Fusin 48v gearmotor kit review.

[dogman dan]

This is the new 48v version of the Fusin motor kits sold by World Wide Electric Bikes. This was supplied to me directly by Louis at Fusin Motors, and as yet, I don't know if any dealer in the USA is carrying them.

Several improvements were made to the kit, compared to the 36v version I tested and reviewed last year. No pics at the moment, but I'll get some up soon. I will also edit and expand the first few posts as data accumulates.

The biggest change was that the motor does not freewheel. This means the Fusin kit controllers REGEN BRAKING can be used with a gearmotor. Far as I've heard, the only non freeweeling gearmotor.

The other changes were lowering the amp limit to 15 amps, vs 20 amps on the previous kit, shortening the wire between the battery and the controller by about 6 feet, and a different arrangemet of the throttle and three way switch. All the changes made sense to me, even the lowering of the amp limit. The motor provides the basic commuters needs just fine at 15 amps, while the lower limit will extend the battery range and most likely the cycle lifespan.

The previous kit had a key switch on the headlamp that carried the full voltage, making it required to have the battery wire go the length of the bike and back. Now the key still turns on and off the controller, but the motor power does not go to the headlight. Only the power to run the light goes to the handlebars, and the battery wire goes directly to the controller.

The previous kit had the three way switch on the throttle, It has been moved to the other side of the handlebars, and now is part of the horn button and light switch. This allows a throttle replacement with a standard commonly avaliable throttle if it should get broken. The three way switch enables three modes for the controller, a low speed mode that climbs a steep hill a bit better, a medium speed, and a high speed that works best on open road with no stops. As with the 36v kit, I find the mid speed provided the best performance in stop and go traveling, and climbing hills up to 5 or 6% grade. Each "speed" or "gear" has a different wattage at full cruising speed, so an easy way to economize watts is to simply select the slower speeds when more range is needed. The lowest speed is great for slow cruising on boarwalks, or walking the dog on dirt roads. The mid speed is perfect in city riding with a dang stop sign every block, and the fast speed ideal for eating up miles on the open road.

 

[dogman dan]

This review began quite some time ago, but some problems cropped up with the motor. Thinking the problem was controller related, the controller was sent back to china, thourougly tested, and checked out ok. Apparently the first motor had a bad hall sensor in it, It worked great for a few days, and then started to have an intermitent problem, and finally failed. Just one of those things that happen sometimes, and this time I got lucky and got the bad one. Not typical though, the next motor they sent works fine, on the same controller they sent back to me. Every thing you see in this picture is included in the kit.

You get a 48v planetary gear motor, 15 amp controller with regen and euro speed supressor jumper, and three speed/gear feature, 2 tourqe arms, Ebrake handles, Headlight with key switch horn and battery level indicator, headlight speed selector and horn switch, throttle and a tire with tube. It's a ton of features for the money.

Regen. Yup it works fine. It produces about 5 amps of current, which makes it compatible with a ping bms. (provided the battery is not full charged when starting down a big hill) When the brakes were set up to get only regen braking, the results were not spectacular as far as stopping the bike went, but it does eventually slow the bike down. In order to get regen on a gearmotor, the motor core does not have a freewheel, so it's a planetary gearmotor that also has the regen capability of direct drive. For those that ride up and down rolling hills all day, the regen would be worth having for sure. Since climbing a hill in the lower speed settings takes about 7 amps, and you can make 3 or 4 amps coming back down, quite a bit of range extension could be had if the terrain is just right for it. On the flat though, getting regen only when you stop, the gains would be smaller. Getting the regen to work or not as desired is as simple as connecting a jumper. So it's your choice to use or not.

Speed selector switch Love it. Loved it on the 36v kit. Wish it was part of the 9 continent kits. Having it part of the horn button, instead of the throttle is a plus. I really like riding in the middle speed, going just a bit slower without really noticing, and having just a bit better take off at stop signs, and having longer range. Speeds are about 15 mph on slow, 20 on medium, and 24 mph on fast. Pulls about 300 watts on slow, 500 watts on medium and 800 watts on fast. But if you need it, like on a hill, or start, the motor pulls all 800 watts even on the slow setting, and then settles down to the much lower wattage once moving. Much better than just having a 300 watt motor! When you need 800 watts, it's there, but you can also keep the watt mizer thing going by choosing the slower settings.

Controller. I have to dock it one smiley for only being 15 amp. While if makes a lot of sense to lower the amps from 20 to 15 if you are using a small battery, such as the 10 ah one in the kits, I would personally perfer the 20 amp model. I live on top of a hill 1000 feet above town, so losing some hill climbing performance wouldn't be my first choice. But for the majority of riders, getting better range would be the first choice and a 15 amp controller is perfect for them. After all, the bike still hits 24 mph , and the 48v version of the kit does not bog down on hills near as much as the 36v one did. So liking 20 amps does not mean I need it.

Throttle. The kit send me had a thumb throttle, while I do prefer a half twist. The throttle can be easily replaced with another generic throttle now that the three way switch is on the horn button. Previously, the speed switch was on the throttle, making choosing something else impossible.

Horn button. Combined with the light switch and three speed switch, all this is on the left side, making it easy to work the switches while using the throttle with the right hand.

Headlight, key switch and battery indicator. The same led headlight as the previous kit, wired different. The key switch turns off the controller, but the light and battery indicators are unaffected. So to turn off power to them requires a switch on the battery or unplugging. The headlight now has an on off switch, which I like, and the light takes 4 watts to run. The battery indicator is not on the throttle, so it cannot get wet and result in runaway throttle like the throttle lights can. The battery indicator seems less sensitive than the one on the 36v kit. Could be I got a 36v calibrated one? I haven't run the pack down enough to tell yet.

The motor itself. . With 130 miles on the new one, despite the flukey problem with the first one, the motor is the same solid unit as the 36v one I tested last year. I found it impossible to strip the gears on that one and believe me, I really tried to melt em. They seem much more robust than the ones that turned to peanut butter in bafangs a few years back. I opted to have the second motor to have a freewheel, since for me, regen is not a big deal. The first motor ran long enough for me to test it, and prove that it worked well. If I lived at the bottom of the hill, instead of the top, regen would be great for me, but living on top, I'd get regen just when I don't want it.

After a few more days commuting on the kit, I couldn't be more happy with it. Same very thrifty and easy on the battery features I loved on the 36v kit, but with the few mph more speed and a bit more power up the hills making it just about right for a solid commuter setup. At first I was disappointed that the controller was 15 amp instead of 20, but acutally this works out just fine.

 

[dogman dan]

More pics to come

 

[amberwolf]

Apparently the first motor had a bad hall sensor in it, It worked great for a few days, and then started to have an intermitent problem, and finally failed.

I was going to ask how the new motor worked out, but forgot till seeing this.

So far here the 36V is still going strong after a couple hundred miles or more, even when used to haul a couple hundred pounds of trailer/cargo plus me and the DGAmII and it's heavy NiMH pack/cargopod and my zillion-pound bike jic toolbag (well, maybe 8 or 9 pounds).

I'm still playing with metal bits of different shapes in the freewheel to get it to jam better so I can test it's regen, but not so great luck yet. Gotta make 3 custom-shaped filler pieces to get the rollers in the FW to stay jammed on the surface, and not spring back up. Been busy/tired/lazy so didn't yet. Probably gonna get back to that as soon as I take the wheel apart to fix the part of the rim I bent last week.

Other than the parts I've managed to abuse beyond expectations and break, I love the 36V kit.

 

[chvidgov.bc.ca]

I just have the motor without the rest of the kit, and I'm running it at 48 volts with a 35 amp infineon controller from ebikes.ca in a 406 20 inch wheel. I've put maybe five hundred miles on my Raleigh 20 folder with the motor, and it tops out around 22mph with a Ping 15Ahr battery. It seems like a good match so far, and I enjoy the freewheeling. Somewhat louder than Crystalyte, but generally only loudest on hills when I'm pulling over 10 amps. Its a very strong cut-in on the throttle as the gears bite - a little bit less would be nice, as I have to be careful not to goose the throttle too fast. It took some experimenting to get it wired up originally, but not too much trouble. Its a nice little motor for smaller "townie" type bikes.

 

[Russell]

The motor itself. . With 130 miles on the new one, despite the flukey problem with the first one, the motor is the same solid unit as the 36v one I tested last year. I found it impossible to strip the gears on that one and believe me, I really tried to melt em. They seem much more robust than the ones that turned to peanut butter in bafangs a few years back. I opted to have the second motor to have a freewheel, since for me, regen is not a big deal. The first motor ran long enough for me to test it, and prove that it worked well. If I lived at the bottom of the hill, instead of the top, regen would be great for me, but living on top, I'd get regen just when I don't want it.

I'm sure they would melt if you tortured them like the guys did with the Bafangs! I inspected the gears on my Bafang at 3,000 and 4,000 miles and they look like new so I think that old "peanut butter" deal can be chalked up to a few overexuberant fellows running far too much power into the little motors.

Regen. Yup it works fine. It produces about 5 amps of current, which makes it compatible with a ping bms. (provided the battery is not full charged when starting down a big hill) When the brakes were set up to get only regen braking, the results were not spectacular as far as stopping the bike went, but it does eventually slow the bike down. In order to get regen on a gearmotor, the motor core does not have a freewheel, so it's a planetary gearmotor that also has the regen capability of direct drive. For those that ride up and down rolling hills all day, the regen would be worth having for sure. Since climbing a hill in the lower speed settings takes about 7 amps, and you can make 3 or 4 amps coming back down, quite a bit of range extension could be had if the terrain is just right for it. On the flat though, getting regen only when you stop, the gains would be smaller.

5A doesn't sound like much at all. Have you measured the total regen Watt-hours over a ride yet? I have a controller capable of regen braking but I don't have ebrakes hooked up to test that function. I also don't run a torque arm so I didn't want the back and forth axle motion. I did want to see how much regen I was getting down hills when my speed exceeded the no-load speed and current began to flow back to the battery. I reversed the WU meter and at the end of the 31 mile trip I got a paltry 2.5Wh total reverse energy flow with a peak current of 11.6A (no doubt when I briefly hit 36 mph down one hill). It would be interesting to see how much you got over a typical commute.

Controller. I have to dock it one smiley for only being 15 amp. While if makes a lot of sense to lower the amps from 20 to 15 if you are using a small battery, such as the 10 ah one in the kits, I would personally perfer the 20 amp model. I live on top of a hill 1000 feet above town, so losing some hill climbing performance wouldn't be my first choice. But for the majority of riders, getting better range would be the first choice and a 15 amp controller is perfect for them. After all, the bike still hits 24 mph , and the 48v version of the kit does not bog down on hills near as much as the 36v one did. So liking 20 amps does not mean I need it.

36V x 20A = 720W
48V x 15A = 720W

Both should produce equal hill-climbing performance. With my Bafang switching from 15A to 20A with a 48V battery was roughly equal to a 1 mph gain on a 7-8% hill. If you want 20A though it only takes a little bit of solder on the shunts. :wink:

I originally wanted to buy one of the Fusin motors (motor only) but none have been available separately. My experience with my Bafang with a locked up clutch showed me it makes the geared motor work great with a sensorless controller but it would never be worth it for the power returned to the battery. If the Fusin provided a good amount of braking power it would be useful for some people but unfortunately you have not found that to be the case. I'll be switching back to a freewheeling clutch in the near future.


-R

 

[dogman dan]

Since I didn't have a cycleanayst yet last winter, I never did ride with the regen and a proper wattmeter. I was just using the automototive amp meter to see what the peak amps regen would be. Don't want to put more than 5 amps back into my ping bms per pings instructions.

I never did go down a large hill with the regen enabled before the motor halls fizzled, and then got the replacement motor to have a freewheel. I had planned to do some riding on Organ pass using regen and then measure the watts to charge. Then repeat with out regen. But the motor started acting funny pretty quick. I simply live in the wrong place to use regen much. So I'm not a fan of regen. I just like to pack on another ping to go far.

But this was an interesting chance to try a gearmotor without a freewheel, and I found I prefer a freeweel to having regen.

Using the regen just for braking, I'd see a 5 amp spike when the brakes were put on at 23 mph, and then it would drop to very low amps. So the power put back in by braking only would be really really small I think. The weight of a bike simply doesn't store much kinetic energy. Put regen on a train though, and then you get something back worth measuring.

You point out the watts are the same on the two kits, but the 36v kit had a 15 amp controller, so the watts on the 36v kit were lower than this kit. With the extra 200 watts or so, this kit does better into wind, and up hills than the 36v one did. But lowering the amps kept it closer to complying with the ebike watt limits in the US, where the 20 amp 48v kit was clearly way above the 1000watt line.

 

[Russell]

You point out the watts are the same on the two kits, but the 36v kit had a 15 amp controller, so the watts on the 36v kit were lower than this kit. With the extra 200 watts or so, this kit does better into wind, and up hills than the 36v one did. But lowering the amps kept it closer to complying with the ebike watt limits in the US, where the 20 amp 48v kit was clearly way above the 1000watt line.

My mistake, I thought the 36V kit had a 20A controller. 48V/15A is a safe power level for a small geared motor and it is a nice improvement over 36V/15A to be sure. I ran my Bafang for about 1,000 miles at 36V/15A then for 2,000 miles at 48V/15A, then after removing the hall wiring (a weak link in the Bafangs) I switched to a 20A+ controller for the last 1,300 miles.

I don't notice the locked up clutch all that much when on pedal power alone, how about you? I doubt it adds more than 5-10W of additional resistance though every little bit does make a difference when on low human only power. One thing it does do however is limit my speed down hills as it adds additional drag above and beyond turning the gears when it starts regen'ing at speeds over no-load but it's of course no different than a direct drive motor in that respect. For someone with a long decent it might be desireable.

-R

 

[Russell]

I'm still playing with metal bits of different shapes in the freewheel to get it to jam better so I can test it's regen, but not so great luck yet. Gotta make 3 custom-shaped filler pieces to get the rollers in the FW to stay jammed on the surface, and not spring back up. Been busy/tired/lazy so didn't yet. Probably gonna get back to that as soon as I take the wheel apart to fix the part of the rim I bent last week.

Amberwolf,

J-B Cold Weld has worked out quite well for me. It did take a lot of prep work with a dremel to roughen up all of the surfaces so it would adhere to the steel surfaces. I didn't think it would survive the shear forces but so far so good after nearly 1,300 miles!

-R

 

[amberwolf]

J-B Cold Weld has worked out quite well for me. It did take a lot of prep work with a dremel to roughen up all of the surfaces so it would adhere to the steel surfaces. I didn't think it would survive the shear forces but so far so good after nearly 1,300 miles!

I don't think it has to take any shear--I think it's all compression inside the freewheel mech, the way it's made, if just filling the space like your pics showed.

I don't want to permanently disable the FW, because if regen doesn't do as much for me as FW coasting does, then I will take it back to FW. Making some metal bits to exactly fill the space behind the rollers so they can't go back up in their slots is the best way I can think of to do this. It's just time-consuming and tedious.

 

[dogman dan]

I kinda liked the freewheel coasting better than the regen, but honestly, I didn't give it much of a try. The first ride to work the motor started acting up. I only put about 50miles on that motor. But again, what good is regen to me, I barely use the battery going to work, and uphill home regen won't help. If you went up and down small hillls all the way both ways, then regen would be usefull.

Nothing wrong with these motors in general though, the new one is working great! So is the one I tested before. They are very nice gearmotors.

The 48v 15 amp configuration is much nicer than the 36v 15 amp controller, and still as close to legal as other kits on the american market. There seems to be little interest from the cops in the US as long as you remain below 25 mph and stop at the stop signs, ride on the right side of the street, etc. So a 750 watt bike that goes 23 mph fits the US market niche perfect. And as was pointed out, shunts are easy to mod.

