"Long range" Silvio for daily use

[Ole Stabel [DK]]

I am using my Silvio for my daily transport for work in Denmark. The distance I bike is 30 km, where I have bicycle patch beside the road the hole way, but I still have about 30 traffic light's, to delay me. The best time I have was with 14m/sec wind from the back 1 hour and 3 min (the opposite wind gave me a time that was 1 hour and 42 min). This is the reasons to why I want to change my Silvio to be the first real ?l-Silvio. For 6000 D kr can I buy 700C 250W (normally) front wheel motor, 24V/10A Li-on Battery, controller, changer. Complet kit. It can help me up hills, and in Cross wind, but It will switch off at 24km/h. This doesn't matter for me the I most of the time will travelling over the 24km/h.
Until now I have driven 2600km at my Silvio (named as Black Cat), and I have two accident with the bike. The first time was my chain that "jump" over the large chain wheel, and begain to break spoke. The Sivilo was steady under this crash (@32km/h), and I didn't get hurt. The chain break 5-6 of my spokes. This was after 1600km.
My next acciendent was at 42km/h and after 2600km on the road. One of my chain shifter wheel's was locking, and the next thing that was happening. That my gear shifter was breaking off and locking the front wheel. Also this time the Silvio show how steady it is in a crash.

 

[JonB]

Ole Stabel [DK wrote: "]I am using my Silvio for my daily transport for work in Denmark. The distance I bike is 30 km, where I have bicycle patch beside the road the hole way, but I still have about 30 traffic light's, to delay me. The best time I have was with 14m/sec wind from the back 1 hour and 3 min (the opposite wind gave me a time that was 1 hour and 42 min). This is the reasons to why I want to change my Silvio to be the first real ?l-Silvio. For 6000 D kr can I buy 700C 250W (normally) front wheel motor, 24V/10A Li-on Battery, controller, changer. Complet kit. It can help me up hills, and in Cross wind, but It will switch off at 24km/h. This doesn't matter for me the I most of the time will travelling over the 24km/h.

That sounds like an interesting project. Since you write that it is for the front wheel i suppose you will mount it at the rear wheel of the Silvio? but, will this really change your riding time that much?

 

[Mark B]

It's your bike, do as you see fit. It seems a little like converting a Mercedes SLR to run on propane, though.

I'm with JonB, too, I don't see it saving you any riding time. The extra weight will slow you down when pedalling.. I don't know. Good luck with whatever you choose to do..

Mark

 

[Ole Stabel [DK]]

Yes, the front wheel hub fit perfect to be mount at the rear wheel.


The distance that I daily travel has a weak wind in the morning (< 7m/sek), and in the afternoon it has more power ( 10-14 m/sek) and allways wind from west (as cross wind).
I have also a E-bike, that have a lower max speed, but I know how long time my trip take. So I expect that my daily travelling time will be reduce from total 2Hour and 45 min 2 hour and 25min with power assistance. The penefit is extra power up-hill's/ in cross wind (from 18km/h to 24km/h), and I still have posiblity to reach my max speed at 48-56km/h

 

[JonB]

Ole Stabel [DK wrote: "]Yes, the front wheel hub fit perfect to be mount at the rear wheel.


The distance that I daily travel has a weak wind in the morning (< 7m/sek), and in the afternoon it has more power ( 10-14 m/sek) and allways wind from west (as cross wind).
I have also a E-bike, that have a lower max speed, but I know how long time my trip take. So I expect that my daily travelling time will be reduce from total 2Hour and 45 min 2 hour and 25min with power assistance. The penefit is extra power up-hill's/ in cross wind (from 18km/h to 24km/h), and I still have posiblity to reach my max speed at 48-56km/h

Thats one big electric bike. It looks pretty heavy.

Your project looks interesting, please keep us updated with pictures, and maybe one Thurday evening you could turn up at Leitra so i can see your bike.

Have you considered putting fairings on your silvio?

 

[DanD]

I contributed to a solar/electric vehicle project for the GM Sunrayce competition years ago and have worked on one other interesting electric vehicle project, so I have a bit of experience here. I have been considering a few electric bicycle options as well. Still, I am no expert, so caveat emptor...

