Re:Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
by swader999 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @10:48AM
(#36747605)
Solved it by buying crappy police auction bikes, defective power tool battery packs off eBay and cheap hub motors from China. Make the bike look ugly take your home made soldiered pack with you when you park. $1500-4000 depending on how fast and how far you need to go. I can rearrange the packs and there isn't a bike that is faster, but 48 volts at about 50km/hr is the sweet spot for safety and practical commuting. Nobody is going to hassle you about an illegal bike if you don't ride like an idiot.
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I use an opposite approach. I have two bikes, one a carbon cross/trek-style and one was the cheapest I could find as a city bike. The carbon one I'd like to keep, so I put stickers "Ferrari" everywhere on the cheap one. For quick value judgement on which bike to steal I hope the brand name beats the carbon frame. I had some people standing around and admiring my "Ferrari" in the public already, so it seems to be working somewhat...
My father took the “make it too ugly to steal” approach with his bicycle in college. Still got stolen.
In Finland there was a trend to paint bikes in gnarly solid colors. My buddy chose pink. Too ugly, and too much work to unidentifiable.
Berea College in Kentucky doesn’t allow first year students to park cars on campus, so even in the summer there are many bikes lined up outside the buildings.
I wandered around a few weeks ago taking photos of all of the pink bikes because I appreciated them: my Jeep is a lovely fuchsia.
Re:Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
by DaveExeter on Sunday July 16, 2023 @11:00AM
(#36747726)
>defective power tool battery packs off eBay
They have some good cells and some bad ones?
Yes, I did this 15 years ago with the Dewalt A123 cells. Usually only one cell had failed. Betty you could still do the same.
police auctions of confiscated scooters, ones that folk abandon on the wrong place and get impounded are a great source of cells.
hit up the homebrew powerwall forums for more sources.