Land Rover MB to electric conversion

[PointyUK]

Is it possible to convert any standard bike to electric? I have this bike I would like to convert...


It has 24 gears, disc brakes and 26" wheels. The thing is, I would like to keep the original wheels, so is there anywhere that offers the service of fitting motors to wheels?

Any advice?

Regards,

Les

 

[Peter.Bridge]

Yes, you don't need to touch the wheels . A mid motor conversion, but you will end up with 8 gears rather than 24 (which is quite enough for an ebike). eta You can buy a hub motor and build a wheel yourself (possibly using the existing rim ?) but you would need new spokes.

Search TSDZ8
Eg https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/woosh-starts-shipping-tongsheng-tsdz8-with-250w-label.46570/post-713007

 

[thelarkbox]

the hardest part of replacing a wheel hub with a motor is sizing the spokes correctly (length) Grin has a calculator or so i learnt after the fact... thankfully it takes a couple of ten minute youtubes to understand the process, and upturned forks with cable tie markers is as good as any professional wheel balancing tool.. (edit.. watch a vid and the cable tie reference will become clear)

my tips would be to tape over unused gaps if using a ring type spoke spanner and an old spoke makes a good tool to poke nipples into deep rims

all sets i bought (yes there were a few) had exactly 36x spokes and 36x nipples so dont loose any..

 

[Waspy]

If you want a rear hub motor, buy a conversion kit from Woosh or Yosepower.

Fit the conversion and try it for a while.

If you then decide you like it but can't live without your original white rim then you could take it (or send it) to Jim The Wheelbuilder in Yorkshire.

https://www.jimthewheelbuilder.co.uk/

 

[saneagle]

The thing is, I would like to keep the original wheels.

Land rover bikes are just standard cheapish MTBs with a sticker that says Landrover. Why would you want to keep a wheel?

Surely, when you want to convert your bike, you'd want many years of good riding experience from it by fitting the parts you need to get that enjoyment. Why would you want to compromise that enjoyment by fitting sub-optimal parts for the sake of having a white wheel? Does the colour matter that much? Can you see it when riding the bike?

It looks like your rim is 32 spokes, in which case your options to re-lace it to a hub-motor are severely limited.

You bike is perfect for conversion with a standard 48v Hailong type downtube battery, a KT 15A controller with LCD3 and an AKM128 rear motor, which will give you ebiking nirvana. Forget about stupid crank motors. They're shite by comparison. If you weigh less than 80kg, 36v would be enough, but 48v is always better because it's more efficient and you get the choice of using higher power when you want it.

When you choose your kit, the starting point is your weight, fitness, type of hills you ride up, you're planned modal riding speed and how far you need to go. You haven't given any of that yet.

 

[PointyUK]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Why would you want to compromise that enjoyment by fitting sub-optimal parts for the sake of having a white wheel? Does the colour matter that much? Can you see it when riding the bike

No, not really I just don't want odd wheels.

When you choose your kit, the starting point is your weight, fitness, type of hills you ride up, you're planned modal riding speed and how far you need to go. You haven't given any of that yet.

Weight is too heavy, fitness is crap, hill are too high, speed will be slow and distance is not far.

Seriously, I have very little experience of eBikes, other than the Halfords Apollo Phaze I picked up for a bargain price for myself and the Giant I have just rebuilt for the missus. (I didn't realize that was soo much science to it) The Apollo is perfect for my needs and is only 24v, the LR bike is just a slight bit taller and suits my frame better I think. I am currently just over 90Kg, very unfit (Only gave up smoking this year, after 40+ years). I live on top of a hill, but as I said the Apollo is fine for this, I can ride up it using full assist without too much effort.

I would like to get a trailer for my dog and take him out for rides/walks that I would normally drive to, speed is not an issue, range would probably only be a few miles each way.

Cheers,

Les

 

[Waspy]

No, not really I just don't want odd wheels.

Life would be a lot easier (and cheaper) for you if you could live with odd wheels. Or you could always buy a black front wheel from eBay.

Seriously, I have very little experience of eBikes, other than the Halfords Apollo Phaze I picked up for a bargain price for myself and the Giant I have just rebuilt for the missus.