The Silvio is probably the worst choice for a frame you could make. It is too light and too specialized to handle the additional torque and weight of an electrical propulsion system. It was designed to be a human powered vehicle, not a general purpose load carrying vehicle. That said, if you used a very low power wheel motor and lithium iron phosphate batteries, then the total weight for the controller, motor, batteries might be kept around 30 kg. This might be fine if the weight of the rider did not exceed around 70 kg. The cost for all these components would be about the same as a Silvio frame, the bulk of which would be the batteries as the lithium stuff is still rather expensive. Lead-acid batteries would be totally unacceptable - drive components would be so overworked with the added weight that the life would be greatly reduced. Any type of quality road bike chain and cassettes would need to be replaced very frequently if the bike were actually pedaled under human power. If a motor were actually used to transfer power through road bike components then you could expect almost instant failure.

A Freerider or Softrider would make a better choice as these bicycles use a chrome-moly steel frame. In a fit of random googling I have run across an electric Softrider conversion, so I know they are out there. The extra weight of the frame will really not matter to any great degree for range or speed. Since you will be carrying at least 30 kg in batteries/motor/controller, pedaling will be a last resort. This is fine since lithium batteries can give an electric bicycle many tens of kilos of non-stop range, all in excess of 30 kph (all from manufacturers specs, again, caveat emptor!) I would use a single, rather low gearing specifically to help with starts and steep up-hill climbs under human-assisted power, and leave off any gearing for an electric bike.

Once you cross over into the world of an electric bike, you've given up on your body as the motor. We really are amazingly capable and durable machines and can carry around and additional 30 or 40 kg all day long (look at many Americans! ), just very, very slowly. Leave off the weight, add a bit of aerodynamics, and we can power ourselves to 80 kph on bicycle type human powered vehicles (but not for long), and we can pedal our way across the English channel in a very light weight bicycle powered plane, although much more slowly. The common theme here is weight. Mixing a human as a powerplant with conventional machinery, personally, is very depressing. No matter how efficient I get my motor, I'll never compete with stored energy in batteries, fossil fuels, or hay (think horses and camels). The day I find my Pegasus is the day I'll give up on all other forms of travel.

 

[John Tolhurst]

Dan, thanks for the thoughtful post.

Is this model viable for Silvio:
regenerative braking into capacitors, so that stopping from say 35 kph creates enough stored energy to launch back up to 24 kph?

If power was limited to 150W (say) could you drive a ring gear mounted on the crank?

 

[Ole Stabel [DK]]

DanD wrote: The Silvio is probably the worst choice for a frame you could make. It is too light and too specialized to handle the additional torque and weight of an electrical propulsion system. It was designed to be a human powered vehicle, not a general purpose load carrying vehicle. That said, if you used a very low power wheel motor and lithium iron phosphate batteries, then the total weight for the controller, motor, batteries might be kept around 30 kg. This might be fine if the weight of the rider did not exceed around 70 kg. The cost for all these components would be about the same as a Silvio frame, the bulk of which would be the batteries as the lithium stuff is still rather expensive.

Hi DanD
I have focus on the weight. The front wheel is a smaller and lighter than a rear wheel. The lithium batteries is about 2 kg.
The controller, wires and batterie station is under 2 kg. I am using the standard electronic from Schwinn bike ( but I buy it direct from the manufacture of the controller electronic (promove). So I price that have got is still the 6000 Dkr, cheaper that the convention kit on the marked.

My old E-bike weight about 29 kg plus 2x 2kg of batteries and it is stil fast up-hills that me :roll:
That my old E-bike is design for 11.6 kg heavy lead batteries, but it is replace by Li-on batteries.

 

[Ole Stabel [DK]]

JonB wrote:

Ole Stabel [DK wrote: "]Yes, the front wheel hub fit perfect to be mount at the rear wheel.


The distance that I daily travel has a weak wind in the morning (< 7m/sek), and in the afternoon it has more power ( 10-14 m/sek) and allways wind from west (as cross wind).
I have also a E-bike, that have a lower max speed, but I know how long time my trip take. So I expect that my daily travelling time will be reduce from total 2Hour and 45 min 2 hour and 25min with power assistance. The penefit is extra power up-hill's/ in cross wind (from 18km/h to 24km/h), and I still have posiblity to reach my max speed at 48-56km/h

Thats one big electric bike. It looks pretty heavy.

Your project looks interesting, please keep us updated with pictures, and maybe one Thurday evening you could turn up at Leitra so i can see your bike.

Have you considered putting fairings on your silvio?

Hi JonB
I am working in Frederiksberg, so we could meet in Copenhagen after work.

Br
Agent Orange

 

[JonB]

DanD wrote: A Freerider or Softrider would make a better choice as these bicycles use a chrome-moly steel frame.

I thought they were aluminium?

