My e-ride XPe: Chinese Sailing Ship?

Well I just had a new retension bar made to replace the mild steel retension bar that came with the bike. It was the 2nd retension bar I went through. The motor kept overcoming the two nut retainers and drilled out the retension bars. When I took the retension bar to the metal shop they actually laughed at it. The were laughing at the quality of the metal for the job it was to perform. Very bad design they said. The new retension bar is about three times as heavy and fits the axel to a tighter tolerance and is thicker.

Now the question is what will far apart next.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRxouiKnAw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQYL5zF-Ujo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sycjayr1LN4

Here is a pic of the 2nd battery pack. When I bought the bike I ordered the 2nd battery pack to extend range and reduce power drops climbing hills. When the bike was delivered there was no 2nd battery pack. After contacting eride they said they were sending it seperately. 2 Months later I had to contact the credit card company to threaten to reverse the order, then they sent the batteries. They sent them by bus. They arrived wothout a pack just batteries wired together to a plug. I called e-ride and they said there was no pack for that model bike but their website today still shows a 2nd pack available for an Xpe. When I hooked the battery pack the connector melted and blew because the bike's(not the battery's) 2nd battery cable was reverse polarized. I had to make a new connector from 2 fuses and switches.


Here is a pic of the dc converter. A light fell out of it's socket and blew the converter. Replaced under warranty. The replacement has a fuse on it. The original converter didn't have a fuse.


Here is a pic under the hood. I moved the electronics here instead of being under the seat where they were HARD to get at. This pic doesn't show it but I later added a car blower fan sitting under the controller to keep it cool. The first controller blew a capacitor. When I opened the case there was a pool of solder in the corner which had melted off of the buzz bar. Replaced under warranty.


Here is a pic of the bike the day I got it.


Here is an idea I thought of to make use of the empty mirror sockets. Whent he second set of batteries arrived a generic set of mirrors came with it but no sockets for the holes to mount the mirrors. I attached the mirrors to the brake levers.


The 2nd battery pack was too much weight for the seat case. I reinforced it with some duct tape and sheet metal.


Here is a small pic of the kick stand that rusted off in the 1st four months I had the bike. Proof in my opinion that e-ride sold me a demo unit or 2nd hand bike at full price without labelling the sale as a 2nd hand bike.


Here is a pic of the 2nd battery compartment. If you have an Xpe let me know if your compartment is larger, i.e. if the lock mechanism is farther back instead of in the middle.


The story
I bought an XPE from E-ride.ca and it's been a nightmare.
Bike arrived with a silver dollar sized chip in the shell near the bottom by the battery ( hard to see) they said sorry cosmetic shipping problem not covered. When I asked about getting a replacment shell segment they were like huh? A replacement what?
The bike didn't come with the alarm I ordered. They sent an alarm that won't work when the bike is turned off, they took 3 months to send one that will. It arrived with no direction or instructions or labels. I asked is it a12V or 48 volt, after 3 emails they kept saying it was 12V, when it is actually 48V. It does work.
The back bubble trunk wouldn't latch, - The latch was mounted improperly. Fixed and working.
They didn't send the 2nd battery pack, eventually they did but it wasn't a pack but seperate 12V batteries. They said that model doesn't have a 2nd battery pack, yet they advertize it does.
The ignition is wired so both 48V battery packs are used in parallel not seperately. ( It does eliminate deep draws off the battery climbing hills though.) No mention of this on their site though. Site implies you use one then switch to the second.
The cable for the 2nd battery pack was reverse polorized and melted upon hookup, I rebuilt a safer connector myself with a fuse on each line with it's own switch. There was no fuse on that circuit.
The DC converter had to be replaced(under warranty) when a light bulb fell out and the connector struck the bike frame( DC controller had no fuse - replacement does).
The center kickstand foot pull fell off due to rust(I store it in a dry shed off the ground). They sent a replacement stand with the alarm.
The bike didn't have mirrors, the sent some later but not the proper connector like in the pics. I have them attached via the brake levers( actually a better position to see behind you instead of seeing you) but still annoying.
The bike got a flat within the week, I changed the tire mounted everything drove to work and the bike died. The cables going into the wheel were frayed and arc'd ( The wire coil protector upon inspection was RUSTED and the coil not tighly wound providing no protection. This killed the hall effect sensors. They claimed I didn't attach the retension clip the wheel spun in the mount and cut the wires,so it voided the warranty. I DID attach the retension clip the wires were frayed when I got the bike. They did send replacement sensors and I rebuilt the motor myself.
Now I'm getting periodic failures of the regenerative braking. The front brake won't initiate regen braking but will continue it. Very rarely braking once initiated will kick out and I'm left with regular pull brakes. This has been reduced but not eliminated after I moved the location of the electronics to under the hood.
Additionally I'm getting power outages where the bike initiates brakes on it's own. The Amp needle will drop radically from 15 amp to 10 on occasion and the bike gets a small kick. Climbing hills is not as strong as before. A hill I could take at 25 of 32 KM/Hr when new I now slow to 10 of 32Km/Hr and need to pedal to crest the hill. They said I had some loose wires. I made sure all the connectors were dry and put elastics on them to make sure they were firmly connected. I think the controller is dying and they are ignoring my emails now. This problem later went away when the controller was replaced under waranty when the controllers main capacitor blew.
When I opened the case of the dead controller I found that solder had melted off the buzz bar and pooled in the corner of the controller.
Oh and the 2nd battery pack was too much weight for the underseat carrying spot, it started to crack. I reinforced it with some aluminium sheeting to carry the weight of the entire seat-battery.

