Yes I've noticed that with the huge number of people joining here asking why their mid drive has stopped functioning.
On no wait ...
Cheaper China e-bikes 'kick in teeth' for UK firms
- Thread starter StuartsProjects
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Here are some of ours, but if you want the true story, you should go on the EMTB forums, or look at some of these videos:
Bosch Gen 4 510 error
Hi, After 4 years my CX Gen 4 bike is suddenly throwing up 510 errors which won’t clear even with Bosch battery removal & re- alignment of spoke magnet. Sometimes the bike will assist for 15 seconds sometimes not at all. If I ride with no assist, sometimes it will cut in for a few seconds. I...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
Error 74 code? on Haibike Trek 4 low
Well after only 40 miles (and a week off on holiday) I went to ride this evening and got nowhere! Pushed bike out of the garage then turned on, immediately got flashing display Error 74. Tried to ride it but obvious the motor wasn't on as almost impossible to get up an incline (I'm not that...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
Giant energypak 500 battery self diagnostic test
Hi all I am trying to find information on the Giant energypak 500 battery self diagnostic test, when pressing and hold the button on the battery for 8 seconds it starts the self test, everything seems ok until I press it for the 5th time, the 4th and 5th battery lights light up and then the 1st...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
Brose S-Mag failure
I am experiencing a serious issue with my my Specialized Turbo Levo e-bike, powered by a Brose Drive S-Mag, Gen 1 (C16162). It has stopped working after I uploaded a third-party application to control it. After the failure I went to an authorized Specialized service center, where they...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
Stupid enough to buy a Kalkoff Impulse Evo RS
The crap Impulse Motor started clicking at 3,000 miles and died at 4,000 miles. Also bought from 50cycles. Emailed Kalfoff they don't care, the motors are fine with no problems. They suggested I could get the motor replaced (at my expense) but what is the point if the replacement will be also...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
Help! - Bosch ebike won’t turn on
I went out for a small ride on my Cube Elly bike with Bosch activeline motor, it’s probably done less than 200 miles from new, it’s maybe a couple of years old, my mother gave it to me as she never uses it. It was working fine, a few hours later I want to ride it again but it’s totally dead...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
Bosch (cube) Issues
Hi All, Im wondering if someone on here can help me. I have a Cube reaction pro 2016 with the Bosch gen 2 motor. Recently when I turn it on on the interface screen it comes on for a second and then says shutting down and turns of, I have managed to hold it down and it will work for a while...
www.pedelecs.co.uk
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‘The big problem is water’: UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors
Repair business is booming as owners complain of their units needing to be replaced up to five times
"Some mountain bike owners with fourth-generation Bosch electric motors describe how they had four or five – yes five – replacement motors fitted during the two-year warranty period. Owners of other brands say theirs have only lasted 800 to 1,000 miles."
Repair business is booming as owners complain of their units needing to be replaced up to five times
"Some mountain bike owners with fourth-generation Bosch electric motors describe how they had four or five – yes five – replacement motors fitted during the two-year warranty period. Owners of other brands say theirs have only lasted 800 to 1,000 miles."
Note that they also mentioned failed torque sensors, which is something everybody needs to know. According to the bush telegraph, if you park your bike next to your electric drill or anything with magnets in it, the sensitive torque sensor can get magnetised, then won't work. Have a search for Bosch Ebike torque sensor problems to see how many there are, mainly without solution.
I think the Kclamber cassette torque sensor has resolved that. I have it on my full sus bike.
There is no way that it can get wet in normal usage.
Cassette Torque Sensor TORG4B-K_Kclamber Electric Technology Corp.
To save having to read all above links, here's a summary.Here are some of ours, but if you want the true story, you should go on the EMTB forums, or look at some of these videos:
Bosch Gen 4 510 error
Hi, After 4 years my CX Gen 4 bike is suddenly throwing up 510 errors which won’t clear even with Bosch battery removal & re- alignment of spoke magnet. Sometimes the bike will assist for 15 seconds sometimes not at all. If I ride with no assist, sometimes it will cut in for a few seconds. I...Error 74 code? on Haibike Trek 4 low
Well after only 40 miles (and a week off on holiday) I went to ride this evening and got nowhere! Pushed bike out of the garage then turned on, immediately got flashing display Error 74. Tried to ride it but obvious the motor wasn't on as almost impossible to get up an incline (I'm not that...Giant energypak 500 battery self diagnostic test
Hi all I am trying to find information on the Giant energypak 500 battery self diagnostic test, when pressing and hold the button on the battery for 8 seconds it starts the self test, everything seems ok until I press it for the 5th time, the 4th and 5th battery lights light up and then the 1st...Brose S-Mag failure
I am experiencing a serious issue with my my Specialized Turbo Levo e-bike, powered by a Brose Drive S-Mag, Gen 1 (C16162). It has stopped working after I uploaded a third-party application to control it. After the failure I went to an authorized Specialized service center, where they...Stupid enough to buy a Kalkoff Impulse Evo RS
The crap Impulse Motor started clicking at 3,000 miles and died at 4,000 miles. Also bought from 50cycles. Emailed Kalfoff they don't care, the motors are fine with no problems. They suggested I could get the motor replaced (at my expense) but what is the point if the replacement will be also...Help! - Bosch ebike won’t turn on
I went out for a small ride on my Cube Elly bike with Bosch activeline motor, it’s probably done less than 200 miles from new, it’s maybe a couple of years old, my mother gave it to me as she never uses it. It was working fine, a few hours later I want to ride it again but it’s totally dead...Bosch (cube) Issues
Hi All, Im wondering if someone on here can help me. I have a Cube reaction pro 2016 with the Bosch gen 2 motor. Recently when I turn it on on the interface screen it comes on for a second and then says shutting down and turns of, I have managed to hold it down and it will work for a while...
1st one (yamaha) battery failure replaced under warranty
2nd one Haibike battery (replaced under warranty)
3rd final cause unknown
4th 3rd party App affected the operation of motor
5th 8 year old Kalkoff motor packed up after 4k miles (everybody knows the Kalkoff Impulse motors are sh1t3)
6th Bosch Purion display failed, replaced under warranty
7th Bosch motor, never updated with final cause of issue
I won't attempt to post the links of the hundreds of hub motor issue threads on the forum as a balanced comparison, they are easy to spot on here
It's not a balanced comparison because people with problematic ebikes take them to the dealer, while as people with Amazon bikes come here to get them fixed because they don't have a dealer. Even if someone with a Bosch bike did come here, they would search through all the posts, where every one says, there's nothing you can do except take it to the dealer, so they don't bother asking.
The Bosch Gen 2, 3 and 4 error Code 500 now fixable!
Not many people know, but there are 89 different error code 500’s. What you can’t see on your handlebar display is the last three digits e.g. 500 111. Not that this would help as Bosch don’t tell you what these mean anyway.
ebike Motor Centre has teamed up with a local high-tech electronics company who had a team of engineers working with over 200 printed circuit boards, supplied by us, for over 3 weeks solid! This helped solve most of these software and hardware issues.
We can currently boast a 90% success rate of repairing all code 500 errors. This means it is no longer necessary to buy a new motor when it can be repaired. For the 10% that sadly can’t be repaired, we can usually offer a service exchange motor to keep you going.
he can also replace the factory seals ect in brose motors so water does not get in it
www.ebikemotorcentre.com
you can shunt mod the bosch controller but the bat bms will brick its self around 21.5a so just not worth it.
Not many people know, but there are 89 different error code 500’s. What you can’t see on your handlebar display is the last three digits e.g. 500 111. Not that this would help as Bosch don’t tell you what these mean anyway.
ebike Motor Centre has teamed up with a local high-tech electronics company who had a team of engineers working with over 200 printed circuit boards, supplied by us, for over 3 weeks solid! This helped solve most of these software and hardware issues.
We can currently boast a 90% success rate of repairing all code 500 errors. This means it is no longer necessary to buy a new motor when it can be repaired. For the 10% that sadly can’t be repaired, we can usually offer a service exchange motor to keep you going.
he can also replace the factory seals ect in brose motors so water does not get in it
Brose Motor Upgrade Service - eBike Motor Centre (Performance Line Bearings)
eBike Motor Centre is the official trusted partner of Specialized bikes, and is also the sister company of eMCB Ltd, who are the official Brose Warranty Service Centre for UK and Southern Ireland. At eBike Motor Centre we noticed the failure rates of the Brose motors has been widely reported and...
www.ebikemotorcentre.com
you can shunt mod the bosch controller but the bat bms will brick its self around 21.5a so just not worth it.
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There are very few if any LBS dealers who know how to fault find a bike without a diagnostic machine to plug it in to, also with hub type bikes there is a time vs cost ratio to deal with that many may find too expensive.
Most hub bike faults can be found by the end user using a £10 hand held meter repairs are often simple but does require some knowledge of bike mechanics to remove some parts as well as the tools.
Without hub bikes and the freely given advice of how to repair or fault find , this forum would likely not exsist .
As it is the forum has turned into a mundane droll nit picking forum of mid drive is better then hub drive disagreements and is far from the interesting forum it use to be of some 15 years ago or more.
Most hub bike faults can be found by the end user using a £10 hand held meter repairs are often simple but does require some knowledge of bike mechanics to remove some parts as well as the tools.
Without hub bikes and the freely given advice of how to repair or fault find , this forum would likely not exsist .
As it is the forum has turned into a mundane droll nit picking forum of mid drive is better then hub drive disagreements and is far from the interesting forum it use to be of some 15 years ago or more.
Asian countries are home to many of the world's 300 million electric bikes and scooters. These electric bikes and scooters are workhorses rather than a hobby or leisure purchase.
So by that rational there must have been hundreds and hundreds, possibly even thousands who joined, trawled through all the posts, found the fix there were after and left the forum without so much as posting up a single question.
I know what you are saying, but you really need to drop this mid drive=bad hub=good
On the EMTB forum you're referring to(Im on that one, since its inception) they have mid drive, hub and mid drive diy conversions, hub-both front and rear, but no elitism as to what type of ebike you've decided to buy
I have two crank-drive bikes myself, one of which I use regularly, like most of the time. It's not a question of which is good and which is bad. Instead, it's a question of the right tool for your needs. I wouldn't recommend a crank-drive bike for commuting due to all the points discussed above.
Sure, I joke about crank-drive bikes being shite, but in any serious discussion, or when it comes to advice, I always say what I believe to be appropriate and honest.
One thing that does get me going is when people say that the cheap Chinese bikes are inadequate in some way. Properly looked after, they will give many years of reliable service at a very low cost. I have been using them myself more or less exclusively in the 14 years I've been involved with ebikes, and done somewhere around 20,000 to 30,000 miles on them. In that time, I've never been stopped by a breakdown. I've only had about three incidents in all that time: One broken gear cable, which was no problem to ride stuck in top gear and using the three chainrings to get three speed; one broken chain after a messed up gear shift next to a bike shop, so I had a new chain put on and was going again within 15 minutes; and one DIY on/off switch broke, which I fixed in two minutes by twisting the wires. There was also one rear wheel blowout that wasn't on my bike, after somebody stretched the tyre by incorrect fitting. It6 did strand me, but it wasn't my bike, and I was just testing it. The same problem could happen to any bike, when some dunderhead dealer (TETS IIRC) can't fit tyres correctly.
As far as I'm concerned assisted cycling is a failed concept, so they are all bad. That's why despite contact with the subject through my cycling life, I didn't buy one until I was nearly 70, only to confirm I didn't really like them anyway, crank or hub motor.
My best advice is to cycle on ordinary bikes for as long as possible, but when that becomes too difficult, buy a moped which will do a much better job of overcoming your shortcomings than any legal assisted bike.
.
What would be handy to know is mileage life expectancy on various bikes. For example, your 20-30,000 miles on hub motor bikes: how many miles on a single bike is more useful to know.
I remember reading, and memory might be flawed, of a requirement to replace hub motor bearings after each 4,000km! I assume that is not so for most motors? Because that would be every 8 months for me.
On the mid-drive vs hub 'debate', personally I would say it might be beneficial to just tweak the tone a bit, as I can see people getting unnecessarily upset. That can't be good for forum numbers.
Well, I'm all for cycling and getting good exercise, but there is much to say in favour of electrification of the sort most of us here enjoy, as an assistance for older people, or for the younger person who wants to commute ten miles to work, but doesn't want to arrive in a sweat, and then have to present himself to colleagues and clients in a smart and odour free condition.
There are many applications where the standard, legal e-bike is perfect. I don't understand the last paragraph where you give your advice.
If you were thinking about people who want to ride at 25 miles an hour - then Yes - I'd agree, get a moped, or better still, get a 125cc or a 250cc motorbike. Vastly more long lived I'd say than the mopeds I ever had anything to do with, and not in the same universe of cost and reliability as electric mopeds or illegal e-bikes. Not to mention e-motorbike insurance not being available.
As I've said, assisted cycling is a failed concept, not an opinion but fact for legal assisted bikes.
The concept is assistance for those who can no longer always cycle for various reasons. One of the most common limitations is inability to keep pedalling continuously for a variety of reasons, but since EAPC power is immediately cut when pedalling stops, the concept then becomes a failure at the outset.
That's why so many feel the need to break the law with free acting throttles etc.
While I agree about light motorcycles, modern i.c. mopeds are far more reliable than EAPCs in general over time and mileages, there really is no comparison.
.
The reason people love our 100% legal full throttle ebikes is they are still ridable as a bicycle or EAPC if the customer so wishes. This is not possible on a full blown moped, riding a moped without power would be a nightmare if not impossible.
I understand that full throttle light weight ebikes are a niche within a niche, however people buy them and enjoy the freedom a light weight full throttle ebike gives them.
All the best, David
I understand that full throttle light weight ebikes are a niche within a niche, however people buy them and enjoy the freedom a light weight full throttle ebike gives them.
All the best, David
The typical cheap hub-motors last virtually forever. IIRC, they test them to 30,000 km at Bafang. Like many crank-motors, they can fail early due to abuse and/or external circumstances. I like to test things, so I do change my bikes and motors regularly. My Q128 has done about 6,000 miles. I did about 3,500 miles on the Xiongda 2-speed, about 5,000 each on Bafang BPM and CST.
Reasons for failure are:
1. Left out in all weather. That affects crank motors equally.
2. Installed upside down after puncture can let water in down the cable on some of the cheaper ones.
3. Cable not plugged in fat enough causes the motor to overheat and cook the halls.
4. Damaged cable after an accident or other abuse.
The bearings don't actually wear out. Instead, they get water in them and rust. Likewise the gears are pretty well bullet proof. Very rare failures are caused by another problem somewhere, like rust, not wear. Finally, there are a few freehub failures, but nothing compared with the number failed with crank motors, and generally cheaper. In fact, you can probably buy a complete new motor cheaper than you can buy a typical Haibike freehub.
My Bafang CST has 8000 miles on it.
BPM over 2000 miles but stopped using it in preference for a rear hub .
Both AKM 128C and original Yose hub from several years ago all have plenty of mileage on them but for now are simply not used at the mo.
Bafang G370 front hub hasn't missed a beat in its pretty much contiuall usage in the last three years.
BPM over 2000 miles but stopped using it in preference for a rear hub .
Both AKM 128C and original Yose hub from several years ago all have plenty of mileage on them but for now are simply not used at the mo.
Bafang G370 front hub hasn't missed a beat in its pretty much contiuall usage in the last three years.
I don't know - maybe I'm just a simpleton - but where there are lots of lengthy and severe hills to climb, it seems unremarkable that a mid drive is likely the way to go, because you get to use the gears to let the motor work always at its optimum and efficient motor speed. In the flatter lands, you probably have no need of that, and a hub motor will be absolutely great.
Why it has got to some sort of conflict zone on here is a bit bewildering.
Why it has got to some sort of conflict zone on here is a bit bewildering.
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