EBikeRider

Old Wavecrest Poster!

2021-09-17T16:39:00.006-04:00

While cleaning out a closet, I found this old poster that I picked up from a former Wavecrest Labs employee. It's thick plastic so I believe it was a store window type of poster. Don’t call the number unless you like talking to attorneys! It’s huge at 5 feet high by 42” wide! 152cm x 107cm!

New S-750X upgrade in the works

2019-06-03T18:28:00.003-04:00

I was recently contacted by a former executive of Wavecrest Labs to do an upgrade/repair of their Tidalforce S-750X bike. He was interested in having his throttle repaired and upgrading the bike to a 20AH battery pack along with the Cycle Analyst SA and an Avid BB-7 front disc brake upgrade.

I have the bike and have started working on it.

Here's the bike as it was delivered. The front hub battery is dead. The throttle was busted. Everything else was quite beautiful!

Here are the parts I speced out for the upgrade boxed up! LOL.

In the box are a Topeak MTX rear rack, an MTX rear bag, the 16AH batteries. (HobbyKing was out of the 20AH batteries). The Cycle Analyst. What's missing is the Avid BB-7 disc brakes.

Here's what I've done so far.

The Cycle Analyst is mounted, the rear Topeak rack and bag are mounted, I've removed the wiring from the front fork. I've run the Cycle Analyst sensor/controller wire through the frame.

I've also added the Delphi connectors to the Cycle Analyst shunt.

I'm having the original Alexrims G3000 front wheel converted from the hub wheel to a disc brake wheel so have bought an Shimano front disc hub and need to figure out the spoke lengths for it and buy them and lace them.

More as it happens.

New E+ Electric Folding Bikes in My Stable!

2019-03-11T17:38:00.002-04:00

Well, my neighbor that I met a few years ago sent me an email and said that he no longer needed his 2 E+ folding electric bikes. They are custom bikes mounted on Downtube 9FS frames which are very sturdy and solidly built. He had kept them in his shed so they need a bit of cleaning up, however, both batteries seem to be in good health. Amazing. I'll clean them up and post some after pictures but here are a couple of before shots.

New Tidalforce M-750 project

2018-05-15T21:31:00.001-04:00

Well, it’s Spring and I need a new project. I have had this M-750 frame in storage for many years. I bought the frame from a former employee of EMS when they went out of business. They had some left over frames from Wavecrest Labs when they went under. I bought a couple from him and kept this one.

I have a new job in downtown Washington DC and the Tidalforce M would be a great commuter bike. I have a new battery and plenty of parts to put this together. So here goes!

This is pretty much the way the frame came to me. I added the double kickstand and wired up the console and cabling. I also mounted brakes but I plan on changing the front V-brakes to disc brakes.

Picture of most of the stable of TF bikes...

2018-04-03T15:00:00.001-04:00

The weather is warming up and I'm hoping to be able to ride my bike to work this Spring and Summer! Happy Spring everyone! (this picture was actually taken last fall!)

Nearly done with Tidalforce S-750X battery and wheel upgrade

2017-08-14T16:23:00.000-04:00

Well, I spent last night finishing up the upgrade to Rick's S-750X bike.

I replaced the front brakes with an Avid BB7 disc brake. I mounted the Grin Technologies Cycle Analyst and ran the wires back to the mount the shunt before the motor/controller. I stuffed the Turnigy Multistar battery into the Topeak MTX bag. Ran the power to the connector on the CA shunt and powered everything up. It all went together like a charm. I was able to take it for a 10 mile ride and hit a top speed of 30MPH! The bike felt great!

Here's all the tie wraps used to snug everything down to the frame and the chainstay. It looks much better when it's cleaned up!

Here's the rear quarter view of the bike before the Cycle Analyst shunt installation.

Cleaning up and upgrading the batteries for a friend's Tidalforce S-750X

2017-06-27T17:44:00.001-04:00

Rick dropped by over the weekend to have his S-750X upgraded from the dead front hub battery to the 16 or 20 Ah battery. He had it in storage for a while so it was a bit grungy. I've got quite a bit of work to do on it. Building the 36V pack, installing the Topeak rear rack and bag, installing the Cycle Analyst...

Went for a ride at work...

2017-06-09T16:46:00.002-04:00

I took my bike to work yesterday since the weather was so perfect. I had a chance to take a break and went for a ride. I passed a police officer sitting by the side of the road and about a mile down the road, he sounds his siren and pulls me over! Another rider riding by said, "You're pulling him over? For what?" My thoughts exactly!

He was just curious about the bike and how it was going so fast.

I gave him a quick tour of the bike. I didn't offer to give him a ride, though...

