MarkCytronex

We are selling off a lot of Cytronex parts and components that we no longer use from 10.30 to 12 noon tomorrow at 15 Westlink, belbins business park, Cupernham Lane, Romsey, SO51 7JF (building with large “Garenne” signs). Come along and browse - many different parts (all new) including: Many hub motors of various types Lots of Lishui controllers Quality switches and control looms Chargers Hall sensors Fixings We just want to clear this unused stock so come along and grab yourself a bargain!

Just a reminder that we are selling off our (new) legacy parts stock tomorrow.

We are clearing out a lot of legacy stock (i.e. parts for the old Cytronex system that we no longer use). This includes a lot of Tongxin motors, Lishui controllers, chargers, hall sensors, reed switches, etc. all items are at low cost as we need the room. If you are interested please contact us at sales@cytronex.com for a list of the main items that you can order online this week – we will offer even lower prices for larger quantities, then on Saturday (26th March from 10am - Cytronex, 7 Bridge Street, Winchester, SO23 0HN) we are aiming to clear everything we have left plus all the other items we no longer use that we have not listed. So contact us for a bargain now!

We are clearing out a lot of legacy stock (i.e. parts for the old Cytronex system that we no longer use). This includes a lot of Tongxin motors, Lishui controllers, chargers, hall sensors, reed switches, etc. all items are at low cost as we need the room. If you are interested please contact us at sales@cytronex.com for a list of the main items that you can order online this week – we will offer even lower prices for larger quantities, then on Saturday (26th March from 10am - Cytronex, 7 Bridge Street, Winchester, SO23 0HN) we are aiming to clear everything we have left plus all the other items we no longer use that we have not listed. So contact us for a bargain now!

Sorry, I don't know what you mean - the lithium cell mentioned in the first post and the NiMh cell we used in legacy bottles are both 18650 and the NiMh cell has a slightly smaller diameter. We have never used D cells. It is most certainly not possible to fit 40, let alone 30 in the original Cytronex bottle!