The motor. I sent the serial number of the motor to the manufacturer saying I bought it second hand and needed details so I could get a proper controller. Thay said it's a 350W motor. This was a surprise since e-ride site says it's a 500W motor. They use an over amp'd controller and a 350W motor to generate 500W output 48V*17Amp =816 MAX figure 62% continuous is 500W. This was really annoying because the XPe page was different from the XP page in that it said 500W controller and 500W motor, while the other pages just said 500W motor. E-ride's response was sorry we inadvertantly put the max details of one up and the other had the continuous details. Essentially "too damn bad". In response for my asking for a 500 W motor they said the 500W motors were slower.

You'll notice I cut out the back end of the seat. I put in a mesh basket for more storage.




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Sat, 11/18/2006 - 23:11 — Reid Welch
Say! GREENWIT (eride) is a dreadful company!
OWWW! They tried to skin me too.

I bought my first e-bike from them last May.
It's a long story, not very interesting.
But the bike was total shite.
I finally got my money back
via the credit card company.

eride got back their box of junk bike parts,
bent, scratched, covered in cat hair
(they must keep a cat in their garage)

I'm gonna settle in on your post and read it all through.
Great documentation here.

I like this place, I like David Herron and everyone here.
I am concerned about the potentially high cost,
about having to go commercial to pay for its upkeep.

It'd be great IF we could manage to stay pro bono,
without biasing toward any advertisers or sponsors.

PS: how do we turn on our avatar?
PPS: It is greatly desired here that members might always delete an old posting
(or clear its content). Does the editability ever expire?
If it does, that should be fixed, imo.

Reid

***************

Formatting wasa little more annoying here it wouldn't take a simply copy paste of the link
<img src="http://address" alt="" class="bb-image" />
It needed the tags ]img[ ]\img[ (reversed brackets to see them)

...

It isn't a windscreen. It's for the rain. Take out some collapsible tent poles, slap them into receptacles and you have a rain hood.

Here are some pics of the old retension bar and the new one. Everything is a bit dirty as it rained the other day.

Here is the new retension bar



Here is a better side pic. The goupy stuff is locktight. The fitting clearance is much better than the previous bar.


Now the old retension bar.


Here is the drilled out hole. The metal just could not stand up to the torque of the motor with the gapped fit it had.


Here is the side which I had Bashed down with a hammer to get an extra days use out of it until I got the replacement.



You'll also notice I put two heat sinks from a dead computer power supply on the hub to help cool it a tad. It works surprisingly well.

I did a distance test on 1 battery and without completey sucking the bike to zero but taking it down enough to still run on a flat but collapse to nothing on a hill I got a little more than 16 miles, could probaly have got 20 sucking everything from the pack and pedaling up hills. I figure I can get 40 miles (64KM) with both packs.
E-rides claims are 50/90 km range based on flat and 80kg loadwith single/dual battery
I am 90 KG, the trip was mostly flat. Looks like they double their estimates. Then again I wasn't "blipping". Do that and you could probably just squeak out 75 KM.

Horn is at the bottom, blower is in the center left, controller is at the top angling down to the center. The Mosfet(and buzz bar) are on the bottom of the controller which is sitting in the blower so they get the maximum cooling. The screw on the bottom right is what attaches the blower to the bike frame. The left side has a screw and X set of bars the attach it to the plastic shell. The blower is too big to fit it in any other way.

