Tons of dead, 1-2 year old prebuilt EVs out there

I'll bite. If it was just a case of commercial and hacker interests being discussed side by side then ES is probably the best place on the internet for that to happen, unbiased reviews are invaluable to the consumer and the combined experience and differing points of view here are unrivaled. However, it's not that simple. Ebikes are a competitive market and popular discussion on products in a competitive market attracts the dark side of marketing, an army of shills and spammers aimed at promoting or slandering those products. I've done admin in that kind of environment and never again, they're relentless, work 24/7 and if they're successfully kept down then they'll aim to discredit the entire platform instead.

Could be something to consider for a separate platform, give it a chance to grow here and fork it off if it becomes popular but if that side of marketing targets this place it could ruin it for everyone, they play dirty.
 
Damn, that's a good point.
It would cause us to have to put some chill on prebuilt sales if they come a shilling.

Do you think 'prebuilt bike hacking' as a subforum name and making it more obvious that we're a pure DIY site be hopefully more repellant than attractive to guerilla marketers?
 
stan.distortion said:
Hadn't thought of that. Didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference in a search for "diy bldc controller", ES came up about half way down the second page for both "web" and "all" but will bare it in mind for future searches (y)
Click to expand...
Interesting. I tried Google and DuckDuckGo. DDG didn't bring up any ES pages. I find it is now considerably worse than Google.
Which is saying something.
 
neptronix said:
So i went to my local bicycle collective last weekend ( a non profit bike shop that sells used stuff and teaches people to wrench )..

They have ~20 bikes for sale, 3 of which are electric.
The electrics are going for 1/5th of the price as new, but they're all a few years old, obviously bought during the pandemic..
..and another person rolls up with some Chinese prebuilt ebike to donate just as i'm looking.

They're literally going for half the cost of the nicer roadbikes and MTBs.. nobody wants these things.
Probably the best pick of them a specialized turbo vado that looks flawless going for $400.

I checked out these bikes. Every single one seems to power up but has a dead display and the motor won't operate.
..but these bikes all have what looks like working motors and batteries.

I'm kinda surprised we don't see a lot of prebuilt hacking on this forum.
For almost all these bikes, it would be a matter of replacing the controller and/or BMS and probably even unlocking additional power in the process.
You could probably make a business out of fixing and reselling these things... or just get a super cheap head start on a build.

Just a thought!

As for me, none of these interest me, even at $0.. i would much rather have the standardized, swappable parts built on a bike frame. I think most prebuilt bikes are garbage. But one man's e-waste is another man's treasure!
Click to expand...
I want a nice bike, and then to power it, and then for that powering to be as light and fast as can be within reason.
There's a definite speed/weight/can really do things ratio.
For me, the thing needs to still be able to be ridden like a bicycle. I'm not going to not hop curbs n stuff.
If it's too heavy/fragile for that, it's a deal breaker.
 
I really hate the chunky look of these newer bikes. it's kind of grotesque.

Big fan of a bike looking like a bike & also, get this, pedaling it. I want something that doesn't scream 'i'm an ebike' at all.
Examples:
6kw 60mph capable bike:

1724292969545.png

1kw 32mph ( about to upgrade that ) capable bike:

1724292926377.png

Meanwhile, prebuilt stuff:

1724293229183.png

1724293267907.png <--- that lower tube, ugh.. it's pontiac aztek ugly..
 
neptronix said:
I really hate the chunky look of these newer bikes. it's kind of grotesque.

Big fan of a bike looking like a bike & also, get this, pedaling it. I want something that doesn't scream 'i'm an ebike' at all.
Examples:
6kw 60mph capable bike:

View attachment 358497

1kw 32mph ( about to upgrade that ) capable bike:

View attachment 358496

Meanwhile, prebuilt stuff:

View attachment 358498

View attachment 358499 <--- that lower tube, ugh.. it's pontiac aztek ugly..
Click to expand...
Yeah, how much proprietary stuff do those last 2 have?
 
