Fusinmotors Online Forums

Hi Fusin Tiger,

I own three electric bikes. Two are hubmotors made in China and one is crank-drive by Cyclone I imported from Taiwan. I use the crank drive one to climb a hill with average grade of 17% to go to work. The hub motor bike (60 lbs) with nominal power of 250 W simply is not powerful enough to carry me (170 lb) up the hill of about 0.6 miles long.

The problem with the hub motor is when my speed is below 5mph while climbing the hill, the motor would just quit on me. I have a 26" tire so the wheel spins at about 66 rpm at 5 mph.I really like the electric brake system of your kit becasue I have to go down the same hill every day with the speed easily going beyond 30 mph. It is very scary with the mechanical brake alone to try to control the bike, but I am not sure if your motor is powerful enough to bring me up the hill.
So my questions is " Is your motor powerful enough to help me with the climb on the hill?" Thanks.

Derming

Hi Derming,

welcome to our forum. Our front wheel kit 36v/350w or 48v/500w shall fit your requirements, anyway 48v/500w should be a better solution for you. You could refer to a kit review by Dan K with endless-sphere, he has made a relatively objective kit review on our 48v/500w kit. Link is here http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9707, in this review he described how our kit climbed a 20% slope.

For buying our kit you could contact Steve worldwide electric bikes directly (you are from US, are you?), they are here https://www.worldwideelectricbikes.com/Contact_Us.html

Have a nice day,

Louis

Louis,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I am a Taiwanese-American and live in Seattle area. As you know, it is a hilly area.
I checked into Dan K's review with Endless Sphere and I found and I quote:

"One thing I'm not impressed with so far, “Regen braking” doesn’t seem to do much I can tell. I’ll need to wait until I connect a Watts Up to be sure. When riding, there is no change when you hit the brakes. With the front wheel off the ground the regen brake does not stop the front wheel from low speeds, nor does it slow it from higher speeds."

This really gets me worried because electric brake is what draws my attention to your kit. And another quote:

"edit: The hill I was thinking of appears to be 20% grade according to mapmyride, if I'm using the site properly. I don't think that's fair to expect of ANY motor. I can't ride a normal bike up this myself, and on my road or mountain bikes I end up in the lowest gear and struggling, although I can get up it."

That description also worries me becasue that is why I need a motor to help me achieve climbing slopes which I can not do by myself.

In Endless Sphere, I see people focus on the power too much. Actually I prefer reading UK electric bike forum, called Pedelec.
I like to pedal my bike and motor should play the role of assisting with the human effort. The more seamless in the assisting by motor, the better an electric bike to me. The power is not my major concern.

I would like to rephrase my question in a more technical way:
"What is the lowest possible rpm that motor can still have a torque output before stalling? and what is the torque output?"

Thanks.

Derming

Hello Derming,

about the rege please be a little patient as Dan K will use a watt meter to measure the existence of a reverse voltage when brake lever applied. It is no doubt the controller offer rege and EABS but it seems not work well with geared motor. We will continue our test here trying to find if this could be improved any more. Or if you use a hub motor direct drive type the effect will be very obvious.

As of the torque I think you could get enough infofrmation from Dan K's review,

Power: This thing rocks in the power department. I love the way it climbs hills and starts off. It actually has so much torque off the line I worry about it pulling the front wheel from the dropouts. Def. need to fabricate some torque arm type things. The axle definitely wants to pull out of the dropouts.

I don't think our kit's torque will be a problem for you, but you cannot count on the motor 100% when climbing up a 20% hill, it will be not a good way to use any motor.

Thanks.

Hello again,

Thank you for the reply. Dan K had an accident. It seems that he could not continue the test.

I am very aware of the fact that the non-geared hub motor would turn into a dynamo (generator)and automatically brake the bike because that is what happens to my hub-motor bike cruising down the hill. The electric brake is such a wonderful experience for me that my next electric bike must have an electric brake.

It is also a well known fact that a geared hub-motor with free-wheeling capability is impossible to do the regen brake. However, your kit claims it can be done. So I think your engineers must have come up with a brilliant idea electronically to bypass Faraday's induction law.

I stll hope you can answer my previous questions. With the data you provide, I believe I can make my own call on the hill-climbing ability of your kit. However, for now I am more concerned with the regen brake capability of your kit. So keep me posted about the progress of your testing results on the regen. Thanks.

Derming

Hello Derming,

thanks for that, we knew this today, big surprise.

You are right with standard brushless motor there is resistance when throttle is released, EABS is different thing compare with that, when braking it minimise the hit on the motor when releasing throttle and draw back energy into battery. We will soon starts more tests on it with our geared motor, wishing to find a better way to do it,

As of data please be patient of this, we will soon public datas with l/m/h gears, that would be available by our US dealer, and you could contact them to get these datas.

Thanks.

Ps: As of Dan's report we have feedback by endless-sphere, you could hava a look on it when convinent for you.

Louis,

I have seen the data you posted on Endless Sphere about the 48V and 36 V motor performances. For the 48V, the posted rpm goes from 250 to 336 and for 36 V, from 230 to 280. Those rpm ranges are of no importance to me.

I have gathered around 3000 miles of electric biking experience, and the average speed of my biking is around 15 mph. With a 26" wheel, it translates to about 194 rpm. If I climb deep slopes, the speed might reduce to around 5mph, which is about 65rpm. The legal speed limit for electric bike without pedaling is 20 mph in USA, which is about 258 rpm.

I am a practical-minded commuter using bikes as a transportation means to replace cars. From my personal experience, riding a bike at a speed beyond 25 mph does not feel safe at all. I am quite satisfied with a top speed a little less than 20 mph as long as it matches my pedaling cadence. I am not a racer and I have no intention to be one.

So, please ask your engineer team to go lower on the rpm while testing the motor while I am seriously pondering on buying a kit that would really suit my needs. Thanks.

Derming

Hello Derming,

by our controller there are 2 plugs for speed limit, connect the 2 plugs you could limit the max speed under 20kph without effecting the motor output torque.

Louis

You might have misunderstood my point, Louis. I am not rejecting the high speed and high torque performance of your motor. I just want the emphasis on performance to be shifted to the lower rpm ranges where normal biking conditions meets. 20 mph is 32 kph, but I know what you are trying to say. Thanks.

So show me the low rpm performace please.

Der-Ming

Hi Derming,

sorry for the late response, a serial test is undergoing to give exact data of the motor under different gears, we will soon public these datas on our website and will keep you posted of these datas.

Thanks.