We don’t often post on forums, but I think it is only fair to provide some factual balance on this topic: Why we don’t make the NiMh battery packs anymore: We did support the NiMh batteries continually for 11 years. We are a green company and wished to continue doing so for legacy customers but unfortunately, we could no longer get the NiMh charger, as the manufacturers ceased production. As a manufacturer ourselves we have to build in bulk, we cannot just make one NiMh battery pack, so once the chargers were no longer available, we had to be sure there was sufficient demand or we would end up with unsold packs ageing and then being recycled, which would not be green either. In fact at the point we ceased production of NiMh bottles, demand was at a very low level because most customers tried Cytronex C1 before buying a new NiMh battery and decided to upgrade. Please note it is incorrect to suggest that a Cytronex C1 Li-ion battery is a ‘’ridiculous price” of £995 – this is in fact the price for the entire kit about which AtoB said “without question, it’s the best power-assist kit on the market”. Why we don’t make a compatible Lithium Ion battery for legacy Cytronex: Designing a Lithium Ion battery pack is very different to a NiMh battery pack – safety has to be the first consideration and also factors like even temperature distribution are important for long life and safety. So, if the company referred to in this forum thread are packing anything like the quoted capacity into our original battery casing then I simply don’t see how that is ‘good practice’. It’s also not possible they can supply a 14Ah battery pack in our original bottle – the maximum that could possibly ever fit in the original bottle casing is 30 cells with no space for a protection circuit at all. This would provide a 10Ah pack according to the cell datasheet, but there would be no room for a protection module and in any case I am surprised these cells actually fit given the diameter. There would certainly be no room for expansion. So, for legitimate safety reasons, I would most certainly advise anyone who has this pack to ask the supplier to explain what the capacity really is, how they have fitted this capacity in the bottle casing (what is the configuration) and where they placed the protection circuit? I think it’s fair to say that as a reputable company with a quality product that I have personally invested all my time in over the best part of 14 years, I have deep concerns about battery packs such as those described carrying Cytronex branding on the casing. In design terms Lithium Ion cells should be spaced and not touching, the pack should be designed with good temperature distribution for long life and the interconnects should be uniform such that there is not uneven resistance. None of these things would be possible with packing say 30 lithium Ion cells into our original bottle, if that is what is meant above. These considerations are different from NiMh packs. For the new Cytronex C1, because of the change from NiMH to Li-ion packs (which incidentally we manufacture here in Winchester) we changed the shape and design of the pack so it has no enclosed / surrounded cells for example. We investigated many options for legacy customers when we launched C1, but I am sorry to say that every solution we investigated became too expensive to be viable. Customers would need the new bottle, which meant they needed the new bottle holder, which meant this needed new wiring. The end cost of which was prohibitive, especially considering the new bottle contains the main Cytronex electronics (designed and made by us here in England) inside, so the legacy controller becomes redundant. Why we cannot recommend anyone else to provide a replacement service: I see the first contributor said we would mention H&S – I wonder why they suggest (as a negative) that a reputable company like Cytronex should not be concerned with safety? To be clear – packing a large capacity lithium Ion battery pack into the space inside our original battery with 36V nominal, is not in our opinion safe and as a company we are bound by law to provide a safe product. Each different Lithium Ion battery packs need to go through rigorous testing to UN38.3 and I can tell you that the cost of this testing is in the region of £7,000. Clearly an individual making bespoke Lithium Ion packs for £300 has not invested this money like we are bound to do. Also, we have no idea of the quality of any protection circuit they may be using – we produce our own protection circuit and we manufacture our own lithium battery packs here in the UK tested to UN 38.8. So why would we (or how could we) recommend this as a viable and safe solution? We cannot. I note that the above also says this company are providing a great service with collection and return of the above battery pack in the price of £300 (I just heard £320). The Li-ion pack size as described has to be transported as dangerous goods, so please confirm how they sent the battery back? Dangerous goods transport is very expensive and if the goods were sent without the proper labelling and transport considerations then there are obvious issues arising from that. Richard – I am sorry we have not been able to meet your expectations, but we could not continue to provide support on an old system on a complementary basis. I note many emails to you, many sent late at night and certainly promptly, which is normal for us, so I don’t believe that can be described as “terrible after sales service”. Despite the above I agree that I would love to have been able to offer a sustainable option for legacy system customers. I am passionate about reducing our carbon footprint and liberating bikes from sheds which is why I spent 9 years developing Cytronex C1 as a truly mass market product that consumers could fit to their own bikes without tools and the knowledge of some of those on this forum. There was simply no way to make the old and new systems compatible given the numerous and dramatic improvements in Cytronex C1. However, we offered Cytronex legacy for over 10 years and still support them as far as we can, so it is regrettable that we do not have a direct replacement battery. It is also worth noting that we are growing, whilst many of the ebike companies from when we started have now disappeared. This is because we are innovators – and back in 2008 we produced the first good looking electric bikes with the concept of a battery disguised as a water bottle. Currently we hold 4 international patents including our gear tooth sensor. Uniquely (as far as I am aware) we also produce our product here in England.

Chris – this is disappointing from you - I thought you would at the very least be honest about your grievance with Cytronex which is over the fact that I declined to send you a part free of charge for your ten year old original Cytronex bike yesterday. I’m truly sorry we’ve fallen out over this, but I have personally provided you with an extra-ordinary amount of support previously, including helping you remotely to put right your incorrect installation of Cytronex C1 onto your own bike a year ago (I’ve counted 11 emails - many hours of my time, plus long phone calls, etc.), and your comments then – until yesterday when you threatened us with bad publicity – were appreciative. I am not a regular contributor to forums but now I am here please allow me as Cytronex designer to put a few things straight about Cytronex C1– firstly it is not a bike like other products you are mention, it is a unique consumer retrofit kit which you can fit to your own bike in about 30 minutes adding only 3.6kg to the weight of the bike. It is certainly not expensive - you do not need to buy a new bike at all, but if you do and compare like with like it is highly competitive. The Cytronex sensor is unique and has been awarded patents internationally. When correctly installed it is extremely reliable. Yes the battery is 5Ah, that is because you don't need a big battery - AtoB Magazine have found Cytronex C1 to be by far the most efficient system they have ever tested ‘power consumption of 5.5Wh/mile (including charger losses) is the lowest we’ve seen. Yes ever, ever, ever’. Cycling Plus magazine got the same range (over 66 miles) as a Giant drop bar road ebike with a battery more the twice the capacity (11.3Ah) and the Cytronex bike got there faster. The AtoB review also thinks our approach is the way others will follow – predicting that people may in the future may say of some German products ‘impressive machines but largely irrelevant where the technology has moved on into lighter more precisely tailored solutions.’ Clearly, if you thought our product had been superseded some years’ ago it is surprising you invested in us again! Chris I’m sorry you are upset with us and that I’ve been forced into responding to your inaccurate post, but you’ve told me you bought the part you needed second hand so as far as I am concerned this should be water under the bridge, and I sincerely hope you get as many happy years on your Cytronex C1 assisted bike as you did from your original.