Lessss said:

It isn't a windscreen. It's for the rain. Take out some collapsible tent poles, slap them into receptacles and you have a rain hood.

Click to expand...

Lessss
I have to agree with Mathurin, the more drag you add, the more amps you suck up, and your speed decreases. Some people even lean forward to decrease the drag, I also do it if the head wind is real strong, probably looks silly to others, leaning forward and barely going 10 MPH.
Am I correct you currently have no mirrors? Adding the rain device seems like it would obstruct your rear vision even more.
You all must get a lot of rain in that part of Canada, I notice E Ride is giving them free when you make a purchase.
October deal:
• FREE rain cover
• FREE rider's rain cape
• FREE helmet
---------
* with any scooter purchase

They are also hiring, Is there tech still in jail or something?

I don't ride in the rain if I can help it. Several times I went to the store, and when I came out it was raining. I probably should start checking the forecast before I run a errand. My biggest problem was the rain hitting my eyes, so my visibility was very poor, and the rain was hurting my eyes. Now I carry a pair of goggles and one of those bright colored ponchos in the front tool compartment. Seems you would have a similar problem, more rain would be blowing into you, just because of your forward motion and the velocity of the rain increases from the front much more than the amount and velocity coming from the top
The other problems include getting your controller wet even more since you moved it lower, you stopping distance really increases because your brakes are yet. Other traffic has some of the same problem with visibility, poor braking etc.
Unless it's absolutely necessary I would't recommend riding in the rain and if you must be sure to turn on your lights.
This winter I plan to bring mine inside my basement and do some work on it, one will be figuring out a way to have both front and rear turn signal lights flash as a emergency flash. I purchased a small 12 volt battery I plan to hide some where for the remote anti theft device I purchased, and may just run the flashers off it.
It's very important other vehicles know you are not on a regular gas scooter and proceed with caution. That,s the main reason I keep my pedals on and visible, even just moving them around occasionally if I'm going around parked cars into the traffic lane and a vehicle is behind me a little ways. If I notice in my mirrors they are close, I slow down or even stop if necessary so they can clear access to the road without being forced to move over to the oncoming traffic lane. I'm afraid with your rain shield, they won't know what your riding, and a burst of wind taking you into traffic or something.
If you really feel you need it, then maybe you need to start looking at a nasty petro, since 500 watts is the max allowed in Canada.
And get some mirrors on it ASAP, your in the lowest part of the food chain on the road, even bikes are higher than we are.

Until latter,
Gman

Well It'll only be up when it's raining.
The bike does have mirrors, they just aren't mounted in the mirror mount locations becasue the mounts never came with the bike. They are attached to the brake levers.

The free helmet is crap. Might as well wear a wet towel and call it a helmet. It might even offer more protection. Mine fell apart as soon as I picked it up. The visor cracked away from the main helmet. The silver trim fell off, and the imitation leather neck protection for the back of the neck has come off because the threading let go.


I didn't move the controller lower. I moved it higher. It was about a foot from the ground and was getting mud on it. It is now a good 4 feet from the ground and sitting on top of a blower which completely covers it from below. There is no way it's getting wet where it is.

I ride with my lights turned on all the time. It's safer.

Well to distinguish myself as a bike I had a license plate made that says BICYCLE on it in big bold letters. I am also going to pick up a slow moving vehicle symbol and hang it from the trunk.

Take a look at my XPe walk around vid on youtube.

e-ride did provide a rain poncho, but I don't like the way it covers the dashboard, blinker and gear control. I also don't like the way it attaches the rider to the bike. The poncho has holes for the mirrors to pop through. I just let the ponchos long end just hang in front of me and I tuck it under a foot to hold it down.

I may have to give up on the rain cover idea because I can't find any really flexible tent poles. The only ones I can find are a very stiff flexible.

Good so I can stop worrying about you.
You probably need something like 1/8 pvc

Got another flat and got really pissed off. Since I don't have any kevlar tire inserts and need the bike back up quickly I took 2 and a half IDE cables, removed the plastic connectors and duct taped them inside the tire. Hopefully the thickness of the tape, plastic, and copper wire will provide some puncture protection.

