Tons of dead, 1-2 year old prebuilt EVs out there

neptronix said:
The only thing i'm cautious about is that i don't want this site to become electricbikereview's forums.
Don't want to water down what's great about ES, you know.

But at the same time, we have some ebike hackers here doing interesting stuff and seem to draw the open source crowd.

Unlocking a bricked bike for a song, i feel like, does play to ES' classic ethos in a modern way that will become more relevant over time i think. Weren't many of the first ES members prebuilt scooter hackers..?

What's most important to me is that we keep up with the times but always orient towards the nerds & the enthusiasts versus the casual ebike consoomer..

If we do 'change with the times', let's say, i think one requirement would be a very obvious differentiation between factory stuff vs homebuild central.

Interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on the matter.
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I think you should try it for a few months, see what we get. It is sparse to find troubleshooting or less invasive ways to improve a prebuilt rather than simply replacing all the proprietary parts. I did find a thread here for Yamaha batteries that I think fits the intent (Yamaha hacking dongle to use 3rd party batteries). I don't know much of anything about CANBUS and deciphering that code to unlock features, hopefully the bike industry has less resources to expend hiding replacements behind smoke screens like the Auto industry.

I think this forum is also fairly quick to throw vendors into the correct part of the forum since many in this community are suspicious of those types showing up. As far as the people taking ideas from here and making a business, meh. I have no interest in running a small business with next to no margin and as we have agreed already, there isn't much available to "unbrick" the bike on the internet currently. That happened on the Modified Razors facebook groups where there werent many 3rd party customizations for all the Razor toys, then people started seeing a market for it and now there's like 40-50 of those vendors offering various options. The ones that sell Aliexpress parts with their stupid logo and a 20% markup, I don't buy from.
 
Thanks for bumping this thread, i needed the reminder.
I created the subforum now since most are in agreement with the change.

MorbidlyObeseKoala said:
I think this forum is also fairly quick to throw vendors into the correct part of the forum since many in this community are suspicious of those types showing up. As far as the people taking ideas from here and making a business, meh. I have no interest in running a small business with next to no margin and as we have agreed already, there isn't much available to "unbrick" the bike on the internet currently.
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I'm not too worried about that. In fact, we love seeing businesses get their start here. Our only concern is that the threads are classified correctly and nobody's doing sneaky guerilla marketing, as is common on social media platforms.
 
I have a Bosch diploma sitting on my wall yeah I took their course they would love you too.
But they only want you to replace with their priority type only components and don't put the resistor doggo in there or is your voice you warranty.
Wait for the warranty to get up then put the doggle
 
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We should start a new form in the new and uused section that says free.
Then we can advertise have broken ebikes and parts for free.
Nep that would please me.ed
Free section.Free section. I'm protesting.
 
Once we get the knowledgebase setup, the online marketplace is the next thing to get a bit upgrade.
So hold that thought! You can list an item for $0 in the existing section for now.
 
......"Well the cool thing about electric drive trains in general, is; a motor is a motor, a controller is a controller, and a battery is a battery. In other words, they are just modules with interfaces, don't like what you got, bypass it, yank it out, or replace with whatever suits yer fancy."
Absolutely!
Three wires come out of the motor, and two wires come out of the battery.. all the rest is just fluff.
there are literally hundreds of controllers out there in Amazonia for less than 50 bucks. Use your head and don't give up. You can do it!
 
eljimbo said:
......"Well the cool thing about electric drive trains in general, is; a motor is a motor, a controller is a controller, and a battery is a battery.
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Well, yes... but no.

Electrical components are inherently like that, but today's manufacturers of high end e-bikes love to add on features that make their basic components like motors and batteries incompatible with any other parts. You can bypass that mess, but at a research and rework cost that makes it more economical to throw them away and start over with parts that are focused on our goals instead of the manufacturers'.

Part of the extra cost you pay when you buy "premium" e-bikes and kits is the unnecessary engineering and components that serve only to keep you from doing whatever you want with the thing you bought. What a bargain!
 
Above and the other negative is that within the same model (because each manufacturer is searching for minute selling "improvements"), even year to year the systems change so much that this years' aren't compatible with last years'. Meanwhile, my nine year old BBS02 (which has never needed it) still can be rebuilt.
 
I exclusively buy new bicycles that use old standards lately. You can still buy bikes with QR axles and 68mm bottom brackets today from major brands actually.
All the parts are very cheap and so is the bike.

Bicycles have only improved incrementally over the last 25 years. A bike with this long array of proprietary standards versus old might be 1lbs lighter and slightly stiffer.

In today's market, if you are not an informed consumer, you're a screwed consumer.
 
it does seem like ebike builders are getting away from custom in-frame batteries and going with the more universal downtube and silverfish designs. probably cuz more buyers are avoiding bikes that will need 5-800 buck batteries with a 1 month wait instead of an amazon battery that will be there tomorrow.
 
derekderek said:
it does seem like ebike builders are getting away from custom in-frame batteries and going with the more universal downtube and silverfish designs.
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Where do you see this trend?! In Germany, you see 90% Bosch middrives with integrated batteries in the cities and in the woods....
Boring, expensive, but popular. :sick:
The main argument from the users: Every bicycle workshop in any small village can repair it, has spare parts in stock, you get it run again within a day. Doesn't matter, if you are at home or on vacation somewhere.
Not my world, I prefer things, that I can build and repair on my own.... ;)
 
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If you don't have the EE skills, or find help on the 'net, you could just replace all the electrics.

Most ideal is an ebike that doesn't have a custom protocol between the battery and controller to start the battery. In that case, you don't also have to replace the battery's BMS, switching the controller will do.
 
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The least likely candidate is a big brand name factory bike.

Any opportunity they get, they will lock you out from replacing a single part.
If nobody has done the reverse engineering yet, and you don't have the skillset to do it yourself, i'd steer clear.

Even if you do hack a bike like that, you're very limited on what kind of upgrades you can do.
I'm personally not into that. Motor technology is still evolving and bikes that have standardized interfaces for parts are superior for their adaptability and upgradeability.
 
neptronix said:
If you don't have the EE skills, or find help on the 'net, you could just replace all the electrics.

Most ideal is an ebike that doesn't have a custom protocol between the battery and controller to start the battery. In that case, you don't also have to replace the battery's BMS, switching the controller will do.
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This is exactly why I didn’t choose a proprietary bike.

Though I love projects, something like a dead fleet bike, or scooter, would be fun.
 
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I could never give up having what's basically the 2000's tower PC equivalent of the bicycle world.

It will never be sleek, but i can upgrade it till the end of time, so..

found-my-old-pc-in-the-basement-what-should-i-do-with-it-v0-bqia2kxrld6d1.jpg
 
neptronix said:
The least likely candidate is a big brand name factory bike.

Any opportunity they get, they will lock you out from replacing a single part.
If nobody has done the reverse engineering yet, and you don't have the skillset to do it yourself, i'd steer clear.
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Dockless rental bikes and scooters often have a similar design ethic, but for different reasons. They're designed to foil thieving scums by having all the undocumented secret-handshake stuff, but also by violating industrial customs and by using proprietary connectors. The last batch of scooter batteries I bought in for cheap conversions had black positive and red negative leads on the charge and discharge ports. On top of that, their discharge wires were in very small diameter overmolded connectors and round jackets that make it tricky to tease out the wires without shorting them.
 
I see why they do that. Too bad the buyer of the big box brand ebike gets treated the same, lol.
 
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