my ampedbike kit review

[disndat]

Hey Danny welcome to ES.I have a question for you-Is it possible to buy just the rear hub with no controller and rim?I have a beefy crystalyte controller(72v/60amp) and plenty of high grade 24"rims and I use washers with the spokes,otherwise I pop them like crazy.Oh and stay with your values,rather have well built domestic stuff than cheap overseas crap.

 

[Ypedal]

Hmmmm..

well Danny... welcome to the information age and the World Wide Web ! :wink:

Nothing is exclusive anymore, only way to have any of that is building it yourself, small batch orders won't keep factories running and product improvement costs money.. it's a vicious circle.

imo, more data.. less drama.

Justin and Jason, 2 people who i have had the pleasure to deal with and communicate with on a regular basis, i've been involved with just about every single ebike related outfit you can think of.. and in the long run.. only the very determined survive. or those with a true passion for the movement.

The ebike market is HUGE and there is plenty of room for everyone !

 

[ampedbikes1]

Ahh.. yes, I left nine Continents because I sent them my speed controller to save on shipping, I designed the 9X7 windings with them in Ningbo. I did the footwork spent close to $20k going back and forth and they simply sold my kit to Jason at ebikekit. It started with Justin who makes the cycle analyst. I was not trying to corner the market but I did travel extensively throughout China looking for back alley companies to create my kit.

Im just a simple guy that works with each customer. Yes I was disappointed to see my controller and windings on their sites. But Nine continents simply refuses to change connectors, refuses to spoke correctly. If you look closely each spoke has a bend in them which is not correct. I patented our universal torque arms then designed the soft start controller that slowly ramps up the amperage which was also sold out from under me.

It is easy to copy what one man works hard for like Jason at ebike-kit and justin in Canada and the Chinese are in a huge growth period and will sell anything that anyone else created to make a buck. I understand this is just business for them but for me it is my passion to create the best product available at a fair price for all of my customers.

It is painful to see people reaping the benefits from my hard work.. But they don't have the passion so I can always stay one step ahead and keep engineering new products.

I'm a simple guy that has a bad knee and that's how I got into this whole thing. In any case I rarely post or read the boards as I like to keep my mind open to new ideas and free thought.

The easiest thing in the world is to copy what another man has worked hard for. The honest truth is that I have never woken up in the morning to make money. With any of my businesses. I get up make the best product I can for my customer and to be of service to them. Money is simply a byproduct of my work.

This is not the first time. This has happened to me.. Im a bit stubborn. Years ago I created an arcade style joystick for emulation games. I went to a guy for help with injection molding and he ripped me off as well we were "stick-it" he is X-Arcade. http://www.xgaming.com/about-xgaming.shtml I went to Shawn Walters (owner) for help with the injection molding as I could not keep up with orders... Only to find out lol he was teaching a class using my quotes word for word lol....

SO I'm learning the business part but slowly. I have found that there are plenty of people out there that will simply steal all of your hard work and there isnt much you can do about it.

So with the little I have learned I have bought exclusive USA rights to our new direct drive and geared motor. But I will have to keep innovating and engineering to keep a step ahead.. of the people that simply don't do the leg work. I guess I could simply copy someone but Im not in it for the $$ I simply enjoy creating new products.

Like I said I normally dont post but I feel I should explain whats really going on.. At least the way I see it. You can always count on Ampedbikes to create an excellent product at fair prices.

Flame away

Ypedal you are 100% correct. I am an old school finish carpenter turned engineer after the knee injury. Actually there were only 30,000 kits sold in the USA last year but it is growing rapidly and yes there is room for everyone. Its true I do take Chinese business tactics a bit too personally but all in all after the 7 trips to China I have fallen in love with the people, culture and FOOD lol....

I have done business on a person to person basis for 20 years and its hard to change the way I do business after 20 years I am a bit too trusting. Also as funds become available we are slowly working on a 450W-500W geared motor 1 piece at a time.

Thx for the input..

 

[JSboss]

The wife and I took a couple test rides on amped conversions at the car show yesterday and they were great. We were undecided on which kits to buy, glad we found you.

