Yescomusa.com 500 & 1000 watt 48v rear kit review

[mcintyretj]

Yescomusa.com 500 watt 48v rear kit review

Basics:
Motor: direct drive,
Rim: seems nice, no problems but not centered
Spokes: seem to be good quality
Tire: good enough road/hybrid (no flats yet @ 400 miles)
Total weight: 12-14 pounds (I did not weigh it but it is lighter than the 16 pound battery)
Controller: yes, wires seem thin but get the job done
Brakes: cheap but could be used if needed
Rack: solid metal, heavy
Back rack bag: good size but not as big as the photo on line
Battery charger: for lead-acid battery no good for a LifePO4 battery.
Back dropout width needed: 150mm+
Rider: 140 pounds
Top speed no peddling: 25mph, with hard peddling: 27mph
Range with 48v 15ah ping: 28+ miles
Hills: 600’ elevation gain in less than 2 miles (done 4x with hard peddling) and not much heat from the motor, controller or wires.

**********

With so many kits to choose from, it is not an easy decision, but since the yescomusa warehouse is just down the street from where I work, I narrowed my choices to the rear 500w or 1000w kits, both 48v. I stopped by after work one day and was impressed with their service and after paying $230.00 cash, I walked out with the 48v 500w kit. The web site numbers along with my calculations showed the 1000w kit doing about 30mph while the 500w kit was closer to 25mph. My goal was to make it to work 26+ miles using a 48v 15ah ping battery. I also wanted to shorten my current ebike (http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=38215) commute time and not spend too much time or money because, like most people here, I will probably be upgrading again soon.




I did not have a bike yet so I asked my brother if I could test it out on his aluminum mountain bike. I was not surprised that it did not fit a standard 135 dropout. I measured/eyeballed the hub space needed at 158mm. So, I set off to the swap meet in search of a cheap metal-framed bike that I could spread to the required width. For $35.00 I found a bike that was labeled “chromolly” and after removing the back wheel, stepping on one side and pulling up hard on the other side of the rear dropout, I had a165mm opening. The directions showed both washers on the outside (each side), however, the small sprocket was hitting the frame so I had to put one washer inside of each dropout to make space (washer-frame-washer-spacer-hub-spacer-washer-frame-washer). Also, like many of these kits, the wheel was slightly off center but good enough. I can fix this later. The back rack that came with the kit seemed strong but a little heavy. To install it, I would have to remove the hall connectors, which seemed like too much work. I threw the rack in the recycle bin and borrowed a rack from another bike. The thumb throttle was easy to install. I dropped the controller and battery in the supplied back rack bag, hooked up the wires and was soon zooming up and down the street at 25mph without peddling. I was amazed that it worked. The kit came with brakes, which I have not installed, but no PAS(?) system that attaches to the crank. I see these on many of the other ebay kits but not on this one.



Next, I mounted the battery in the triangle using a piece of aluminum bent in an “L” shape that I attached to the water bottle cage mounts (I copied this from a youtube video). I also used some of the foam that came with the battery, contact cement, Velcro, Velcro straps, and some zip ties to secure it along with a dollar store bag. I also threw the controller in with the battery because I had enough room then cut some good sizes holes for ventilation/cooling. The ping battery is only 4 inches wide so the triangle is a perfect place for it. I also loaded the back rack bag with rim tape, a pump, flat protecting liner, and a slime tube fully expecting to get a flat on my first commute. The charger is in there too.





The tire is still fine, however, on my first commute, the motor started to make some loud vibrations and lost about 80% power so I peddled on home and drove to work. I checked later and found the green wire had become disconnected. For my next try, I made sure all the wires were pushed/clicked in then I taped all the connections. Since then I have 7 rides into work with no problems and I have dropped about 25 minutes each way from my commute. I usually peddle hard with full throttle to work and relax on the way home. The ping battery takes 5.5 hours to charge with the standard charger. I do not know what the range is yet but I have done 28 miles with a 600-foot climb on one charge (1200 peak elevation and I live near the beach).