 

[Drunkskunk]

I'm Impressed.
I remember when the guys from Fussion first came to ES with their motor, claiming regen and a freewheeling motor. I was impressed by them at the time that they retracted their claim of regen when it was pointed out that the two options couldn't co exsist. Now it looks like they have worked out a solution to make it work.


So have you had a chance to compare this to the geared motor Ebikekits has out?

 

[amberwolf]

If you went up and down small hillls all the way both ways, then regen would be usefull.

I figure if it works the way it should, then it would be useful here even though it's flat, because of my constant starts and stops from traffic and road signage. Even if it does not provide a lot of power back to the pack, if it successfully slows me from 13-16MPH down to 5MPH quickly without wearing my mechanical brake pads, it's a winner.

Did you have to send back the failed-hall core to get the new one?

 

[dogman dan]

No I have the core, and brought it to the death race in case you showed up. I keep meaning to mail it to you to play with. I'll try to get it done soon.

But the effect of the regen for stopping you is pretty weak. You can actually feel some stopping, but it just takes forever to do it. Slightly better than just coasting. I'd guess you'd save enough brake pad wear to leave em on for an additional week. I don't have any experienc with other regen setups so I can't say if it's weak compared to others or not. Just my impression was that it doesn't provide much resistance at all. It does not feel like putting on the brakes, more like you have a brake slightly dragging. Perhaps the gearmotors leverage works in reverse with regen? So the force is diluted by the planetary gears? I don't know.

I haven't been sent the ebike kit gearmotor to test yet. But I suspect they are fairly similar, except the fusin has no disk mounts. For sure though, Fusin is a class act, and is listening and improving. The wiring of the new kit is much improved.

 

[amberwolf]

No I have the core, and brought it to the death race in case you showed up. I keep meaning to mail it to you to play with. I'll try to get it done soon.

I'm not worried; just was curious. Tell me postage and whatever so I can send you at least that.

I really really wish I could've made it to the race, for a lot of reasons, this included I suppose. There's still the Fall thing and then next year.

But the effect of the regen for stopping you is pretty weak. You can actually feel some stopping, but it just takes forever to do it. Slightly better than just coasting.

Hmm. Then maybe mine already *is* locking up the freewheel just fine with those little connector nuts I stuck in there, and I'm not feeling much regen just because of the electronics design.

It sounds like they are only providing regen when motor voltage > pack voltage by bucking it back in there, instead of boosting it to feed it in even when the motor voltage is lower. If so, then that's not a very good regen design, as it will not recapture enough power to be worth it, and it will not provide real braking force at all, basically. Not at the speeds they designed it to work at.

If it were doing what I expect it to, it'd be fairly forceful braking down to probably walking speeds, especially since it's geared so the wheel will spin the motor itself quite fast compared to a direct drive hub, and I gather some of those can have some fairly good braking force down to slower speeds.

Strange.

It does not feel like putting on the brakes, more like you have a brake slightly dragging.

That is about what it feels like on my "fixed" freewheel, which is why I assumed it was still freewheeling.

Perhaps the gearmotors leverage works in reverse with regen? So the force is diluted by the planetary gears? I don't know.

It should actually be multiplied by them, in that the wheel speed is multiplied to spin the motor much faster and create more voltage.

I have noticed for instance that even if I have power keyswitched off so battery is disconnected from light/controller/etc, the full light bar will still ramp up (barely lit, flickering) even just walking the bike, so it's spinning that motor fairly fast in there to get that kind of voltage no-load, I think. I have not tried riding with it switched off yet; I didn't want to generate too high a voltage and have it break something in the controller, assuming that they don't have protection against that.

For sure though, Fusin is a class act, and is listening and improving.

I wonder if it is worth asking them about the regen issue, and seeing if it is just a software implementation that can be updated in firmware? The controller does appear to have the connections to do this onboard when it's opened up.

I certainly do like the little thing well enough. It gets me around, and as I get better batteries will probably do long range stuff fairly well. We'll see how it holds up to summer heat fairly soon.