One Karl Gesslein of https://electricbike-blog.com/ has spent the better part of the past two years and a small fortune doing his very best to destroy every e-bike motor including the Bafang BBxx models offered. His exploits on e-bikes are perhaps bordering on the insane. If a mid-drive e-bike motor can survive his torture tests, they should serve the normal person very well.
Educating yourself is a must, with no end of resources. As well as Karl's blog there are several others. Two I would recommend are electricbike.com, which is run by Luna Cycles a Bafang distributor and another Electric Vehicle and Technology Forums endless-sphere.com. Both are a wealth of information and opinions. You will need the resources they offer. The Power Assist forum on BROL is also great
Ordering my BBSO2 kit from Luna was fairly straight forward, but I did not know what options I would need to mount it on a Rover trike so I only ordered a longer main harness, an upgraded battery charger, and a speedometer cable extension, opting to start the installation and then order additional cables after I measured things up.
Taylor at TerraTrike found me a spare Rover boom in his surplus inventory for $95 which I thought would be handy in that I could premount the Bafang drive without having to take out the bottom bracket and chainrings. If I ever wanted to switch back either permanently of temporarily (meet with no e-assist allowed) I could do it in a matter of minutes.
The beautifully packed Luna box arrived UPS as promised. I opened it, unpacked eveything and spent the next half day scratching my head and wondering what to do first. There was not a scrap of instructions. Not one of the various packages of parts and cables had a label on it. The grey matter had to do some extra work. It really was like the first day of school.
I mounted/dismounted the drive on the front of the boom a couple times. Slept on it and then did it again. Could it possibly be this simple?
Mounting the battery was a conundrum. I finally decided crossways behind the seat against the rear fender would provide the best weight distribution -about as far behind the front axle as the drive was in front of axle. A couple of pieces of 3/4 in plywood, my router to make an mounting notch, some wood screws, and a couple of heavy gear clamps made a solid platform for the quick release battery bracket. I used similar hardware arrangement to mount my Windwrap faring. It is solid, reasonably light and just works!
I put the boom with the drive through the crciform and into the frame tightened the grub set screws, and started measuring and plugging it wires. It went pretty well.
- I needed a power cable extension 22", a piece of HD ext cord soldered in- done
- speedometer ext was too short rather than order another I cut and extended with Cat 6 network cable using 3 of the twisted pairs to extend. Worked.
- installed speedometer sensor on left rear. straight forward
- plugged in over-length harness and routed along boom to cruciform and up left steering arm.
- Mounted throttle control and main control switch to left handle bar. Crowded but ok.
- Mounted Display computer to an accessory bar I previously used for cell phone. OK for present.
- Epoxied magnets for the Hall sensor brake power cutoffs to both brake handles. Took three views of different YouTube videos to figure that one out.
- Stuck Hall sensors on brake lever bodies.They have self adhesive pads. Works ok
- Plugged in left brake sensor. Works OK
- Right brake sensor requires extension cable which I must fabricate myself if I want.(don't think I will need it) About 24 inch. Cat 6 as with speedo cable would work fine.
- Zip tied the wiring up in place. Charged the Battery, Plugged it in. Nothing blew up or smoked. Played with controls and took for short run.
- It works flawlessly and very quiet.
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| Rover II E-Assist ready for first test run |
The working installation is complete, but I have a number of things to refine. I need to tidy up the wiring and seal the connectors. I will redo the power cable extension as it is too long. The battery mount is fine but I need to put some stain and sealer on the wood. The wires down the main boom are shrink wrapped at the joints but I will put some loom over it to tidy it up. A better mount for the display is in order.
So how does it work. Fine, But lots to learn. However I no longer dread stiff headwinds or towering hill. And my knees are very happy. Details in next post
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