I am very happy with the kit and will probably break open the controller when I have time. My ebike set-up is only temporary. I am on the lookout for a better quality bike and better, battery box/placement. This site is awesome. Thanks all for the help especially wesnell.

Tim McIntyre
Seal Beach, CA USA

 

[parajared]

Great review. I have been interested in this kit for a while. I ended up getting a magic pie instead because the yescom kit doesn't work with disc brakes.
What made you go with 500w instead of 1000?

 

[dogman dan]

Yescomusa.com keeps getting good reveiws. Good product, good price.

They are now on my recomended list, for dealers located inside the USA. YES

 

[wesnewell]

Great review. I have been interested in this kit for a while. I ended up getting a magic pie instead because the yescom kit doesn't work with disc brakes.

You need this to add disc brakes.
http://www.hnmotors.de/product_info.php?products_id=113&XTCsid=c2e41ab37d88d903d625a3c4aa6bbe0b
And this shows you how to do it.
http://www.goldenmotor.com/e-Bike-DIY/GoldenMotor%20Pro-Kit%20User%20Guide.pdf

 

[amberwolf]

Good review; keep dropping back in as you ride it longer to keep us updated.

For a second I thought that bike was a Nishiki, just like the base for my Nishik-E:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=33246

 

[mcintyretj]

1200 mile Update 7/17/12

I chose the 500watt system because I thought I would be able to make it the 27miles/43km to work with the 48v 15ah battery. Also, 25mph/40kph seemed plenty fast enough especially after doing 15-16 mph on my urban cruiser. My next project will be a 1000w48v kit.

First, my wife’s van broke down so my bike has been the only transportation option for me this summer. The back tire never got a flat but since I have a few weeks off, I decided to be proactive and take off the tire and replace it with a Wal-Mart basic mountain Kevlar bike tire. The old inter tube, which was quite thick, I used for a thorn guard/liner after cutting off the stem and slicing it open. I also found a tuffy liner and put that in as well. I am using a slime tube since I have had good luck with it. I put on some rime tape and was surprised I had not gotten a flat since there were some sharp edges and no protection. I guess a tick tube is a good idea.

This past month I have been taking the shorter, over the mountain route instead of going around. I climb about 250 meters in less than 5k with the bulk of the climb in the last 2k. I now just go at full throttle while peddling as hard as I can. I try to maintain over 34kph/21mph. If I do this, the motor does not get that warm. If I do not peddle much, and go slower up the hill, I notice it gets warmer along with the controller. Still, both are much cooler than the 48v ping charger and only about 15-20◦ F warmer than ambient temperature. To protect the controller, I removed it from the battery bag and placed it on the base tube for better cooling/air flow. I like this route to work because the road has lots of curves and cutbacks. Most cars usually go my speed or slower, both up and down the mountain so I rarely get pasted.

I have no complaints with this kit and love zooming by traffic and riding on the bike path. Recently, I noticed a vibration/squeak coming from somewhere on the bike or motor right around the 19-20mph speed. I am still looking for the cause but to avoid this vibration I just accelerate to 25mph quickly or stay at 18mph when passing non-ebikes. I am still looking to upgrade my bike and battery placement and will post later when I get started. Thanks again for all the help.

Tim McIntyre
Seal Beach, CA USA

 

[mcintyretj]

Up date 8/17/12
The range of the yesconusa.com 500-watt 48v rear kit with a 48v 15Ah ping is:

· 31 miles/50 km, with as little peddling as possible on flat ground
· 34 miles/54.7 km peddling as hard as I can almost the whole time

I am 140 pounds (63kg) and I usually have the throttle on full unless I am stopped or passing another bike on the bike path

In addition, the Ping tops out at 58.5 volts and cut off at 44.9 volts. This is according the 15-year-old Harbor Freight Tools multi meter. These readings seem a little conservative. I will double-check them later with another meter.

