Finally bought a smaller folder for conversion...

[shemozzle999]

All the information about tyres, tubes and rims here:

http://www.schwalbe.co.uk/_webedit/uploaded-files/All Files/Technical Info.pdf

 

[morphix]

All the information about tyres, tubes and rims here:

http://www.schwalbe.co.uk/_webedit/uploaded-files/All Files/Technical Info.pdf

Thanks, very interesting reading! Answered a lot of things I always wondered about and makes choosing a tyre a lot easier. Even some tips for fitting

 

[shemozzle999]

I think you will find Schwalbe Inner tube AV4's are too big a wheel diameter for a Brompton, while the AV3's are a better fit but are meant for wider tyres - that is why I use the Kenda's.

p.s. do you still have any thumb throttles available?

 

[morphix]

I think you will find Schwalbe Inner tube AV4's are too big a wheel diameter for a Brompton, while the AV3's are a better fit but are meant for wider tyres - that is why I use the Kenda's.

p.s. do you still have any thumb throttles available?

Thanks I'll have a look for the Kenda inners.. do you have anything good/bad to say about the Brompton tyres? I've seen those are available (green and yellow label versions)..these tend to get favourable reviews but they seem very pricey and not sure of the weight and what puncture protection they have, if any.

I have one thumb throttle left if you want it, it's yours at cost price + first class postage.. £6. I'll send you a private message with payment details and can get that posted out today if you want it.

EDIT: Your mailbox is full, will send you the message later

 

[shemozzle999]

I think the greens are OK for recreational use but they have thin flexible side walls, where I have picked up punctures in the past, and recently had one bulge after the inner side wall failed in 2 places about 3 inches apart - I put it down to hitting a pothole. The yellows I think have been discontinued and there is now a different tyre now being fitted on 2013 models but I have not seen one yet to be able to comment.

The greens appear quite regularly on ebay as it seems many people upgrade soon after purchasing the bike.

Inbox now cleared down.

 

[morphix]

I decided to play it safe and went for the Schwalbe Marathon HS368 which has the older Kevlar belt protection which according to some reviews is better than the new Plus rubber layer, in terms of rolling resistance.

I tend to ride on gravel and dirt tracks a bit in the summer and didn't want to risk Kojacks.

The Marathon Kevlar's are a bargain at £12 from SJS Cycles (on sale with most other Marathon's until Sunday) and not as heavy as the Marathon Plus but not so durable.. I don't use my bike a lot though, so should last me a good while.

 

[Old_Dave]

I tend to ride on gravel and dirt tracks a bit in the summer and didn't want to risk Kojacks

Ummm....Errrrrr

Hate to say it ... but

Are you sure that the tread pattern of the 'touring' is going to help on gravel & dirt ?

I'd prefer something with a bit more bite

 

[103Alex1]

^^ yes the Marathon+ tours are only really meant for the lightest of "off-roading". Looking for something with a bit more "bite" myself for the new back wheel but in a 26" .... there's widespread support for puncture-proof Marathon+ and Conti Winter IIs but it there an equivalent tyre up to the roughter stuff which is similartly reliable for MTBs ?

 

[Old_Dave]

There's a Kenda (puncture resistant) one that's got plenty of bite and lumpy tread that may be worth a look at..

 

[morphix]

Ummm....Errrrrr

Hate to say it ... but

Are you sure that the tread pattern of the 'touring' is going to help on gravel & dirt ?

I'd prefer something with a bit more bite

I think these will be fine.. I've got the Marathon Plus road slicks with thinner width than normal MTB tyres on my 26" which have even less tread than these 16" and even they're ok on the same gravel tracks I use..not as good as the original knobbly MTB tyres, but ok for occasional use on loose gravel tracks.

 

[morphix]

Marathon HS368 v HS420

Today I receive the 2 new Marathon HS368's tyres, 16" 1.35 inch. Ordered y'day afternoon with next day delivery from SJS Cycles, how's that for service!

Looking at them, they look like any ordinary tyres, nothing special about them inside and they look thin and flimsy compared to the HS420 (aka "Marathon Plus"?) which you can see inside are thicker and reinforced with a thick rubber layer inside. I can only assume the "Kevlar Guard" is some very thin clever layer thing inside the tyre below the tread which makes the rubber more durable against minor punctures. It seems to be incorporated into the tyre though, with nothing visible from the underside and no obvious indication its even there.

