auraslip
10 MW
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2010
- Messages
- 3,535
I don't think I can rely on ebikes for transportation or seriously pursue this hobby anymore. It's too reliant on cheap chinese junk. In the past week alone I've had:
A) Batteries fail well before they should
B) An icharger fail (this is what really screws me. My bike building project is basically stopped until I can replace or fix it.)
C) My crystalyte hs3540 motor has developed a mechanical knocking sound.
Not to mention the dozens of other stuff I've got from china that has either failed or been so poorly made that it is practically useless. I'm talking throttles failing. Chargers failing. Motors needing new bearings straight from the factory. Caps popping off and rattling around inside controllers. Battery balancers that don't balance accurately enough to be useful. BMS that blow up instead of current limiting. Batteries puffing with out abuse and failing at 100 cycles. Name an ebike component and I've got a story about it breaking. Name a tool used in this hobby and I've got a story about it failing.
The thing is, I really want this whole ebike thing to take off. But I just can't see it happening. I built my brother in a law a nice kit from cell-man for $2k. What's going to happen when some CHINA brand shit breaks. And then something else breaks. And something else breaks. What's he going to think? How many times is cell-man going to keep sending replacement parts? Is he going to want to rip apart his bike every time it happens, or is he going to wait until next time I'm in california to fix it for him?
And the thing that really gets me is that in theory, this stuff should be stupid reliable. You buy it once and it works forever. Instead I find myself having to buy an item multiple times and it ends up costing me more than it would cost to buy a quality product (if they existed)
So I guess what I'm saying is. WANTED: EBIKE COMPONENTS MADE SOMEWHERE NOT CHINA.
A) Batteries fail well before they should
B) An icharger fail (this is what really screws me. My bike building project is basically stopped until I can replace or fix it.)
C) My crystalyte hs3540 motor has developed a mechanical knocking sound.
Not to mention the dozens of other stuff I've got from china that has either failed or been so poorly made that it is practically useless. I'm talking throttles failing. Chargers failing. Motors needing new bearings straight from the factory. Caps popping off and rattling around inside controllers. Battery balancers that don't balance accurately enough to be useful. BMS that blow up instead of current limiting. Batteries puffing with out abuse and failing at 100 cycles. Name an ebike component and I've got a story about it breaking. Name a tool used in this hobby and I've got a story about it failing.
The thing is, I really want this whole ebike thing to take off. But I just can't see it happening. I built my brother in a law a nice kit from cell-man for $2k. What's going to happen when some CHINA brand shit breaks. And then something else breaks. And something else breaks. What's he going to think? How many times is cell-man going to keep sending replacement parts? Is he going to want to rip apart his bike every time it happens, or is he going to wait until next time I'm in california to fix it for him?
And the thing that really gets me is that in theory, this stuff should be stupid reliable. You buy it once and it works forever. Instead I find myself having to buy an item multiple times and it ends up costing me more than it would cost to buy a quality product (if they existed)
So I guess what I'm saying is. WANTED: EBIKE COMPONENTS MADE SOMEWHERE NOT CHINA.