2011 Specialized Epic Fsr Comp with BBS02B 750W and 48v 17ah Hailong ¨Shark style¨ battery

[ximox]

Hi all,

Here my ongoing build for a 2011 Specialized Epic Fsr Comp Medium frame with BBS02B 750W with colour lcd and 2x USB ports:

Please read everything before to buy one!!!
And please keep in mind this is for information only, if any damage occurs to your bike or to yourself its not my responsibility!!

Bike:

2011 Specialized Epic Fsr Comp frame M 26¨

The bike is a top spec competition frame in aluminium Alloy with sram x9 rear, 30 speed, ROX Reba slt fork, Fox/Specialized remote Mini-Brain, inertia valve, w/ Brain Fade adjust rear mono, Custom Avid Elixir R SL hydraulic brake sets f/r and Custom DT Swiss X420SL 26¨, replaced tires with Schwalbe road tyres but have 2 mavic rims with offroads ready, bike with loads of upgrade possibilities if need be.
Weight about 11.5 KG.
I wanted a large frame but couldnt find a good deal so I opted for a medium and the attached challenge..
A fantastic, light and very good looking bike, high tech, up to current standards, which i paid peanuts, only around 380EUR (450$), never raced never jumped, just used to show off, Probably very depressed bike :) :

Materials:

BBS02B Kit with 48v 17ah Panasonic cells Hailong (shark) battery, colour display DPC-14 and Hydraulic brake sensors,

Purchased from an ALiExpress reputable company, ebike motor battery Store total paid: 686 EUR (800 $) import taxes and shipping included.

Contents:

• BBSO2 version B Motor with integrated controller
• BATTERY 48v 17Ah LG/Panasonic cells, Hailong format (shark) with led power meter, support with keylock, on/off switch, USB port for external power.
• Full colour programmable display DPC-14, backlit, with USB port for external power, with support, below:

• handlebar power switch with 3 buttons for lcd controller
• brake levers with sensor (not used with hydraulic brakes)
• Hydraulic Brake sensors
• Thumb Throttle
• Chain Ring
• Chain Cover
• Crank arms (replaced with shimano)
• Speed sensor and magnets
• cables, nuts and bolts
• Charger 48v 2.5A
• CE-RoHS-UN38.3 Certifications

Not included but used:

• Shimano crank arms
• Schwalbe Road Tyres
• Lightweight MTB/BMX pedals
• Lithium Grease
• Moly Grease
• Plastidip can
• Wrenches and necessary tools
• Industrial Strength Velcro Pads
• Heavy duty Zipties
• M6/M5 nuts and bolts

Total current cost of the build:Around 1150 EUR - 1350$

BUILD STEPS

Possible serious technical obstacles to overcome:

Bottom bracket length, diameter, type and compatibility (Sorted)
Brake Sensors modding for the particular elixir sets (Currently Fail!)
Distance of crown and engine from the frame (Sorted)
Chain ring alignment with cassette and derailleur functionality (Sorted)
Battery positioning in the frame (Sorted)

To be completely honest this build is revealing to be much easier than I thought:

First of all, the bottom bracket issue, when I researched about the bike before to start, I read tech docs from Specialized and the versions of this model from 2009/2010 had a PF41 bracket which doesnt fit the BBSxx without machining an adapter which I was not going to consider.
The 2011 model however, supposedly had a PF30 bracket which, with an adapter sold even on Amazon, would fit the BBSxx (at least the bracket), so I bought myself an adapter, the necessary tools to extract and rebuild and the bike which from the colors, I confirmed is a 2011.

When examined the bike, with my obvious surprise, I discovered that it had a standard threaded bottom bracket - 42 x 73 - which in a way would make things simpler but yet made me wonder what was wrong and where, bike docs? year? etc etc. still trying to understand..

Anyhow when received my materials from China (16 days tracked delivery, no import tax no delivery cost) i started the build.

