hidden throttle gas needed?

[I893469365902345609348566]

I have a disconnected throttle on my handlebar, it's there because it'd take ages to remove other things to remove it. Maybe I should?

 

[guerney]

I have a 500W geared hub motor

500W? Your bike is illegal. Which is a surprise given how much you go on about the "Illegality" of mid-drive bikes with motors clearly marked 250W and rated by the manufacturer as being 250W motors. Which 500W motor is it specifically? I normally don't comment about people's 250W+ bikes, but you've gone on and on and on for months if not years banging on saying the same things about how illegal you think legal 250W mid-drive motors are. And then you say you have a 500W hub motor

I have found your post showing your illegal 48V 500W motor:

Bought a cheap ebike kit from Amazon Warehouse

Just looking for anyone who recognises it. It came with a generic manual and nothing really that gives any spec for the hub itself. It has a fairly standard KT36 controller with a 11A rating and seems nicely made. Just wondered if anyone knew/recognised the factory for the hub motor or full spec...

www.pedelecs.co.uk

 

[flecc]

Here's a question for the legal experts. If you have a UK pre 2016 e-bike that has a legal throttle fitted due to "grandfather rights", what happens if you take it to the continent, would you be breaking the law there?

Yes if the pedelec was made or bought after 9th May 2003. That's because as an EU member it was always illegal here too from 10th November 2003, that fact just concealed due to a mistake by the DfT in 2003. The "Grandfather Rights" is just a local ruling, a ministerial order permitting the law being broken in Britain only.

Also, say you get an @wisper bike with a legal test approved throttle, will that be accepted on the continent?

Absolutely not, these are illegal anywhere in the EU, and they break the law here too. Once again we have a permanent ministerial order permitting breaking the law, but only in Britain. Not the UK since Northern Ireland has devolved transport law so cannot benefit from our Minister's order. However if the DUP ever lets the N.I. Assembly run again, their Minister can make a similar local order.
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[flecc]

I have a disconnected throttle on my handlebar, it's there because it'd take ages to remove other things to remove it. Maybe I should?

Don't worry. The throttle law and permissions is in such a tangle here that no-one in authority fully understands it so will never prosecute a throttle alone, even if illegally fully working.

Almost** the only things one need worry about is having an overrated motor or assistance beyond 15.5 mph, both easy to understand and prosecute.

** I say almost, since if you ever had the misfortune to run into someone causing them lifelong costly catastrophic injuries, you can be sure the lawyers would pursue the illegal throttle point.
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[PC2017]

Laws in the UK are funny, I remember hearing that the Law that is stated on every door or window to an off licence, It is a offence for any persons under the age of 18 years, to purchase or attempt to purchase alcohol has (I believe) never been tested in the courts ever, correct me if I am wrong I did hear this several years ago on a license course.

 

[flecc]

Laws in the UK are funny, I remember hearing that the Law that is stated on every door or window to an off licence, It is a offence for any persons under the age of 18 years, to purchase or attempt to purchase alcohol has (I believe) never been tested in the courts ever, correct me if I am wrong I did hear this several years ago on a license course.

Might be some confusion about having such a notice. There is no current law requiring that notice is displayed, it's just for self protection to show that the seller takes the law seriously in the event of any prosecution. i.e. Showing they are doing their best to comply.

But the law stated within the notice has been tested and proven many times of course. Here's the minutiae around the ages the law applies in this government link
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[Bonzo Banana]

500W? Your bike is illegal. Which is a surprise given how much you go on about the "Illegality" of mid-drive bikes with motors clearly marked 250W and rated by the manufacturer as being 250W motors. Which 500W motor is it specifically? I normally don't comment about people's 250W+ bikes, but you've gone on and on and on for months if not years banging on saying the same things about how illegal you think legal 250W mid-drive motors are. And then you say you have a 500W hub motor

I have found your post showing your illegal 48V 500W motor:

