DIY battery kit components

[tomjasz]

I'm finding the 250w power of my Voltbike Elegant motor not enough power for my commuting. I'm exploring ways I can power up the motor without much service. I thought maybe I could replace the 36volt battery with a 48volt battery. Is that compatible with the 250w motor and will it result in any significant power increase? Thank you, I appreciate any thoughts you all may have

Maybe but you'd probably need a new controller. Best to ask the maker. Some controller used can run multiple voltages and that Bafang motor MAY take the additional power. Cal the maker and google around o see if anyone else has.

 

[harryS]

Luigi, it's the motor controller that you have to worry about. If it can handle 48V, then a battery swap is possible. Contact Voltbike and ask them if the controller is compatible.

As for reliability, people kill bikes like yours w/o any changes because they beat them on hills. If you do the same, you will kill it on 48V too, but if you treat it nice, it could hold up. It it gets very hot, you're killing it.

For that bike, it would cost you around $250-300 for a 350W geared front hub motor plus a 26" wheel shipped from China. There's no guarantee, but every motor I've seen that uses that quick disconnect connector has the same pin-out, making it plug compatible. Again, ask Voltbike tech support. Bigger motor, and you get a little more acceleration and torque, but speed will be about the same.

For more speed, you also need the 48V battery.

A couple of my bikes have little 250W motors, but they have wide range controllers, I've run 52 volts into them. I like it. We'll see if they get hot. Riding season here hasn't really started, so my rides have been short,

 

[Luigi]

Thank you so much for your thoughts on this! I have managed to go to the advance settings of the display (for the controller) and I changed the amperage to 15ah (the maximum it will allow). The bike is now running (if I'm not mistaken) at 540Watts. I'm happy with the power now. I still have to check if the battery will have a reasonable range after these changes. I might have messed up with the settings of the wheel size though, because now it won't read the speed properly.