I have 36v 250w motor in my 3 wheel bike. can i convert it to 48v 1000w bu just changing controller and motor? If not what else i need to change? 
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Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair!– Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦Commented Aug 5 at 11:42
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1Improve brakes first!– fraxinusCommented Aug 6 at 5:29
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1You want to quadruple the power on that thing? Are you sure the chassis and other components can handle that safely?– marcelmCommented Aug 6 at 7:37
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@fraxinus What is wrong with brakes– Caner TasaCommented Aug 6 at 12:54
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Rim brakes tend to overheat and lose efficiency when used in power-assisted bicycles. It is bad enough in 250W-motor bicycle, cargo trike is imho beyond safety and does not get any better by having only one (a normal bicycle has 2). Rim brakes also have bad failure modes (e.g. losing a pad) and having a single of them is not good either.– fraxinusCommented Aug 6 at 13:51
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2 Answers
Fitment would be the initial issue. If it fits, that's nothing to worry about. The other thing you'd have to change is the battery. Assuming the original battery is 36v to match the motor, you'd need to install a 48v battery to compensate. If the new controller converts what ever voltage the current battery is to 48v, then you'd not need to. You'd probably want to upgrade the battery, anyways, because a 48v motor at a 1000w is going to draw a lot more power than the 36v at 250w, meaning it would run out of charge a lot sooner.
A lot of thing to fix:
- Brakes. Get brakes on more than 1 wheel, ideally all 3 of them. Hydraulic disk brake highly advisable, at least on the front wheel. Your single rim brake is inadequate even for unpowered vehicle.
Hydraulic brake is the only (imho) viable method to get two rear brakes working in sync.
Maximal speed. Trikes have bad unstability modes at speed. Be sure to carefully test how it behaves at different speeds and get the controller programmed not to exceed the speed where you feel safe running over a street drain or a stone. This could be ~30km/h.
Since the max speed will not get much better, you may like to have at least good acceleration. 1000W on the front wheel is a recipe for spinning the front wheel unless you program the controller to limit the torque as well. Even then, wet or dirty road will get you some interesting emotions.
Avoiding spin is possible by moving the motor to the rear axle. From your pictures it is not clear how much easy this could be. NB rear motors are different from the front ones!
Middle motor is maybe the best for your use case.
The fork. Get a better one, prefferably with air suspension. 1000W motor is much heavier and exerts way stronger longitudial force. Or reconsider using a middle / rear motor. Frequently inspect the fork for bending.
Regulations. Depending on where you are, 1000W may require registration, driving license, or both.
The power source. It is common to run 36V motor off a 48V or 52V battery, but not the other way round. If your battery is 36V, you will have to replace it. Be aware that 4x more powerful motor will require 2x-3x more watt-hours per kilometer.
In short, consider 500W middle motor and improve the braking first.
