Best way to get started?

[Greytop]

Hi
I'm new here and am thinking of buying or making my first electric bike. I'm a real newbe on this, but as an ex engineer, am starting to understand ( I think! ) some of the pros and cons.
I've been studying previous posts ( for hours! ) and it seems there are many opinions as to the best bike specification. It is obviously 'horses for courses', but two comments seem to often emerge.

First, all Chinese, cheap bikes are rubbish and second, other bikes seem expensive for what they are.

However, it also seems there aren't so many actual manufacturers of motors, hubs and controllers, which I think is the important technology here. Almost all of these parts come from China.
The basic bike parts on cheap Chinese bikes may be rubbish but aren't the essentials the same?

Do basically the same kits go to Chinese bike manufacturers to make up cheap Chinese bikes?

I have looked at all of the kits I can buy in UK, US, Australia, etc. These seem to be basically Chinese components, grouped into a kit and sold presumably in low volumes. The price is much higher than any information I can get on kits bought direct from China.

It also seems that any direct purchase opportunities for Chinese kits and components are quickly closed, like the TongXin ( Nano ) kit, which I was very close to purchasing!

If I buy a 'cheap' Chinese bike for about £350 new and only use the motor, hub, controller, sensors and battery, I still get a kit which would cost much more if purchased in the UK.
I also can initially get to know more about using an electric bike on the cheapy, before buying a good quality, branded, host bike to transfer the kit to.

It seems to me this way I can solve, for me, the low volume/high volume problem.

Am I missing something here?

If not, can anybody tell me which brands of hubs and controllers are fitted to cheap imports so I can start looking around?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Charlie]

Hi Greytop,
I have to agree with everything you said.

I have a Ezee Torq, but also another standard bike that would be perfect to make into a lightweight assisted bike, but kits seem to be over priced or hard to get hold of.

If I were you I think I wouldn't bother with a cheap electric bike, but look around for a good 2nd hand Torq, but be prepared to buy a new battery within your budget. You may then find that the Torq ticks all the right boxes (it does for me) and you are happy keeping it as is. But in the future if you want to use the torq's components into your own bike, you are then starting with some good quality electric components.

Charlie.

 

[joab]

The biggest cost is the battery and you need a good battery management system that protects the battery.

 

[Kal]

Hi
I'm new here and am thinking of buying or making my first electric bike. I'm a real newbe on this, but as an ex engineer, am starting to understand

Hi Greytop,

Welcome to the forum. I too am an "ex engineer".

I recently purchased a cheap Chinese bike, a Synergie Mistral, by relying on recommendations here on this forum and elseware. I'm delighted with the e-bike.. but it still seems too good to be true.

No need to build your own when you can get a low priced ready made purpose built e-bike like this, unless you enjoy the challenge of making up your own.

My review on pedelecs is awaiting approval but you can see a copy here:

Synergie G2 Mistral Review:
Yahoo! Groups

 

[fishingpaul]

I would advise you to try as many bikes as possible before making a purchase,the prestigne electric bike rally is not far away now, and is an excellent opportunity to try electric bikes from various companies, and talk to bike owners,if you post your general location i am sure someone local to you can reccomend some shops in your region.you may even find somebody local willing to let you try there bike.as for cheap bikes synergy and powacycle supply £500 complete e bikes that are worth considering, both offering reasonable assistance and good value,kits can be as expensive as a complete bike and may be complicated to fit.somebody recently purchased a motor and controller for a wisper for under £100 from china and this may make a good starting point if you are intent on a kit,most of the really cheap chinese electric bikes on e bay etc will probably not perform as stated,and would not be worth the effort to swap to your own bike.

 

[Greytop]

Thanks to those that replied for the advice.

I may try to go to Prestiegne, but guess that only the mainstream brands and dealers will be there, so it will only give me some answers.

After another trawl through the forum it seems to me that most of the motors of chinese origin used are Suzhou Bafang, Crystalyte 405 and Golden Motor. These are then fitted to various quality running gear by the assemblers, both in the UK ( very few ) or abroad.
The TongXin motor seems physically smaller. I know from you all that it is the Nano.
A motor of similar power and size is used in some of the current ebay 'cheapies' at about £299 for a complete bike with NiMh battery.
Does anybody know is this is the TongXin or are there other, lower quality motors like this?

Also, I see from the Golden Motor website that hub motor kits with wheel can be ordered directly from them in China for about £190 including delivery.
You can specify motor power, wheel size, throttle type, controller type etc., and pay by PayPal.

This sounds pretty good, if its true! I may have mis understood their offer. Has anybody tried ordering a kit this way?

Sorry for all these questions, but you people seem to have tons of experience in these areas and I'm trying to what is available for a self builder.

Thanks.

 

[flecc]

Two members have bought Goldenmotors, and both kits failed at the outset. Both had difficulties in getting any support and when last seen posting in here, neither had managed to resolve their problems.

I located a support forum on the Goldenmotor site for one of them but found nearly all the page inaccessible. Beware seems to the best advice with this marque.