 

[Mark B]

It's a good idea to NOT post your number in a public Internet forum. Better to do that in a PM (private message).

Mark

 

[JonB]

Mark B wrote: It's a good idea to NOT post your number in a public Internet forum. Better to do that in a PM (private message).

Yes, i would probably have sent a PM as well. But i dont think it matters. I just toke his name and typed it in at another public website, namely the phonebook. I got the same number and even his home? address. When you post on the internet, you are NOT secret, and you better get used to it.

If you want to be secret, well, then there is always usenet, but on usenet you have to accept that there are some anonymous trolls that post all kinds of rubbish. This forum do have the advantage that trolls would get expelled, but at the cost of anonymity.

Pick your choice, or do both like me. At the moment there is a long thread in alt.rec.bicycles.recumbents with the subject "TdF and recumbents". You can follow
it on google groups. This thread do contain both trolls and some people from both sides that appear intelligent and with knowledge.

Naturally picking a internet handle or different for different kinds of websites might be a good idea if you plan to publish sensitive material. But i dont.

 

[Mark B]

I started reading a.r.b.r several years ago and the same discussions over and over and the same trolls saying the same garbage over and over. No thanks.

The thing about even these "private" forums is even google bots and yahoo bots pick up tidbits off of them. If somebody does a search for "long range", they could turn up this thread and this person's number. I just wouldn't post anything you don't want public on this or any other forum.

Mark

 

[DanD]

johntolhurst wrote: Dan, thanks for the thoughtful post.

Is this model viable for Silvio:
regenerative braking into capacitors, so that stopping from say 35 kph creates enough stored energy to launch back up to 24 kph?

If power was limited to 150W (say) could you drive a ring gear mounted on the crank?

John, this sounds like an excellent idea! 150W plus whatever the human motor is putting out shouldn't kill a bicycle drive train. Providing the caps (ultracaps?) are small and light enough, total system weight might not be too objectionable. Have you tried such a thing yet?

 

[DanD]

Ole Stabel [DK wrote: "]Hi DanD
I have focus on the weight. The front wheel is a smaller and lighter than a rear wheel. The lithium batteries is about 2 kg.
The controller, wires and batterie station is under 2 kg. I am using the standard electronic from Schwinn bike ( but I buy it direct from the manufacture of the controller electronic (promove). So I price that have got is still the 6000 Dkr, cheaper that the convention kit on the marked.

My old E-bike weight about 29 kg plus 2x 2kg of batteries and it is stil fast up-hills that me :roll:
That my old E-bike is design for 11.6 kg heavy lead batteries, but it is replace by Li-on batteries.

Ole - It is my opinion (and thus not worth very much) that it is the focus on weight of the bicycle and bicycle style components that will be the problem for this approach. This is why I believe you've already experienced a couple of rather catastrophic failures, but I could be wrong. I am surprised how light your electrical drive components are.

 

[John Tolhurst]

DanD wrote:

johntolhurst wrote: Dan, thanks for the thoughtful post.

Is this model viable for Silvio:
regenerative braking into capacitors, so that stopping from say 35 kph creates enough stored energy to launch back up to 24 kph?

If power was limited to 150W (say) could you drive a ring gear mounted on the crank?

John, this sounds like an excellent idea! 150W plus whatever the human motor is putting out shouldn't kill a bicycle drive train. Providing the caps (ultracaps?) are small and light enough, total system weight might not be too objectionable. Have you tried such a thing yet?

Not yet tried it. I like the idea of not plugging in the bike, retaining it as essentially an HPV. Or a solar/human powered vehicle SHPV.

 

[Ole Stabel [DK]]

DanD wrote: Hi DanD
Ole - It is my opinion (and thus not worth very much) that it is the focus on weight of the bicycle and bicycle style components that will be the problem for this approach. This is why I believe you've already experienced a couple of rather catastrophic failures, but I could be wrong. I am surprised how light your electrical drive components are.

DanD- I understand your opinion.
The company Protanium selling VO1 system and it is a comment component in lot of E-bike at the market (over 50% of the Western market).
I am going to used V01 system, becouse it is easy to attached to Silvio bike. Maybe I have to change the wire length, but the hub wheel fit direct to the bike.

Follow this link:
http://www.protanium.com/design_system_v01.aspx

Normally Protanium selling only to bike manufactors, but my bike mechanic have a connection to Protanium. If it will be improvement for the bike, Cruzbike could make a deal with Protanium, and offer this model "El~Silvio" as a spare parts.