Noob Here!

[Damian.Doherty]

HI Everyone,

I am about to purchase a Pedalease Fat Bike with the hope of buying a 1000W or 1500W kit and converting myself!

Wish me luck!

Dee

 

[Woosh]

don't buy a fat bike for conversion!

Most fat bike conversion kits on ebay use direct drive motors, they are totally wrong for use on fat bikes where you need a lot more torque than that type of motors can deliver.
For fat bikes, you should only consider either crank drives or rear geared hub drives. For crank drive kits, you need a fat bike BB replacement on top of the BBS kit, for geared hubs, the only motor worth buying is the Bafang G06.

The alternative is the £999 Woosh Rio FB.

http://wooshbikes.co.uk/?rio-fb

 

[Deleted member 4366]

People think that a 1000w or 15000w motor will be a lot more powerful than a 500w or 750w one. In many cases they won't and in some cases they'll be less powerful than a 250w one. Read Andy Bluenoes thread about his 250w Oxygen bike that can complete his long daily commute in significantly less time than his 1000w Cyclotricity.

I agree with Woosh. You need a suitable motor for a fat bike, which means one with some low-down grunt. You don't get that from the standard DD motors that you find cheap on Ebay and other sources.

The geared Bafang fat bike motor goes really well at 48v.

 

[Damian.Doherty]

Thanks for the advice guys, I have only been researching this for a couple of days, I'm reading everything I can to try to absorb as much info as possible!

I do fall into the camp of assuming that more watts equals more power.....not necessarily speed, but low down grunt that will tackle hills easily.

I just like the look of the Fat bike!

I'm turning 40 this year so I've budgeted around £800-£900 to build a bike as a birthday gift to myself.

All help is gladly received.

 

[danielrlee]

Direct drive motors get a hard time on here, so I'd like to provide some balance.

Direct drive motors are only worthwhile when you give them lots of power. Giving them anything less than 2000W is pointless IMO. This requires a powerful battery and a big, high amperage controller, which would likely put you over budget and running on the wrong side of the law if that is important to you.

Give them the power they require to shine and they will provide an addictive performance that no other type of motor is likely to match.

 

[Damian.Doherty]

Batteries is where my plan is falling apart at the moment, as a noob I started looking at the voltage and the ah rating. I didn't look at the continuous amp delivery which is much more important

Daniel, you think that even for a 1000W hub motor that a 2000Watt battery would be required?

That means sourcing a 48V battery with at least 40 amps continuous delivery!

For a neat build I was hoping to get a bottle battery!

 

[Damian.Doherty]

I'm also very tempted to just buy this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-New-High-Quality-26-x4-Fat-Tyres-Electric-Bike-Limited-Stock-bargain-UK-/201918478441?var=&hash=item2f03477869:m:mUgjIhSgfF4U5BY8wrwfWAA

£495 without a battery......I just thought that the 250W motor might be a little underwhelming!

 

[danielrlee]

Daniel, you think that even for a 1000W hub motor that a 2000Watt battery would be required?

Required, no. Worthwhile, yes.

The salient point is that running a DD on anything less than 2000W would give less torque than can be achieved from one of the larger geared hub motors, or a mid-drive running on substantially less power.

 

[Damian.Doherty]

Hi Daniel, what are your thoughts on the ebay Fat bike I listed? What battery would you recommend?

 

[Damian.Doherty]

I'm right in assuming the bike I listed has a geared motor (not direct drive), therefore requiring less power.....please correct me if I'm way off here!

Although I imagine that more power (watts) is still better than less....so I should be looking for the biggest ah bottle battery I can find within my budget that's still 36V?

 

[Woosh]

Damian,

You never have too much torque on a fat bike, so it's important to know how much torque you can have on your fat bike.
You should ask the suppliers for the maximum torque of their motor.

This is the specs of the G06, maximum torque: a massive 80NM.

http://www.szbaf.com/en/components/component/motor/rm-g06250dc.html

 

[Deleted member 4366]

That bike would make a good start. Take off the battery and controller and sell them on Ebay, Then buy a 48v downtube battery from Eclipse Bikes and one of these controllers with the speed sensor, PAS, throttle and LCD:

http://www.pswpower.com/peng/iview.asp?KeyID=dtpic-2016-3F-39N8.50CQE

That'll be 100 times better than what you get with that bike and better than the other 48v ones offered on Ebay.

 

[Damian.Doherty]

If I'm going to do that, I may as well buy this bike:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PedalEase-Big-Cat-Fat-Bike-MTB-Snow-Beach-front-suspension-disc-brake-21-speed-/112436876966?hash=item1a2dc296a6:g:D~kAAOSwa~BYSz4p

And then buy the parts you recommended ??? And a Bafang motor?