How to fix a broken Hill Topper SLA Kit

It was June 3 last year (2010) when I got my Hill Topper SLA Kit. It broke down last April 27, 2011, after 10 months and 60 recharge cycles.

What happened is that a day before it broke down, I noticed that the chrome plug connected to the battery became very hot after a 1 km long steep climb. I was still able to use it the following day but suddenly the motor stopped turning. Since it was the end of my everyday 9 km bike to work, I thought that the battery was just drained as usual. So I just charged the battery while at work. When I was on my way home facing my usual 1 km steep climbs, the motor went totally dead. Imagine climbing a 1-km long steep stretch without motor assist and 3 kilos of battery to carry. That ordeal made my legs strong enough to bike the next 18 days with an average of 3 kms steep climbs per day without my Hill Topper.

I contacted Clean Republic on May 3 about my SLA kit problem and they responded on May 7 suspecting that my SLA battery pack's controller fuse was the problem. Clean Republic sent me a new controller on May 10 with an upgraded fuse system (for free) as part of my 1-year warranty. My new controller was delivered to me by post on May 20, 2011 and I started working on my battery pack that night.

When I tested the battery pack with the new controller, the motor still did not work. I reported back to Clean Republic on May 22 and got a reply on May 25 asking to confirm if the battery is charging. On the same day, I replied with a confirmation that the battery is charging and then sent a follow up email on May 28.

While waiting for a reply, I began to worry that my Hill Topper could be dead forever. Since I was becoming desperate, I tried to give my kit one last chance before giving up. This time, I suspected that some wires must have melted inside the female chrome plug connector (recalling that that plug became 'very hot' the day the motor stopped turning) and that the design of that plug makes it susceptible to stretching the wire soldering inside every time it is pulled out when recharging the battery. When I started to open the female chrome plug I noticed that it was loosely screwed and that the yellow wire is detached and the blue wire is barely hanging. The green wire broke off as I exposed the wiring. It was then that I realized that

the REAL problem that caused my motor to stop turning (despite a fully charged battery) was the disconnected wires inside the female chrome plug. The yellow and blue wires might have even shorted as a result of the constant pulling off of that plug when disconnecting the battery pack for recharging. I think this chrome plug connection needs to be redesigned to avoid the tendency to get the wires pulled off their soldering to the pins inside.

After soldering back the disconnected wires (and accidentally searing two of my fingers slightly with the soldering iron) and after reinforcing the cable connected to the female chrome plug, I connected my battery pack and turned on the motor. Lo and behold, my Hill Topper motor started to work again!

To help other Hill Topper users who might be experiencing the same problem, I hereby share what I learned from trying to fix my Hill Topper. You could probably fix your Hill Topper problem yourself too!

HOW I FIXED MY BROKEN HILL TOPPER SLA KIT

Problem: Motor not turning despite fully charged battery (charger LED turned solid green after charging).

Symptoms: Loose female chrome plug parts, with episodes of chrome plug becoming very hot when engaging the motor.

Solution: Re-solder disconnected wires inside the female chrome plug and reinforce the cable insulation with electric tape to prevent stress to the wires when pulling it off for recharging. Be sure that none of the plug parts are loosely connected (especially the black plastic housing the 7 holes: make sure that this is tightly screwed unto to the chrome part).

Steps:

1. Remove the two tiny screws that attach the small clamp to the female chrome plug.

2. Twist the black plastic tip (with 7 holes) off from the chrome part of the plug to remove it and expose the wires inside that are connected to the 7 pins on that plastic tip.