I am somewhat mystified by this post because I am only aware of one customer contacting me about such a problem and you have owned your bike for a year and four months not 6 months, and we repaired your motor in December after you fell off and damaged it, and since we found water ingress due to you having been through a “lake” I said at the time that I could not guarantee the motor would not fail due to corrosion of the parts we did not replace (e.g. bearings). We can replace all parts but at a certain point it is more cost effective to replace the motor. We care very much about our product which is why whenever anyone has an issue (whether an accident or otherwise) we get them back on the road very quickly because many of customers depend on their Cytronex bikes every day for work. We have many very high mileage commuters who have had no problems with their bearings or otherwise in the nearly five years since we started. I personally did more than 8,000 miles on my first Cytronex and the motor and original bearings were still going strong when I upgraded to a new Cytronex model.

Off road use Hello Greyhound_dog_1 Thanks for your post, thought I had better clarify. "Delicate" our motor isn't, I used the first prototype Trek to work until I changed to our new Bad Boy Headshock and it was still going strong after 7,100 miles and having been heavily abused for most of its life. The point we do make is that we produce bikes for transport rather than mountain biking. That said, a good proportion of our customers use them for leisure but none of the bikes we currently offer have fat tyres suitable for rough terrain and if you try using power on rough terrain it would not be very comfortable therefore. Nobody has really solved the problem of how to have the perfect bicycle off road and on. For on road speed you need narrow and preferably slick tyres and for off-road you need the opposite. Until someone invents a tyre that changes shape at the press of a button the whole industry is rather stuck on this one. If you use fat tyres on road it will knock a good few precious mphs off your speed. We do say that if you find yourself on rough off-road you should switch the power off, that is true, but it is more comfortable to do so anyway. With hub motors there is a similar situation to tyres, if you want one for mountain biking it will be big and heavy and noisy, if you want one that is silent for efficient use on the road or decent tracks that is what we already do. True crank drive motors are well suited to off road but if you want a bike to ride like a bike whether using power or not then this is not currently the best option. That said we are working long term on a solution that will work for both, but it is some way off. Regards, Mark

You're safe on the Lycra front the Bad Boy is definately anti establishment. The picture I sent is actually the Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra 8 which has 8 speed Alfine hub, not the SLX version I meant to post (that I have been riding). Both will be available. Never considered using a bike with front suspension before until we got the Bad Boys but with a weight of under 17Kg all up and the lockout lever on the stem it really works well. Regarding the post from KirstinS, the kit is designed to fit the vast majority of bikes, so it in unlikely to be a problem. We will have tools online to check nearer the time. Regards, Mark

Cytronex kit and disk brakes Just seen this thread (sorry we are too busy with kit development to keep tabs on the forum) and thought I should just confirm some points: 1. The kit will have a disk brake option - I attach a photo of a bike we will be doing and which I have been riding for several months now (Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra Headshock). 2. Our kit could work with virtually any motor, and we have tried all the contenders as mentioned in a previous post. But because the experience of cycling is so important to us, the prerequisite is that the motor has to be silent and smooth with a freewheel that does not detract from cycling without assistance. 3. True most of the system has been redesigned, and with all new electronics, but the result is the system will be even neater than our hand built bikes now and the same result can be achieved on almost any bike. As I am sure members of the forum will appreciate, this has not been easy to achieve, and that is one of the reasons it has taken so long. Regards, Mark

Hello Pedalo Thanks for that. We take every motor apart before they are fitted to a bike, check and if necessary change parts, grease and add some of our own sealing. Over time we have noticed a number of changes internally and this was confirmed when we met the manufacturer last Autumn. Also there is more than one factory now producing these motors. My own motor had done 7,100 miles when I retired it for the new bike I am testing. The motor was still going strong, but I should have changed some of the bike components (the front chain rings, chain and rear cassette) about 2,000 miles ago. How the motor is controlled is also important, not over torqueing the drive at low speed for example. We have now accumulated a great deal of experience which is of course being incorporated into the kit. I can only say we have achieved very good reliability and if we had not we wouldn't even consider including the motor in our kit, it would simply not be worthwhile. Of course different people are looking for different things in an electric bicycle, for Cytronex it is vital that the assistance does not detract from the bike to which it is fitted, whether the power is on or off. We have seen no other motor that can achieve this in our opinion, but rest assured if and when it comes along our electronics will support it. Regards, Mark