Thanks for all the help Danny. We had a good time at the show riding your bikes yesterday. Great stuff.

Jason

Oh and thanks for the link to this site!

 

[oatnet]

Yeah this new geared motor looks pretty good. I'm considering getting one of these instead of a BMC if it can handle some decent amperage. Here's some info and a few comments about this motor from Danny Ray himself...

I'm releasing 2 new motors.
1. a 400W geared (incredibly quiet), incredibly powerful 100% freewheeling motor. Out performs anything from 8Fun. The quality is far superior to the BMC along with being almost silent.

...

Oh lol BTW we were testing the new motor today at 72V lol... We had it bolted in tightly with 2 torque arms it spun on asphalt with my 230 lbs on it like it was gravel and eventually pulled itself out of the dropouts even with 2 torque arms installed. It was alot of fun, waay too fast and waay too much torque. I ended up spinning the wires up so I had to open it up and repair the wires and after all of that the gears were still perfect and quiet as ever.

I am confident that this new kit will be the kit of the year. The tolerances are very tight on the inside of the motor. I dont want to go on but it was a fun day!!

Is the Geared motor the one that spun on ashpalt? When will it be available? I'd probably buy one to play with.

-JD

 

[oatnet]

Yeah this new geared motor looks pretty good. I'm considering getting one of these instead of a BMC if it can handle some decent amperage. Here's some info and a few comments about this motor from Danny Ray himself...

I'm releasing 2 new motors.
1. a 400W geared (incredibly quiet), incredibly powerful 100% freewheeling motor. Out performs anything from 8Fun. The quality is far superior to the BMC along with being almost silent.

...

Oh lol BTW we were testing the new motor today at 72V lol... We had it bolted in tightly with 2 torque arms it spun on asphalt with my 230 lbs on it like it was gravel and eventually pulled itself out of the dropouts even with 2 torque arms installed. It was alot of fun, waay too fast and waay too much torque. I ended up spinning the wires up so I had to open it up and repair the wires and after all of that the gears were still perfect and quiet as ever.

I am confident that this new kit will be the kit of the year. The tolerances are very tight on the inside of the motor. I dont want to go on but it was a fun day!!

Is the Geared motor the one that spun on ashpalt? When will it be available? I'd probably buy one to play with.

-JD

Has anyone tried this geared motor yet?

-JD

 

[JasonEBK]

Deleted. Thank you to all at ES.

 

[oatnet]

You haven't heard about it because it doesn't exist. Danny made a mistake and read the documentation from the supplier wrong. When he was promoting the 26MPH at 36v he actually just read it wrong and it was 26km/h. He was so "Amped-Up" on making something happen he misread the specs and promoted the hell out of something that doesn't exist.

Oh, that is TOO funny. :lol: Is it actually quiet, and will it stand up to 72v and perform?

I bought a amped-bike torque arm and thought the price was steep for the product. Although I haven't bought from you yet, I really like the way E-Bikekit.com do business, from the low prices, creative promotions like the "installer bonus", and proactive pursuit of problems. Customer experience speaks for itself.

-JD

 

[turoczi]

.

There are some customer reviews of Amped's new geared motor on their forums. They were selling a 27 mph geared motor (48V) which in fact was wound wrong. But their liability insurance did not cover it so they sold all of them to a local dealer.

The correctly wound ones from what I have read have about 15%-20% more torque than the direct drive kits and run right at 20 mph at 36V along with increasing battery to motor efficiency.

Apparently Amped is slapping patents on everything They have that new battery tube, new patented castings with bolt on disk brakes for all their kits, including the direct drive kits. If I had the $$$$ I would buy one. Still waiting to hear more info on the battery tube and retrofit side covers for disk brakes. My bike has the bolt holes for disk brakes and I am hoping to upgrade to disk brakes as I am back to running mine at 60V and need the extra stopping power.

Danny is a straight up guy and honest about all of his products. I am not a business guy I work for a living. I am constantly bugging him about the tube battery and the new project.

BTW.. He offered me some of the old 9 continent kits that are the same as e-bike kit guy has for $125+ shipping to get them out of his shop. I would hit him up on this if you want an old nine continent kit.