First thing I did is to re-grease the main BBS02B cog as seen on the below youtube vid, which made full sense to me, (watch the volume, the guys shouts a lot):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lVRTRFueUU

So I bought myself some MOLY grease ( dont use any other grease ) opened the plastic cover of the engine and I have to say, I noticed very little grease there for the kind of strain and use of that, so i packed it with the fresh grease and closed it back.
Some people worries about creating more friction and strain on the engine but as the YouTuber says, that particular wheel has a crazy torque and grease wont affect it at all but will only prolong the life of your gear.







Now was time for the real action:

First I removed the front derailer and unbuilt/rebuiIt a chain link, as the derailer cant be opened, I used the TacX TL2410 for the chain, which is, in my opinion, the best and cheapest on the market and easily allows to avoid pushing out completely the axle from the chain ring, really perfect tool:

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I dreamt about the insertion of the engine axle in the bottom bracket for days, imagining it in my head (yeah sounds weird I know), checking measurements etc, and finally one night at 2 am I took the virginity of that damn bracket and surprise, it went in perfectly, they are now a happy couple!!
As the bracket is 73mm in lenght, the amount of space available to screw the second cap is limited (ideal for BBS02 is 68) but I put screw-block on the first so it wont move then screwed in the second lightly:

On the other side, the original 52 tooth Bafang chain ring was scarily close to the frame but luckily thanks to the geometry of the rear shock system, not enough to have to put a shim and further reduce the space for the screw cap on the other side and probably create alignment problems:







After this step, which could have been the only real hard stop to the build, I pushed the engine nicely up leaving just enough space to let trough and hide the cables, sorted the alignment of the support (used 1x M6 nut and two shim on a 20mm hex screw per hole, you can see it in the pic above and below) and all was set with the mounting. This alignment is VERY important or the bracket wont bite in the frame and the engine will move with the torque. I am considering some sort of metal tie from the bottom of the motor to the frame bottom v section to block it completely from moving down. After all its held only by the support little teeth compressed in aluminium.








I then mounted the crank arms, I bought Shimano FC-E6000, which have left and right, are lighter, better looking, better quality and sturdier than the original Bafang and cost only around 25 EUR, lets face it, Appearances also count!!








Fit pedals of your choice and time to look at chain alignment and not much to look there, it seems OK on the 10 speed Shimano slx rear cassette, i tried pedaling manually changing gears up and down and didnt notice any issue, i guess they might come up when going at 25mph but we will wait and see..

Another dreaded problem was the battery, the 48v 17ah Hailong battery unfortunately does NOT fit inside the MEDIUM frame and could not check that when ordering it as I didnt have the bike yet, we are talking about 6/7 millimiters, so I think on a large frame it will go in, if you find a Large and measure the inside of the frame then can compare to the battery size.
I had 4 options:

1. Unbuild the pack, rearrange and resolder the cells in a shape that would fit and heatshrink it together, solution that I didnt have the will and time to do, ugly result and dangerous
2. Get a smaller pack, less volt or less ah, not very interesting.
3. Fit pack on the rear parallel to the saddle pipe, this would be a pain to fix properly and would hinder the freedom of raising and lowering the seat as I see fit depending rider and situation
4. Fit pack below the bottom tube, worrying for the distance from the wheel when shock fully compressed, unsure how easy to fit really safely there and exposed to the mud, gravel, water etc.

As you know I went for the 4th option, for a few simple reasons:

• That particular frame tube is not round but of a flat shaped type which allowed more surface contact with the Battery support:
• Below the frame there are 3 M5 screw holes, used to fit cable management supports
• Once tried to fit the battery there and tried to fully compress the shock it would not reach the surface

Unfortunately only one of the two holes can be used to fit the battery support but that revealed to be enough:







To be continued in another post below, no more attachments allowed.

[max_volt]

Great build. Does the velcro go on the seat so you don't fall off?

