Recommend a bike for touring

[kraeuterbutter]

for

Edit: I just visited Lidl-shop. They had 4,5 AH NiMh cells 2 euro/piece

the NiMh we use in our helis (which fail after 50-100cycles) have
3,3Ah - 4,2Ah, a single cell weights 62g - 66g
and a single cell costs 8Euro - 10Euro

so, why do they only hold for 50-100cycles..
because we stress the cells A LOT in our models.. (in the most hard case (hotliners) we empty a NiMh cell in less than 80 seconds !!
(5 second bursts of 250A current out of a 3,3Ah NIMH-cell !!)
thats also the only case were Lipos and LiIon can NOT keep up... emptying in 80seconds would ruin that cells

so, for my experience an electric bike is a "low power" application..
in a e-bike you want some runtime
so the cells are not emptied in less than 30min which is "low power" in our rc-use minde..

again my nice diagramm i made last weekend

use of FePO4
thats similar to the power-use in a E-bike...
800Watt Peak
245Watt average power

BUT with the difference, that this battery was not a 4kg heavy battery, but only 0.295kg light (295g) battery !

i spoke with an tech-engineer from A123-racing (they make the A123 FePO4-cells) and showd him this diagramm - he told me, within that kind of use, i can not expect 1000cycles with the FePO4, but more like around 300cycles

in a E-bike you use about the same power.. but you will also use a battery with about 10-15times as much weight/size/capacity

==> for that, the battery will have to deliver about 10-15times lower current than in my application

so - flecc - you realy don´t have to worry, that the batteries can not give you substain current..
(yes, the peaks in my diagramm are only about 1sec. long
but in your bike with a 4kg heavy battery your 1000Watt substain (lets say 5min ?) peak will only be 6A !!! for each cell...
when you look at my diagramm: the lowest current during discharge i had was 12A... the higest 90A) 6A is like nothing for the cells..

high current capacity batteries. Hence vehicles being at the top of that stack

i don´t think so (When it comes to high-current)
in a car/bike you will at least want 30min+ runtime..
so high current (for the single cell) i think rc-applications are lot more stress
(discharge: in less than 80sec. for the extreme freaks
discharge: in less than 3min for power-flying
discharge in less than 6min for normal sport-flying
discharge in 10min+ for the old-age pensioner-style flying

so - i have nothing against NiMh... for your application (no balancer needed, compatible charger already in ownership, batts fit perfect in the case from the bike-battery-mount, ...) its for now maybe the best solution
i have also used the best-quality NiMh around (as said: 10 Euro a single 3,3Ah-cell ==> a bike-battery with 10Ah and 36Volt would cost 900Euro when made from this cells)
so i know, what VERY good NiMh cells can do !
(a 16cell 4200mAh NIMh competition-pack worth 220Euro and weighing
1100g can put out 4000Watt for 5sec-burst !!!
after use, it is around 100°C hot !! and you have to remove it from your model with a pincer and imidiatly cool it with fan otherwise the cells can explode !) so - i know a little bit about high current and stressing batteries *lol*

 

[flecc]

so - flecc - you realy don´t have to worry, that the batteries can not give you substain current..
(yes, the peaks in my diagramm are only about 1sec. long
but in your bike with a 4kg heavy battery your 1000Watt substain (lets say 5min ?) peak will only be 6A !!! for each cell...
when you look at my diagramm: the lowest current during discharge i had was 12A... the higest 90A) 6A is like nothing for the cells.

Thanks for this information. I was referring to what I'd read elsewhere, which you've shown has now changed.

i don´t think so (When it comes to high-current)
in a car/bike you will at least want 30min+ runtime..
so high current (for the single cell) i think rc-applications are lot more stress

You misunderstand me. Referring to my previous comment, this refers to "top of the stack" for common usage of high current batteries, not for the amount the batteries are stressed. There are many more cars in the world than there are aero-modellers, I think you'll agree.
.

 

[kraeuterbutter]

you have to excuse, my english is not that good..

"top of the stack" -- what does that mean ? (for example)

such language-problems can result in some miss-understanding (from my side at reading, from your side when reading my confus written text )

 

[flecc]

It's my fault kraeuterbutter, I should not have used this expression, which was just a quick way of expressing myself. (slang)

A stack is a pile or column of items, for example some boxes piled up on top of each other is a stack. It's also a verb, we stack things up. In this context I was referring to the car usage being the largest number of high current batteries in use worldwide. Therefore the highest number being at the top as in a graph.
.

 

[ITSPETEINIT]

Torqing sense

So, just when you need the most help you're on your own, with the additional burden of the weight of the motor and batteries

An unpalatable truth I fear.
I recall reading on this forum in some place or other that the extra power of the Torq motor (in the Torq with 700 wheels) was just sufficient to help get the electrics up a hill of serious steepness.

I have not come across any mention in this thread topic of the Cyclone II which is;
Driving the bikes transmission
Available in 3 options (two might be 'illegal' on power/wats but can be limited for speed).
Has the advantage of extremely low bike gears
Can be fitted to any proper lightweight bike wwhich has a gap of 82mm between rear tyre and seat tube (you'd have a choice of quality/price)
On the down side -
It is 24V only (though many good e-bikes are)
Its batteries are !0Ah (but 2 would be good)

There may be other factors in its spec that should be considered - but it's worth a look.
Check out "ernsbikes" on the net (there also a manufacturers site with interesting video but its advertising rather than facts and opinions)
There another website MkII Cyclone which has very detailed photos of the kit being installed
Peter

 

[flecc]

I've mentioned the Cyclone several times in other threads Peter. It's a bit noisy like the Currie, probably due to the spur gear drive, and that spread of the legs for pedalling is less than welcome for most. I've previously been in touch with Cyclone Taiwan about them.

Here's two sites with loads of details about them:

The manufacturer.

The UK agent.

The menu bar at the manufacturer's site gives a large range of info, while the UK site has videos of it in action at the foot of the page.