 3mm long.
The road outside has millions more of them so am glad I have ordered some puncture resistant ones.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

A thumb throttle will sort it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/E-Bike-Thumb-Throttle-Speed-Control-Twist-Gas-Throttle-Electric-Bike-Scooter-KIT-/221367645447?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item338a8a3507

Heres mine:

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I just thought of something. An avid Elixir hydraulic caliper is 18mm from the disc to its inside face. A Juicy 5 is 16mm. Other calipers will be different. You need to check the distance between the inside face of your disc and the motor to see if there's room for the caliper. The standard Trax ones are very narrow. If there's not enough space, you can usually get more by going up to a 180 or 203mm disc as long as your motor tapers away at that diameter.

 

[Kinninvie]

I will get a thumb throttle(eventually) but for now going to keep it standard in case I need to call on the warranty(some folks are not happy if you chop the plugs off and dont think I will find one with the same plug as mine).
Got my lcd changed to imperial this morning as I am too old to be doing with all this metric stuff and the bike sits happily at 22Mph on the flat and a shade under 16.7 uphill with me pedalling in top gear.
Downhill went up to 30.3 Mph which is quite fast enough for me(for now!)

There is only 10mm between the disc and motor and it would need a 230mm disc before there was any more clearance so that may be a bit of a problem.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

That's a big problem, which means that a rear motor would be better. You cam always fit a rear hydraulic brake and leave long skid marks like member Cwah.

 

[Kinninvie]

I think thats the answer.
The front is adjusted so it drags slightly and still has about as much effect as putting a foot down on the road.

 

[drsolly]

I will get a thumb throttle(eventually) but for now going to keep it standard in case I need to call on the warranty(some folks are not happy if you chop the plugs off and dont think I will find one with the same plug as mine)..

You don't have to chop the plugs off. Get the thumb throttle, then if the plugs are different, solder up an adaptor. So if the existing throttle is a type-A three pin male, and the new one is a type-B three pin male, you want to make a type-B female-to-type-A male.

I did that for one of my bikes. The throttle is carrying only tiny current, so the extra connectors won't matter.

 

[Kinninvie]

Apparently its a military spec waterproof plug!!

 

[Kinninvie]

Today I decided to test the batteries power so rode up and down the main road outside,3/4 flat going with hills at either end and one in the middle.
I pedalled up the hills to keep the motor going at 15mph and the results were.......

11.1 miles from fully charged to cutting out.
38 minutes riding time.
29.7Mph top speed.
17.9Mph average speed.

The front brake was dragging slightly so it worked!
The rear tyre has a slow puncture so was averaging about 35psi rather than the 65psi it should have been.
The advertised range is 12.5 miles and with the new tyres and brakes adjusted correctly I think thats achievable.
It also states that it will hold 21Mph on a 10% hill without pedalling but I think thats stretching things a bit far,new tyres coming Friday so next week we shall have the answer.0

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Those type of connectors are difficult because it's very difficult to test which wire is which. You have to probe between the battery ground and each wire with your meter on beep to find the ground. Then you switch the meter to volts to find the 5v one. The third one is the signal. You can get those connectors but not easily. IIRC, there's an equivalent that fits. Amigafan found something that fits the 5-way, otherwise you have to cut off the connector and change it to your own type, or just join the wires.

 

[Kinninvie]

I am happy to keep the throttle thats on it rather than mess about especially as the plug is so small.
It actually works ok with the gears once you get used to it.