Only one member is definitely successful with the Tongxin Nano kit at the moment, several experiencing various problems. Most are failed controllers, but one member has given up after their fifth motor failure.

The Suzhou Bafang and Crystalyte motors have very much better reliability records, and I use two bikes with the Suzhou Bafang motors with thousands of miles covered.
.

 

[UrbanPuma]

Welcome back flecc....knew you couldnt keep away

 

[flecc]

Thanks, but not really back. I popped in to look up something, saw Greytop's post and couldn't just leave him to the risks with the Goldenmotor.
.

 

[UrbanPuma]

I think you should come back flecc - forum isnt the same without you Things are as they should be with people providing useful, helpful advice to less knowledgeable members...so go on flecc...come back and welcome

 

[Greytop]

Thanks for the warning, Flecc.

Suzhou Bafang seems to be favorite. Does anybody know if this motor can be purchased directly from the manufacturer and how much it may cost?

If not, is it fitted to any cheap 'donor' bikes, say less than £450 in UK?

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands (spanner ) on something.
Thanks for your continued help.

 

[Tiberius]

Since this is turning into a summary of kits.....

Heinzmann - well regarded but old technology and expensive
Bionx - apparently very good but expensive

Is that a fair summary; any others?

BTW, the Crystalyte is fairly heavy and appears to be most suited to higher power machines. Its very popular with people in the USA building 30 mph + bikes.

Nick

 

[Greytop]

I probably expressed myself badly in my original question. I think electic bike kits have been very comprehensively reviewed here before. I've spend hours reading all the members interesting experience.
What I'm trying to find out is if any members know which brand of motors, and possibly controllers, are fitted into the lower priced bikes of Chinese origin, which are advertised in the UK.

For example, which brand of motors are used in the Synergie Mistral rear motor or the Saneagle range with front hub drive often advertised on EBay.

Does anybody know if cheaper brands of motor are used for these products or whether they are the same as those used in some more expensive bikes? I understand that the brakes, frame, gears etc may not be the same quality, but what about the motors and controllers?

I hoped some members may be able to identify the components used, either from ownership or seeing these products somewhere, as the brand in never stated in the advertisements.

Can anybody throw some light on this, please.

 

[flecc]

I don't know who makes them, but the motors I've seen on Synergie and the like are not like the dearer Suzhou Bafang products, and much lower output. Likewise the 24 volt 272 watt Powacycle motor, most of these smaller motors run on 24 volts. They may however be cheaper and lower powered Bafang motors as there are some visual similarities.

The top end Bafang motor that's used on the eZee Quando and Torq 1 models is a 576 watt unit when used as a 36/37 volt unit. The Wisper 905se also has a Bafang motor, but I'm not certain it's exactly the same, and its indicated performance seems to indicate a slightly lower output, around 500 watts likely.

There's also the larger diameter Sprint motor that eZee use, that a 500 watt one, but I don't know the source.

Many of these manufacturers don't supply direct, and many also have no agents. They are often only contactable through the intermediary Alibaba, and that's a defence against public access, since they only want to deal with bulk orders from manufacturers and the like.

Someone has published a US source for the Bafang motors which you may have seen.

Here's Suzhou Bafang as represented on the Alibaba site.
.

 

[Greytop]

Thanks for that, Flecc.
Looking at the link you give, all exept one of the Suzhou Bafang motors have internal gearing, so maybe thats the way of telling if a bike has one of these motors or not.
That, of course assumes that the reseller knows whats inside the hub!
Is there any easy way of telling if the motor is geared or not without riding it? Does it make more noise or is it harder to spin?
I'm sorry if these are stupid questions, but I've only been able to look at Powercycles so far. I believe these are gearless and are certainly quiet.
Am I correct in thinking Powabykes have an internally geared motor ( albiet brushed )? Is their motor similar to Suzhou Bafang?
I ask because I have a dealer near me in Norfolk I can visit.

From what I can gather so far, there is a good possibility that some of the cheap chinese bikes have a similar or exactly similar motor, and maybe controller, to some well known brands of bike available in UK, and the main areas of low quality and appearance may be in the conventional bike bits used. It also looks like a 36V unit may be better than 24V.
If optimum performance is not my main interest, one of these bikes could be a good way of getting started and provide important donor parts for a later, improved bike based on the steep learning curve it looks like I will face.

All sounds like good fun to me, it is a hobby after all.

Thanks to all for your help. Wish me luck.

 

[flecc]

The great majority are internally geared, and I think the Powacycle ones are too. Not all geared motors are noisy, any noise usually being due to gear material, motor power and where it's operating in it's rev range.

Many of these motors have nylon gears and they are generally quiet, and when low powered like the Powacycle ones are all the quieter for that. These motors are often at their quietest when running at the maximum and optimum revs, a bit noisy only during the early acceleration phase. This is common to most electric motors, and you are probably familiar with the difference between the moderate noise of a milk float running along on the flat at a fair speed and the harsh noise it kicks up when grinding up a steep hill at low speed.

The Powabyke unit is an old type geared brush motor in use for many years, and it's quite noisy. These have largely vanished from production e-bikes, the eZee Liv budget model being another to use them. The Heinzmann kit motor is also one of these. The hub motors in general use now are brushless Hall effect designs, having the potential for a somewhat better all round performance.