The kit is working great and does the hill and the 250-mile a week commute with no problems so far. My only issue has been the ping charger. The last few weeks it has been taking longer to charge the battery and the charger has been getting really hot. I kept telling myself to order a backup charger before it broke but never got around to it. Well, on Wednesday afternoon at work it stopped working.

I ordered the 48v 5 amp charger from ping less than 5 minutes after I discovered this and was lucky to get home with 51.2 volts (I peddled a lot) so I think I am good until a new charger arrives. I cracked open the broken charger and checked that I had 110vac coming into the board and the fuse and fuse housing were good. None of the components looked popped or burned and there was no signs of heat anywhere. I checked out a few threads here but did not see a common problem with these units. I also sent Ping an email. He responded quickly saying he would throw in a free 2 amp charger with my order. Now I will have one to keep at work. I had also sent an email to the only other ebiker I have met (who has since mover on to emotercycles) here in Southern California. He has an extra 48v charger set to 58.45 hvc that I can pick up tomorrow. I should be back on the road by Monday.

Tim McIntyre
Seal Beach, CA USA

 

[amberwolf]

The only really common problem with chargers is the thermistor on the AC input line, which looks like a flat-black-colored disc with two legs off one side of it's circumference. But they usually fail by burning open, so the charger appears totally dead past that point in the AC circuit.

Another common problem is the components in most chargers are not secured or mounted very well against any kind of vibration, so the legs can break off or they can simply crack the solder joints to the PCB and break connection or make such a poor connection that they dont' work as they should. This happens a fair bit in chargers that are carried on-bike, much less so in stationary ones.

Caps can fail or blow up, too, but these are usually fairly obvious, with swollen sides or tops (look at badcaps.net for examples).

 

[mcintyretj]

Thanks amberwolf, I did not see a black disc thermistor but some of the components are covered with black silicon or epoxy so it might be in that area. It looked like AC went up to the little PCB mounted on the top of the unit. That’s where the heat was radiating.

View attachment 2

View attachment 1

The first few times I charged the battery, the unit was slightly warm. The last couple of times I charged the battery, it was so hot I was worried that one of my students might touch it and get burned.

When I started poking around with my meter, I heard a loud pop, looked like I fried a diode so I gave up trying to fix the unit and drove to my friend’s house who quickly transferred the charging connector to a Mean Well 48v power supply and set the HVC at 58.4v. This setup has been working awesome all week. It is quite and charges the battery in about 5 hours. It appears to stop charging at 58.4v but the unit/fan is still on so I have it on a timer in case I am not around. I was very lucky to be only down for 2 days.



When I get my new 2A and 5A chargers from Ping I need to send the old one back. I will have 3 chargers so I will not be transporting. Thanks for all the help!

 

[mcintyretj]

Update 9/16/12

First, I cannot recommend the Walmart Bell Kevlar mountain bike tire. It has been just 2 months and the tire looks shot. Here are some photos:



This is what it looked like new:


I have to do some reading but will probably visit a real bike shop for my next tire purchase. The $60 price helped me make the decision to try these Walmart tires but they are not a good deal if they only last 900 miles. I do ride off road at times but mostly on the street.

I finally got my wife’s van fixed but I am still riding 3-4 days a week, 200 miles or so, and everything is working great. My chargers arrived from Ping after only 10 days so I have a charger at work and 2 at home.

Today I competed in a masters track meet about 5 miles from my house at CSU Long Beach and decided to strap my poles on my bike to save time and rode to the track meet (I am a masters pole vaulter). I have 4, 14’6” (4.40m) poles in the white PVC tube. My car does not have racks so it takes a lot of time to strap them on my car, then I have to walk almost a mile from street to the track. It took about 20 minutes to ride my bike and I parked on the track. Here is my friend Murray with my bike and poles:



I have a setup for my surfboard and will post photos later.

 

[parajared]

I cannot recommend the Walmart Bell Kevlar mountain bike tire. Here are some photos:

Mine do the same thing. Bontrager, and Kenda tires do this too.

