Quote from: JimInPT on September 24, 2023, 07:59:14 AM
I agree that this "premium" headlight is utterly useless after dark (I tried one) but does anybody know the wattage draw of this light?  I've attached an aftermarket light that draws about 10 watts and Area 13 warns that their controller upgrade (which I also have) does not support this light and runs a risk of burning out.

Back in the day, carbon-zinc would light a dim bulb. A dynamo would light a bright bulb until you forgot to ride the brakes down a hill to prevent a blowout. Even with a working bulb, you'd be in the dark at a stop sign.

Rechargeable batteries were heavy and leaked sulphuric acid.

I bought a carbide lamp. I bought the kind with a striker so I wouldn't have to light it with wet matches. If you buy one, make sure it's not a tungsten carbide lamp. They're impossible to light.

I can almost get the tires on and off my Radrunner rims with fingers alone because the beads fit loosely. That's how I pinched a tube for the first time in my life. I was sure I hadn't pinched it with a tool. After that, I'd inflate a tire to 4 psi or so and make sure the bead was seated evenly all the way around on both sides. The first time I found an uneven bead, I realized how I'd pinched the tube. A Radrunner tube is fatter than the tire, so it can sneak under the loose bead before inflation.

Other than that, the hassle is getting the back wheel off and back on. The chain tensioner was a bigger problem than the motor. Radpower's revised design is easier to get off and on.

My Radrunner wasn't safe on snow until I reduced tire pressure to 10 psi. Pressure that low soaks up motor power and is bad for the tires.

Quote from: Mtolesen on September 24, 2023, 05:18:30 AM
Hi handlebar and Ddaybc,
Thank you very much for your very detailed explanation, i tried to adjust like yoy explain, but the brake still do not really block nice, like the front brakes, the backbrake is still very weak, is is strange with such a simple construction?.maybe it is because the cable to the back brake is longer, and there by more stretched, and thereby lot of the power are lost in stretch instead of being transfered to the brake?.

Yesterday, I discovered that my cable housing was stretched again. I compressed it overnight by leaving the lever lashed to the handlebar. That removed enough stretch that today I had to loosen the pinch screw and pull the inner cable shorter. I'll lash the lever to the bar again tonight to see if there's more improvement.

If your back brake feels spongy and you can squeeze the lever all the way to the handlebar, that could mean your cable housing is stretched. If you meet solid resistance from the cable and you still don't slow down very well, that could mean the pads need bedding (breaking in). There's a hill near me with a 6% grade. It's a good place to bed brake pads. I get up to 25 mph, use that brake to slow pretty quickly to 10, let it speed up to 25, and repeat. One ride down the hill won't bed brake pads, but I'll see an improvement.

You should look for the metric markings. The 20 x 3.3 tires on my Radrunner have metric markings saying 84-406.

The second is the bead diameter. The replacement has to match it. The first is the width. I've read that if it's too far off, the tire won't stay on the rim. For my Radrunner, I thought 75-406 would be close enough. The manufacture had mislabeled it. It was 50-406. Within 200 feet, a big bubble on inner tube had worked its way out.

I'd thought my Radrunner would be useful on snow because two touring motorcycles with similar tires had done very well. The Radrunner was terrible. The motorcycle tires pressed on the slippery stuff hard enough for traction, while the bicycle tires, under a third of the weight, floated on top of the lubrication.

Some bicyclists screw studs into tires for winter riding.

I think you have a 2019, and I guess it has mechanical brakes. This is what works for me.

Is the rotor free of oil? Sometimes I wipe mine with a little contact cleaner on a paper towel. Once, when I thought the pads were contaminated, I took them out and cleaned them. I think I sanded slightly to remove any glaze, then washed them and let them dry.

With the pads back in, I leave the bolts that mount the caliper about 1/4 turn loose so that the caliper can slide into alignment. If the cable won't let the lever on the caliper open all the way, I loosen the cable.

On the side toward the spokes is an allen screw head about 2 cm in diameter. Using an allen key that came with the bike would be awkward. Instead, I reach through from the other side of the wheel with an allen bit on a 6" shaft. I screw it in until the wheel won't turn, then back off a click or two until the wheel turns freely.