So, a fair bit of experience then

The Apollo is perfect for my needs and is only 24v

So a 36v would be more than your needs and 48v would blow your mind, also great for dogs in trailers!

 

[Saracen]

Why is that bike on ebay ???

 

[PointyUK]

Why is that bike on ebay ???

Would you like to hear a story?

When I decided to get myself a bike, I looked on eBay, I messaged the guy about that bike, with a view to looking at it, as I liked the look of it and it was local. (I wasn't even thinking eBike) He was away in France and said he would message me when he was back. In the meantime I found and purchased the Apollo. A few days later I received the following message...

If you want the bike , you can pick it up FOC , or I will give it to a charity shop. If you pick it up , I would appreciate a donation of your choice to St Barnabas.

regds

JJS

I said yes and went and picked it up, reminding him to remove the listing. I have since then, donated £100 to St Barnabas and messaged him multiple times about the listing, without any response.

PS> That was well spotted and yes I used his picture because I was too lazy to get it out of the garage and take my own.

 

[PointyUK]

Life would be a lot easier (and cheaper) for you if you could live with odd wheels. Or you could always buy a black front wheel from eBay.

How can anyone live with odd wheels?

So, a fair bit of experience then

I really enjoyed doing the repair on my bike and fixing up the Giant, I learnt a lot about eBikes during the process too, but still consider myself a noobie.

So a 36v would be more than your needs and 48v would blow your mind, also great for dogs in trailers!

These days, it doesn't take a lot to blow my mind. I never though about the additional weight of the trailer and dog too, especially going up hill. He does already has his safety googles though...

 

[Waspy]

I have since then, donated £100 to St Barnabas

Very generous, I'm not sure I would have been so generous.

How can anyone live with odd wheels?

Mate, no one cares about bloody odd wheels on an old mountain bike, just get it converted and get out there before the summer is over!

He does already has his safety googles though...

View attachment 58037

Very cool

 

[Az.]

The only way to keep wheels is to buy a hub motor and lace the wheel or buy a mid drive. Mid drive seems to be easiest option and is better choice for MTB anyway.

PS Go for 48V system

 

[Waspy]

The only way to keep wheels is to buy a hub motor and lace the wheel or buy a mid drive. Mid drive seems to be easiest option and is better choice for MTB anyway.

PS Go for 48V system

Yes Az, all you say is true and definitely the mid-drive option if he MUST keep those white rims

48v for a non-thin bloke plus a dog in a trailer would be wise too.

As for mid-drive being best choice for a MTB, that is true if you have a modern £3K 29" mountain bike and hammer it round 'Trail Centres'. But no one would be seen dead on an old 26" bike with three chain rings in such places. These older mountain bikes are now generally used as leisure/towpath bikes and hub drives are a good choice for such use IMHO.

 

[saneagle]

Yes Az, all you say is true and definitely the mid-drive option if he MUST keep those white rims

48v for a non-thin bloke plus a dog in a trailer would be wise too.

As for mid-drive being best choice for a MTB, that is true if you have a modern £3K 29" mountain bike and hammer it round 'Trail Centres'. But no one would be seen dead on an old 26" bike with three chain rings in such places. These older mountain bikes are now generally used as leisure/towpath bikes and hub drives are a good choice for such use IMHO.

The problem is that mid-drives are shite. Most people would rather have odd wheels than a shite ebike. Anyway, odd wheels has become the fashion, since they introduced mullet bikes. No self-respecting mountain biker would have two wheels the same these days.

 

[PointyUK]

Thanks for all the replies, I am weighing up the all the options, including just upgrading the Apollo. lack of time is the biggest problem, too many projects and not enough hours in a day.

The Apollo has a SHENGYI DGW07C motor which according to their site is rated for 24V~36V~48V, but are the coils wound for a specific voltage? My battery is 24V, if I upgrade it will I melt the motor?

 

[Benjahmin]

he Apollo has a SHENGYI DGW07C motor which according to their site is rated for 24V~36V~48V, but are the coils wound for a specific voltage? My battery is 24V, if I upgrade it will I melt the motor?