 

[JinbaIttai]

. . .I really like the way E-Bikekit.com do business, from the low prices, creative promotions like the "installer bonus", and proactive pursuit of problems. Customer experience speaks for itself. . .

I agree with this. Love the enthusiasm and attitude. At the same time, I think I too would be bitter if my competitors took my ideas because the Chinese openly sold them on the block. It might not mean much to that many people; some of us have been watching Ampedbikes grow since selling GM kits. It's got to hurt to see all of your work be released without credit (nobody calls them Ampedbikes hubs, they are called 9 Continent). Sure 9C makes the motors, but would they have if Ampedbikes didn't come along and reconfigure it for the western market? :shrugs: In the same position I'd probably patent the shit out of everything too.

 

[mwkeefer]

Hello all,

Patents... LOL not for chinese manufacturers, won't stop them - there are soooooooooo MANY knock offs and stuff, even direct copies or as Danny has stated... theivery of IP (Intellectual Property - spelled wrong).

I can tell you that the US is too large a market for ANY of the existing eBike kit vendors (yes, all of you) to actually obtain EXCLUSIVE rights within the country... I'm not even sure the major bike brands could pull it off (though since most of their stuff is made in china and owned by china... they might have better luck).

That said... it is common practice for chinese to take any and all "Cost Effective" engineering updates, revisions, etc and make a motor of them.

Good luck getting a single chinese manufacturer to go back to the drawing board and redesign from scratch for the US market (though I have gotten them to do just that now!)... even once that happens, don't anticipate an exclusive agreement (I don't / didn't) because even if you have one.... 2 more companies will begin making a knock off within 45 days (they don't have to wait for the trip to US and back to China, they get the samples locally to copy) and have them in the US market within 60-90 days.

Personally I will be happy when we all begin to see (45-90 days) an influx of properly designed (for USA legal use) geared hub motors which will be suitable for 3-5 years of servicable life under hellish conditions, even though I spent weeks designing the damn things... I just want better quality products for all in the US market, the DD motors are there now... but the geared brushless had a ways to go.

In case you missed the last bit, there should be an influx of steel geared, US rated motors coming within 90 days to most of the major ebike vendors (NO EXCLUSIVE CONTRACTS WILL BE OFFERED).

Hope this helps!

-Mike

 

[turoczi]

. . .I really like the way E-Bikekit.com do business, from the low prices, creative promotions like the "installer bonus", and proactive pursuit of problems. Customer experience speaks for itself. . .

I agree with this. Love the enthusiasm and attitude. At the same time, I think I too would be bitter if my competitors took my ideas because the Chinese openly sold them on the block. It might not mean much to that many people; some of us have been watching Ampedbikes grow since selling GM kits. It's got to hurt to see all of your work be released without credit (nobody calls them Ampedbikes hubs, they are called 9 Continent). Sure 9C makes the motors, but would they have if Ampedbikes didn't come along and reconfigure it for the western market? :shrugs: In the same position I'd probably patent the shit out of everything too.

DITTO..

 

[turoczi]

Ahh.. yes, I left nine Continents because I sent them my speed controller to save on shipping, I designed the 9X7 windings with them in Ningbo. I did the footwork spent close to $20k going back and forth and they simply sold my kit to Jason at ebikekit. It started with Justin who makes the cycle analyst. I was not trying to corner the market but I did travel extensively throughout China looking for back alley companies to create my kit.

Im just a simple guy that works with each customer. Yes I was disappointed to see my controller and windings on their sites. But Nine continents simply refuses to change connectors, refuses to spoke correctly. If you look closely each spoke has a bend in them which is not correct. I patented our universal torque arms then designed the soft start controller that slowly ramps up the amperage which was also sold out from under me.

It is easy to copy what one man works hard for like Jason at ebike-kit and justin in Canada and the Chinese are in a huge growth period and will sell anything that anyone else created to make a buck. I understand this is just business for them but for me it is my passion to create the best product available at a fair price for all of my customers.

It is painful to see people reaping the benefits from my hard work.. But they don't have the passion so I can always stay one step ahead and keep engineering new products.