There's a barrel adjuster at each end of the cable housing. I like to screw them in all the way to loosen the cable, then loosen the pinch screw on the caliper to pull out any slack. If I tighten the pinch screw and I can pull the hand lever all the way to the handlebar, I tighten the cable with the barrel adjustors.

Then I hold the brake on by using a clove hitch to lash the lever to the handlebar. This holds the caliper in alignment by clamping it to the rotor. Then I tighten the screws holding the caliper to the bike. Tightening one all the way while the other was loose, might pull the caliper out of alignment. I tighten them in stages, going from one screw to the other.

I unlash the lever and if it's not quite to my liking, turn the barrel adjusters.

You say it's the back brake. I find back brakes more troublesome because turning the handlebars back and forth causes the cable housing to stretch, little by little. Stretching the housing is like shortening the cable, causing the pads to drag and wear. Pulling the lever compresses the housing, and the lever may go all the way to the handlebar without putting much pressure on the pads.

I can tighten a stretched cable housing by switching off the battery and lashing the lever to the handlebar overnight. If the housing is badly stretched, doing it on subsequent nights may bring more improvement.

I hadn't had my Radrunner long when the rear pads wore out. It was partly from cable stretch and mostly because the caliper had come from the factory misaligned. Because I used the brakes together and didn't need to pull hard, I didn't know the back brake had stopped working until the day I grabbed the lever to lock the wheel so I could turn the bike over backward.

Even with proper adjustment, the new pads didn't grab very hard. That's because they needed bedding in. The usual method is to use one brake to slow fairly hard from 20 mph but not to a full stop. Each time, heat from friction will transfer a little material to the disk, but if you were to brake hard to a full stop, the hot pads would leave a clump of material stuck to the disk, causing bumpy braking. Some manufacturers recommend repeating it 50 times.

Quote from: inoxa on September 22, 2023, 03:27:05 PM
Does the lock turn or not?  I saw on Youtube about someone with a similar battery on how to do it.

Good luck.

I'd like to see that video. Do you have a link?

My 2022 10 AH battery appears to have the same case as my 2020 14 AH battery. I thought unscrewing the bottom plate would work on the 2022 because the lock is screwed to plastic that does not appear to be part of the bottom plate. Now I see that it would not work on the 2020 because the lock is screwed to the bottom plate.

In case the lock on my 2022 battery ever gets stuck, I tested my method by removing the screws. The screws on the two batteries look the same, but the heads on the 2022 are different. With the screws removed, I couldn't get the plate loose. Maybe it's cemented on.

The video might show me what to do if a lock gets stuck.

Quote from: inoxa on September 22, 2023, 03:27:05 PM

Now if it unlocks okay then you have different problem like I had.  My battery connectors expanded due to too much power flowing.  I had to use a soft rubber mallet to get it off.  I tapped it from the bottom. 

I can't pull loose the battery on my 2020 Radrunner. I pry between the bottom of the battery and the frame, using a stick or my fingers.

My 2022 Radmission was worse. I happened to have a length of 2 x 4 with one end cut to a 15 degree wedge. I'd slide the wedge in tight between the battery and the seat tube, then apply a little leverage. I worked on the locking tabs with a nail file. After several sessions, I could get the battery loose using my hand as a lever.

Radpower: it's not just a bike, it's an adventure.

Quote from: Naranja_CT5+ on September 13, 2023, 06:02:40 AM

Of course I understand there are other variables that will prevent the batteries from getting a full 800 cycles.

LiFePO4 is good for 2700 to 10,000 cycles, depending on conditions. its safer because the chemistry inhibits thermal runaway. A 48 volt, 50 amp-hour one costs about $500, with 5 times the capacity of a Radmission battery for about the same price. It weighs 38 pounds, but that could keep your bike from being swept out to sea if you drive off a suspension bridge.

It could prevent theft. Unhook it and lock it under the bottom bracket like a center stand. Unable to pedal off, the amateur thief will phone a professional, who will rush to the scene only to discover that it looks like a lead-acid golf-cart battery, with about 25% of the capacity of LiFePO4. No respectable thief wants a white elephant, except of course the Pink Panther.

Quote from: John Rose on September 22, 2023, 07:52:28 PM
The charging to 80% thing seems consistent with what Apple does with my MacBook Pro.

