I'm picking up one of these soon. It's an electric hub motor laced up to a bicycle wheel. You take the current front wheel off the bike, and replace it with the electric one, put a rack on the back of the bike to hold the batteries, a throttle on the handlebars and a controller on the front and you're ready to go. You can pedal or not, up to you. We're starting to sell them at the shop I work at, and I thought it would be a good idea to have a demo. I also thought it'd be nice to bike into work, (12 miles,) and save a little money on gas. Ok, I just want it, but I can rationalize it anyway I want to.
The manufacturer says it'll go 20+mph and should have a range of 14 miles at full throttle. We'll see how it works next week. I'll keep you all up to date.
5 comments:
Any way to get them to do regen braking?
Not sure yet, I have been playing with the idea of sending you one just to play with. What do you reckon?
As near as I can tell, they don't do regen braking, which is a pity. At least, I don't know how they would do it. They're DC brushed motors, and unless the stator is wired specifically for it, they can't do regen. It didn't look from the pics that there were enough wires to the hub to allow for differentially wired stator windings.
Wouldn't mind playing with one, but if not regen, interest is somewhat limited. An elec bicycle is perfect for a regen system, given the limited power and storage capability.
I do like the simplicity of putting it on the front wheel though. If a bit heavy, it reduces complexity elsewhere.
Only the cheap motor is brushed. The Phoenix and Roadrunner are brushless. I'm sure they don't regen or they'd tout that fact. I think you need to fix that and we'll sell it back to them. How 'bout it? I'll just take a small finder's fee.
Great work.
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