Introducing the PIM meter!

[itselectric]

This product will undercut ebikes.ca's profits since he will lose sales of the Cycle Analyst.

Can I suggest that you talk to Justin and offer to sell it through his store so that he can make some money from the sale of this product as well?

Justin has done a lot for us and for ebikes and I'm protective of his right to make a fair profit for his ingenuity and hard work and generosity.

Hello ambroseliao

We buy products and components from Justin, just like any dealers, and once a while Justin buys products and parts from us as well. The door is always wide open and we rarely see each other as competition. Our products usually serve different needs of different users at different price points and, in a free market system, that is just as it should be.

We have spent a lot of time and money (designers, engineers and logistics to name a few...) to create a professional quality product in an attractive package for which we think there is a viable segment in a growing market. There are some aspects that may look similar just because of the reality of the component technology or the mounting location, similarity can not be helped. In every aspect we have strived to create an original product by and for North American e-bike enthusiasts. We are proud of what we have built.

The product was designed to be simple. We could have include speedometer, etc..But it will involve user input, adding user support. If you don’t think our product suits your needs, that’s fine, it will suit the needs of others. If you want to buy a more complex product with a larger feature set at a more expensive price, that’s your choice too. Isn’t it nice to have choices?

Ken

[jonescg]

I'd be happy to see an alternative product out there too - the joys of a free market. In fact, it you can come up with a current and voltage logging device which can also take mileage into account, AND it's capable of accurately measuring up to ~800 V DC Bus, through a voltage divider of course, I will be very VERY interested.

There's the challenge!

CHRIS

[itselectric]

I wanna buy this with an additional mounting bracket and shunt harness but the website hasn't been updated. Can we do this over the phone or email and pay via paypal .

I'm extremely interested in this.

migueralliart, the additional mounting bracket had added to the website.

And just to be clear, the unit can remove from the mounting bracket, but the shunt harness still attached to the head unit.

The original design we have in mind was allow the head unit unplug from the shunt harness wire. It was working very well. Until two of the beta testers, unplug the head unit and plug back while the shunt was connected to power source. It cause all kind of short. Another possible problem, the head unit was calibrated with the remote shunt, if you can unplug the head unit, and possible switch to another remote shunt, the calibration will be off. As a result, we changed the design to be permanent wired between head unit and the remote shunt. May be on our next version we could include the wireless feature in it.

Ken

[itselectric]

I'd be happy to see an alternative product out there too - the joys of a free market. In fact, it you can come up with a current and voltage logging device which can also take mileage into account, AND it's capable of accurately measuring up to ~800 V DC Bus, through a voltage divider of course, I will be very VERY interested.

There's the challenge!

CHRIS

Chris:
The engineer who help us to build this product, had developed products for oil and gas rigs, such as underwater welding equipment and GPS tracking. We already had most of core components, the next version "The big Brother version" will have GPS data collate volt and current, with data logging, and cells monitor. Everything is self-contain in one unit, it doesn't require iphone or any other add-on GPS devices, and most likely will go into the more e-car application instead of ebike.

Ken

[nicobie]

You can get the same features with this for $15. It does volts, amps, watts and amp hour.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=40434

Yes you can .... show me a SINGLE CLEAN and swappable install of what you just linked. Note that I said CLEAN.[/quote]


Not sure what you mean...?

Clean?

Sorry I posted here.

[megacycle]

Need a product that gets rid of the shunt for another current sensor type, yes the shunt is simple, but its often the limiting in high current app's and i know i wouldn't need 1% current accuracy for an bike, several % be ok.

[liveforphysics]

Need a product that gets rid of the shunt for another current sensor type, yes the shunt is simple, but its often the limiting in high current app's and i know i wouldn't need 1% current accuracy for an bike, several % be ok.

You have an ebike controller that doesn't all ready have an internal shunt? EBay has shunts for 1000amps for cheap.
A shunt can't limit current right up to the point it fails from melting. Otherwise it just creata a few mV of drop across it that your controller reads to know current, and decide to switch FETs duty cycle lower to hold it as as programmed value.

[ohzee]

Nice looking product glad to see something new to the market.