Every part. The mid drive bikes are the most notoriously locked down and proprietary. They're like an Apple device practically.
No such thing as mid drive exchangeability from one brand or another. Battery locked out & has a special communication protocol, etc etc.

If you can't hack it, you need to re-electrify it, other wise it's e-waste.
 
neptronix said:
Every part. The mid drive bikes are the most notoriously locked down and proprietary. They're like an Apple device practically.
No such thing as mid drive exchangeability from one brand or another. Battery locked out & has a special communication protocol, etc etc.

If you can't hack it, you need to re-electrify it, other wise it's e-waste.
Click to expand...
Sad. That's a whole pile of dog poo I don't want to step in. I'm having enough trouble with this Bafang stuff.
Meh, Pretty sure I have a controller that will run it without halls. In before I blow up some stuff. :LOL:
 
n00b said:
Sad. That's a whole pile of dog poo I don't want to step in. I'm having enough trouble with this Bafang stuff.
Meh, Pretty sure I have a controller that will run it without halls. In before I blow up some stuff. :LOL:
Click to expand...

Me neither, but i could buy a VESC controller and use it to drive basically anything from a slow hub motor to a superfast RC motor, as long as it has 3 phase wires coming out of it, so the thought of liberating one of these factory bikes and an external controller is kinda appealing.

I'm just surprised more people aren't doing it with the bevy of cheap broken ( mostly electrically ) bikes out there.
 
neptronix said:
Me neither, but i could buy a VESC controller and use it to drive basically anything from a slow hub motor to a superfast RC motor, as long as it has 3 phase wires coming out of it, so the thought of liberating one of these factory bikes and an external controller is kinda appealing.

I'm just surprised more people aren't doing it with the bevy of cheap broken ( mostly electrically ) bikes out there.
Click to expand...
Waste. People don't care about not wasting resources anymore.
 
n00b said:
Waste. People don't care about not wasting resources anymore.
Click to expand...

They do now that we went from a zero interest rate phenomenon + lockdown ( nothing else to do is legal ) to what looks suspiciously like a recession.

Time to fix stuff 😅
 
neptronix said:
I'm just surprised more people aren't doing it with the bevy of cheap broken ( mostly electrically ) bikes out there.
Click to expand...
I’m constant looking, even though I have no room in my garage. I did score a 24v EVG bike for free. My buddy has a neighbor and the bike was up in the rafters. He picked it up to take it to a dump, but thought I might want to tinker with it and see if I could get it working. I did and it works! But now I have nothing else to do to it and it’s sitting in my garage. I might donate it to a volunteer bike shop or keep it at work for “errands”. I got to get it out of my garage. Lol
 
^-- been there, lol
 
neptronix said:
No such thing as mid drive exchangeability from one brand or another.
Click to expand...

Not entirely true as these guys plan on making their integrated mid drive compatible with Shimano:

www.pinkbike.com

Intra Drive's Combined Motor & Gearbox Fits Bikes Designed For Shimano EP8 [Updated on expanding into the aftermarket] - Pinkbike

The Scottish startup is aiming to disrupt the e-bike drive unit market. [Updated with more on expanding into the aftermarket]
www.pinkbike.com www.pinkbike.com

See bottom of page where it says this:

"We would very much like to go down the aftermarket route in the future because it is in line with our circular economy aspirations, and because we get asked this a lot - it's clear there is demand. Our plan is to sell B2B initially, then enter the retrofit market once we're established. The reason we're not doing it just yet is because our unit sits slightly deeper into the bracket and we found that it doesn't fit every EP8/E8000 frame out there. We have a product roadmap to shrink the unit ever so slightly to make it fit more frames, but we still have the issue of chainstay clearance on full suspension bikes due to our smaller chain ring and because our unit is wider than an EP8/E8000, it won't fit carbon frames that tend to wrap around the sides of the drive unit.