Bought a cheap ebike kit from Amazon Warehouse

Just looking for anyone who recognises it. It came with a generic manual and nothing really that gives any spec for the hub itself. It has a fairly standard KT36 controller with a 11A rating and seems nicely made. Just wondered if anyone knew/recognised the factory for the hub motor or full spec...

www.pedelecs.co.uk

That's the point just about every motor is illegal except for the very small geared hub motors you get on very entry level ebikes. Pretty much every motor is illegal on the market as they all take more than 250W. On a hub motor ebike its the controller that is the issue and the controller on that kit is illegal if left to output 500W nominal or sustained power but there is a legal 250W fallback mode which restricts to 15.5mph. There are a huge number of ebikes fully certified and legal to sell in this country with controllers capable of delivering far more than 250W power that come with a restriction setup and there are others that have genuine legal 250W controllers that peak about 380W but can only sustain 250W. While there are loads of fully legal 250W hub based ebikes I've never actually encountered a single mid-drive ebike which has a actual 250W controller built in. To generate their high torque figures they have to pull high levels of current from their battery. If they were restricted to 250W maybe 380W peak the Bosch/Brose etc motors would be down to about 40Nm peak torque.

My point as ever is why is one motor type considered legal when pulling 23A from the battery and another motor type illegal under the same criteria? 23A at 36V is 23x36 in watts which is over 800W in power.

That 500W ebike kit is fully capable of being used with a 250Wh battery pack which is probably 2/3rds of the capacity of a battery you can safely pair with a mid-drive motor.

 

[WheezyRider]

Things to bear in mind...the 250W Max is continuous output power, not input power. A lot of motors only have 80% efficiency at best and a for quite a bit of a motor's output profile, efficiency is a lot lower than this. So the input power will be significantly higher than 250W to get a 250W mechanical output. So you might be putting in 600W from your battery, but if the motor efficiency is only 40% during the part of the motor's power curve at that power input point, then your mechanical output power is only 240W. Hence, there is no point looking at instantaneous input power as this can fluctuate significantly for a given output power. So it does make sense to set a maximum continuous power rating. However, it is up to the manufacturer to decide how this is tested and then rated. The Chinese companies don't care too much about some BS standard method, they are not going to be hauled over the coals if their ratings do not actually stack up. They have won market share this way and basically destroyed the motor industry in the west.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

Things to bear in mind...the 250W Max is continuous output power, not input power. A lot of motors only have 80% efficiency at best and a for quite a bit of a motor's output profile, efficiency is a lot lower than this. So the input power will be significantly higher than 250W to get a 250W mechanical output. So you might be putting in 600W from your battery, but if the motor efficiency is only 40% during the part of the motor's power curve at that power input point, then your mechanical output power is only 240W. Hence, there is no point looking at instantaneous input power as this can fluctuate significantly for a given output power. So it does make sense to set a maximum continuous power rating. However, it is up to the manufacturer to decide how this is tested and then rated. The Chinese companies don't care too much about some BS standard method, they are not going to be hauled over the coals if their ratings do not actually stack up. They have won market share this way and basically destroyed the motor industry in the west.

That's an interesting twist on the 250W rating so mid-drive motors which many claim to be more efficient would have much lower ratings than hub motors because their efficiency wastes less power so in effect should have much lower battery requirements than hub motors to be rated at 250W?

Despite their obvious visual differences the motor types are very similar with a brushless motor at the core, a controller and battery. It's very easy to see their power profile in use by monitoring current consumption. The efficiency in motor systems is pretty similar. You can make the case that mid-drive is more efficient because it scales power through the gears but that also means you have efficiency losses in those gears and mid-drive typically has internal cogs and even belts in order to bring the high rpm motor speed down to usable speeds for actual use. Grin Technology have some excellent videos showing how motor efficiency doesn't vary that much between motor systems when you average motor efficiency over all terrain. They favour direct drive hub motors purely I think for their exceptional reliability and dependability and lack of mechanical parts that wear down and reduce efficiency over time. Ultimately motor efficiency is about how much energy is wasted as heat.