QuoteIn macOS Big Sur or later, Optimized Battery Charging is designed to improve the lifespan of your battery and reduce the time your Mac spends fully charged. When the feature is enabled, your Mac will delay charging past 80% in certain situations. Your Mac learns your charging routine and aims to ensure that your Mac is fully charged when unplugged.

My Android phone has that feature. If it found I would normally leave it charging overnight, it might wait til morning to add the top 20%. If fully charging were itself a problem, I imagine there would be an option to charge to 80%.

Radpower batteries have 13 cells in series. Some cells are bound to self-discharge faster than others in the series. Without regular overcharging, I believe the imbalance would soon ruin a battery. At night, I check the voltage, set a timer for the estimated watt-hours needed with an extra hour for balancing. In the morning, I check the voltage, put the battery on the bike, and ride; so it doesn't sit fully charged for long.

In 11 months, I've charged my Radmission 18 times and ridden 1300 miles. I guess I rode and charged my Radrunner similarly in the 22 months before I bought the Radmission. The only reduction in range I noticed came after I let the Radrunner sit several months. Balancing fixed it.

I've seen a pair of used Tektro cable calipers on ebay for $22 or so.

I haven't had trouble with my pad adjusters. I put an allen bit on the end of a 6" extension to stick between the spokes. The length lets me be sure the bit is aligned.

The chain tensioner on my Radrunner was made so that it was hard to get an allen key in straight to turn the aluminum screw. I stripped it. I used a hacksaw to cut a slot for a big screwdriver.

A Torx bit will sometimes grab a stripped allen screw.

https://amzn.to/47X9hPH

This item weighs 18 pounds. It has 538 watt hours, which is about what I use to recharge my 672 watt-hour Radrunner battery, which weighs 7 pounds. A Radpower charger uses about 110 watts, and this will supply 600. With good sunlight, it will charge in 2.5 hours.

If I were in your shoes...
https://electrobikeworld.com/products/rad-power-6-upgrade-kit

At Radpower, you go to your model and press the Specs button to see what kind of brakes you have. I think you have Tektro Aries. You can check for those pads at Amazon.

I read of a used-bicycle dealer with hundreds on display in a Canadian city. With such a turnover, everybody knew he was fencing stolen bikes, but nobody could prove it. A better lock might stop a thief without the proper tool, but he is likely to bring the proper tools if he knows where he can get a good price for your bike.

One night in 1982, someone siphoned gas from my motorcycle by my bedroom window. I was offended until I realized this was not the work of a thief. A thief would have rolled my bike down the street and started it up; the key was in the ignition. This gentleman had settled for $1 worth of gas and made sure I'd have enough left to ride in style to the gas station. Like the Pink Panther, he'd left his calling card, in this case an open filler cap. It was the Reagan Recession, and I suspected Johnny Cash or Ray Charles. "Lord I'm no thief, but a man can go wrong when he's busted."

On the other hand, he may have been a professional who thought my BMW would be a white elephant. I don't compete to make my stuff appeal to thieves. I ordered a white front rack for my white Radmission, but they sent orange. I left it that way because it's better. It makes the bike easy to spot and probably less desirable to someone buying a used bike. If a thief removed it, he'd have to find a way to remount the headlight. Both bikes have seat posts bent way back, and a thief would probably figure he'd have to come up with a straight post to make a bike salable to the average buyer. The back fender of the Radrunner has an "Old Guys Rule" little bumper sticker that a neighbor gave me. A thief would see the complication of removing it without damaging the fender. Both bikes are single-speed, which could be a deal-breaker for someone wanting a used bike.

I've thought of a cool way to make a bike less appealing to thieves: deflate the tires when I park. Besides being unable to ride off, a thief would consider the complication of two punctured inner tubes. Thieves don't normally carry pumps, but I think I could buy a pocket-sized rechargeable pump.

The Canadian who had such a big used-bicycle business is out of business. I think he and several suppliers were arrested. About 2015, police departments across Canada got on board with a bicycle registration database. If a bicycle is registered, possession can be proof of theft, and the owner can be notified. Some Canadian cops look for used bikes online and check the serial numbers.

In 2015, bike theft in Canada was on a trend to double by now. Instead, it's been halved. I've read that few American police departments have signed on because bicycle theft has a low priority.

https://www.radowners.com/index.php?topic=2089.0

I don't know if you have Nutt brakes. This thread has links for videos using mineral oil for Nutt brakes.