 

[mcintyretj]

Up-date 12/24/12

I have almost 3500 miles so far. I have worked 91 days this school year (I am a teacher) and done the 50+ mile commute (25.1 miles each way) on my bike 65+ times. I figure the savings in gas almost covers the battery and the kit at this point. I bottom out the Ping 48v/15ah battery sometimes both ways and have a steep hill, which does not seem to heat up the motor or controller. This is what I have learned:

· Tire pressure is very important. Low pressure will effect not only range but top speed
· Cold mornings/low temperature takes a few miles off range
· Change gears once in a while (don’t always stay on the smallest sprocket on the back)
· Make sure a new tire fits correctly. Expensive bike store tires may not fit this rim
· Hobby King seems to have good products but poor packing skills

First, on cold mornings, my power started cutting off down the street from work but since it was down hill it did not brother me until it cut off a few miles away one cold morning. This triggered me to make the lipo plunge and purchase six Turnigy 20-30c 5000mah 6s batteries, a LVC alarm, and 4 battery medics.

View attachment 7
My plan was to set up 3 12s packs and bulk charge with my Mean Well power supply, balance with the medics, attach the LVC alarm, and toss one 12s pack in my back rack bag to use when the ping battery cuts off.

Also, I wanted enough power/AH (12s, 3p) to have a backup battery. I think wesnewell recommended this set-up a few times except with a proper balance charger.


This plan would have worked fine except 3 of the 4 battery medics did not work correctly. They discharged the lower cells and not the high cells. Two of my packs got very unbalanced

I tried LEDs and computer fans to manually balance the packs. I found that 10p Christmas tree lights work the best for discharging. However, each 12s pack was slightly uneven so I had to order a cheap 6s charger from HK even things out since the MeanWell could only do 12s charging. I pulled a power supply out an old “2000 compliant” machine that seemed to do the job but was rated at less than 100 watts so it took a while to balance charge. The alligator clips on the 6s charger work well with Anderson and bullet connectors.


I also purchased the small voltmeter from ebay that dogman recommended and mounted it to my handlebars. This has been working wonderfully the last month. It is nice to know exactly how much battery/power you have left on a ride or charging time left.
View attachment 1
I did have a tire problem a few months back (tire only lasting 900 miles) so I stopped by a bike store to get a good quality tire and the sales person helped my pick out this tire:

The problem I had was I could never get it to seat/set correctly on the rim. I played with it for a two weeks but it was off by almost ½ inch from low to high point. It was like riding over speed bumps so I commuted with low tire pressure. After letting the air out a dozen times, and trying to reseat the tire, I gave up and purchased a cheap target street tire that fit fine. However, the damage had been done and several spokes had come loose from the nipple. Now I need to commute with a spoke wrench and reconnect plus tighten up loose spokes weekly.

This past week the small sprocket started skipping when pumping up the hill to work. Now it skips constantly so I have to ride in the second smallest gear. It is tough to peddle 25mph that fast. I should have been using a lower gear when going over the hill each day but I was too lazy to reach past the throttle and change gears. Now I need a new cluster. I probably have not changed or used another gear since September. I will try to get a bigger front sprocket also.

Also, I am helping my brother with his ebike build and using the same kit. I will post more information about this later.

 

[The fingers]

Sometimes it takes few tries to get the tire & rim combo right. Trial and error at first, although more aggressive tread tires wear out sooner on pavement and are somewhat more difficult to pedal. At higher e-bike speeds they are also noisy.