If it was 50$ id probably snap one up. If it was 59$ id think about it.

At this price though id rather just buy a CA as it has more functionality.

Anyway wish you luck hope you make good sales.

[megacycle]

Need a product that gets rid of the shunt for another current sensor type, yes the shunt is simple, but its often the limiting in high current app's and i know i wouldn't need 1% current accuracy for an bike, several % be ok.

You have an ebike controller that doesn't all ready have an internal shunt? EBay has shunts for 1000amps for cheap.
A shunt can't limit current right up to the point it fails from melting. Otherwise it just creata a few mV of drop across it that your controller reads to know current, and decide to switch FETs duty cycle lower to hold it as as programmed value.

That's what i meant i would'nt want my finger print removed touching a shunt that's dissipating10W when pulling 100A from some stock devices unless theyve dropped the value to 0.1mohms and then a 1W resistor and what happens to resolution.
When there's hall sensors and other field sensors around might be more suited.

[t3sla]

congrats

I'd buy if it didn't cycle through values (just showed Ah) and if it was $50-60

[myzter]

Id buy only if logging the data was an added
- 2-5 points per second per value would be ideal / 1 point per second is ok

[mystamo]

You guys seem to be a little close minded here on this one..

HOW IS IT A KNOCK OFF? how does one ever produce a new product if the features match someone else?

I had to make my own CA a year or two back and give them to my friends since the CA cost too much for us. It was only costing me a total of 20 bucks LCD screen included to make CA's with the same feature point as Ebikes.ca CA

Don't get me wrong.. Love ebikes.ca Got my first motor from them and lots of other things.. But the price and monopoly on CA as the only real meter out there doing what it does needs to end

Bless Justin for saving this forum.. But it's time these CA's were in the < $50 mark.

Mo

[neptronix]

This product will undercut ebikes.ca's profits since he will lose sales of the Cycle Analyst.

Can I suggest that you talk to Justin and offer to sell it through his store so that he can make some money from the sale of this product as well?

Justin has done a lot for us and for ebikes and I'm protective of his right to make a fair profit for his ingenuity and hard work and generosity.

Tadaaaaaa.. this is why i opposed the takeover of this forum by ebikes.ca. There's your conflict of interest problem right there. This forum is in better hands than it's previous suitor ( Trevor ), but this bugs me. First thing you guys do is take a shit on this product and call it a ripoff..

Justin's a great guy and has done a lot for the ebike world but if it's a crime to promote a competing product on this forum, that's a problem.

Give the man a break. This is a cool product. It's priced right in between a cycle analyst and a turnigy watt meter, which is quite fair for a simple amp-watt-volt metering device. I will be buying one when my finances allow, just to toy around with..

[Jeremy Harris]

You guys seem to be a little close minded here on this one..

HOW IS IT A KNOCK OFF? how does one ever produce a new product if the features match someone else?

I had to make my own CA a year or two back and give them to my friends since the CA cost too much for us. It was only costing me a total of 20 bucks LCD screen included to make CA's with the same feature point as Ebikes.ca CA

Don't get me wrong.. Love ebikes.ca Got my first motor from them and lots of other things.. But the price and monopoly on CA as the only real meter out there doing what it does needs to end

Bless Justin for saving this forum.. But it's time these CA's were in the < $50 mark.

Mo

Interesting, but is your costing for a small scale manufactured product like this, with warranty and after sales support, realistic?

I've already designed an built a simple battery "fuel gauge", and am part way through designing/building a better version, using an OLED display (see here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=20118&start=45#p623276). Sure the parts are cheap, in my case the ucontroller and OLED dispay are about $15 or so, the current sensor maybe another $10 and the regulator and peripheral components maybe another $ or two, so a total of around $25 to $30 in parts, excluding the case and any buttons, connectors etc.

Using just those costs I could argue that the CA, and this PIM unit, are over-priced. However, that would be to ignore all the other costs that go into a manufacturing a marketable product, and would also ignore the high labour cost of all the design and development work, including writing and testing the code. There's also the not inconsiderable cost of writing and testing the manual and instructions. You also need to factor in the time spent handling enquiries, solving customer related problems and generally providing after-sales support. If you're doing this as a business, then it would be stupid to not cost these services at your minimum acceptable pay rate.