3. Be sure that the following color-code wires are securely soldered to the 7 pins. If not, solder them back in place using a soldering iron:

MOTOR-CABLE FEMALE CHROME PLUG CONNECTIONS

1 none

2 none

3 YELLOW

4 BLUE

5 GREEN

6 BLACK

7 RED

ON THE OPPOSITE END OF THE MOTOR-CABLE THE BLACK (pin 6) and RED (pin 7) WIRES ARE CONNECTED TO THE SWITCH, SO BY DEDUCTION, THE YELLOW, BLUE, and GREEN WIRES MUST BE CONNECTED TO THE MOTOR BATTERY PACK-CABLE MALE CHROME PLUG

1 FAT RED

2 FAT BLACK

3 YELLOW

4 BLUE

5 GREEN

6 ORANGE

7 THIN RED

ON THE OPPOSITE END OF THE BATTERY PACK-CABLE THE YELLOW, BLUE, GREEN, ORANGE; THIN RED WIRES ARE CONNECTED TO THE CONTROLLER,


Controller wiring diagram (source: CR Forum)


THE

FAT RED; FAT BLACK WIRES ARE CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY, A PALE RED WIRE AND A FAT RED WIRE ARE STICKING OUT OF THE CONTROLLER AND ARE CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY

4. Put back the black plastic tip back to the chrome part of the plug and screw back the clamp to secure the cable.

5. Reinforce the plug attachments by putting electric tape around where the clamp with two screws are and the cable attached to the plug.

6. Connect cable to battery pack and turn on the switch. Your motor should start working again if the wires are correctly reconnected.

SLA battery pack wiring diagram (source: CR Forum)

Here is a picture of my SLA kit unpacked:

IF AND ONLY WHEN YOUR MOTOR STILL WON´T TURN ON, PROCEED TO STEP 7

7. If the fuse/s inside the controller is busted, the motor will still not work despite the wires inside the plug being securely and correctly connected. You need to replace the controller with a new one ONLY in this case.

To replace the controller, open the battery pack by removing the battery and controller inside the black nylon bag. Remove the cloth tapes from the battery and the controller to expose the wires. Take a picture of the original connections for reference before cutting off the old controller for replacement. When connecting the new controller, be sure the wires are soldered correctly to the right connections as indicated in the picture (on the right, above). Be careful not to short circuit any wires of the battery to avoid fire. The black and red wires between the switch and the battery could easily burn if the battery is shorted. In the picture (on the right, above) you will see that the wires are color-coded and the black wire connected to the controller and the second battery is connected to the pin on the side of the switch where the LED indicator is (the ´on´ side). I placed a white electric tape on that black wire to distinguish it from the other black wire and to remind myself that that one with the white tape is supposed to be connected to the pin under where the LED indicator is and not on the other pin under which the switch is turned off.

The single red wire connected to the second battery should be connected to the

middle pin of the switch (I placed green tape on this red wire as reminder) and the single black wire connected to the other battery must be connected to the opposite pin on the switch (under the ´off´ side). Connecting the two black wires to the wrong pins will short circuit the battery and will cause the wire insulation to burn up like fireworks. SO BE CAREFUL!

If everything has been fixed (either by re-soldering disconnected wires or replacing the controller or both), your motor should now turn on when the throttle is engaged as usual. Put back the cloth tapes on the battery and controller and put these inside the black nylon bag. You may need to sew back the nylon bag to cover and protect the sensitive wirings inside from the elements.

The above solution worked for me and I hope others will find it useful as well.

NOTE: More posts on e-bike conversion projects are available here. 

IKEA DALSELV double bed: How to disassemble ikea bed for repacking

I needed to disassemble and repack my IKEA DALSELV double bed but I have forgotten how the pieces fit together in the original packaging. I checked the Internet for related posts but no luck. I actually took a picture of the unit in its original packaging before I assembled it eight months ago but I am unable to find the photo. So, I had to do it the hard way: repack the disassembled pieces like a puzzle. It took a while before the pieces fit into their right places. See result on the photograph on the right side of this page.

How to disassemble ikea bed.

15 kilometers on steep hills with my Hill Topper

I have now completed the test ride of my newly installed Hill Topper Conversion Kit. Some juice remained in the battery even after 9.32 miles (15 kilometers). I used Topeak V10x bicycle computer to measure my ride.

I rode with a total equipment weight of about 30-35 kilos. That is assuming my bicycle with the heavy battery and motor hub has a total weight of 25 kilos. I pulled an empty 10-kilo child carrier when I did the test ride. If I add my weight of about 59 kilos, the total riding weight is between 89 - 94 kilos. Surprisingly, the motor can still spin the front wheel with this weight even on 18% grade hills as long I assist with pedaling.

