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Electric Bike Buyers Guide
Here you can find a list of item that it's really good to look at when buying the electric bike. Remembe that the two most important things on the electric bike is the battery and the motor. Frame and the frames geometry is also important for your own comfort.
- The Batteries
- Motors
- Frames
- Controls and Equipment
Battery is the most important part of the bike. It is also the the part that is the most expensive overall. It is thereofre imortant to make sure you go for the right choice of equipment.
Lead acid battery - The oldest type of batteries and the worst possible choice. Approx life time of the lead acid battery is 120 recharge cycles. The batteries are difficult to recycle and also very heavy to carry. Some of the lead acid batteries have a memory effect which meand lose of battery capacity with the period of time.
Lithium Ion battery - these are a lot more advanced batteries but still not the perfect solution for the electric bike. The advantages of lithium ion batteries is the light weight construction but the life time can achieve approx 500 recharge cycles.
LiFePO4 - Lithium Iron Phospate battery is also a lithium based mixture however with the iron cathodes. The man benefot of this type of the battery is the logest lifetime. Currently this type of batterires hasn't been used much in the electric bikes due to lower power density than the Li-Ion or Lithium Polumer batteries.
Lithium Polymer - LiMN02 - is the most advanced type of the batteries on thelectric bikes. These batteries have the greatest power density and the super light weight contruction. The life time can achieve as many as 900 recharge cycles which makes them the most popular for the lectric bikes.
The best electric bikes use teh Lithium Polumer types of batteries. Good manufacturers of these invest a lot of time and money in the research and development of these cells. Best cells manufacturers are Advanced, Linshen, Safty and Panasonic. Most of the good manufacturers offers two years guaranteee for thier cells.
Hub Motors
There are two types of the hub motor. Brushed and Brushless. The ddifference is the the brushless motors do not use the brushes that have to be regularly replaced. The onlly good brushed motors are made by Heinzmann. Those are heavy duty motors that can last for over two years of intensive use.