Ungeared direct drive hub motors are fairly rare. The Sparta Ion M-gear bike from Holland uses one and that same one is shared by the Koga Miyata, the BionX kit motor is also direct drive, as is the Crystalyte kit motor.

Most 24 volt Hall effect motors can be run on 36 volts with a suitable controller, giving 50% more power, but the highest power motors using 36 volts are often fundamentally more powerful in the first place. Unfortunately the bikes using those are in the higher price brackets.

You may have wondered at not many responses to your queries. The problem is that we regularly get new members entering with exactly the same idea as you have, I've lost count of them, and the queries are always as difficult to answer due to the lack of technical information on the new bikes.

I think many feel as a couple have already expressed in this thread, that it's best to just buy a cheap bike or look for a second hand better one and not concentrate too much on subsequent use or conversion of the parts.

If you are intent on a kit approach, it pays to use one of the best like the BionX or very powerful Crystalyte kits. Although sometimes much more expensive, they are often cheaper in the long run. That's not a good start point if just learning the subject though.

In your case where you are using this as learning curve, I'd say just buy what you can afford in the first instance from new or second hand and learn from that what you like and what you don't like about it. These likes and dislikes vary hugely from one individual to the next, and it's impossible for another to judge what's right. That approach will give you a solid foundation from which to upgrade at a future date, selling on your first purchase.
.

 

[Tiberius]

I think many feel as a couple have already expressed in this thread, that it's best to just buy a cheap bike or look for a second hand better one and not concentrate too much on subsequent use or conversion of the parts.

If you are intent on a kit approach, it pays to use one of the best like the BionX or very powerful Crystalyte kits. Although sometimes much more expensive, they are often cheaper in the long run. That's not a good start point if just learning the subject though.

.

I'd second that. As in any new field, start by buying something that is working and get some useful experience from that.

I'm currently riding a commercially built bike and I have tried out a few mods on it. My next project is to convert a low cost folding bike that I have just bought. I'm probably going to use a Crystalyte system, which will cost more than the bike and will be powerful enough to bend it. But the theory is that the bike is a test bed for the motor, and when I've got that experience under my belt, the motor can be put on a better bike.

Nick

 

[Beeping-Sleauty]

Lets roll...

Hi Greytop,

welcome to the start of your e-bike experience,

firstly - not all cheap chinese bikes are rubbish, in the main it holds true that you get what you pay for and 18 months of e-biking has taught me several things.

you can plunge into the lower end of the market at about £300 and get a bike that will do the job, get you from A to B, but may only last you a couple of years - this will be more than enough time to learn what is good & what is not, what you like & dislike, plus get you out on the road, save you money, get you fit, and help define what would be your ideal bike.

or,

you can spend months reading this & other forums, comparing spex & prices, evaluating all that there is, road testing any available machines locally, and then spending probably a grand or more on your dream machine.

but i would advise abandoning the idea of buying a cheap bike with the intention of stripping it of the electric components for transfer to a good quality non-electric bike, this is the worst of both worlds. it will be tricky and messy and probably won't give you what you seek - a quality electric bike.

i took the third option, i wanted a sturdy, all purpose, all terrain, powerful & comfortable machine, so i bought a cheap bike (PowerCruiser) and upgraded the hub motor from a brushed 200 watt to the brushless 250 watt suzhou bafang, replaced the sealed lead acid battery with LiFePo4 to reduce weight & extend range, power & lifetime, replaced all the gearing chainwheels, hubs & derailleur, bought some good tyres to avoid the punctures & improve the ride,

so in total i've spent about £750, but i now have exactly the bike i wanted with superb handling, excellent range, high speed and lots of power when i need it, the one downside to the bike is weight, it's a steel frame

i can highly recommend the hub motor (£100 including duty) and you can get one from Keywin Ge (ecrazyman@gmail.com) see his stuff on eBay: eBay UK Shop - HuaQiang North Road: E-bike Scooter Parts, Mini Water Pump, Switch Power supply

good luck whichever route you decide to take,

beeps

 

[Greytop]

Thanks for the good advice, everyone.
I feel pretty happy about the 'cheap bike for first bike' approach now.

Keywin Ge isn't selling motors on ebay at present. I will email him to see what is available.

Have also found a UK shop that sell spare motors, etc for their bike range. The could save importation problems, if they have the right components.
They are Topelectricbikes in Long Eaton.
Anybody got any experience with them?

I shall start looking around and will post when I get a bike together, but it may take some time!

 

[Beeping-Sleauty]

Thanks for the good advice, everyone.
I feel pretty happy about the 'cheap bike for first bike' approach now.

Keywin Ge isn't selling motors on ebay at present. I will email him to see what is available.

Yes, drop him a line, he does not sell the motors thru his ebay shop, you can quote me as your source, that way you will be sure to get the same price ($176, he will take Paypal), you will need the controller & a throttle as well, these are about £20 each, he's very helpful and quick too,

let us know how you get on,

beeps