 

[geeeyejo1]

Regarding the skipping gear on your freewheel - not likely to have worn out in so short a time. Check your chain for any sticky links, try lubing the chain. There is also a derailleur adjustment that affects the angle of the chain as it comes off the gear to the derailleur. Would check all of this before taking off the wheel and changing the freewheel

 

[wesnewell]

That looks like an off road tire to me. They will wear out very fast on pavement because only the nubs are toughing the road. It will also have lots of rolling resistance. You need a street tire to ride on streets. The bigger the better with a hardtail bike. The 26x2.40 CST Cyclpos are my choice after trying others. They will ride much smoother than the one you bought, and probably a lot cheaper too. AT 4k miles my rear tire was getting a little thin in the middle so I just ordered another one. The front hardly looks worn. I also recently switched to wider DH rims to get more surface contact which should also make them last longer.
http://www.amazon.com/CST-Cyclops-Tire-Black-Steel/dp/B00AKYJXHM/ref=sr_1_4
http://www.amazon.com/XLC-Boxed-Tube-2-75-SCHRADER/dp/B0039V26U4/ref=sr_1_7

 

[amberwolf]

That looks like an off road tire to me.

It sure does...but with a name like "Traffic" you'd expect it to be a street tire. :?

 

[dnmun]

Thanks amberwolf, I did not see a black disc thermistor but some of the components are covered with black silicon or epoxy so it might be in that area. It looked like AC went up to the little PCB mounted on the top of the unit. That’s where the heat was radiating.

View attachment 2

View attachment 1

The first few times I charged the battery, the unit was slightly warm. The last couple of times I charged the battery, it was so hot I was worried that one of my students might touch it and get burned.

When I started poking around with my meter, I heard a loud pop, looked like I fried a diode so I gave up trying to fix the unit and drove to my friend’s house who quickly transferred the charging connector to a Mean Well 48v power supply and set the HVC at 58.4v. This setup has been working awesome all week. It is quite and charges the battery in about 5 hours. It appears to stop charging at 58.4v but the unit/fan is still on so I have it on a timer in case I am not around. I was very lucky to be only down for 2 days.



When I get my new 2A and 5A chargers from Ping I need to send the old one back. I will have 3 chargers so I will not be transporting. Thanks for all the help!

just read this thread. the pcb you pointed too as heating up is a thyristor with associated circuitry that is used to switch the AC so that the charger can be used on any voltage from 120V-240V. that is why they have the 'universal voltage' label on the case.

i have identified this as a common cause of failure of all these kingpan chargers since they have introduced this. talked to ping about it, he said this has caused him to get a lotta chargers returned.

if your charger is no longer working, and if you wanna fix it, i can show you how to remove the thyristor daughter board and rewire it with a jumper so it runs on 120V AC instead of through the thyristor.

 

[mcintyretj]

Thanks for the replies,

dnmun, I have 3 of these 2a chargers, the 24v one is fine but the replacement 48v charger is starting to get real hot and will probably stop working soon. If you have an fix I would love to try it.

geeeyejo1, The small geer looks ok. I measured the round as about 1/32 larger than the next geer. I will try lubing the chain and playing with the derailer before I replace it. Here is a picture
View attachment 2

wesnewell, thanks for the link. Those Cyclops tires are just what I was looking for. The LBS has a limited supply and I am a procrastinator so I had to pick what they had. This tire acually has good rubber down the middle:

If anyone wants a free hybrid tire It is just sitting in my living room. This is a "wired" tire. I am not sure what the differenct is but the other tires that fit better were "beaded" tires.

Here is my bike today:


Thanks to all and happy holidays
Tim McIntyre

 

[miro13car]

what is that in frying pan?
your Lithium Polymer battery?
that is funny
I would never think about placing my LiFePo cells in that!
I don't blame you after seeing all those videos and posts here.

 

[geeeyejo1]

Gear looks good - if lube and adjustment does not work wold replace the chain first before popping a new freewheel on - couldn't hurt and might save a lot of work...

 

[mcintyretj]

miro13car, the pan is to protect the battery from this guy:


He has caused me more trouble & time. He was baned to the balcony for a while because he can chew through cables and cords like they are nothing. He is on parroll this winter and back in the house because of his, and my 13 year old daughter's, good behavior

 

[mcintyretj]

1-3-13 update

First, I had the chain professionally replaced at a new triathlon (swim/bike/run) store down the street from my kid’s school. The mechanic also adjusted both deraillers and lubed everything for a total cost of $20.00. He seemed very interested in electric bikes after I gave him the ebike basics, he explained why my ($35 swap meet) bike was such a good ebike: forged dropouts, stable design, heavy/strong tubing. He said if the new chain did not stop the skipping problem, he could replace the back 6speed cassette for $20.00.