I want to record my climbs accurately but my bicycle computer does not include an altimeter, so I searched the net for some ideas. The important thing in measuring climbs is to measure the grade of the hills.

One anecdote says that you know if the grade of the hill is more than 10% if:
a) your legs are burning
b) your lungs are about to explode
c) you are about to pass out and roll into a ditch.

I surely don't want to try that method but I did feel that way before when I tried to climb one hill on a paved road for the first time. I later found out that that hill was actually 10% grade, with about 97 meters ascent. That climb is more than 2 kilometers long and takes me 15 minutes to pedal. I start to feel the 3 conditions hilariously described above at 1.5 kilometers on my climb. This was when I have not installed my Hill Topper Conversion Kit yet. It took me about 2 weeks of climbing that hill everyday until I got used to it. I pace myself to avoid the 3 things in the anecdote. It gets very heavy by the time I reach the steepest part of the climb with the 18th of my 27 gears engaged.

Now back to my Hill Topper test ride. Since I'm not sure if I have measured my test ride correctly, I also consulted MapMyRide.com. Here are the details that came out from that site's calculations:

Total distance: 8.5 miles
Start/End elevation: 101.9 meters above sea level
Highest elevation reached: 136.5 meters above sea level
Ride distance accumulated at highest elevation: 2.5 kilometers (1.55 miles)
Accumulated ascent at highest elevation: 34.7 meters

Grade of hills
First hill climbed spanning 844 meters: 6% (16-meter ascent)
2nd hill climbed spanning 830 meters: 10% (30-meter ascent)
3rd hill climbed spanning 630 meters: 6% (13-meter ascent)

4th hill climbed spanning 980 meters: 18% (81-meter ascent)
I used the motor assist all the way on this 4th hill while pedaling with the 14th gear engaged (note: I have a 3 x 9 gears or a 27-gear set up, so the 14th gear is actually 2 x 5).

5th hill climbed spanning 130 meters: 7% (2-meter ascent)
6th hill climbed spanning 740 meters: 3% (9-meter ascent)
7th hill climbed spanning 191 meters: 12% (7-meter ascent)
8th hill climbed spanning 141 meters: 12% (7-meter ascent)
Last hill climbed spanning 140 meters: 9% (4-meter ascent)

The average steepness I engaged the motor with is 8.12 % grade. Since I covered 4.6 kilometers of climbing with the motor on my test ride at 13 kilometers per hour speed, I would say that the test shows that the motor can last (with the same climbing power as a fully charged battery) on a 8.12% grade average hills up to 5 kilometers (3.1 miles). That's 30% of the Hill Topper's advertised capacity in a presumably flat riding condition. That is, if I ride my Hill Topper (using the standard Sealed Lead Acid SLA battery) on flat roads without hills, it should last with the same full battery power for 10 miles (about 16 kilometers). Assuming the speed is constant at 30 kilometers per hour, that translates to about 30 minutes of riding time. In my test ride, the power stayed on for 40 minutes but my average climbing speed is 13 kilometers per hour with pedaling.

I felt the motor losing its power after about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) of engaging it on steep climbs.

I am generally satisfied and happy with the results, especially because I still got to exercise and pedal on steep climbs, but without the heavy panting and without feeling very tired. I did not have to dismount my bicycle even if I was climbing an 18% grade hill as long as the motor is engaged and I still pedal with the 14th gear engaged. Of course, the downhill rides were also fantastic.

NOTE: More posts on e-bike conversion projects are available here. 

Cheaper alternative to converting an ordinary bicycle to an e-bike

There is this e-bike seller called cleanrepublic.com that I discovered lately.

Imagine climbing a steep hill with your bike. Good exercise, indeed! But what if you need to climb but want to save your energy to do something else when you reach the top of the hill? Or perhaps, you just want to have some pedaling assistance, especially, when you are tired already but have not reached the top of the hill yet.