I took my S-750C (for Crystalyte) bike. Crystalyte HS3540 motor with the Multistar 16Ah pack. It has the eBikes.ca BAC500 FOC controller and a Cycle Analyst V3. I also have eBikes.ca lights front and rear. I have disc brakes front and rear as well.

Two electric vehicles!

2017-06-06T14:38:00.001-04:00

I found this older photo when I happened upon a Tesla Model X in the neighborhood.

One is slightly more expensive than the other! :-)

New packs mounted on a Tidalforce M-750X and a red Tidalforce iOX

2017-03-06T18:16:00.003-05:00

My neighbor brought over his two bikes to have the batteries installed on them. He also bought two Cycle Analyst meters. They fit great and ride great.

This is a terrific and easy upgrade for his bikes.

Completed 16Ah packs

2017-03-06T18:08:00.001-05:00

I completed three packs for a neighbor and myself. These are fairly compact and pack a lot of punch. 16Ahs to be exact. Twice as much as the original Tidalforce hub battery has, to be exact. Yet, the pack weighs about 1/4 of the original Wavecrest front hub battery. These weigh 7.5 lbs whereas the WC front hub battery weighs over 30 lbs with the casing and wheel.

Making some new 16Ah packs for a neighbor's Tidalforce bikes

2017-02-22T15:24:00.004-05:00

A neighbor who I've known for a couple of years asked me to make some auxiliary packs for him to use with 3 of his 6 TF bikes. He ordered all the parts needed to make the packs and I picked them up from him.

It's a good thing he did because the site where he bought the packs sold out fairly quickly.

Here are some pics of the raw cells and some pics of them partially assembled before the cases and connectors were fully completed. pardon my messy and overcrowded workbench.

Universal Car Battery Terminal Clamp Clips

2017-02-15T16:06:00.003-05:00

I need to acquire a good sized sealed lead-acid battery (12V car battery) in order to use the new KaeptnBalu Arduino based battery tab welder.

However, the battery leads that came with the welder have relatively small openings to attach them to the terminals on a normal car battery. In KaeptnBalu's video of how he builds the welder, I noticed that he had adapters on his battery terminals which allowed the use of the smaller openings of his welding tips. I did a quick look on Amazon and saw what I think are the exact same adapters!

They are extremely inexpensive and ship for free!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K4HGX22

Kaeptnbalu's Arduino based battery welder arrived!

2017-02-12T21:40:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting an inexpensive yet versatile battery welder for a while now and this sure seems to fill the bill. All that is needed is a solid 12V battery, usually a sealed lead acid (SLA) car battery and a pedal foot switch. I have a electric piano pedal that should work with a slight modification. I need to pick up a SLA somewhere. Oh, I also need a 5V microUSB power brick (used for most mobile phones these days).

The build quality is quite solid and professional and the included welding tips and the heavy duty heat sink bar are also much appreciated. Well done, Kaeptnbalu!

Can't wait to put it to work.

DIY Arduino Battery Welder for sale!

2017-02-01T14:25:00.003-05:00

Selling a DIY Arduino Battery Welder PCB Set...

I bought a printed circuit board set to make an Arduino based battery welder, however, the completed and tested system became available and so I've decided to buy the assembled system. Now I have a PCB set to sell.

See the listing here:

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=86252

Here's the text...

I purchased this Arduino based battery spot welder PCB set and then opted for the fully built unit. With some fairly inexpensive components and some soldering and assembly skills, you can make this into a battery spot welder for low $$$. I paid $6+1.70 for shipping. It's still in the original packaging and I'll let it go for $7.00 shipped to the continental USA.

Where I bought it from:
https://www.tindie.com/products/KaeptnBalu/diy-arduino-battery-spot-welder-pcb-set/
http://blog.tindie.com/2017/01/arduino-based-spot-welding/?utm_source=Tindie+Community&utm_campaign=7772515db8-FeaturedProduct_011917

KaeptnBalu's github page with all of the parts list and assembly drawings.
https://github.com/KaeptnBalu/Arduino_Spot_Welder

Instructables page;
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Arduino-Battery-Spot-Welder/

Another website featuring this board:
http://ralphshobbyshop.com/?page_id=609

This is what it will look like assembled.

My Black Tidalforce iOX cruiser

2016-11-09T11:14:00.001-05:00

I've somewhat attached my newly minted 36V 16Ah to my Tidalforce iOX 1000W electric bike. It runs beautifully and provides tons of sag-free power.I need to do a final fitting of the water bottle mount to the battery and she'll be ready to go!

Completed the 12S 10Ah battery

2016-10-28T10:54:00.002-04:00

I thought I'd try something a bit different to see what would happen.

