DIY electric Brompton: Reviewed after a couple of months in service.

[templehead]

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[Kell]

Interested to see how you get on.

Was it significantly cheaper than the likes of Swytch?

 

[Gunk]

Interested to see how you get on.

me too

 

[ColinJ]

... a 36V 30Ah battery

That sounds unlikely to be its true capacity. That is 1,080 Wh which is about double the capacity of most large ebike batteries!

How big and heavy is it?!

 

[ColinJ]

Dimensions are 360x90x110mm, weight isn't stated. It's an Aliexpress one, so I factored in it being about a third of the claimed capacity, which will be plenty for what I want.

View attachment 734973

That's what I was thinking... It would have to be 2 or 3 times that big to hold as much energy as they claimed.

I hope that it turns out to be a successful project!

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

Brave buying a battery from Aliexpress. If they are lying about capacity what else are they lying about? Where do you intend to charge it?

 

[albion]

The only price I can find for the Swytch kit (they don't seem to be selling them at the moment) is £799 from a review in 2020. I paid a little under half that for the kit pictured, a 36V 30Ah battery, a box for the speed controller, luggage block and L bracket.

That is full price. The recent best offer was £299. Sign up for emails.

 

[Drago]

Probably no more or less than about 75% of the battery vendors out there. It'll be treated with the same levels of suspicion as all the Li-Ion batteries I own.

You'll need a bit more than suspicion to help you if it goes all willie-pete on yo' ass.

Unless you're charging it outdoors, 10 or more metres from the house, you'll need more than suspicion to protect you, like a 3" thick cast iron box with asbestos lining.

I've heard of folk putting them in biscuit tins and the like thinking that'll protect them if it goes off. It won't.

As for the rest of it, great project.

 

[albion]

That seems cheap... does it include a battery?

EDIT: even if it does, apparently their standard battery is only good for 9 miles...

Tiny battery. Good enough for short commutes.
A fit for the typical Brompton user.

 

[CXRAndy]

Really suprised on the range for such a big battery. Usually the jumbo battery has around 20Ah. I know this because I have the slightly smaller dolphin battery with 17Ah

The range on the wife's TSDZ2 motor kit has around 50-60 miles. This is a crank torque sensing motor, with custom firmware

 

[tds101]

It's most likely one of the purposely mislabeled batteries. They'll sell it as "20 AH" and it's more like a 7 AH battery. As long as it suits your needs, you'll get your monies worth.

 

[cougie uk]

That is full price. The recent best offer was £299. Sign up for emails.

Bargain !