Many thanks to the people who are making this project possible: Warren Winowich, who explained the forces acting upon a vehicle to me Ben Krasnow, who built a lot of the original bike, debugged the circuit for the current bike in his shop, and contributes invaluable advice Jim Fletcher, who took the time to show read more »

The bike getting some testing before the installation of the chain Before coming to any conclusions, let’s review the cost of this project and its variations. Cost (in money & time): Achieving a balance of expenses in currency and time is important, but it depends on your situation. Originally, I had more time than money. read more »

Putting the electric bits on required the following steps: Mount 80 tooth sprocket on 20″ rear wheel (which is actually on the front of the bike). Get a freewheel adapter and this is a 10 minute job. Look on Youtube for how to remove the sprockets on the wheel. Without a freewheel adapter you are read more »

There are a number of different chain sizes. The most popular for scooter and electric bikes are no. 25 and no.35. Small sprockets come with a D-shaft or a shaft with set screws. For set screws, drill a small hole in the motor shaft for permanent mounting, then secure with green or blue loctite. For read more »

Choosing a Motor Motor Types There are a number of motor technologies available. Different authorities classify them differently, but I will break them up based on their input: Motors where speed is regulated by voltage or current – DC series, DC shunt wound, DC compound wound, etc Motors where speed is regulated by the frequency read more »

Now that we understand the pieces we can buy to assemble the whole system, lets evaluate some possible routes. We have two types of motors to choose from: motor integrated into a wheel hub stand alone motor, connected to a wheel by a chain Hub motors are more expensive and heavy and give us less read more »

Designing a vehicle is like any other problem. We need to break it down into a few steps: understand the problem, and determine some key requirements to solve it learn about the tools at our disposal figure out how to put it all together So I have broken what used to be one page into read more »