[ximox]

no, it goes between my wallet and the inside of my pocket so i stop spending money!! Build steps coming ;-)

[ximox]

2011 Specialized Epic Fsr Comp with BBS02B 750W and 48v 17ah Shark ¨style¨ battery (Part 2)


(Continued) So use that screw with a grip shim and put heavy duty adhesive velcro LARGE pads in the places indicated, dont use cheap crap 2 cm wide, this is weatherproof, holds 7KG on a 5cm x 10cm pad, you have even larger surface than that to apply it on and the battery weights 4.4 KG, can use dual sided strong adhesive thick tape also, like the one for the rc planes servos, but i rather have velcro in case i need to remove it.












Had to use a flat bolt M5 otherwise it would not allow the battery to slide in:







At this point the support is actually strong enough not to fall off but as a security measure I will put one or 2 black heavy duty zipties around frame and battery, with rubber strips to completely stop it from moving and avoid unnecessary strain from the battery weight to the support slides and lock, jump proof! The result is acceptably pleasant to the eye, keeps the barycentre low (which is important) and its really solid, besides if there is a direction where velcro will NOT move is sideways, if you know what I mean:








Here with battery placement and fitting completed, HD velcro+screw+zipties=completely blocked in place. No strain on the support as velcro and screw is top mid and bottom,compressed by zipties , does not move of a millimeter, also no strain on the power connector/slider because of the positioning angle and battery blocked in place by the zipties.








if one wanted to be obsessively safe can drill and filet a new hole in the frame but i strongly advise in avoiding that as it will weaken the frame.



The wheel with fully compressed shock doesnt hit the plastic and I believe even with MTB tyres it wont, I can easily remove the battery (even though i wont as i charge it on the bicycle) just by cutting the zipties.

The mud/water, gravel issue is not really a problem, the battery plastic is REALLY thick and its supposedly waterproof, the usb port on the side has a waterproof cap, the charging plug on the other side also has a proper snap_in protection and for safety I will waterproof parts of the battery and probably also the areas where cables exit the controller on the motor with 2 or three layers of plastidip, which is a very resistant, completely waterproof thick rubber spray paint even used to paint custom cars of special colors:








What I really like for now of the build, is the really stealthy result, because of the colors combination, the possibility of pushing the motor nicely high and the battery mounted low, you barely notice its got an electric ¨soul¨, dont you think?We dont want those nosy cops to ask questions do we??:







The next step we look at is cabling and electrics.
This bike has external cables for shifters and brakes (when they have internal/hidden cabling you often need to make them external anyway as they interfere with the bracket insertion. There are a bunch of cables coming out of the engine (controller) we have the main harness which from a thicker cable splits in to Display cable, 2 Brake sensor cables, throttle and display then from the controller we have speed sensor cable, battery connector and in the version B of the BBS02 also an electronic gear sensor cable. they all go towards the front excluding the speed sensor cable and gear sensor (if used)








I wont start to get into connecting this cables and the likes as I assume everybody is able to to that easily, even I managed!!

When locking the motor in, make sure you leave enough space for the cables to turn back on to the engine and up the frame to the front so they will not hang in front , exposed to the dirt, stones etc. Dont bend them too much as we have low voltage, signal and high voltage cables all together and we all know what that can cause if shorted.

As the battery is taking away 2 of the three cable management supports under the frame, we will have to go around the sides of the support with all these cables plus the rear shifter and rear hydraulic line (6 cables in total, display, throttle, brake sensors, rear brake and rear shifter, all going to the handlebars) and perhaps go back to the frame tube and fit some under the last available cable management support before to go up to the handlebars.

The battery cable will just travel few cm to the support and the speed sensor will travel back to the rear wheel. The gear sensor, if used, will also go back to the rear, easy fits.


The connections are all made now, bike is ride-able, needs some finishing here and there,

I decided to get rid of the brake sensors (temporarily, not recommended) and did not fit a shifting sensor, the main reason being that its almost impossible to fit the brake sensor on my brake set ( Avid elixir R SL) because of the shape and the materials used, nothing sticks to it so i cant fit the sensors (tried with hot glue gun, sticky pads, zip-ties) its too curvy, hot glue or sticky 3M doesn't stick even if i fine sand it and there is nowhere to really fit it properly and block it with a zip-tie, I will try with different glues maybe, try gorilla glue, but see these 2 points:

1) I naturally stop pedaling and/or release throttle before braking so I am not too sure if the brake sensors are that useful.