I doubt these HS368's would stop a thick thorn. It would be interesting to test that theory! It's surprising nobody seems to have just bought a range of puncture resistant tyres and put them to the test and written up a report...or even just compared the Kevlar to the Plus and tried to puncture them under same conditions. I'm confident the HS420's WOULD stop most thorns and I suspect paying extra money for Marathon Plus is worth it on e-bike.

In hindsight, I wish I'd now spent a few quid extra and gone with the HS420 (price difference at 16" was £12 v £14.50)! There was a weight difference though (420g HS420 v 350g HS368) which swayed towards the Kevlar.

I think I may stick these on eBay and buy the HS420, because I'd just feel a lot more confident on longer rides with those tyres on...and that extra confidence is surely a good trade-off for the extra weight..

EDIT: I also got a Schwalbe Airmax Pro digital tyre pressure gauge (on sale at SJS Cycles for < £10)..I want to make sure I get the pressure spot on in these smaller wheels..I used to use a foot pump which had a pressure gauge on it, but I've now switched to using a mini hand pump. I've forgotten how to use the foot pump and/or can't get the valve thing to fit on! Maybe I lost a part somewhere. Anyway, this digital gauge is tiny and probably more accurate, convenient to carry when travelling..

 

[morphix]

Controller and Speedict wiring

Now I've got my tyres sorted out, I'm turning my attention to the wiring side of things..

The wiring on the controllers is a bit messy with all the connectors, and not practical for easily removing off the bike for ease of carrying.

So what I plan to do is to remove the controller circuit from its metal housing, and place it into a plastic housing I picked up and put the speedict inside there with it. I will take all the wires off the controller board and just solder in their place the Speedict wires with connectors on for the Speedict pins.

Then I either run 3 8-core cables out of the box through a grommeted hole with DIN sockets on and colour code them to match the DIN plugs coming from throttle, PAS, brake sensor and motor cables.

Alternatively, I will just fit 3x8-pin DIN sockets flush mounted directly onto the side of the black box (if I can find them).

I'm not too concerned about water-proofing the connectors and box, as the box and battery will be in my Mezzo rack bags which are designed to be fairly water resistant, well storm-proof at least.

Here's some pics...

You can see the controller fits in nicely with plenty of space around it and room for the tiny Speedict. I'm just wondering if the controller will be ok heat-wise in there? I assume they come in metal housings for a reason, to dissipate heat? I don't think they get too hot, but maybe something will have to check if it's gets too hot, look at switching to a metal housing or putting some heat sink in there.

The second pic shows the same black housing with a Raspberry Pi (model B) micro computer inside. Perfect fit! I'm going to buy a model A though which has a lower profile due to no ethernet port and only 1 USB. That should allow me to buy and fit another KU63 in there above it (secured to the lid). I will use the Raspi's GP10 headers for I/O interfacing between the controller board and the throttle/PAS and will fit a bluetooth dongle into the USB socket for Android link. I'd like to put a backlit matrix LCD on the housing to show basic info; system status, battery voltage, bike error codes etc which can be scrolled or switchable with a button...and there will be a restart button to reboot the system. The challenge will be in getting a minimal operating system that boots very quickly and works reliably, ideally something approaching an instant-on system like the Palm pocket PC's that load the OS from a ROM rather than SD media (at present the Raspberry takes a good 30-40 seconds to boot but does load a lot of unnecessary stuff).

I will need a small DC-to-DC converter to power the Raspberry Pi via it's micro-USB power socket from the my 36V battery..I may even use a 9v rechargeable battery in the box. Not decided best approach yet. This Raspberry thing is only an idea at this stage and may not even be practically possible. It's something I'm keen to try though, and I will return to later after I get the Speedict working. If anyone has electronics/python language/android apps developing experience or knows about the Raspberry/KU-series controllers and wants to collaborate with me, I'd be more than happy to.

 

[morphix]

On another note, I managed to break the original gear shift while trying to wrench it off. The metal bracket part that fixes over the handlebar has snapped clean in two places.

I've bought some Stick2 superglue and hoping this will be strong enough to fix it as I plan to re-fit the original gear shift since it has the right length gear cable and the gear shift I bought to replace it, is too short.

Superglue can be pretty strong stuff when it comes to glueing metals. I had a belt buckle (the type that rotates so you can change the colour of belt) snap off and some bog standard superglue managed to hold that together for years before it finally gave up!

