December 9, 2015EngineerDog.com

Bicycle BoosterPack Series Part 2: Wheeeeee!

This is part 2 of a series. You can find part 1 here, and part 3 here.

EDIT 4-10-16: The instructables is out now, check it out here! 

It’s taken months of experimentation and testing but the BoosterPack is finally done….and its awesome!

Normal bike riding isn’t the same anymore because this thing has changed what I perceive to be a bikeable distance. Now I can keep up with traffic, carry heavy stuff, and boost up hills without breaking a sweat. All for 2 cents worth of electricity on a unique e-bike system that costs significantly less than anything else out there.

Check out the video of my trip to the grocery store below:

My intent since the beginning (other than wanting one myself) has been to package and sell BoosterPacks in various kits designed to accommodate a diverse audience. In the end I can only offer a solution fit for other technical folks.

So if you’re a hacker who can safely handle LiPo batteries (or even 3D print parts at home) then I can easily make a batch of pre-engineered BoosterPack kits and sell them at a price better than your cost to make one from scratch! If you’re interested send me an email at MechEngineerMike@gmail.com.

I had also been working on a premium plug and play battery package including a stable battery chemistry, smart charger, and an integrated battery management system. Unfortunately, after a lot of research I’ve come to realize that I simply cannot offer that for non-trivial technical, legal, and financial reasons.

Disappointing but not surprising, batteries are the primary challenge of all EVs.

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Because I’ve intended to sell these I’ve put a lot more time into perfecting the design, the manufacturing process, the supply chain, and torture testing the finished device than I would have otherwise. The result is a truly badass toy and many unique lessons learned.

And you better believe I’m going to share those lessons with my reader’s right here!

Thankfully I’ve kept notes on the big challenges since the beginning. I’ll be summing everything up into up into a few categories starting with ‘Building the Prototype’ next time.

For now I’ll leave you with this:

BoosterPack configurations

PS: If you’re just tuning in, you might want to catch up with Bicycle BoosterPack Part 1.

11 comments

    • Whoops I let this comment slip through the cracks. The battery is an off the shelf 5Ah 6S Li-Po Pack, but any 22.4v pack would do. The throttle is a single momentary button chosen because it ensures that the motor acceleration is high enough for the motor to swing out and engage (and because its cheap and simple). The motor is a low KV 50mm outrunner typically used on remote control ‘toys’. As physically small as everything is, the system is capable of sustaining a 660 watt output…nearly 1hp!

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  5. Mike, I just found your site. The booster pack appears to work great! You did a great job keeping it compact and making it look like a professional product.

    You do a great job with all of your posts and include lots of awesome well written information. I can’t wait to check out more of your posts and see what else you come out with in the future. Bravo!

    All the best,
    – Trevor

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    • Wow that’s great to hear Trevor!! I’ve been looking forward to getting the project files out there on instructables but I’ve been focused on physically moving across the country for a new job over the last month. Ill try to get it out soon!

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  6. Congratulations for the good work. I can’t imagine how many hours you’ve spent to get this really nice product ! I’m looking forward to hear from an instrucable or pretty much anything new about this!
    Keep up the good work !

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