hondated wrote:kwackers any chance of a bit more detail please re fitting and costs.
The BBS01/02 is available as a 'kit' from most ebike suppliers. Cost is typically about £400.
For this you get the motor, a pair of brake levers (with cut off switches), a thumb throttle, the LCD display/controller a pair of cranks, chainwheel & cover.
Then you need a battery. All the legal versions of the kit run from 36v, however if you increase the voltage...
Battery is obviously dependent on where you want to fit it, capacity etc. Mine was 36v, 15Ah (and either Samsung or Panasonic cells - can't remember off the top of my head). This ran me something like £350(?)
Fitting is a doddle. First make sure the battery fits - otherwise you'll be riding around with a motor as a passenger.
I had to drill an extra hole in the aluminium mount for mine otherwise it was a tad too low on the bottle mounts.
Removing the pedals and bottom bracket is probably the hardest part. Mine were fairly solid from years of dirty commuting.
Once it's out and everything cleaned up, the motor simply slides in where the bearings would be. It's held in place by a nut and locknut.
Regarding the nut, I recommend a C spanner to tighten it up along with a soft mallet to make sure it's nice and tight. Most youtube videos seem to prefer the old chisel and hammer to get it tight but in my experience that's a bad idea and it's never tight enough.
I also had to fit a small plastic 'stop' to prevent the motor rotating up onto the frame (where it fouled the gear change cable).
You then fit the speedo sensor which is your standard magnet on spokes / sensor strapped to frame type gizmo (rear wheel fitting is ideal). This plugs into the motor.
Bolt on the cranks, chainwheel etc (I took the opportunity to strip and service everything, new chain & cassette etc). I removed the front derailleur (some folk leave it alone).
Bolt the LCD to the bars and route the cables.
At this point you can have a go.
That's pretty much as far as I got. I never bothered with the brake levers provided - although I've got some different sensors so I can use my original brakes at some point.
I also never fitted the thumb throttle.
So this evening will be my 3rd full week of ebike commuting and overall its going well. Time isn't much different to the train (although I miss reading stuff during my commute). I don't get too hot and sweaty - in fact I can control my temperature by controlling my effort which means normal clothes and even wet gear which previously I hated due to it's 'boil in the bag' characteristics.
At some point I'll sort out the brake cut off. The main problem with not having it is if you try to edge forward in traffic, the motor kicks in and tries to drive you forward. Obviously you can control it on the brake but it'd be much more civilised if you could simply stop the motor in the first place.
With regards legality. Speed limit can be adjusted up by the +10%. You can just turn it off - it's just a menu option. You could simply put in a wheel size in so that kph is mph which would give you 25mph and not be obvious to anyone without riding it or you could be a lot more underhand, hack the controller etc etc.
Power is a function of a number of things. Reprogramming the motor, upping the battery voltage etc etc. The badged power of the motor assumes certain things.
The BBS02 I linked to looks pretty good, plus it's got a 6v output for dynamo lights.