Motors are not wound for a specific voltage, so it will be fine at 48v. What you have to be careful with is the current you supply to it. Kt controllers have a parameter where you can set the maximum current. So, for instance, the 17A controller can be set to give 15A max (or less if you want). This will par down the maximum wattage from 816w to 720w. Should be enough for most hill climbing combined with your input.

 

[Ghost1951]

The problem is that mid-drives are shite.

I have never understood why you say this. I really like mine (BBS01). Especially now that I have adjusted the power parameters. It gets me up steep hills very well and when the battery was new, I got about 60 miles riding in the Lake District on a 13 Ahr battery before it shut down.

Why do you detest them?

 

[Nealh]

As can be seen in my thread below, matching rims/wheel builds are compulsary with hues of Blue being the in thing.
Learn to build your own wheels then you can use any rim you like.
Roadrat Alfine 8 with G370 hub build. | Pedelecs - Electric Bike Community

 

[saneagle]

I have never understood why you say this. I really like mine (BBS01). Especially now that I have adjusted the power parameters. It gets me up steep hills very well and when the battery was new, I got about 60 miles riding in the Lake District on a 13 Ahr battery before it shut down.

Why do you detest them?

They work and they're better for some niche applications, but for ordinary everyday riding, like shopping, commuting and touring, they're a long way behind geared hub-motors.

When nearly all ebikes were 36v and 15A max, the hub-motors struggled for power on any sort of hill, but now that we have decent sinewave controllers with current control running at 48v and whatever current you want, crank-drives lost their advantage on climbing. Now all they have is disadvantages on comfort, convenience, noise, cost, running cost, durability, reliability.

I think crank-drives are generally easier to install, but why would you want the short term gain of saving a couple of hours installation time at a cost of suffering years of torment with a sub-optimal drive system.

My hub-motor has been going for 10 years now and has been perfect for my needs. I keep looking at alternatives. I have enough money sitting in the bank to buy any ebike I want, but I haven't found one that beats it yet. I'm pretty sure that if you tried it, you'd come to the same conclusion.

 

[Ghost1951]

They work and they're better for some niche applications, but for ordinary everyday riding, like shopping, commuting and touring, they're a long way behind geared hub-motors.

When nearly all ebikes were 36v and 15A max, the hub-motors struggled for power on any sort of hill, but now that we have decent sinewave controllers with current control running at 48v and whatever current you want, crank-drives lost their advantage on climbing. Now all they have is disadvantages on comfort, convenience, noise, cost, running cost, durability, reliability.

I think crank-drives are generally easier to install, but why would you want the short term gain of saving a couple of hours installation time at a cost of suffering years of torment with a sub-optimal drive system.

My hub-motor has been going for 10 years now and has been perfect for my needs. I keep looking at alternatives. I have enough money sitting in the bank to buy any ebike I want, but I haven't found one that beats it yet. I'm pretty sure that if you tried it, you'd come to the same conclusion.

Thanks for the explanation.

I have read of water ingress problems with crank drives. I think some earlier versions of the Bafang BBS01 had issues there. Mine hasn't, but you never know.

On the noise thing - I have normal hearing and I can't hear mine at all, unless I especially listen for it, and the only sound it makes is a sort of hiss - but faint, and certainly not intrusive. Maybe if it was running more power that would be different, but at 36 volts it suits me pretty well and on really steep long hills, I just drop a few gears and it winds its way up at 9 miles an hour with a bit of input from me now I can get 500 watts out after changing the settings. I used to have to work hard on those same hills when it would only put out 250 watts on PAS. I think either the manufacturer or the reseller had set some parameters very low with an eye on reliability - not wanting returns with burned out controllers. The 'Keep Current' on mine was set at 20% which is madly conservative, but it did manage very long ranges at the cost of my legs, and the speed percentage was set at 80% of max even in the highest PAS levels.

One certain advantage of hub motors I can see is that they would laugh at a broken chain and be a lot less likely to have one break in the first place. My chain needs to put up with Lance Armstrong levels of torque on high power. I need to sort out a new one before that happens.