2) The shifting goes great without any nasty noises or apparent strain so I do not see the point of the shift sensor.

Please, give me some input on the above if you know better.

To be continued in another post, limit reached.

[Kocho]

I would not trust a heavy battety like this to hang down by two M5 screws. Or 3 (adding a 3rd one won't comprimize the frame much). Get 2" wide Velcro straps to strap it against the frame.

The plastidip will decrease the already somewhat poor heat exchange of the motor, I would not use it.

Water can easily get inside the bracket and also where the bracket contacts the battery. There are no waterproofing gaskets there, and yours being upside-down will guide running water precisely tho these two areas. The power switch is not waterproof either as far as I can tell.

You mentioned you lect space for cables between the motor and frame. I would suggest using a firm spacer against the frame as the motor will try to torque itself up.

[ximox]

Hi, thanks for input:

If you look at part 2 of the build info (above), i already wrote that the support is blocked with screw AND heavy duty velcro to the frame, there is no way it will ever move from there, in any direction, that velcro is REALLY strong; also once the battery is on, i specified I have 2 heavy duty 1.5 cm zipties (much better, firmer and tougher than Velcro) that go around thje frame and block the battery in place. The battery is not going to move, even offroad, its solid. Anyway I charge it on the bike and if I will need to remove it I just need to cut 2 zipties.

Good point about the plastidip on the motor, I will use it exclusively around the area where cables come out from the controller. That will help.

Is there any way to increase the cooling of the motor?like an heatsink kit or similar?

Plastidip is used all over the battery and specifically on the parts where it can take water, including the power switch, if you lightly grease the switch and then spray plastidip on it it will create a waterproof shape around it but the button wont stick so you can switch it on and off. The battery is water-resistant (not waterproof) all around, the charge plug, usb and switch have rubber gaskets, connectors are well protected from water and as they face down gravity will move the water away, but in case it would still filter in after i also impermeabilize it with plastidip, the contacts are still way too far apart for water to create an electric bridge (nearly a cm). If riding in heavy rain (very unlikely) I will make sure they will be dried properly after. I have a friend that did 3500km on his set, exactly same battery, in england in any condition, trekking and heavy rain included, never had a problem and did not even use plastidip.

Good suggestion about the spacer, I might create an aluminium bracket that will go from the screws of the motor support to the v section to completely block it in place.

Keep suggestions coming, they are as good as gold!!More heads thinking = better job!

[Zippy]

Nice build, you got a screaming deal on the bike that's for sure. If you keep your RPM's up on the motor by using your gears on hills you likely won't have any problems with overheating unless you have like 120 degree temps there.

[ximox]

Yes its a good deal, but I think there are quite a few out there.

I think I will fit a thermometer in it anyway and no, here is never really hot. Maybe one or two weeks per year is 90 :)

[ximox]

2011 Specialized Epic Fsr Comp with BBS02B 750W and 48v 17ah Shark ¨style¨ battery (Part 3)


(continued) The handlebar controls are fitted, throttle on left, screen mid and switch on right. As I had a problem with the color screen DPC14 (it just died, bad firmware), I fitted temporarily a C965 B/W (below) until the new DPC14 one gets here, replaced immediately by the seller and sent with Fedex fast shipping.

Again I want to highlight how professional and fast the response and actions are of this highly recommended Aliexpress seller: EBIKE BATTERY STORE







Cables have been passed trough the sides and I am satisfied with the location, Just on top of the battery, I left the connectors accessible, mainly for being able to program the unit. At the bottom of the bike between motor and battery there are quite a few cables (power, harness) that needs to be hidden and protected by damage, the only thing i can think of at the moment is to create an ¨enclosure¨ in between using strong duct tape, it might not be pretty but its hidden and for now it will have to suffice, I am not sure how to do anything else, i am experiencing a lack of creativity!! Perhaps ill create some sort of waterproof plastic container for that. Any suggestion are welcome.







