Review of Argos £245 E-move folder

[Ghost1951]

With a KT upgrade one could extend that 22/23 mile range to over 30 .
The speed controller will draw mostly max current up until the max speed for each level, with a KT one would have to ride in PAS 5 contantly.
Ride in PAS 1 or 2 with KT and one is drawing 13/20% max.

Yes - I can see exactly what you say happening as I ride it.

I may at some time try and work out what would be needed in extracting the controller that is in the pod in front of the battery and think about the KT controller range. I would not need a powerful one. I should think anything that would put out 15 or 20 amps max (probably the lower). Then there would be the connection process. From what I have read here over and over, it isn't rocket science, but at this point, I have no idea how it would all pan out.

I'm in no hurry though. My other bike with the BBS01 is my main bike. That said, this little bike is growing on me. I was bowling along this morning on it, really enjoying myself.

Edit:

Also need to look into the screen /dash to go with KT.

 

[Nealh]

This spring I swapped out a brain power controller for 17a KT from a similar rack battery with controller in the front section (As all are ). The only wiring I had to solder /change was the brake cut offs and the battery bullets.
With KT if one uses a KT supplied PAS/Throttle , they are plug and play with no wire changing.
The brakes are simple, KT use three wire. If one has two wire brakes then one simply wires to the KT and omits any 5v connection.

 

[Ghost1951]

This spring I swapped out a brain power controller for 17a KT from a similar rack battery with controller in the front section (As all are ). The only wiring I had to solder /change was the brake cut offs and the battery bullets.
With KT if one uses a KT supplied PAS/Throttle , they are plug and play with no wire changing.
The brakes are simple, KT use three wire. If one has two wire brakes then one simply wires to the KT and omits any 5v connection.

They are pretty cheap really. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166508489765?itmmeta=01J56G0NVD7SEXPX8H8G3DG2A1&hash=item26c4adec25:g:6y8AAOSw4xJlgVkl&itmprp=enc:AQAJAAABAHoV3kP08IDx+KZ9MfhVJKmSE2HGGmgyhOVxGHoo+1aXZ6pZudbEFtSxKM5hALDTUyifzMSlWDh0cwPFN7g7F5cwgwGlMBxeysrw345ss0coECwL2QCjgulEpGl/qLnskDqTHSw2inIl22gv7oR0MMBM0SSTBIOEwkWFyPjyNyZVAhFKlAkpW2hcfDPhNSx7ENE2zIKhuaCm0Uk11AOBqeI/uo6biwR6hp5+FH6pR1lDchDWocJwjkkm9D4044ghXppUOXtIct7cTMe0cL8+RSMZ6vRBrucH90iJWRzP5f3YPVau/qoakhKj2nQT8eY5kY91dlt/GzakPXvM8nlQMLE=|tkp:BFBM4t2C0Klk

 

[Nealh]

KT Ebike Motor Controller LCD LED Display for Kunteng 36V 48V Lcd3 Electric Bicycle Bike Display 17A 350W Controller - AliExpress 18

£63 delivered and one gets everything (Sans battery) for plug and play.

 

[Ghost1951]

KT Ebike Motor Controller LCD LED Display for Kunteng 36V 48V Lcd3 Electric Bicycle Bike Display 17A 350W Controller - AliExpress 18

£63 delivered and one gets everything (Sans battery) for plug and play.

Thanks Nealh. I appreciate the steer and I have saved that for future reference.

 

[Peter.Bridge]

With a KT upgrade one could extend that 22/23 mile range to over 30 .
The speed controller will draw mostly max current up until the max speed for each level, with a KT one would have to ride in PAS 5 contantly.
Ride in PAS 1 or 2 with KT and one is drawing 13/20% max.

I noticed the range on my folder with KT controller and Woosh bag battery is much further than I expected - the 5 KT pas levels (and the fact level 4 is 50% max power ) allow you to adjust the assist level quite precisely and you tend to use the minimum power you need for any situation.