There are a lot of e-bike conversion kits out there. There are several sellers in Norway (1, 2) and Sweden. Complete e-bikes cost between 7,000 to 17,000 Norwegian crowns (about 1,000 to 2,500 USD). A conversion kit (available only from Sweden at the moment) will cost a total of 1,051.55 USD (6,938 Norwegian crowns). I don't want to spend that much and I wanted the most cost efficient alternative. So, I tried the Clean Republic Hill Topper Conversion Kit. Check out their webpages. Their Kit costs only 394 USD at the moment without the postage. That's about 2,600 Norwegian crowns.

I wanted my Kit to arrive in Norway the fastest way possible but not costing too much. So I chose the faster delivery option which is USPS Global Express Guaranteed. This service is said to take 1-3 working days to deliver and costs 262.25 USD.

Clean Republic provides good products and good service. They have a lot of fans and a forum to discuss anything Clean Republic related.

My Kit arrived in Norway from the US in 4 days (May 28 to May 31). The total number of days from the time I ordered the Kit to the time I got it from the post office is 7 days (May 26 to June 3). Here is the complete tracking information in case you want to see the details.

My bike is an MTB with 160mm disc brakes. I heard that the Clean Republic Hill Topper motor hub has 6 holes to allow disc brake rotor attachment. But before I could transfer my 160mm rotor to the Kit I discovered that the motor hub was too thick that the spokes will hit the brake caliper. My Deore M475 caliper protrudes more than 15 mm towards the spokes. I think the motor hub could only allow calipers that protrudes to the spokes less than 10mm. I even tried buying a new 203mm rotor and a slimmer caliper (Avid BB5) of less than 15mm. But still the motor hub is too thick to allow disc brake caliper installation. So I gave up my ambition to have a disc brake e-bike, at least on both wheels. The front wheel will have to use rim brakes.


After settling with changing my front disc brake to rim brakes, I discovered that my Kit needs truing. It must be the transportation stress that the Kit took from its long journey from the US to Norway. Clean Republic may need to improve the packing method so as to keep the Kit wheels true and endure shipping stress.

The current packaging is cost efficient because it did not use the usual Styrofoam cushioning but for people who don't want to true their wheels before using them, perhaps there is another way to keep the rims straight despite the stress expected in a transatlantic journey. This might mean additional packaging costs. Perhaps there should be an option for customers between more expensive packing and the current one which eventually worked for me despite the minor issue with the truing.

I discovered that the motor wheel needs truing when I noticed that it is making this clicking noise and is obviously wobbling. Seems problematic at first but I did not give up that easily.

I have never trued a wheel before but I saw from one vlogger that it isn't that difficult. So, because I really need to have my e-bike going, I boldly went where no amateur bike mechanic has gone before! I bought a cheap truing wrench and trued my bike. The truing wrench looks like this (on the left):

Despite my initial hesitance to true the Kit wheel, I was surprised to find out that truing is actually quite easy. The result was very encouraging. I even tried to perfect the truing to the best possible level. I must say I am very satisfied with the result.

No more clicking noise and it is no longer wobbling. I even kept the rim brake calipers as close as possible to the rim to make the truing perfect. It took me just around 15 minutes to do this task. Whew! After truing my first wheel I felt that I could now apply as a bike mechanic at the nearest bike shop. Hehehe.

By the way, before truing, I removed the tube interior and tires that came in with the Kit and replaced them with the ones I use with my old front wheel. I use a set of Maxxis Larsen TT tires so wanted to keep it with my motor wheel.

Finally, after all the preparation, research and attempt at being a bike mechanic, I had to get my converted e-MTB for a test ride on an actual hill.

The test went well. I was able to climb a steep hill without even pedaling. Of course it went faster when I pedaled. I then tried it with a child carrier attached as a trailer. It also went well without pedaling on a steep hill.

I'm planning to test the farthest uphill distance my new Kit with a fully charged battery (SLA) would be able to take. I will post about this next.

I hope cleanrepublic.com will continue making good products.

NOTE: More posts on e-bike conversion projects are available here.