Spinup R03W Dyno on Fred bikes

 

Hi

A version of this article first appeared in June 2022 Huff, the journal of OzHPV .

For a while I  have been looking out for a dynamo for the recumbent bikes and trikes that I make, and it seems that I’ve finally found one. The HPV’s are front wheel drive with a 20" front wheel, and also split in the frame just behind the headstem. This means the front wheel has a spline and cluster on it and is usually seen as a back wheel on bicycles. The back wheel setup has no drive cogs, so the wheels I use are more often seen as front wheels.                

So most hub dynamos (which operate on bicycle front wheels) cause a complication on my HPV’s, that is that the wires for the front light need to travel over or through the frame split. When I saw some dynamos from Spinup that work on the rear wheel I thought they would be worth a shot.

Spinup are the bike generator subsidiary of Sunup in Taiwan who make small general purpose generators and ebike motors. They make one “front” and two “rear” dynos. I chose the less powerful and less expensive rear dyno, the R03W, mainly because its more powerful brother, the R12W has a 700C-wheel-speed limit of 60kph. But on a 20” / 500mm wheel like I’ve got the speed limit which depends on the rpm reduces to 43kph, but I often go over that, mainly downhill!

 I dealt directly with Sunup to get my dyno and their responses have always been quick and courteous. Cost was about AUD $230 which I consider fair when compared to some other bike parts and accessories.                                

Installation was fairly intuitive and simple and at the moment I have the dyno charging a USB battery pack which can in turn charge cameras, lights and phones. It does its job without fuss and there’s no noticeable friction.

A cable was missing from the original kit, and when this arrives, I plan to connect it directly to a dyno headlight, trial it on a 200k Audax ride and report for Huff. The only drawback on the dyno seems to be its weight which is about 600g, 400g heavier than a bottle dynamo I have.

Update, July 21, 2022

The cable arrived about a week ago, and I am now about halfway through converting my "fast bike" to use the R03W dyno to power headlights. Work done sofar has been to do a front wheel swap between my bike and leaning trike. So the dyno is on my fast / light bike now, and I have connected it to a reflector / headlight from Abbotsford Cycles.  Still to come is replacing the dynohub rear wheel with a standard wheel, and I have a few different headlights and aim to compare them.

Also, I have signed up for the Audax 200k Winter Surf ride, so should be able to report how the lights go in practice soon.

New rear wheel (right) and old (left). The old wheel has corflute spoke covers for speed and a shutter precision hub dyno which has served me well for years. Here is the post when I installed it back in 2014.

Big mess in back yard during front wheel switcheroo