Metal Man

Long time since posting to this again. I now have about 4300 miles on the bike. It's still working great, I just haven't been able to use it as much as I would like. Soon time to put on the studded tires.

powell

MetalMan.
Good to hear from you again.
I read your post just hours before year 2011 ends.
All the best in 2012 for you and all others who are reading this thread.
I presume there are couple of months of winter where you live?
I specifically bought E+ for summer/spring/fall riding.
My winter ride is trustfull and reliable Tidal Force which is a legend for a reason - USA quality.
I still have less than 1000miles on my E+, but with 1200 km not far from 1600km=1000miles.
In contrast to my Tidal Force ,
E+ is an ebike of one trip a day, one-trip-a-day ebike, because radiculously long charging times of front hub battery.
My TF battery can be fully easly charged in one hour with min. balancing or 1,5hours with full balancing- that's from 7-8 Ah discharge!!
It is known E+ can be powered on any 36V battery if communication with front hub is maintained.
That is only start , series of experiments is required to determine farther how to get rid of front hub battery for good if at all.
And this must be well thought out.

powell

Administrator,
Thank you for deleting those aggressive posts,
What I value this forums for are civilized discussions with no vulgarity
THANK YOU

Allen

No worries.
When y'all see something like that pop up again, report it and it will be quashed more quickly.

pieroy

I see that is quite useful, but I would just like to know how heavy it could carry? and with what battery specs?

powell

I am not sure I understand you
"how heavy it could carry" - what do you mean?

Metal Man

The frame is rated to carry 400 pounds, I've had more than that on it. I'm just about to 4700 miles on this now. It's tough getting the miles in during winter, but I'm trying.

powell

MetalMan,
good to hear from you again.
I was not sure what he was asking for.
Tough to get miles?
Are you in California?
I still didn't get 1000 miles.
The problem to get miles on E+ is because it takes so looong to charge NMH hub battery.
Otherwise my E+ runs great, joy to ride it.
I cannot wait to try it on Lithium battery, but first I have to build pack but new A123 14Ah cells are not available yet.
Nickel is nickel chemistry saggy discharge curve, quite dependent on temperature and 30 of them in series makes rather big internal resistance.

Metal Man

I'm in PA.
It's tough to get the miles in because I can't use it as much as I'd like. We are having a mild winter, but it's still crappy weather. With the extra clothes, studded tires and less power from the batteries, because of the cold, I can't take some of the longer trips I do in the summer. My speeds are also down so that cuts into the amount of trips I can use it for if I'm pressed for time.
I don't find the charging time to be a limiting factor at all. Two or three hours has them in pretty good shape to go again. It may not be a full charge, but close.

powell

MetalMan
I would strongly recommend charging your hub battery every time fully including long balancing stage at the end untill green solid comes on.
Yes, without balancing stage our batteries are fully charged but cells might be NOT balanced. Skipping balancing stage many times can get cells so much out of balance that capacity of battery drops significally.

Metal Man

I don't do it often, but if I'm ready to go with it, I'm going whether it's ready or not.

powell

..

pavers

I'm going to have to disagree about the E+ Lithium. I bought the E+ Lithium Battery and it lasted about 5-6 months. It was nice to have the extra range for the time that it worked, but it was a complete disappointment from a value perspective.

YOu might notice that they no longer sell the lithium battery on their site. I suspect that's for good reason. Hopefully they'll come up with a better "2nd battery" solution soon. In the meantime, my original Nickel battery is working just fine, though I do miss the luxury of having twice the range that 2 batteries affords you. I also miss the money lost on the Lithium. The lithium was only warrantied for 3 months. So I was literally out a grand, and though to this day I love the bike and the nickel battery, I felt scammed by the whole lithium debacle.

powell

We are not talking here about E+ Lithum Polymer pack offered by EMS /now recalled for safety reason/ but in general about E+ powered by lithium.
Susan deleted her posts but she was talking about how much better performance of E+ would have been with LITHIUM.
pavers
You should not throw all lithum batteries in one bag , EMSs one was faulty construction with inferor Batteryspace cells.
I agree a lot off shoddy lithium out there with crappy China-brand cells.
But there are lot of excellent , lasting lithium also like: A123, LifeBatt, SAFT, CLB, Varta, .
I use BMI cells on my TF for long time close to 4 years now with no hint of deterioration.
EMS Lipoly was lithium polymer type-dangerous and short lasting.
They should have know better.
A123 is my choice of cells for my new lithium pack I will use on my E+. They are LiFePo chemistry lithium and they last years.
NMH cells produce only 1.3V and you need 30 in series versus 12 in series of LiFePo chemistry to produce 36V.
Imagine internal resistance of as many as 30 cells in series?
From basics of electricity.... ... There is no brainer here what is better.
LiFePo can be routinely charged with 10 A charger, try this with NMH!!!

Allen

She was banned as a spammer.

powell

I see

nimbuzz

Powell, I agree that the E+ Lithium was a big mess up and that there are better cells and packs out there. But can you please provide links to the packs and cells you refer to--links for info and especially for purchase.

powell

https://www.bmi-energy.com/en_US/product.asp
just Google:

LifeBatt
Mavizen
Sorry, I cannot do inquiry for you

wrandyr

Does anyone have any info on the status of EMS? Their website is offline and phone is disconnected.

powell

I read something on TF Google forum that they were moving into another location, but I am not sure if it is true.
Recall of their LiPo battery pack cost them some money also and affected their bottomline.
My E+ still runs great , battery does not show any wear at all after 2000miles and I ride also in winter.
I am building Lithium LiFePo pack for her which I am going to use together with front hub initially.
Altimate goal is to get rid of front hub.
I also did some extra water proofing on display and front comm connector.
Last Friday 1/2 hour ride in modest rain endup in no problem at all with me soaked up completely.

wrandyr

Yeah, the recall must have hurt. I had a LiPo battery and they completely replaced it with a hub battery and charger at no cost to me. In the course of communications about this, there was mention of insurance, so hopefully it wasn't fatal.

Powell, would you care to share what you are doing to protect the connectors? My system started shutting off randomly after I had ridden in some very light rain for only about a mile. Then, it would not come back on with the power switch, but would come on briefly if I disconnected and reconnected either of the data connectors. This was the first time I had the hub battery out in rain. I never had any trouble with the LiPo battery. The problem seems to have gone away after a few days of non-use. I suspect a connector problem, but I'm not sure how I'm going to troubleshoot it any further.

Good luck with the LiFePo battery project. I'm sure I am not alone in wanting to learn how you make out with that.

powell

If you have any problems like you discribed after riding in the rain - grab hair dryer as soon as possible, disconnect data connectors immediately and give them blow of warm air directed inside untill they are warm, repeat it , keep them warm so the water would evaporate fast. DO NOT overheat.
Problem is only front data connector. To solve the problem with front data connector you need to shrink 3/4 inch tubing even 1-2 inch long over incoming comm wire and part of connector. Water enters along comm wire into connector,you want to seal entry of this comm wire into connector with heatshrink tubing.
Rear connectors data and power are not problem, for sure Delphi connector would never leak and rear data connector is placed horizontal so no problem.
Untill you heat shrink tubing over data comm wire entry into front comm connector, always disconnect front comm connector after riding in raain and blow it, do not wait for problem. If you wait water sitting there will oxidize pins with green oxidation and you are in trouble.
Miro13car

powell

For battery I am using A123 20Ah cells which will give me 2.5 times bigger capacity. You have to remember that NMH 30 in series cells maybe has usable MAXIMUM 8Ah of capacity.
Wrandyr,
I tried to get the answer how much faster if at all was 1000W E+ on LiPoly battery? I never got answer for this.
Of course I can share details OF MY BUILD with you on this threaad.
miro13car

powell

Wander,
We know EMS maker of E+ is in trouble but it does it matter much to me
I own TF on which Eplus is based and TF is not manufactured for many close seven years0 years and it does not matter it still run like new,
Why would I need EMS? Bike will be out of warranty soon anyway
Crap needs warranty yes
MIRO

powell

Today I powered my E+ for the first time on A123 20Ah cells 36V pack.
It was fantastic.
I build the pack week ago. It weights 7.2kg and contains at least 2.5 times more energy than NMH hub battery.
You must remember 8Ah hub battery due to chemistry has maybe 6Ah of usable capacity.
Discharge curves of NMH cells are rather miserable and drop like arock with Ah drawn.
You can see them in link I provided in mynext post.
Last Ah drawn are rather wth large voltage drop and poor performance.
Eplus front hub NMH battery feels relatively strong for first 2-3km of ride in level 8 and starts to fade out rather quick.
There is no comparison to A123.
To start with A123 charges to above 43V and its voltage drops much less , NMH by contrast charges to 42V.
Because of speeds I reached I was riding on streets with zero pedalling..
I was riding in level 8 all the time.
Reaching over 50km/h speeds like 52-53km/h many times for 5 minutes at the time was no problem .
It would not have been problem to sustain over 50km/h for longer but traffic lights didn't allowed for that.
Tipically at 53km/h E+ incredibly drew only 1300W of power according to Cycle Analist which shows how efficient Eplus is.
Voltage of the pack never dropped below 38V even after 18km ride.
I rode 25.7km hard with full accelerations many times on level 8 and used 8.1 Ah,

After 8Ah discharge voltage came back immediately to 39.5V moment after I reliesed throttle. Try to do it with NMH battery.
Motor got warmer than on NMH battery after over 50km/h sprints.