After blowing my third Bionx motor in a year, and with the prospect of another ship-back to the US, I'm now in the market for something more reliable.

 

After recommendation

 

Here is what my Bionx givem me (when its working)

 

*32kph cruising speed with about 120/150 watts of my input

*(Current set up on Cannondales) more of a flat back postion on bike (7cm drop between seat top and hadle bars) - odnt want "upright bike"

* RELAIBLITY: or at worst easy send back to UK/US wherever from Australia

*Oh, and relability

 

I'm not going local b/c most of the local distributors sell low end rubbish which the bike-snob in me cant take (sorry if this offends)

 

PS> I love this forum; it almost make me feem good about you POHMS!

Hi Tex,

 

why don't you look at a reasonably powerful Geared Hub motor? 2 motors that would work well for you IMO are the Bafang BPM climber and the Puma motors. These are not the smallest motors but they are very powerful, maybe more power than you would want (although both offer lower powered versions). Both about 4kg.

 

The other option is to just go with 1 of the smaller Bafang motors (about 3kg). Another option is the Ananda motors which are very small and compact at around 2kg, which again would meet your requirements.

You should try Heinzmann motors. These are the most reliable I've ever seen and can handle really heavy duty usage.

 

Andrew

Oh you need a Cytronex Cannondale Super Six you do

Difficult Tex, the BionX 350 has a very good reliability record so if those are breaking I hesitate to say any other e-bike or motor will do.

 

Although Suzhou Bafang motors are generally reliable, failure in the first weeks are far from unknown.

 

With respect I don't agree on the Cannondale Super Six since it uses the Tongxin motor which has been a very unreliable motor in the past. It's getting better but still very far from fault free.

 

The Heinzmann motor recommended above is very well made like most German products, but it's brushes do need routine replacement and I've known of this in as little as two years, though they usually last a lot longer.

 

The crank drive Panasonic motors are very reliable and have a two year warranty, but they are low cadence units so might not suit your riding style. More importantly they are 250 watt rated so do not comply with Australian law.

 

I wouldn't venture to say any e-bike or e-bike motor is more reliable than the BionX, so I have no definitive solution.

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thanks all

 

flecc - do the kalkhoff pro connect S / focus jafira speed type units have a higher cadence set up, or simply more power/grunt? i've not worked that out from the various web-sites

The S unit mainly has a bit more grunt. It uses an 11 tooth motor sprocket instead of the 9 tooth which does increase the cadence a bit, ful power available up to a cadence of 48 instead of 40, but that's still slow. The rest of it's speed is due to different gearing. I don't know the other one you mention.

 

There's an article on my Panasonic help site on how those units work, in case you haven't seen it, here's two links:

 

Panasonic unit working

 

Panasonic unit site index

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Thanks Flecc

 

Great information, and yes 48 still slow

 

Whats the word on the new carbon fiber wisper tourer with the Dapush motor?

I think the carbon/Dapush 906 tourer is available now.

 

The Alpino version of that 906 isn't available in the UK at present, I don't know when it's due, but the Alpino City version is listed now.

 

The 1006 isn't due until 2011, it's next year's planned model at present.

.

Edited March 23, 201016 yr by flecc

A Nine Continent motor with Infineon base controller from ebikes.ca is very reliable (direct drive motor has very little to go wrong), very efficient, can easily cruse at 32kph and backup from this supplier is second to none.

flecc: i sense that the biketec swiss flyer s come with a "70-85" cadence option. do you know anything about that? sorry for the 20 questions!

ps: flecc mentioned focus jafira speed before. looks like a kalkhoff cosuin but more high end:

FOCUS Bikes: Bikes 2010[cat_id]=20&tx_dcwproductdbfe_pi1[pr_id]=132&cHash=800e57ed1bce5cf4d6a921b588644dfe

The Flyer S may have that option and anyway already has a higher than standard cadence limiting. I don't know for certain about any option though.

.

If you want something pretty to match a decent bike the Bafang SWXK looks the part, I've been using them for a year now . No problems so far. The big set back with most hub motors is the cable exit through the axle, they can and does cut into the cable damaging the Hall sensor cables. The SKXW is a sensor-less motor that over comes this problem in two ways, firstly it doesn't have Hall sensors and secondly the cables exit through the side of the motor casing making the cable less vunerable. The European versions are limited to 15mph (ish), but the US versions are around 20mph.

 

It is possible to gut the Bionx motor, the controller is fitted inside the hub, fit an Ecrazyman controller and a throttles, most problems with the Bionx seem to come from the controll system which uses a data bus, perhaps a bit of over engineering.

Thanks for the info chaps. This forum is really useful.

Did you see this response Tex?

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Thanks for the info chaps. This forum is really useful.

 

forget the flyer! the Focus Jarifa Speed has the same power at a fraction of the price! check your link......

Flecc. Thanks for the link. That's a long thread!