Pretty much every product like this I've seen has had the majority of the cost associated with aspects like support, design, documentation, warranty, advertising, sales costs etc, rather than the manufacture costs of the product itself.

[neptronix]

I have to side with Luke on this.... I feel this is encroaching on what is clearly Justin's domain and I have way too much respect for the man to ever consider doing that myself. Competition is great - but you better come out swinging if you want to eat up any of his market.

So it's not okay to sell competing products, just because Justin bought this forum? O_O
Do any of you remember why we beat Trevor off with a stick when KnightMB sold this forum off?

Did it have anything to do with not wanting a vested business interest getting in the way of all the interesting innovation and advancement in the state of electric bicycles?

[mystamo]

Interesting, but is your costing for a small scale manufactured product like this, with warranty and after sales support, realistic?

I've already designed an built a simpler battery "fuel gauge", and am part way through designing/building a better version, using an OLED display (see here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=20118&start=45#p623276). Sure the parts are cheap, in my case the ucontroller and OLED dispay are about $15 or so, the current sensor maybe another $10 and the regulator and peripheral components maybe another $ or two, so a total of around $25 to $30 in parts, excluding the case and any buttons, connectors etc.

Using just those costs I could argue that the CA, and this PIM unit, are over-priced. However, that would be to ignore all the other costs that go into a manufacturing a marketable product, and would also ignore the high labour cost of all the design and development work, including writing and testing the code. There's also the not inconsiderable cost of writing and testing the manual and instructions. You also need to factor in the time spent handling enquiries, solving customer related problems and generally providing after-sales support. If you're doing this as a business, then it would be stupid to not cost these services at your minimum acceptable pay rate.

Pretty much every product like this I've seen has had the majority of the cost associated with aspects like support, design, documentation, warranty, advertising, sales costs etc, rather than the manufacture costs of the product itself.

Yes your right. I didn't include that stuff in my cost. But its just that the CA has been out for as long as I've known of ebikes. 4ish years? I would think if anyone is capable of making it less expensive it's them.. But why do that when your the only product on the market...

This can all go back and forth I suppose. I just know I like this new meter and will hit up Bay cycle and grab one just to try it out. Even if it's just for seeing the voltage on my dual 60v series charger for my 126v pack

Mo

[neptronix]

Oh! i just figured out what this is really cool for...

When you have a high voltage bulk charger and want to monitor it.. the only decent option right now is the standalone CA. This saves you $60 for that project and should do the job just fine. How many of us are running over 130v anyway?

[mystamo]

Beat you to the thought

I run at 30s and use to 60v chargers in series to charge .. Zoom Zoom

I will get one of these to monitor my charge

Mo

[binlagin]

Sweet! I like the angle and idea behind it! I'll be picking one up


Now.. if I could only interface it with an arduino!

[nicobie]

Oh! i just figured out what this is really cool for...

When you have a high voltage bulk charger and want to monitor it.. the only decent option right now is the standalone CA. This saves you $60 for that project and should do the job just fine. How many of us are running over 130v anyway?

This will do that up to 120v and 20a (2.4 kw) for $15 and my Fluke shows the one I have is spot on. Might as well save the $.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=40434

[nicobie]

So it's not okay to sell competing products, just because Justin bought this forum? O_O
Do any of you remember why we beat Trevor off with a stick when KnightMB sold this forum off?

Did it have anything to do with not wanting a vested business interest getting in the way of all the interesting innovation and advancement in the state of electric bicycles?

I dare you to show me just once where Justin has tried to limit competition. For God's sake man, he even lists motors/controllers that he does not sell in his simulator.

Off hand I'd say you are talking out of your ass. (no offence )

[nicobie]

.

[wineboyrider]

YAWN

[nicobie]

YAWN

You are bored about what?

Bad mouthing Justin?

[wineboyrider]

YAWN

You are bored about what?

Bad mouthing Justin?

The infighting mostly, but we all know that ebikes.ca is an honorable place to do business......