I live in the mountains of Norway with hard weather conditions. From the MP3 to the MP4. No problems. Fast delivery,
Very easy "hook up" (no ext controller with complicated wires). Took a severe beating (gravel roads with lots of pot holes in the summer and meter deep snow with minus 30 Celsius). I even easily sold the bikes after each season to buy the upgraded kit. I would say the quality (especially with the "upgraded harness") and ease of installing is far superior to any other direct drive system. It is the bike tour royale. I tried it on a bike with dual dampening (shocks in the back), this did not work well, better off with a center drive system. A better connection plug for the lights/horn is needed (not everyone is a maverick with the soldering iron).
A set-up with the engine AND the battery in the back (rear hub drive & rear rack)
with 48v 1000w, the front wheel will easily lift when you gun the throttle. This set up also yield a high center of gravity
(unless you do a "gary" config Chopper style with two brick batteries hanging low on each side of the rear wheel).
A better selection of down-tube batteries that ship world wide is a must! Better balance better ride.
Finding the required 25A discharge battery seems impossible.
With the MP5 build I decided to buy a 36v set-up (the 50kmh with the 48v set-up is a bit much on a bike).
Due to an accident with a shipped battery on a plane somewhere in 2016, my motor got here but the battery did not.
It is still a pain to get a battery shipped to Norway. Shipping a battery back to china is impossible.
I finally got the battery. but after installing it all with torque arms etc, the system was dead, no BAC display etc.
GM China says: I had to reprogram the controller for 36v (it comes default 48v from factory). Ok so I try do do that.
But since the system is dead I can not connect to the controller. Since the battery show 5 red dots, GM China says: controller dead, need new controller. So I get a new one (with blu-tooth). Getting the old controller out is a pain (heat
the outer ring gently with a hair dryer), I figured it was a threaded connection and turned the controller, resulting in
a ripped out HAL and spade connections. Just wiggle it gently straight up. This connection could use a revamp.
Then "we" conclude the battery must be dead since the new controller does not fire up. I buy another 36v battery
locally, the controller fires up (now with the fabulous app on my Samsung 6S). Now I can make my bike go from
off-road to legal 25km limit on the fly
- Getting the new controller into this very tight fit motor "hole" proved to be
a major pain, much worse than getting the old one out. Even after watching Gary`s videos I managed to break one
of the spade tabs on the controller while forcing it in.
Since "customer support" is reduced to forums and help from peers (as is with most companies these days),
GM China stopped answering my e-mails when I asked if it was possible to solder the tab back on to the new controller.
The weird thing is that this forum does not appear to have a link on their website?
I solder the tab back on, put it all together, the app says "Hall protection", no motor function. The solder did not hold.
For kicks I try the old controller, now it works... programming vise. Not on the bike. Now I have to dismantle everything again to check the phase wire connections to the controller.
Be prepared to fiddle with it. All in all, despite having to make your own plug for lights it is far better than having to
configure external controllers + the hassle of wires everywhere. Keeping my fingers crossed, maybe with Alans help I`ll get this build done before the snow starts falling, just in time to put on snow tires.