However, on the ride home when I peddled hard in the smallest gear, it still skipped. I was not too disappointed because I found a good local bike mechanic that wanted to work on ebikes.

He also offered to rebuild the wheel when he noticed I had spokes that were not connected.


He had a special ingredient/compound that he used to secure the spokes that was made by Boeing. He just squirted on when he got the spoke to the right tension.

I forgot to mention in my last post that the v (rim) brakes were causing a gouged/channel about 1/8 inches deep on each side of the back rim. This concerns me because I usually do not brake much and the rim cannot be much thicker. I will probably be rebuilding this wheel soon.




Thanks again for all the help,
Tim McIntyre
Seal Beach, CA USA

 

[amberwolf]

I forgot to mention in my last post that the v (rim) brakes were causing a gouged/channel about 1/8 inches deep on each side of the back rim. This concerns me because I usually do not brake much and the rim cannot be much thicker. I will probably be rebuilding this wheel soon.

that lookslike teh normal wear indicaotr line. when you don't see th e line anymoer it is time to rpelace the rim.

 

[cam3087]

Hello all,

I just installed a yescomusa 48v 1000w motor and have the same speed bump feeling while riding. Im not sure if its coming from the tires or the wheel itself. any ideas? thanks!- Cam

 

[mcintyretj]

I am not an expert on tires but getting it to fit correctly is improtant if you do not like spokes comming loose.

3/10/13 update:

I have over 4200 miles commuting to work this school year (since August 6th) on my ebikes.

Since my chain was still skipping after I had the chain replaced I decided to get a new hub to see if that would stop the skipping. My mechanic had some trouble getting one the right size so it took about three weeks for the right hub to arrive and get put on. Here is the new hub:
View attachment 4
It works great now, no skipping. Also I had the wheel trued because the spokes tended to loosen up especially with higher tire pressure. I usually would get a spoke detached from the nipple about once a week even though I was checking the spoke tension at night and tightening loose spokes. My bike spoke wrench does not fit (too small) so I have been using an adjustable wrench. Here is what it looks like now:

It is no longer my commuter bike. It is a friend/family/fun bike but ready to go if my backup bike breaks down. I put a large front bag to store lipos and mounted the controller on the back rack under the bag. I’ve been testing 15s, 2p (63v max) and have hit 29+ mph on straight runs on a full charge.

**********

While my wheel/motor/hub was in the shop, I got out my back-up kit which is the same exact 500w 48v kit (with a repaired controller) and put that on another bike that I picked up for $30.00 at the swap meet. Since I had been experimenting with some lipos I decided to commute the 25 miles each way with my lipos, 12s, 4p (8 Turnigy 6s 5ah packs) all of which fit nicely in a small laptop case that I strapped in the triangle. I had picked up a cheap 48v Mean Well power supply to charge at school, which I set to just under 50v. Here is a photo I took on the way home from work:

Unfortunately, I was not happy with the my speed which, after averaging 24 mph on the bike path with my 48v 15ah ping, 20 mph just was not getting the required grin. So, I switched my large ping battery to my new/backup bike and decided to rethink my lipo setup.

I was much happier after I did some surgery on a bad 6s battery and converted two of my 12s packs to 14s packs and could hit 26+ mph off a fresh charge (58.8v max)(12s max speed was 23 mph right at 50v). In my closet I found an old portable DVD player case and strapped it to my handlebars and zip tied it to my brake handles. The bag holds 2, 14s packs along with my tools, pump, spare tube, phone and power bars. I could get another 15s pack in there later if needed

With my Ping cutting off on cold days a few miles out from school, I was experimenting with many different placements for an extra battery and found this to work well.

This is the backup bike at home charging: