cycle9
10 W
Hey ES people:
I popped in here the other day and started reading the BMC 1000W thread, though I didn't get far because something else came up. But I got far enough to confirm what I already thought... that it is a BETA product. Just like many other products that have been pushed out before their time. This hurts consumers, dealers (at least the ones with scruples), and ultimately, the whole e-bike industry. I talk about it a bit in this video:
[youtube]eKfEqZSAN90[/youtube]
My shop is a dealer for BMC. So why would I say something like the statement above? Why am I "biting the hand that feeds"? Because we work our butts off to make sure what we sell is going to work. And when stuff comes back from a customer because it wasn't working, it is a bad. We've had too much stuff come back. The customer (if they're new to e-bikes) comes to think the technology is crap, and we have to deal with fixing whatever it is that went wrong then re-selling the product as refurbished. Just today, we got word from a customer of the second failure of a BMC controller. That is 2 failures for 2 kits we sold to him. I'm sure the customer isn't pleased (though he'll be getting a full refund).
Another dealer had told us about failures his customers had with these controllers, but we had had good initial results with our own beta test. Unfortunately, the design was "upgraded" from the version I tested, to a higher amp limit without an upgrade to the FETs. Apparently this "upgrade" (which should have been beta tested by BMC) was enough to strain the limits of the design... leading to frequent failures. Now they are dropping like flies, so we have to discontinue them (this is not a first). It is just bad news all around.
When BMC came out with the 1000W motor, we didn't touch it. We had a lot of previous problems with the 600W V2-S, (mostly clutch failures from the first batch). After tearing apart and fixing at least 5 of the V2-S motors for people, we stopped selling them until BMC worked the problems out (surprisingly, failures on the V2-T "torque" motors have been much rarer). BMC claim to have a new clutch for the V2-S that is improved, so we've started, very cautiously, selling a few again.
So when the 1000W motor came out, I knew it would go through major teething pains (can you say BETA test?). I'm tired of having our customers be unwitting beta testers for these manufacturers.
I don't want this to be a rant on just BMC. Look at all the problems people have had with Nine Continent motors (e.g. the recent post from Jason at e-bike kit, whom I stay in touch with). Same kinds of problems. We also got a shipment from Nine Continent that had a bunch of little (mostly correctable but time consuming) problems, including the spoke problem that Jason mentioned. We're hand-building all our Nine Continent rear wheels now here in North Carolina because the manufacturer just can't get it right.
And Crystalyte isn't immune. In the past 6 months, we've had 4 out of 5 35A Crystalyte analog controllers come back failed - a few right away, and some after many months of use. We're now replacing those with infineons, because we don't trust the Crystalytes anymore. (The Crystalyte digital controllers don't work so well with the geared motors like the BMC).
We started using infineon controllers recently. They seem to work well, but recently we got a big batch of various size controllers. Guess what? The "20A" controllers limit out at 13A, and the "30A" controllers limit out around 20A. I know why they did this - because I'm sure they've had problems with people burning them when running at the full rated limit. So they programmed them to operate below the limit. That means that a so-called "20A" is not really "20A" but "13A". Rather than send them back (a big expense), we'll now be selling the so-called "30A" controllers as "20A". Maybe that is a good thing - to sell under-rated controllers. It should significantly reduce the probability of failure. But it also makes it look like less of a bargain, asking people to pay more for a lower-rated controller.
I could go on and on. No product we've tried has been immune (and we've tried a lot as a dealer for everything from BionX to BMC to eZee to Crystalyte to Stokemonkey, though the Stokemonkey has been virtually problem-free). The failure rates are way beyond what people expect these days. Cars "just work". E-bikes need to get to that point, soon, or regular folks will just stay away (tinkerers may still keep tinkering, but that is not going to spread e-bikes far and wide like they are in China and some parts of Europe).
I'm doing this business because of my passion for e-bikes and their ability to reduce auto/oil usage (not a dime has been made, though I hope to at least repay the loans, someday). After facing one problem after another after another with these products, I ask myself, is it worth trying to promote technology that is still too rough around the edges for mass adoption? It doesn't have to be this way, if only people at all stages (manufacturers and dealers) would test products thoroughly before pushing them out. We have had to learn that that lesson the hard way. And there are other good folks out there who understand/have learned this. But there are still too many who do not. I hope the community will start putting some serious pressure on for the industry to clean up.
I popped in here the other day and started reading the BMC 1000W thread, though I didn't get far because something else came up. But I got far enough to confirm what I already thought... that it is a BETA product. Just like many other products that have been pushed out before their time. This hurts consumers, dealers (at least the ones with scruples), and ultimately, the whole e-bike industry. I talk about it a bit in this video:
[youtube]eKfEqZSAN90[/youtube]
My shop is a dealer for BMC. So why would I say something like the statement above? Why am I "biting the hand that feeds"? Because we work our butts off to make sure what we sell is going to work. And when stuff comes back from a customer because it wasn't working, it is a bad. We've had too much stuff come back. The customer (if they're new to e-bikes) comes to think the technology is crap, and we have to deal with fixing whatever it is that went wrong then re-selling the product as refurbished. Just today, we got word from a customer of the second failure of a BMC controller. That is 2 failures for 2 kits we sold to him. I'm sure the customer isn't pleased (though he'll be getting a full refund).
Another dealer had told us about failures his customers had with these controllers, but we had had good initial results with our own beta test. Unfortunately, the design was "upgraded" from the version I tested, to a higher amp limit without an upgrade to the FETs. Apparently this "upgrade" (which should have been beta tested by BMC) was enough to strain the limits of the design... leading to frequent failures. Now they are dropping like flies, so we have to discontinue them (this is not a first). It is just bad news all around.
When BMC came out with the 1000W motor, we didn't touch it. We had a lot of previous problems with the 600W V2-S, (mostly clutch failures from the first batch). After tearing apart and fixing at least 5 of the V2-S motors for people, we stopped selling them until BMC worked the problems out (surprisingly, failures on the V2-T "torque" motors have been much rarer). BMC claim to have a new clutch for the V2-S that is improved, so we've started, very cautiously, selling a few again.
So when the 1000W motor came out, I knew it would go through major teething pains (can you say BETA test?). I'm tired of having our customers be unwitting beta testers for these manufacturers.
I don't want this to be a rant on just BMC. Look at all the problems people have had with Nine Continent motors (e.g. the recent post from Jason at e-bike kit, whom I stay in touch with). Same kinds of problems. We also got a shipment from Nine Continent that had a bunch of little (mostly correctable but time consuming) problems, including the spoke problem that Jason mentioned. We're hand-building all our Nine Continent rear wheels now here in North Carolina because the manufacturer just can't get it right.
And Crystalyte isn't immune. In the past 6 months, we've had 4 out of 5 35A Crystalyte analog controllers come back failed - a few right away, and some after many months of use. We're now replacing those with infineons, because we don't trust the Crystalytes anymore. (The Crystalyte digital controllers don't work so well with the geared motors like the BMC).
We started using infineon controllers recently. They seem to work well, but recently we got a big batch of various size controllers. Guess what? The "20A" controllers limit out at 13A, and the "30A" controllers limit out around 20A. I know why they did this - because I'm sure they've had problems with people burning them when running at the full rated limit. So they programmed them to operate below the limit. That means that a so-called "20A" is not really "20A" but "13A". Rather than send them back (a big expense), we'll now be selling the so-called "30A" controllers as "20A". Maybe that is a good thing - to sell under-rated controllers. It should significantly reduce the probability of failure. But it also makes it look like less of a bargain, asking people to pay more for a lower-rated controller.
I could go on and on. No product we've tried has been immune (and we've tried a lot as a dealer for everything from BionX to BMC to eZee to Crystalyte to Stokemonkey, though the Stokemonkey has been virtually problem-free). The failure rates are way beyond what people expect these days. Cars "just work". E-bikes need to get to that point, soon, or regular folks will just stay away (tinkerers may still keep tinkering, but that is not going to spread e-bikes far and wide like they are in China and some parts of Europe).
I'm doing this business because of my passion for e-bikes and their ability to reduce auto/oil usage (not a dime has been made, though I hope to at least repay the loans, someday). After facing one problem after another after another with these products, I ask myself, is it worth trying to promote technology that is still too rough around the edges for mass adoption? It doesn't have to be this way, if only people at all stages (manufacturers and dealers) would test products thoroughly before pushing them out. We have had to learn that that lesson the hard way. And there are other good folks out there who understand/have learned this. But there are still too many who do not. I hope the community will start putting some serious pressure on for the industry to clean up.