 

[morphix]

My brother brought my mangled Mezzo over this afternoon and we did some work on it. The rear rim was pretty chewed up with rough edges and bits so he sanded it down and removed all the bits as best he could. It does look a bit messy but I can't be arsed having a new wheel built up now this late in the day so it will have to do for now. I just want to prove the Mezzo can be converted and start riding it a bit to see how it handles powered and unpowered compare how it was before I converted it.

Anyway, we fitted the new Marathon Kelvar Guard and inner. Well, actually he fitted them, and I watched ;-) He's one of those people who just has a natural ability with anything mechanical and had no trouble doing it, although the plastic tyre levers I bought did help. I decided to just to fit the Marathon Kelvar in the end and risk it, rather than pay out more money to buy Marathon Plus. The bike is already getting on the heavy side as well (its already the wrong side of my 15kg max carry weight!), without introducing more weight! If they puncture, I'll just get Marathon Plus next time.

However I realised I ordered those damn Presta valve inners by mistake (I always get the names confused, the presta valves sound like the UK/car type and those foreign sounded ones I thought were the skinny continental ones... other way round of course.. so I had no adapter or pump suitable to inflate them My brother has gone to fetch his and will drop it off before he begins his night shift. I told him about he wobbly back wheel problem and trouble steering I had on the first test ride and he checked the wheel over and said he could see no reason why it would wobble, so we think it was probably down to a problem with the inner tube before. Although he did point out that riding with no cable on the derailleur may have caused it. What do you guys think? Without a cable the chain just automatically goes to the 11T sprocket, the highest gear and my brother said no wonder you had problem going straight and were wobbling...however he doesn't know about electric bikes. It's obviously not for a problem pedaling as I need the high gearing anyway to keep up with motor, but we were wondering if without the tension of a gear shift cable would the derailleur cause the wobble problem somehow? Maybe due to the chain misalignment or derailleur interfere with the rear wheel/freewheel?

When I was taking off the original 9-spd gear shift I broke it as I mentioned, by being a bit heavy handed.. I've got some superglue and I'm going to try and repair it and re-fit it this evening (got to get the damn handlebar grip off again..grrrr!) but my brothers doubts superglue will be strong enough to hold it.. I'm confident it will be as the break looks clean and the pieces should fit together well.. will have to see though.. the cable on the 7-spd shift I got is too short for the Mezzo and I don't think it would be easy to get the cable out of the original shift to swap it over, it would have to be taken apart.

I guess gear shift cables can be bought separately though and I can always buy another for the 7-spd shift if the 9-spd can't be repaired? Worse case scenario I just source the original gear shift and replace it.

I forgot to order my 8-pin DIN connectors and other stuff for the wiring today, so I'm going to leave that until next week..the plan is just to get the bike road worthy for the weekend and do a local test ride to see if it rides ok with the gear cable fitted without any wobble problem...as Monday I have a long ride planned.

Once we know everything is ok, I can start refining it and tidying up the wiring in a box with the speedict in etc. I'm planning to some brake lights and indicator lights on it too which I've seen cheap on eBay.

I'm looking forward to the second test ride, hopefully tomorrow or Sunday..looks like a dry weekend so perfect.

I have a feeling the Q100 motor was the wrong choice for this build. Too much power and too much weight. A much smaller motor at 200W 1.6kg (like Jeremy did on his Brompton conversion) could have been fitted and I think the 1.4kg weight saving would have been worth sacrificing power and speed because the whole point of this build is something very light, and very portable, plus the Mezzo is an absolute joy to ride unpowered anyway and really moves..so assistance on hills is just a bonus really.

Being the perfectionist I am, I may well end up going back to the drawing board on this bike in a month or two and starting over with a black powder coated rim and a tiny motor. Catsnapper will be cursing me

I think when doing a build, it helps to sit down and really decide what you want to achieve from the start, make a brief to work to. Rather than just pick things up as I've done and say this might do. You need to do your homework a bit, and think about what you want to achieve from the build, what your primary needs are etc.

 

[morphix]

Something I forgot to mention for anyone thinking of converting a Mezzo... or just interested in this build..

As I mentioned early on, the first time we tried to get the Q100 into the rear drops it was a real pig because the nut on the motor side meant stretching the drop outs at least 5mm to clear it, which I managed to do with a bit of spanner leverage, but the axle on the same side would not fit easily in the dropout and required some encouragement (with a hammer!).

