GNG 48v 450w - delivered yesterday and it was not pretty

Ch00paKabrA

10 kW
Joined
Mar 15, 2013
Messages
670
Location
the Jersey Shore, NJ
When I was doing my first build, I made the statement that "I would probably never do a high power, high speed build". Wesnewell wisely countered that and I guess he was right. I intend to run this motor at 60v to 72v. I have not bought the battery or controller yet.

Unfortunately the package looked like it went through a war zone when I received it yesterday.

Here is a picture of the kit I bought. Circled in red are those components that are missing and circled in blue are those components that are damaged.

I got it from Laurie Fang on AliExpress so I guess I will find out what kind of customer service she has.
 

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This is the brushed one right? I destroyed one in 6 weeks stock power. the housing of the motor is not really designed to handle the pulling force from the chain reduction. I chipped the the magnets inside them as the result of the screws that holds the motor together stripping. fixed that issue somewhat then start having chain drops in the 2nd reduction. The motor really runs hot at 48v. you could actually smell the grease from the gear primary reduction getting cooked. sigh. it's a waste of money IMO. :x
 
sigh. it's a waste of money IMO. :x

Its amazing how many people waste money on GNG kits on these forums with or without upgrades due to all the hype about them on here. People think buying the cheapest kits is a good idea at the start until all the problems start and then you need to spend a lot of time and money repairing and upgrading very cheap and non reliable parts. Either buy a more expensive reliable kit to start with or factor in the real cost of a cheap kit is probably double or tripple what you will pay at the start in repairs and upgrades. But most people just give up and go back to hub drives after such bad experience.... i think with mid drive its a lot harder to get working reliably so either do it properly or stick with hub motors.
 
That looks like the old GNG brushed 450w kit.

As far as reliability is concerned, its nothing like the brushless kit in my experience.
What with Lightningrod's various parts the brushless 450w motor is excellent. It isn't however a solution for those who just want something they can slap on in 15mins and it'll work reliably forever (some have had them do just that but I'm guessing the majority of users have had to tweak their build's).

What you're calling "hype" is "good feedback". This is an open forum, anyone with a problem is as welcome to post as anyone with a good experience.
The fact is, there are a LOT of people who have built bikes with the GNG brushless kit who have had a really good time with it.
A lot of those people actually don't mind fiddling, and making things better and the results are that there are fairly straight forward paths to what ends up as a superior e-bike if you're after something for offroading, climbing hills, or even for general use without spending a fortune to get it.

Good luck Ch00paKabrA, I hope the supplier you used comes through for you.
 
Yes, it is the brushed kit, and yes, it was cheap. It is basically just for a back-up bike while I finish converting my ironhorse bike to a 2wd hub motors bike. Plus, I kind of like the noise it makes.

I have been in touch with the distributor and I have a tracking number for the missing and broken parts. She is sending it express so I should have it rather quickly.

I have a 36v controller so I think I will run it on 36v initially and see how fast it goes.

I know that there are a lot of people on this forum who diss this kit but I really don't care. For me, it is a toy. Even though I don't drive any more, this is not for my main transportation.

I guess we will see if it good or not. Time will tell.
 
So when you say GNG do you mean these guys - www.gngebike.com

Tell me with the powder snow I have here in Alberta now, and with some beach riding I want to do in the future; is the mid-drive system the way to go? will the snow and sand kill the DD and/or geared hub?
and is there a ton of torque on the mid drive system? I think for a guy like me at close to 300lbs I should be looking at a torque setup, rather then a speed setup. All I really care about doing is like 40km/h=25mph and at most 50km/h=30mph.
 
calab said:
So when you say GNG do you mean these guys - http://www.gngebike.com

Tell me with the powder snow I have here in Alberta now, and with some beach riding I want to do in the future; is the mid-drive system the way to go? will the snow and sand kill the DD and/or geared hub?
and is there a ton of torque on the mid drive system? I think for a guy like me at close to 300lbs I should be looking at a torque setup, rather then a speed setup. All I really care about doing is like 40km/h=25mph and at most 50km/h=30mph.

This is my first experience with a mid drive so I really am not competent enough about them to give a definitive answer. I bought this kit for a number of reasons:

Brushed motors are simple to work on and I am no genius
the kit was cheap
If I like the mid drive set up, I will switch to a more reliable brushless motor and put this on a bmx kick scooter for my nephew.

Once I get the parts, I will open up another build thread probably in the pictures section though.
 
calab, for snow I would recommend a 2WD set-up, and the affordable experiment would be using two Bafang-BPMs. If you have a wide fork on a fat-bike, you may need to use two of the rear BPM's which have the wider axles. I have been pointed towards 2WD by people in Russia and Canada who apparently know their snow quite well. As far as personal experience, I am old and wimpy, I stay indoors when it snows.

In the spring/summer/fall, you can temporarily swap your front BPM to a friends bicycle rear to have two bikes with rear wheel drive (or your back-up E-bike?)...
 
I've had good luck in the Ontario snow this winter. I've been bombing around here and there and everything has held up fine...for now

This is its first winter so we'll see how it goes with the temp and condensation and salt. 2wd might be a nice good solution though with fat tires. I've had a few slide outs with all the torque it puts out to just the rear. It's fun but tricky to get used to.

Going through half cleared pathways is kinda squirrelly if the snow is in that rough slushy stage between powder and good packing snow.

(450w brushless fairly stock)
 
calab said:
So when you say GNG do you mean these guys - http://www.gngebike.com

Tell me with the powder snow I have here in Alberta now, and with some beach riding I want to do in the future; is the mid-drive system the way to go? will the snow and sand kill the DD and/or geared hub?
and is there a ton of torque on the mid drive system? I think for a guy like me at close to 300lbs I should be looking at a torque setup, rather then a speed setup. All I really care about doing is like 40km/h=25mph and at most 50km/h=30mph.

Ok do what I did and adapt a Ktrak kit to your GNG works well in the snow. I have not tried it in sand yet.

Nothing can give you the torque you find with a mid drive that leverages your bicycle gears. You will need to spend 5 x more money on a hub motor setup to come to anything close to the same level of torque.

Wishes
 
Some of it is at least there :eek:
[youtube]qJdZgQwRMBk[/youtube]
 
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