The conversion is almost complete, only some bits and pieces to perfection it, perhaps solve the problems of the brake sensors and cables below the battery and maybe add a gear sensor (the BBS02B comes already with the cable from the controller) but I dont think is really necessary.
PLEASE NOTE:
I replaced the Schwalbe road tyres 1.50 wide with 1.75, they feel much better and stable on the road.
I added front and rear very lightweight mudguards (Mucky Nutz rear and BTwin front)
I replaced handlebar grips with Ergon GP1s, you can see them on the photo of the display, above. They do make a difference.
I replaced the original, technical, rigid hard seat with one, less ¨cool¨ but with gel padding, to make the trips a bit more pleasant.

First road test results:

Rode on default programming, 3 PAS levels, The bike feels great, unbelievably powerful and feels safe enough with the hydraulic discs and great shocks even at speed. When I accelerate or release suddenly, the bike has a very little shake I suppose because of the inertia of the motor, i guess its normal, it definitely needs some customizing in the programming, I am doing it next and will post results. The gear changing is smooth, faultless, no chain problems, I do not feel the need of a gear sensor at all and I think the brake sensors arent useful as I never found myself braking with power on at the same time. But Id like to know other opinions.

I rode 23Km and reached a top speed of (ahem..) 69 Km/h on a flat road, (confirmed by gps) of course on private roads for testing purposes....
I might consider changing the original 52 tooth front ring with a 42 tooth Lekkie, I dont need that much speed plus that is much lighter and will ease the strain on motor when climbing
Please note the battery left after 23 Km mixed, some very light offroad path, mostly PAS and some throttle, cant complain..













OK, colour screen arrived and fitted, much better but response time is slightly slower, not a deal breaker though:





I decided to cover all the cables with spiral wrap for protection, cable management and looks:






And the below, both sides, look much better.




Only thing left to fix is the cover for the bunch of wires below the battery which now is covered with ugly tape, ideas are welcome, please:




Bought some rubber sticky roll 5cm x 2mm and did a casing, posting photos later. Looks perfect.

[Zippy]

Possibly you could replace the tape with a wrap of black wide width 3-M Dual-loc Velcro, might look a bit nicer.

[ximox]

ZIppy, I actually replaced it with a stripe of sticky thin rubber 5cm wide, the one you stick to the bottom of doors to stop drafts. Looks good, ill take a pic.

[Madogman]

What's the best way to electrify a 2012 Cannondale Jekyll 4?

[ximox]

Hi, this post is not in the right place man, you got to post directly under Ebike Building Directions

https://electricbike.com/forum/forum/builds/ebike-building-directions

Anyway first of all you need to check what bottom bracket your bike has, you got to know the exact year of production and check on manuals, then go here:

https://www.empoweredcycles.com/blogs/news/101474694-bottom-bracket-standards-and-bafang-mid-drive-motors

if your BB is not one of the first 2 (BB30 - PF30) then you will have problems fitting unless you find/machine an adapter, after that you still need to see if the engine fits properly measuring the space you got for the chain wheel etc and comparing to bafang measures. After that you need to check how much clearance you got under your bottom tube once your forks are compressed as seems to me thats the only place you can fit the battery in your bike, unless you want to carry it in a backpack when you go riding.

Looks like your bike has a BB30 like my bike here, 73mm so you should be ok, but double/triple check.

http://www.cannondalespares.com/browse_by_model/jekyll-2011-2013

To be honest looking at it the motor IF it fits it will have to be below the frame and you lose ground clearance.

Check here:

https://electricbike.com/forum/forum/builds/ebike-building-directions/7635-bikes-that-are-compatible-with-a-bbshd-and-bbso2-kits

scroll down, there is a green specialized, your frame style is similar.

Also can consider a hub motor.