A typical replacement battery for my beloved Tidalforce bikes is a 36V 10Ah battery of some sort. I've tried sealed lead acid (SLA) batteries,power tool batteries (Bosch FatPacks), LiFEPO4 packs, and Ping packs (http://www.pingbattery.com/). All of which have their pluses and minuses.

Of course, my favorite as of right now are LiPO packs made from Turnigy Multistar cells. They are extremely compact, relatively light weight, and fairly inexpensive. They come in easy to configure package configurations and put out more than enough current to drive my favorite electric bike.

This configuration is a 12S (45.6V) 10Ah pack that is quite slim. The voltage is right about the maximum that the Tidalforce system will tolerate. Anything higher and the system will go into overvoltage protection (OVP) and shut down until the voltage drops below OVP. One solution is to not chage it up to its maximum voltage, which has the added bonus of extending battery life.

Anyway, here are some photos. I plan on mounting it to my bike's water bottle mounts this weekend and test ride it to see how it does.

I had some coroplast around so thought I'd make a sort of protective padding for the battery to see how well it works/lasts.

Another set of batteries for my Tidalforce electric bikes

2016-05-27T16:20:00.001-04:00

The weather has finally warmed up here in the Washington, DC area and I've put together a couple of new batteries. This time they're a bit different.

The one on the left is a 36V 16Ah battery made from Turnigy Multistar packs. One is a 6S and the other is a 4S. Combined in series, they make a 10S or 36V pack. Perfect for the Tidalforce system.

The one on the right is a 12S 10Ah battery also made from Turnigy Multistar packs. This time it's 3x 4S 10Ah packs in series for a total of 12S 10Ah. The 12S has a higher max voltage than the stock Tidalforce motor will handle but if the battery isn't fully charged, then it should work. By not fully charging the battery and being careful with how far the battery is drained, the battery should have a longer life than one that is charged to its max voltage.

As you can see, I've not connected them in series and haven't added the Delphi Metripack connectors yet. More photos when I'm done. The 10S 16Ah will probably go on the TF iOX and the 12S 10Ah will go on my TF S-750C (for Crystalyte).

(click on the image for a larger view)

Very interesting solo wheel motorcycle!

2015-10-22T17:33:00.002-04:00

I was watching Jay Leno's Garage last night and saw this vehicle. I couldn't resist taking a video of it and posting it here. I've seen photos of it before but never a video. it looks like it could go very fast!

My Tidalforce M-750X goes on eBay

2015-07-28T13:36:00.001-04:00

This is my second Tidalforce M-750X that I'm selling on eBay. It's a lightly used, and I've replaced the front hub battery with a 36V LiPO battery made from Turnigy Multistar cells. Very light at around 5 lbs and very strong. I've also added a Large Screen Cycle Analyst V2.23 to the system to monitor the battery.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181815136380

Sale ends this Sunday August 2nd.

New battery for my next ebike

2015-06-16T17:17:00.001-04:00

I put together another battery for my next Tidalforce bike. This time it's a 10S pack made from a 6S and a 4S pack in series. I made an acrylic outer shell and Gorilla taped it together with an outer wrap of 4" gaffers tape. I need to do the wiring and the end caps next.

Google Photos Story - Opening up a dead Wavecrest Labs/Tidalforce electric motor

2015-06-09T13:17:00.000-04:00

Google Photos uploaded some of my images and made them into "stories." Here's one to try out.

Opening up a dead Wavecrest Labs/Tidalforce electric motor
https://goo.gl/photos/TuuG3DesqSiadeD57

Pictures of Turnigy Multistar LiPo packs (6S 16Ah, 6S 10Ah, 4S 10Ah)

2015-05-27T16:04:00.000-04:00

I received the two Turnigy Multistar 10Ah (or 10000mAh) LiPo packs from Hobbyking recently. I ordered a 6S 10Ah and a 4S 10Ah pack. This joins the 6S 16Ah (or 16000mAh) pack that I already had. The 10Ah packs are significantly smaller (go figure!).

New Tidalforce M-750X bike sold!

2015-05-18T00:28:00.000-04:00

A very nice gentleman bought my bike! He will have a friend pick it up so I don't need to pack and ship it, which is greatly appreciated.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181741532182?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1561.l2649

I hope the new owner enjoys his new bike!

Ambrose

New Tidalforce M-750X now on eBay!

2015-05-06T21:39:00.000-04:00

I put my newly completed, "New" Tidalforce M-750X electric bike frame with a lightly used Tidalforce X motor on eBay recently.

Here's the link.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Brand-New-Tidalforce-M-750X-Folding-Electric-Bicycle-/181732571085

Happy bidding!