We stand a pretty good chance, however, of supplying hardtail, cargo and commuter bikes as an aftermarket option. It would also stand to reason that we would make a Bosch Gen2-3 compatible version as well."
 
n00b said:
That's not compatible with regular bikes, though.
Click to expand...
If it screws Shimano out of some of their captives, I'm for it. I would never advise anybody to buy it unless they already had a toxic Shimano bike, though.
 
n00b said:
That's not compatible with regular bikes, though.
Click to expand...

What do you want more?

Compatibility with 68mm/73mm Bottom bracket and wide (and potentially uneven) q factor?

or

specialty frame and narrow (and even) q factor?

(DIY doesn't have to always mean analog bike Bottom bracket)
 
Chalo said:
If it screws Shimano out of some of their captives, I'm for it. I would never advise anybody to buy it unless they already had a toxic Shimano bike, though.
Click to expand...
iu
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
Not entirely true as these guys plan on making their integrated mid drive compatible with Shimano:

www.pinkbike.com

Intra Drive's Combined Motor & Gearbox Fits Bikes Designed For Shimano EP8 [Updated on expanding into the aftermarket] - Pinkbike

The Scottish startup is aiming to disrupt the e-bike drive unit market. [Updated with more on expanding into the aftermarket]
www.pinkbike.com www.pinkbike.com
Click to expand...

Smart move honestly, never seen anyone doing that until now.

let's not call it a trend yet.
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
What do you want more?

Compatibility with 68mm/73mm Bottom bracket and wide (and potentially uneven) q factor?

or

specialty frame and narrow (and even) q factor?

(DIY doesn't have to always mean analog bike Bottom bracket)
Click to expand...
Uhh..OK. Oh no, actually it kinda does. Perhaps you have not thought this thing through to its logical conclusion yet?
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
What do you want more?
Compatibility with 68mm/73mm Bottom bracket and wide (and potentially uneven) q factor?

or

specialty frame and narrow (and even) q factor?
(DIY doesn't have to always mean analog bike Bottom bracket)
Click to expand...

I have an add on 1000w rated 4lbs mid drive in a 68mm bottom bracket and it has the stock Q factor other than 3mm extra offset on the right side.
There's another 650w mid drive available, it's a bit more expensive, but also keeps the Q factor.

You can have it all.
 
neptronix said:
I have an add on 1000w rated 4lbs mid drive in a 68mm bottom bracket and it has the stock Q factor other than 3mm extra offset on the right side.
There's another 650w mid drive available, it's expensive and 650w, but also keeps the Q factor.

You can have it all.
Click to expand...

But that mid drive you are referring to has 175mm q factor. Integrated mid drives go as low as 135mm q factor:

TQ HPR50

www.trekbikes.com www.trekbikes.com

1724300553436.png
 
n00b said:
Uhh..OK. Oh no, actually it kinda does. Perhaps you have not thought this thing through to its logical conclusion yet?
Click to expand...

With an adapter anything is possible.


But going from analog BB to integrated mid drive mount is not possible with an adapter. Only reverse is true though.
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
With an adapter anything is possible.

But going from analog BB to integrated mid drive mount is not possible with an adapter. Only reverse is true though.
Click to expand...
That's why "Integrated mid drive" bb is proprietary and not compatible with everything else, Buck!
And not all mid drives fit the same.
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
But that mid drive you are referring to has 175mm q factor. Integrated mid drives go as low as 135mm q factor:

TQ HPR50

www.trekbikes.com www.trekbikes.com

View attachment 358501
Click to expand...

It's actually a few mm narrower than what came on my mountain bike. ( 123mm wide spindle vs my original 127mm )

It uses a regular bottom bracket so, in theory you could go narrower if you wanted.

135mm is on the extreme narrow end and i don't think any of us here are talking about building a hyper narrow road bike. Yes you can do it with a custom proprietary frame, but it's not relevant to the discussion. I feel goalposts moving..
 
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