Rode the bike to a bike store to get a new tube since the one in it is patched so many times. They had a tube but no tube protectors. On the way home the bike started jerking, the amp needle started jumping around. 5 amp, 15 amp, 10 amp, 0 amp, 15amp, 0 amp etc... until it just stopped moving. I figured ok the controller must have popped. I get the bike home and check the controller. All is ok there. Hmm maybe a loose wire, so I check all the connections. Nope all good there. Only thing left is the batteries and motor. Gettting juice from the batts. Ok so I open the motor. Somehow one of the hall effect sensors has been knocked out of place and it has twisted around itself causing a short. I replace it and take the opportunity to cut out the previously damaged and now taped wire going into the motor. Glue is drying right now. Will try to take pics later if my sis has returned my camera.

I look at the wheel and motor trying tofigure out how this happened. Then I see a crack in one of the magnets. Looks like a tiangular crack in one. I pry it out(not hard to do. There is dirt and gunk under the magnet keeping the tip up. I clean that out and put the magnet back in. I will mount the wheel the opposite way around so that tip is nowhere near the sensors.

Hmm, anyone hear of the magnets cracking like that?

You can slit the old tube and put the new one in it to protect from flats.

Lessss said:

Hmm, anyone hear of the magnets cracking like that?

Click to expand...

Magnets will crack under extreme heat/cold conditions or just extreme heat conditions. For example, riding the bike in really cold weather, then coming to a stop, turning off the bike and leaving the warm motor interior to rapidly cool from the cold outside air (if left outdoors for example). Another example, the motor gets so hot on the inside that the magnets crack from the heat because of a weakened state. Magnets have a force pushed on them from the electro-magnet in the center so it's possible that the field was so strong, it "broke" the magnet against the outside of the case.

Another case could be just a bad magnet to begin with that was already broken or about to break before being installed in the motor.

Hmm back back together and working, for about two miles then the jerking began again. Looks like I've a bad sensor.

Anyone know how to test for a bad sensor?

#$% It wasn't a bad sensor. Or even a bad connection to the sensor. It was a bad wire going to the sensor. I think I've nearly replaced every single piece of wiring on this bike! (yes an exaggeration - but it conveys my feelings).

I hate it when that happens. I had a front hub motor that had the same issue. One of the wires to power the motor had a break somewhere, but it would work "most" of the time until the bike got a bump in the road that shifted the wire apart and then it was dead. Took a while before I realized I needed to replace that motor wire. At first I didn't know if it was a dead battery, controller or motor itself

Ok here are some more pics for the sake of pics

Here is an upskirt shot. Man what a lot of dirt


Here is a side shot with wheel off. Man that chain looks rusty (despite being oiled regularly)


Here is a peek at the hall sensors

notice the scrape marks from the cracked magnet.

Another sensor pic


Here is a pic of the side of the motor. Elastics holding the sensors in place as glue dries.

Notice the maretts. Well I had to hack off the piece of wire coming into the motor through the axel and reconnect it to get rid of the bad section of wire. The green tape is just to hold the maretts in place it is not being used to wrap wires.


The hub motor with the center popped out

The red is locktight not rust.

Ok the IDE cable thing as a tube protector is a dumb dumb dumb idea.

I mean really dumb.

Think of a wave of water. Now think of a wave going through copper! Where the tire met the road the copper would bend and generate a wave that travelled along the copper. Needless to say that in cold weather copper is brittle. Needless to say, another flat, slow leak thankfully. Duct tape on the other hand I am now absolutly convinced can be used as a means of patching a tube. The duct tape I had lined the tire with pretty much melted to the tire.

Anyway I took 2 tubes and sliced them and put a new tube inside them, in addition I reversed the tire, ran about 6strips of duct tape around the tire, then flipped it back. So the layers are tire, duct tape, 2 tubes, then the inflated tube.

I found out today bike shops are useless for 16 x2.5 tubes and tires. You need to go to a motor cycle shop to find some.

Good luck for the flat prevention, have you noticed a range or speed difference?

are range or speed difference from when?

Oh, different from before putting two tubes & duct tape as liners.

Because I thought I had noticed a difference in rolling resistance the first time I installed second tubes in my bike's tires, and I didn't revert back.

Ah. Just put them in haven't had the chance to use it yet.

No discernable reduction in range or speed. The cold weather and the blower I have blowing air on the controller seems to be giving me a slightly higher speed than normal 36ish instead of 32.

OK the chill to the controller is indeed giving me a minor speed boost, but todays DROP in temperature has shown me that my SLA's almost die in severe cold. Batteries were topped off fresh off the charger and I got maybe half of what I normally get out of them. Sag was horrendous going up hills. Still more than sufficient to get me back and forth to work though.