New to forum, but not necessarily to E-bikes

[jigs]

I was at a venue not long ago and saw a Rambo bike. Great advertising, decent look, and before that I was considering transforming my old reliable Trek mountain bike. I was looking at hub assemblies simply for price (just opened a CNC machine shop and easily went $10k over budget and I'm not done...). Well my wife said "if you want it, get it". WTF " I thought. She even offered to put $2k of it on her credit card. She does the billing around here. So I got the Rambo. What a piece of crap. The cheapest Shimano Alta derailleurs money can buy among other things. Problems almost right away. Well the chain came apart on me one day under pretty hard peddling which caused a pretty nasty wipe out on pavement (Suddenly I was peddling like a hamster in a wheel and lost balance). They took the bike back and sent a new one. Same shit. I'd get the derailleurs working perfect and within a mile or two they would be out of whack again. Plus the second one capped out at 17mph. I use these bike mostly for the road and it certainly wasn't beat on. Been riding mountain bikes for 20 years and know a bit about them. My trek went 5 years at least without having to mess with the derailleurs until a cable got broke during a move. It wasn't me causing issues with this Rambo. I bought it at 'beer, bacon, and burbon', Probably the cause of the bad decision and lack of research... Anyway, they refunded my money this time so I decided to upgrade to a Luna.

Yesterday I ordered the Luna Fusion Ebike KHS 1000 with the gear sensor and mini charger. Super exited to get this bike! I can actually program it myself?! Riding my Trek for a month will SUCK after having an E-bike (although a POS) as I use it for commuting and we have some good hills here...

My only concern is no warranty to speak of and seemingly little tech support. I plan on future upgrades and would like to speak with someone about them before doing them. Like I said, I'm mechanically inclined and just opened a CNC shop (Been a machinist since I was 16, 43 now and built my first dirt bike engine at 10yo), but it would be nice to have some guidance as my electronic abilities are limited at best.

Anyway, looking forward to getting this bike and hope I don't have to wait the full month or more. We'll probably have snow by then!

I don't know if this is allowed, but if anyone needs custom parts made for anything we do milling and turning. Hit me up. Now back to the shop to work on this gas drift trike I started yesterday. Great, helpful, forum you guys have here!

[AZguy]

I've found Luna to be quite reasonably responsive to tech support concerns when you email them. The BBSHD is a very straightforward system that most folks with reasonable electromechanical skills and some basic tools can maintain and troubleshoot easily. Bikes are bikes - I fall into the camp with bikes and motos that we are better off doing our own maintenance if for no other reason to gain the familiarity with the vehicle.

YMMV

[max_volt]

Your old lady sounds like a keeper. I believe if you want to ride a Rambo bike you have to salute it first and then say a little prayer.

[jigs]

Your old lady sounds like a keeper. I believe if you want to ride a Rambo bike you have to salute it first and then say a little prayer.

And bring a backpack full of tools

[jigs]

I've found Luna to be quite reasonably responsive to tech support concerns when you email them. The BBSHD is a very straightforward system that most folks with reasonable electromechanical skills and some basic tools can maintain and troubleshoot easily. Bikes are bikes - I fall into the camp with bikes and motos that we are better off doing our own maintenance if for no other reason to gain the familiarity with the vehicle.

YMMV

Oh believe me I got a crash course 'elecromechanical' skills when I was building a Phase converter to run 3 phase in the shop and trying to get them all putting out equal power across phases. I also made the mistake of buying a 2 speed, 50hz motor (60 is typical). I got it new for $150 when used 15hp motors that look like they've been dragged behind a truck are $1000. I'm not concerned about the bike. I was the kid that everyone in the neighborhood came to when they had a problem. It's the custom batteries I'm concerned with. I guess if it craps out I'll be soldering lots of cells together... I also plan on making a back-up battery for those longer journeys or so I don't have to wait for one to charge.

[AZguy]

Battery construction is well documented but it's non-trivial and is plenty more than soldering some cells together. I've got two ebikes and three batteries compatible with both and have tossed around the idea of building more batteries. I generally have at least one battery at 85% charge on the bench and I've got two mounts (one on the front downtube and one on the rear rack) on each of the bikes so I've got gobs of range. It's really handy to always have at least one at the ready - sort of like stopping to put gas in - just swap batteries!

The spot welders and other tools needed will likely cost <~$200. But I've added up all the material costs and unless you are building more than just a few, it's very difficult to justify it on cost alone and buying cells and other components from china takes a lot of time... OTOH you can get batteries off-the-shelf shipped to you quickly at little more cost than building them... I just like the notion of having the capability to build them especially since I already have enough that there's no time urgency...

[jigs]

Clearly I'm new to the forum. Where is the info on building batteries?

[jigs]

AZguy, I can't get batteries to fit the Luna I just bought. At least i don't think they will fit. As a machinist and fabricator I planned to revers engineer their cover and go from there.

[AZguy]

That's a very compelling reason beyond just cost and makes good sense.

I was in a close situation when I put my BBSHD bike together and the dolphin packs I already had wouldn't fit in the frame. The shark packs do so I bought one of those and put a dolphin mount on the rear rack and was able to solve the issue without resorting to building.

There's a fair bit on battery building over on Endless Sphere and googling you can find a fair bit too.

[Zippy]

I don't know if this is allowed, but if anyone needs custom parts made for anything we do milling and turning. Hit me up. Now back to the shop to work on this gas drift trike I started yesterday. Great, helpful, forum you guys have here!

You should machine some parts to convert Ashtabula (Schwinn Cruiser) bottom brackets to be able to accept BBSHD's. Seems like people seem to be looking for a source for those.

[jigs]

You should machine some parts to convert Ashtabula (Schwinn Cruiser) bottom brackets to be able to accept BBSHD's. Seems like people seem to be looking for a source for those.

Can you give a little more info? Or guide me to a place to do my own research? Why don't they fit? Would I have to make a sleeve for the bottom bracket? I'm not at all new to bikes, but I am new to converting to electric... There witl be some sick chain ring covers coming out as soon as I get mine which doesn't seem to come with one. God forbid I get my pants dirty (i'm a highly sarcastic person...)

[Zippy]

Sorry it took me so long to reply, been really busy lately, I remember hearing a lot of cruiser bikes cannot have a BBSXX kits installed do to size of their bottom bracket being incompatible with the kits. IIRC a guy in Eastern Europe was making some and stopped due to the machine shop he was using being too busy.

Here is a thread with some info:

https://electricbike.com/forum/forum/main-forum/diy-discussion/27773-found-a-way-to-mount-bbs02-or-bbshd-to-old-fashioned-american-or-bmx-style-bb