sometimes my stupidity amazes even me. I changed out the motor on the chain drive bike that I thought I had burned up. I then tried several battery packs and couldn't make the new one work either. I went back tracing current in the new motor and controller. Finally I figured it out.

Of all things, the battery charger was lying to me. The green light stayed on because there was a broken wire. So I was trying to ride with a depleted battery pack. When I found that I realized that the drive system had not been destroyed after all. Of course I found it after I had changed the drive. I have the whole drive complete sitting on the floor of the shop. I think I will keep it until I come across a full suspension bike cheap. Meantime I am charging batteries and getting ready to test the bikes with lower power and less heat. I guess I can use more exercise anyway.

I got bored so I assembled and mounted the rhino drive. I will probably make some changes later but it's ready to go. Well after I hook up the motor leads. However I am thinking about changing it to the lower amp controller to keep the heat down. I am going to five that some more thought tonight and tomorrow.

Well it appears that there was a meltdown after all. The chain driven bike just got hard to ride when I headed for the lake. When I got home I found it was pretty much dragging too much to be effective. I removed it and in the process of building another rhino drive for the bike.

The rhino I have now has a controller capable of going either 24 or 36b so tomorrow, after I finish the bike I'm working on, I am going to try a 24v power supply with the bike I have ready. If I can make it work okay, I am going to set the one from the build I am doing now to run at 36v but with 25 amps which will cut down some on the heat im sure.

We shall see what it does.

So its the morning after the big meltdown. It didn't really seem to do any damage, so today I'm going to ride it on the trail before I make any decisions. However I have always said when I piggy back those battery packs (mixed nimh and sla) the power band is different. I might put on the 25 limiting amp controller and piggy back the power source and see how the motor runs that way. I need things to occupy me anyway.

I was a little surprised to see that the power pack was still high in voltage after over a five mile use on the 12ah sla, even up and down hills. My test track is two miles of short steep hills and a long gradual one. There are a lot worse hills around town but those tend to give me a good indication of how the bike is going to perform.

Anyway today I will test the battery controller combos I expect.

Pretty sure I figured it out. The breaker didn't blow the motor over heated. I have had that happen once before with an off brand 500watt motor run at over volted. I expect that I did it again with this one. I need to go down later and make sure it will still rev up. Something about running it on the edge of pedaling caused it to overheat. I expect it was too many amps flowing through it.

I can either go back to 24v or go to a lower amp controller. I have both laying around. I think it will have slightly more balls at 36v 25amp so tomorrow I will change it out and see what happens.

I don't know exactly how I did it but I did. I hooked up a 12ah sla 36v pack today then piggy backed a 12ah more or less ah nimh 36v pack. I took off and I usually seem to get a little more power before it sags but today it ran five an a half miles and just quit. I figured that it was a case of the nimh prevented the sag until it just it the low voltage point. I push and pulled the bike home a half mile home then did some checking. The batteries have almost no voltage drop.

The bike stopped running because it overheated. It still had a huge power reserve and it ran once it cooled off. I have a circuit breaker in line so that's what tripped. I'm going to be doing a lot more testing of these battery packs before I draw any conclusions but this was the first time I had any overheating and also its the best the power usage has been as well.

The heat probably is the 36v through the 24v motor.

I took the rhino to the lake for breakfast on the patio. It was really quiet today not a single boat on the lake. However in looking across the lake we spotted the fire department dive team arrive. It looked as though the would be practice diving. It was too far away to see anything so we just left after we finished breakfast.

The bike did great. When I got back I worked on the chain drive bike. I put a bigger front end on the bike so the pedals had more ground clearance. Then I put on a bigger chain ring so I can help the bike up the hills a little better. I had to lengthen then shorten the chain to make it fit, but now it is a little better. The main thing is the bike isn't wonkie when I pedal assist. Before it was all over the road because the chain ring was too small.

I am still working on battery stuff. I would like to add a seat to my battery trailer to carry a grand kid not and then but my wife won't hear of it.