My new 700c wheel has a become a fixed wheel?

[fbvisitor]

G'day all,

Can someone help the newbie here?

My new 48v 1000w Goldenmotor kit (ebay of course) finally arrived and although very pushed for time for a couple of days I thought I might at least be able to pop the (rear) wheel in tonight and see how it all looks.

I tightened the cassette as per instructions, tied the wiring out of the way temporarily, pumped up the tyre and took it for a 30 metre ride bafore things started going pear shaped.

First of all I over geared it in the dark, (my fault). New scratches on new hub. Bugger.

Secondly, and this is where I need pointing in the right direction, when I pushed on the pedals I felt the cassette turn a little bit. No problems I thought, its just tightening up that last little bit but now the cassette is locked and acting like a fixed wheel (I have to keep pedalling or else the chain is going to keep going around with the wheel and do who knows what damage).

What have I done wrong? I'm beat after a hard days grind and my brain is obviously not functioning properly.

Can someone help the Aussie?

[Leslie]

You have two choices.

Send the wheel back.

Or

Go to the bike shop and get yourself 3 cassete spacer washers and undo the cassete and put those washers in between the cassete and the hub.

Should be like new.

[biohazardman]

G'day all,

Can someone help the newbie here?

My new 48v 1000w Goldenmotor kit (ebay of course) finally arrived and although very pushed for time for a couple of days I thought I might at least be able to pop the (rear) wheel in tonight and see how it all looks.

I tightened the cassette as per instructions, tied the wiring out of the way temporarily, pumped up the tyre and took it for a 30 metre ride bafore things started going pear shaped.

First of all I over geared it in the dark, (my fault). New scratches on new hub. Bugger.

Secondly, and this is where I need pointing in the right direction, when I pushed on the pedals I felt the cassette turn a little bit. No problems I thought, its just tightening up that last little bit but now the cassette is locked and acting like a fixed wheel (I have to keep pedalling or else the chain is going to keep going around with the wheel and do who knows what damage).

What have I done wrong? I'm beat after a hard days grind and my brain is obviously not functioning properly.

Can someone help the Aussie?

As suggested in the last post the freewheel could be binding on the inside of the hub. It takes a special tool, most bike shops have them and they are not expensive, to remove it or loosen it to see if that is the problem. . For more trouble shooting check and make sure you did not cross thread the freewheel when installing it on the hub.  Look at it closely and see that it is straight and true with the hub. Loosen the axle nuts and try to spin the wheel while holding the freewheel, try to see exactly where it is binding or if the freewheel itself is the problem. You can tap the gears with a wooden dowel or piece of wood and a hammer lightly to see if it will loosen up.  My freewheel started slipping when I pushed hard on the pedals not to long after I installed the kit.   Good luck.

[redbike]

You probably need a spacer between the outer part of the sprocket and the bike frame. The wheels are badly designed and missing the spacer. If you get two washers with a smaller OD to the hole in the sprocket and file two flats to match the dimensions of the axle you should a have a cheap and easy spacer that works well. Good luck and check your wheel is straight and the spokes tight.

[fbvisitor]

Thankyou all for your ideas and suggestions.

I have taken the wheel back out tonight and the cassette does appear to be touching the hub. I can spin it by hand but only just. I'll be off to the bike shop tomorrow to track down a spacer.

Another thing I have noticed is that the axle is not protruding out on the cassette side as much as I would like. In fact I don't have a full nuts width. Is there a way to move this across simply, without pulling the hub apart?

I have removed the torque washer and fitted my own torque arm (on the inside of the fork actually) and have also removed the washer that would normally be on the inside as well as the washer between the nut and the original torque washer but I'm still a bit short.

Thanks again.

[Leslie]

Thankyou all for your ideas and suggestions.

Another thing I have noticed is that the axle is not protruding out on the cassette side as much as I would like. In fact I don't have a full nuts width. Is there a way to move this across simply, without pulling the hub apart?

I have removed the torque washer and fitted my own torque arm (on the inside of the fork actually) and have also removed the washer that would normally be on the inside as well as the washer between the nut and the original torque washer but I'm still a bit short.

Thanks again.

Hi again

No the axle is welded to the rotor and cant be moved..

You can try a smaller 3 speed cassete.

How thick is your diy torque arm? Does it take any space?