However, this time around, we literally were able to pull the wheel out by hand, and put it back in by hand with just minor leverage from spanner.. so it seems the Q100 being forced in had loosened things up a bit.

Reassuring to know when it comes to doing a rear puncture ;-)

 

[103Alex1]

It's easy to get waylaid from your concept goals with so many options available and the draw of getting 'more oomph' or range for very little extra cost. Getting the balance right between range and performance versus weight and looks is really hard.

8-pin DIN chassis sockets are very easy to get and cheap :

Mini-DIN Chassis Sockets : DIN & Mini-Din Connectors : Maplin Electronics

You can get PCB mount versions too.

 

[morphix]

It's easy to get waylaid from your concept goals with so many options available and the draw of getting 'more oomph' or range for very little extra cost. Getting the balance right between range and performance versus weight and looks is really hard.

8-pin DIN chassis sockets are very easy to get and cheap :

Mini-DIN Chassis Sockets : DIN & Mini-Din Connectors : Maplin Electronics

You can get PCB mount versions too.

Indeed Alex! You can end up with something very different from what you envisioned from the start! And also well over budget if you keep ordering the wrong things or making mistakes ;-)

While my Mezzo was languishing at my mothers house awaiting my brother to fetch it in his Ford Focus with a more roomy boot than my mothers KA (the Mezzo wasn't folded properly and wouldn't fit in KA!) her friend popped over, spotted my bike and was all.."oooo is that one of those electric bikes, is it heavy??" My mother said why don't you pick it up and find out.. she lifted it and said, "oh yes that is a lot heavier than I imagined, I wouldn't want to carry it very far!" I got to get the weight down. I think a smaller motor is on the shopping list and a wheel swap on the cards, but I'll have some fun with the Q100 first ;-)

Thanks for the sockets link, I've seen a few like this but none with a plastic mounting or just a straighforward round socket for PCB mounting rather than the chrome chassis type. Obviously DIN sockets are more aimed at audio/hi-fi users really eh. I think black plastic or just round PCB mounting type, would look a lot better on the plastic box I'm using (told you I'm a fussy sod!). I may have a look on RS and Farnell they may have more options, and I have accounts with both so free delivery no matter how small the order.

Using these DIN sockets on the box itself makes sense I think. Then I don't need to completely unsolder and re-solder every wire on the controller board and solder on new 8-core cables.. I can just snip the existing connectors, shorten the wires and solder them onto the chassis sockets, bit less work and the end result might look a bit better than having wires hanging out of it.

I just hope this plastic box stands up to drilling holes that big for the DIN sockets and doesn't crack. I will have to make small pilot holes and then go gradually larger I think to avoid that. The boxes are only a couple of quid though so no big deal, if it cracks I can revert to plan B and just have 3 x 8-core cable coming out of small holes and use grommets.

I have LOADS of video shot now of this build and some funny vid of my first road test with the wobbly wheel and blow out.. I just wish I had the time to edit and upload it..When I have some more time and my OU studies sessions are not so time demanding, I will sit down and go through the video one of the weekends and try to put something together.

EDIT: My brother is unable to come over this weekend and help me work on the bike more and hasn't brought his pump either. So I've decided seen as I need to focus on my OU course to postpone further work on bike until next week, and take advantage of the extra time to order all the wiring bits I need, Marathon Plus tyres, and new inners with the car-type valve.. I just can't be doing with those useless Presta type...waste of time!

 

[jackhandy]

you might be better using a step-drill or cone-drill on that plastic box, Paul: They are less aggressive than normal 2-flute drills.

And the best of luck soldering to those mini-din sockets, if they are as fiddly as mini-xlr!

 

[morphix]

you might be better using a step-drill or cone-drill on that plastic box, Paul: They are less aggressive than normal 2-flute drills.

And the best of luck soldering to those mini-din sockets, if they are as fiddly as mini-xlr!

Thank Jack I'll keep that in mind and see if my brother can help me with it, he's got a lot of gear and is better at this sort of job than I am.

Heh I know what you mean about the DIN soldering.. I did some on my first conversion and was cursing a lot as I burned my fingers..and that's even WITH the helping hands ;-)

They're a good connector choice though I think for e-bikes, cheap and seem fairly water resistant if properly closed. No sign of rust on my 26" bike connectors after 2 years.

 

[jackhandy]

Can't be mini dins if they're 26"