I'm a simple guy that has a bad knee and that's how I got into this whole thing. In any case I rarely post or read the boards as I like to keep my mind open to new ideas and free thought.

The easiest thing in the world is to copy what another man has worked hard for. The honest truth is that I have never woken up in the morning to make money. With any of my businesses. I get up make the best product I can for my customer and to be of service to them. Money is simply a byproduct of my work.

This is not the first time. This has happened to me.. Im a bit stubborn. Years ago I created an arcade style joystick for emulation games. I went to a guy for help with injection molding and he ripped me off as well we were "stick-it" he is X-Arcade. http://www.xgaming.com/about-xgaming.shtml I went to Shawn Walters (owner) for help with the injection molding as I could not keep up with orders... Only to find out lol he was teaching a class using my quotes word for word lol....

SO I'm learning the business part but slowly. I have found that there are plenty of people out there that will simply steal all of your hard work and there isnt much you can do about it.

So with the little I have learned I have bought exclusive USA rights to our new direct drive and geared motor. But I will have to keep innovating and engineering to keep a step ahead.. of the people that simply don't do the leg work. I guess I could simply copy someone but Im not in it for the $$ I simply enjoy creating new products.

Like I said I normally dont post but I feel I should explain whats really going on.. At least the way I see it. You can always count on Ampedbikes to create an excellent product at fair prices.

Flame away

Ditto on this as well.. It seems Danny isn't bitter and has moved on to better products. But it does seem that someone else is bitter.

Ypedal you are 100% correct. I am an old school finish carpenter turned engineer after the knee injury. Actually there were only 30,000 kits sold in the USA last year but it is growing rapidly and yes there is room for everyone. Its true I do take Chinese business tactics a bit too personally but all in all after the 7 trips to China I have fallen in love with the people, culture and FOOD lol....

I have done business on a person to person basis for 20 years and its hard to change the way I do business after 20 years I am a bit too trusting. Also as funds become available we are slowly working on a 450W-500W geared motor 1 piece at a time.

Thx for the input..

 

[oatnet]

I find it hard to not be skeptical of anyone who criticizes Justin/ebikes.ca business practices. I have dealt with a lot of slimeballs in this business, and IMHO Justin is one of the very, very very few good guys.

For ampedbikes, I have seen a lot of bitterness from a guy who "doesn't wake up in the morning to make money". If his reward is just serving the customer, and 'his' motors are reaching the world, then success is at hand. Further, I am suspicious of anyone who is a serial victim, because it does sound like an excuse. It is a vicious world out there, you learn to protect yourself.

Has anyone see detail of what changes were made for the "Western Market"? If there was significant engineering involved, I could sympathize, even though I personally would have made sure I was protected up front. The changes might not be significant enough to protect, in which case what is the big deal?

-JD

 

[nicobie]

I agree 100% with oatnet.

What great new designs has Ray made? I'd be curious to see any patents granted to him. I don't think you can patent a motor wind and am very sceptical that he was able to get his Chinese vendors to change anything. He even admits he couldn't even get them to use good connectors.

Personally, I'd never buy a motor that loses it's warranty if the connectors are changed from the crappy stock ones. What do you do when they melt or the motor malfunctions because of a bad hall plug? On the Ampedbike forum I asked the same question and asked if he would pay the shipping to get them repaired. The answer I got was an out of control personal rant against me and getting banned from his forum .

At the time I was running a GM motor and was looking to up grade and was thinking of buying one of his motors. Needless to say I didn't buy anything from him but went with a 600w BMC. Danny boi will never get a $ from me. The only thing I'll give him is more comments like this one every time I get a chance.



Nick

.

 

[JasonEBK]

Deleted. Thank you to all at ES.

 

[julesa]

So what innovations have you guys contributed?

I get tired of reading about vendors bitching about their competitors here.

I noticed Jason edited his post a little while back and deleted the part where he said that post would be his last complaint about Ampedbikes or Danny.

Seems to me neither Danny nor Jason are saints. Not that I care, I would still buy from either if they had a good product at the right price.