Hello Eddie All I can say at the moment it the system is likely to be similar pricing to the current Cytronex system (without the bike of course). There will initially be two pricing levels one for the NiMh system and one for the lithium battery. The only thing I can currently say about the lithium battery is in tests we have been getting almost double the current range (we have been testing lithium batteries for a long time and this is the first time we have found the right combination of power delivery and range in our battery size). Regards, Mark

Hello Alan (I presume) We should be able to get spokes to build into a 16 inch rim. Not sure if all the Dapush motors are the same number of spokes but the one I have just looked at is 36 holes. The motors are nicely built and should be fine in a 16 inch wheel (they are a bit heavier though) but the main downside is they are noisy. This discounted them straight away for us. We built two bikes with their full system because we thought there was a problem with the first due to the noise. But when we had a look inside we found the planetary gear construction was toothed plastic which has been noisy in many other motors we have tried. If you are not bothered about that then it could be a good solution. We can put a motor on a bike if you want to test first? We also have the Dapush controller and Dapush display (see attached image). If you have the battery this is pretty much all you need. Regards, Mark

Thanks for that Rab, the therapy was getting expensive! Mark

Cytronex kit I don't usually post on the forum because when I did in the past I found I had the knack for killing any thread stone dead! However, I heard about this thread so I thought I should at least say something to apologise for the delays in launching our kit. So I would like to say sorry to the very long list of people waiting (including enquiries from 32 different countries last time we counted). I can assure you we are working very long hours to get the product finished. I am afraid the delays are down to me, because after designing one solution I kept seeing a better way of doing it and I also kept adding features. I guess others would have got something out earlier but the truth is I wanted it to be just right and we are delighted with the prototypes now being tested. The new battery looks stunning (of course I would say that, but you’ll be able to judge for yourself before too long) and I can say that the solution is designed to be very easy to fit and very aesthetic. We have had the benefit of learning a great deal over the last 3 years by manufacturing, selling and maintaining our own bikes and these lessons have been incorporated into the kit. For example, should any part get damaged it can easily be removed and mailed to us. There will be features in the new kit that have never been seen in electric bikes before and there will also be a choice of NiMh and lithium battery. The former has performed very well and proved very reliable and the latter will contain a brand new lithium cell and will follow later in the year. Also regarding the motor, we try every new motor that comes along and have several boxes full here. The motor has seen many changes over the last couple of years and whilst we still do not recommend it for rough off road, for enjoying the pure experience of cycling we believe it is still peerless. By the way, if forum members are interested, we do have 4 Dapush motors to sell. I am afraid I cannot say more about the kit at this point but we are currently expecting late summer availability. All I can say is it will be worth the wait! Regards, Mark Searles

Yes, many thanks to Pete, Andrew and Phil for all your hard work again organising the show. Mark Cytronex

The boys saw Cheggers coming and we just managed to hide under the Super Six plinth in time. Did I mention we also saw Ortis, and I'm sure the Queen would have popped over had she been at the show. Look forward to seeing you at Presteigne.

Cytronex was there too, and I feel I should point out that whilst we received some welcome visitors: http://www.cytronex.com/photos/gsl10/gsl_jason.jpg Mark's celebrity endorsement was provided by Keith Chegwin!

I don't want anyone to be unhappy with one of our bikes which is why we will bend over backwards to help if somebody does have a problem. It’s the ethos of the company, but also it is important to me personally, I love the product and I want every owner to feel the same. So if someone has a problem we want to help sort it out and quickly. If the customer will not clarify the problem on repeated request and will not return even the battery then it is rather difficult for us to help. I don’t know of any company that will provide a full refund to a customer four months after purchase without the goods being returned, without clarification of the problem and even though they have been offered a refund of carriage cost if there is a manufacturing fault. We will of course put any warranty issues right and promptly whenever given the opportunity to do so. Regards, Mark

I think the Cycle to Work Scheme is an excellent initiative and I am in total agreement with the aim (i.e. get more people to cycle to work). Anyone can buy a Cytronex bike under the Cycle to Work scheme, which is a government scheme, as opposed to Cyclescheme which is a private business and has nothing to do with the government. The income of the latter is gained from commissions it charges bicycle suppliers. I have no problem with this other than the fact that it inevitably results in higher bicycle prices. The ten percent has to be found somewhere and clearly anyone who works with Cyclescheme needs to make sure they have sufficient profit margin in any of the bikes they offer to cover this. The reason we have only sold direct is that we wanted to keep the price of our product as low as possible and even so our margins are low. It is undeniably expensive to hand build electric bikes in the UK but it does allow us to produce a quality product and which evolves fast. When our kit does eventually come out there will be a great many innovations in it, and it is also likely to be available in bicycle shops, which means that it may well be possible to buy via Cyclescheme. Unfortunately I don’t yet have a date for the kit because it is a huge project, which has got more and more ambitious since its inception. As regards the review mentioned by Harry, this was indeed from Wired magazine and has nothing to do with us. We simply asked them if we could reproduce it and they sent us the PDF in the link which is on our home page at Cytronex Electric Bikes - Electric Bicycles with Hidden Power Assistance. Regards, Mark