 

[Ghost1951]

Lovely day today so I went for a 15 miles spin on the Argos cheapo folder. What a blast. I enjoyed every minute of it, even climbing up the monster slope near Greenhead on teh way back. It must be half a mile long and gains about 300 feet. It is really steep in parts and the hub motor showed that it really doesn't like slogging up at low speed. My BBS01 eats that slope, but of course, the motor is taking advantage of the lowest gear to keep its revs at a sensible level. It got up though, but I felt like one of those donkey drivers in Afghanistan abusing a poor dumb animal.



I really find this little bike growing on me. At the end of fifteen miles, it still had 37.5 volts in the tank. The bike came with instructions to deep cycle the battery three times to get the best out of it. I think this is likely to be about getting the cells balanced. When the green light came on teh charger last night having been taken down to about 35 volts yesterday, the battery stood at 41.4v, so I reckoned the cells were not balanced, so I waited five minutes and re-connected the charger and after five hours it was at 42V. I reckon there is no need to take it right down low anymore now. I can't see what good that would do. So I think I will just charge it up a bit before I take it out again next time.

 

[saneagle]

View attachment 59355

Lovely day today so I went for a 15 miles spin on the Argos cheapo folder. What a blast. I enjoyed every minute of it, even climbing up the monster slope near Greenhead on teh way back. It must be half a mile long and gains about 300 feet. It is really steep in parts and the hub motor showed that it really doesn't like slogging up at low speed. My BBS01 eats that slope, but of course, the motor is taking advantage of the lowest gear to keep its revs at a sensible level. It got up though, but I felt like one of those donkey drivers in Afghanistan abusing a poor dumb animal.

View attachment 59356

I really find this little bike growing on me. At the end of fifteen miles, it still had 37.5 volts in the tank. The bike came with instructions to deep cycle the battery three times to get the best out of it. I think this is likely to be about getting the cells balanced. When the green light came on teh charger last night having been taken down to about 35 volts yesterday, the battery stood at 41.4v, so I reckoned the cells were not balanced, so I waited five minutes and re-connected the charger and after five hours it was at 42V. I reckon there is no need to take it right down low anymore now. I can't see what good that would do. So I think I will just charge it up a bit before I take it out again next time.

View attachment 59357

I can see mine getting a shunt mod to help with the climbing, or I might just fit a KT controller and kill several birds with one stone.

 

[Ghost1951]

I can see mine getting a shunt mod to help with the climbing, or I might just fit a KT controller and kill several birds with one stone.

Did you order the folder as well Saneagle?

I should emphasise that the little folder does climb ok, but the hill in question has bits that are probably getting on for 18 - 20%.

 

[Woosh]

I can see mine getting a shunt mod to help with the climbing, or I might just fit a KT controller and kill several birds with one stone.

You are still limited by what the battery can deliver.

 

[Ghost1951]

You are still limited by what the battery can deliver.

I reckon my 8.5Ahr one will likely be 10s3p, so the current will be limited for sure by comparison to a 15 or 20 Ahr one.

 

[saneagle]

Did you order the folder as well Saneagle?

I should emphasise that the little folder does climb ok, but the hill in question has bits that are probably getting on for 18 - 20%.

Yes, 8th Aug. The earliest delivery I could get was a week tomorrow. It's weird because when I ordered the last one (from the shop), they offered delivery in 2 days.

 

[saneagle]

You are still limited by what the battery can deliver.

Where there's a will, there's a way!

 

[Ghost1951]

Yes, 8th Aug. The earliest delivery I could get was a week tomorrow. It's weird because when I ordered the last one (from the shop), they offered delivery in 2 days.

Maybe they sold an avalanche of bikes.

It's rough, but its robust and fantastically cheap. My brakes are at last getting a bit better..... They are still far from being like the hydraulic ones on the other bike.

Are you going to give this one away too?

 

[saneagle]

Maybe they sold an avalanche of bikes.

It's rough, but its robust and fantastically cheap. My brakes are at last getting a bit better..... They are still far from being like the hydraulic ones on the other bike.

Are you going to give this one away too?

I haven't decided yet what to do. I might do some experiments first.

 

[harrys]

The 18650's last a long time in storage, if there is no draw. I have some leftover new Samsung cells from 2021, stored outside, They're still holding their shipped voltages. Also will test to their rated AH on a Liitokala tester, for what that's worth,

Meta AI tells you they lose 1-3% a month. I told it my results and pointed out manufacturers couldn't ship/store batteries at the UN80 30% charge level if this were true. It agreed. We'll see if it this taught it anything, Probably have to point it to a research paper. Battery U doesn't cut it,

 

[harrys]

Back to little folders. Yes, they grow on you. I built one as a lark back in 2017, and my wife stole it, abandoning her nice 700cc stepthru conversion. I built a second one for myself and we've put on close to 4000 miles each on these folders. With Schwalbe Big Apple tires, we can ride on gravel trails as long as there is none of that loose stuff where your tires sink.

Last year, I put a TSDZ2 into a 26" step thru, and my wife now likes that more than her 20" folder. So she mainly rides that bike, although I still put the folders into the rotation for our local riding.

 

[Ghost1951]

How is the Argos £245 folder going?

Pretty good really. No issues in the 70 + miles so far ridden on it. I took it out again today to ride up the Alston Railway Path in the North Pennines and added another 10.4 miles during the stormy winds of Storm Lillian. No big deal, pretty gusty though. I had charged the battery before setting off on the 10.4 mile and 643 feet climbing route and at the end of the ride, after leaving the battery to rest for ten minutes the voltage was 38.4 volts, so plenty left. The battery charge and percentage charts, suggest that a battery in that state has about 68% left. I wouldn't say that myself. I found that this battery (8.5Ahr) drops off quite sharply as it drains. The high loads imposed by hill climbing causes a greater drop off in voltage than on my larger battery on the BBS01 conversion, as the battery goes below a resting voltage of about 37volts. I am guessing that the battery format is likely about 10s2p or 10s3p, whereas on the bigger battery I know it is a 10s6p. obviously, as the battery is loaded heavily, the 6 parallel configuration can supply a higher current than a 2 or 3 p one under load, so I would expect that if it was run anywhere near its limit for range, the thing would switch off. It hasn't happened, but I don't want to pedal this particular heavy folder with no assistance.

The brakes are a bit better with some use, but they are really noisy if used in the wet. The disks screech when wet. Tyres and tubes have held the pressure well - hard as a rock still, and I was riding with a big grin on my face this morning in the wind.

 

[guerney]

riding on a flooded road the other day, i pressed the pedal and got wheelspin, the back end stepped out on a grating and i fell off at about 3 mph. It is a fierce start up for sure.

Try stopping and starting up on a higher gear than you normally would?

I gear down before stopping when possible, but I don't absolutely have to with a legal 720W BBS01B on 20" wheels, not on flat road anyway.

 

[Ghost1951]

Try stopping and starting up on a higher gear than you normally would?

I gear down before stopping when possible, but I don't absolutely have to with a legal 720W BBS01B on 20" wheels, not on flat road anyway.

This is a hub motor Guerney, so it wasn't a gearing issue.

It was really a momentary issue caused by a water main being opened and gushing onto the road. At the time it happened, there was an inch or more of water on the road, and it was not until a later passage over the place, that I noticed there was a steel hatch covering over an underground service, in exactly the place I slipped.

It is easy to see what happened. Rider comes slowly onto road from mud path, and turns on flooded surface with harsh take up speed control e-bike, right on the flooded, steel hatch cover. Power comes on hard, wheel spins out, rider is turning, back end steps out, geriatric rider falls off cursing, picks himself up and rides off red faced with embarrassment....