My new eBike shop: Structuring, building, and pricing. Reflections and criticisms please.

[orcasprout]

Update from me:
I feel like the slow season never happened. I'm busy with taxes, marketing, networking, B Corp initiatives, and THEN the garage!

Each cheap internet bike that comes in is a nightmare with some unknown. Hours of labor later, it turns out the ground pin on a JST was loose and then finally fell off. "Hey, why is it working now and then stops? NOTHING changed!" (except I jostled the JST) I went back and forth...and back and forth...and back and forth (get the picture).

Basically I'm learning everything the hard way and slogging through a new situation everyday.

If any eBike repair bodhisattva wishes to parachute into my garage I be really grateful. It would involve a lot of smacking me upside the head at times. "Why did you do it that way when YOU KNEW the other way was better!!!?"

I'm building (in my head) an "eBike repair shop manual" which needs:

A cross referanceable guide to eBike repair including which display and controllers are compatible with pinouts and language used (UART/CANBUS/etc).​

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How to tackle the "I hit a bump and now it does not run" repair. It starts with verifying the good components work first (ask me how I learned this! Ha ha!)​

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I also need a printable "plug pin out sheet" so I can trace wires and label. Basically nice images of all the types of plugs so I can label them.​

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Ways to estimate the cost ahead of time. It's such a pile of rabbit holes each day.​

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That said, I'm really appreciating all the aspects of the world I'm in now. It feels like I'm creating, fixing, living, interacting, and building. What more could one ask for?

Lets hope the learning does not involve fire or electrocution. Soon (maybe next year even) I'll need to find a larger space that has a great location and is affordable (ha ha yeah I know how this sounds).

 

[leffex]

UART/CANBUS I do still stay out. Allthough you can tinker with it for fun but I mean it takes a lot of time to figure out starting from blanc. For example I could get a bms of a non-oem bosch ebike battery brand working on the charge side but it didn't give output or correct signals to the Bosch electric while connected on an ebike. Because the said bms would brick itself if it was discharged below a certain threshold or disconnected from the two battery mains connections inside the battery.

Bike store managers and workers are a breed of themselves. Every day is a surprise how your day will be. How's your day? Sure, it was filled with surprises for sure and special cases needing utmost care and strength. Then all the other business sides that you care for and the people you meet gives eye-poping moments worth it all over or the phone calls that makes you wonder why the call was made. Very funny moments. I agree with the work description it is like a man of all trades situation.

I think the way you work makes good for learning. I don't think I do it the exact same way as you are but both are good ways and another person would do it another way.

About the connectors sometimes I had that trouble with that it was out a few but that was enough to make it a no go. Solution was. New display and cable. Redo the connector only with a new one and keep it all. Some brands or connectors on a branded bike was bad so you could eventually spot a pattern and worthy things to check for.

Today on a technical side note I had a 7 gear hub and the large side plastic side had pushed through and the axle beads was all over the place. A job for me on Monday to fix. I have some spares I will try and use and if that won't work I'll just push a new 7 gear assembly into the empty wheel hub and call it set.

Working faster or hiring a new guy to take of some work load can keep you in the garage still. Some re-arranging and fast flow can also make it work until you decided for a good place to have your business.