Very satisfying to read your post Stumpi (and Tim). Let's hope the weather stays good for a while now so we can all enjoy our bikes. We just finished building another Super Six which has a rather silly speed motor on it. Someone I know used this bike yesterday on a hilly 8 mile route. Result was (apparently) a record speed of 21.5mph average with one 3% hill climbed at 23mph!

It did think the lemon freshness was an interesting idea, but the name comes from "Cy" as in "Cycle" and "tronex" as in "electronics". Pedalo - I agree, we have a 1 in 9 slope arround here and the Capo is a bit overgeared for it, although the system is different to yours, it can be done, but really the single speeds are aimed at cities like London. I have cycled the Capo in London several times now and I must say it is the bike I would choose for this use. The December issue of Wired compared several bikes on a London commute. Ours was obviously the only single speed and I think you will find the result interesting. You can download the PDF on our home page - just click on the Wired logo or graphs: Cytronex Electric Bikes - Electric Bicycles with Hidden Power Assistance It is true that I did get all manner of abuse when I posted on the London single speed and fixed gear forum, which initially I was a bit taken aback by but then found amusing, particularly when we found that we had an astronomical amount of hits on our website that day!

Tim – suggest you do another conditioning cycle, you don’t need to do it all on low power, use it as you like but finish off on low power. It should gradually improve after that. If you are still having problems contact me direct (I don’t often get a chance to look at the forum) and I will put it on one of our new conditioning chargers. Ref the Busch & Muller lights – all the front light connections should have B&M spades crimped on already. The rear light clamp (which only requires bare wires) does work well but only if the bar is pushed up hard enough (mine has never been a problem). If you have a flicker then pull down the bar check that the wires are stripped properly then reinsert and push the bar up firmly whilst supporting the light. No need to worry about using the system in the wet – once the battery plug is on the system is sealed. I have been through fords on mine without issue, but it would probably be prduent to avoid completely submersing components and we do say that you shouldn’t pressure wash the bike because of the possibility of blowing seals. Be nice to get some decent weather at some stage – my journey to work involves going through a pig farm so I have been arriving at work covered in mud recently - my waterproofs will now stand up on their own!

Some answers to your questions: 1. When the battery is conditioned the bike just needs to be used until the power runs out. This does not have to be in one journey of course but it needs to run out in low speed at the end to use most of the capacity. After this the battery should be left on charge overnight. 2. Leaving the charger for an extended period after the fast charge (e.g. overnight) will over charge the battery and bring the individual cells into balance. The conditioning phase at the start is necessary to effectively bed in the battery chemistry, but after each 50 charges or so the cells will get slightly out of balance resulting in the charger cutting off early and slightly lower range. So it is a good idea to do one conditioning charge in every 50 charges or so to bring the cells back into balance. 3. It is definitely not a good idea to leave the battery on overnight ever time however, because continued overcharging will degrade the cells. Better to use a timer if you want a nice warm battery in the morning, or charge in the afternoon at work. 4. Equally I would not advise charging again once fully charged. The charger uses 5 different indicators to cut off charging at the right point, one of which is monitoring the temperature curve from the thermistor inside the battery. Leaving the battery to cool down then charging again will mean that the temperature curve data is effectively reset and this could provide a rapid overcharge. 5. Originally the battery was bench tested to 300 cycles with a conditioning charge every 50 cycles and still had a capacity of 90%. Whilst we do have a battery that is still going strong having done more than 3,500 miles on the road, it eventually got used for shows and demos so we don’t know exactly how many it has done now. 6. Tim’s new battery should continue to improve a little after the conditioning phase. On a separate issue concerning Pedalo’s charger, it sounds as if the wires were cut a little too long before the contacts were crimped – just unscrew the rear section of the back shell (which clamps around the cable) then push some cable into the back shell before doing it up again tightly to clamp. It will clamp the cable nicely if it is tight enough. Hope the above helps! Mark