You can also remove your gear changer all together and rely upon the front gears if you need them.  The only time I need the lower gears is when/if I my batts run flat.  The front gears is more than enough to cope with the loss of power...  The gear changer on my bike always worries me,  just a such a frail thing like a gear changer hooked up to a powerfull motor gives me a little concern. If the gear changer was to get hooked up into with the chain and all at top speed it would be a little ugly.

Last of all you can remove your torque arm from the inside and place one over the axle nut and secure it to the bolt and fork from the outside.  The direction the axle spins is the the way it does up so in essence a torque arm on the the wheel nut makes the nut tighter and will not move providing the wheel nut is done up tight to begin with, works great and take no space. Replace the washer on the inside and angle grind the washer a bit thinner if you need.  Ive seen folks fashion an old ring spanner for a torque arm.  You can secure it with either hose clamps as ive seen before or go a little easier an use some thick plastic ties..

[fbvisitor]

G'day again,

Well, I fitted a spacer and the wheel is now spinning freely. One problem solved.

With the short axle on the cassette side, I removed the inside washer, (my home made torque arm has taken its place and its a bit thinner), and I have removed the torque washer from the outside as well as the flanged nut and have fitted a standard one along with the supplied outside washer. The axle is now flush with the outside of the nut. That'll do this bloke.

So now the fun begins. I am going the SLA path due to budgeting reasons (the aussie dollar has dropped heaps in the last three months making a Ping 48v 20Ah over 4 times that of four 12v 17.5Ah in the form of new 900 amp jumpstarter packs) and am currently fitting the batteries in a pair of wine cooler bags to hang of each side of my rack, although I fear they are a bit small height wise.

I can't imagine how I'm going to handle all the weight on the rear of this bike. Time wil tell I guess.

Thanks again for the ideas and solutions, I'm sure I will be back.

[Leslie]

G'day again,

Well, I fitted a spacer and the wheel is now spinning freely. One problem solved.

 (the aussie dollar has dropped heaps in the last three months making a Ping 48v 20Ah over 4 times that of four 12v 17.5Ah in the form of new 900 amp jumpstarter packs) and am currently fitting the batteries in a pair of wine cooler bags to hang of each side of my rack, although I fear they are a bit small height wise.

I can't imagine how I'm going to handle all the weight on the rear of this bike. Time wil tell I guess.

Thanks again for the ideas and solutions, I'm sure I will be back.

Yes missing spacers is not only bad for the bikes health. In reality it is very dangerous for your health, if the gear changer gets locked up in the cassete while your riding fast you could end up in hospital or worse.

The SLA path is scary but can work, id try to keep those lead batteries away from the back and find someway of strapping them onto the frame.  I used rubber inner tubes for this as they never ever failed me, they are acid proof, weather proof, shock resistant, and they held 20 kg of lead to my frame flawlesly.


The aussie dollar lol.  Its like our uranium and primary resources are worth less than dang batteries that fry in 5 minutes, only god, balance, yin yang, "what eva" knows what the real exchange rate is and will even things out in the end.

Another safety issue to watch for is that the twist grip hal controller works from an analogue hal sensor and gets stuck full ON if the power is cut to the sensor while in operation, just a loose lead and you are in deep doo. Its happened to me twice on a new designed controller when the twist grip broke and came off in my hand, and the old designed controller when the plug shook lose, and Ive nearly had bad accidents because of this oversight.

Below is a link to the what I think is related to what is going on with the stuck at full speed when the power is cut to the throttle.  By no means is there a solution here to the GM controller problem but more proof of concept.

http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/wiki/index.php/PIC_PWM_Motor_DriverSignal Conditioner (Optional)

There is a problem with leaving out the signal conditioner part of the circuit. Sure you can program your controller to output your control signal scaled to 0 to +5v, but when it will likely reset to 0v at some point. 0v to the PIC corresponds to full speed in one direction. You want 0v to the circuit to mean 0 speed to the motor, or 0v (IN) = 2.5v (PIC). For this you can build a simple op-amp circuit.

Ive fried two controllers trying to fix this very dangerous problem.  Well I dragged the solder wick across one controller powered, the other one I blew up "stupid reverse polarity" that said I was trying stuff to fix this bug...

I was thinking of adding a resistor to the output and the ground to help discharge the 3.8 volts that gets stuck when the power is cut.

^ Im confused now.

Well again my bike is in the sick bay waiting for another controller.  Im going to try to fix the one that I reversed the polarity cause im sure its just the power regulators...