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'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

theguardian.com

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Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#91

Post by hagbard_c »

germinalphrase wrote: post #63
dgacmu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gear advantage of a mid-drive rocks but I was quite surprised that I chewed through a rear cassette in under a year / about 1k miles -- a 250W motor + heavy cargo bike + kid passenger + a large and pretty strong rider exert an awful lot of force. And with the assist, I almost never use the larger cogs, so all the wear gets concentrated. (This compares to many, many thousand miles on my road bike.) Still love the…

Would an internally geared hub solve for this type of wear?

Seeing how as I regularly managed to break the drive cross in my 3-speed SA hub just by pushing the thing real hard under pedal power alone - this is 40 years ago - I don't think they're particularly strong. I fixed my bike by myself so all this cost me was a new drive cross but still, it shouldn't break in the first place.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#92

Post by TeMPOraL »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #35
krisoft wrote: post #2

From my perspective water is only at best a proximal cause. The big problem is that if the motor needs replacing five times during a two year waranty period that is a lemon and the manufacurer should give back the money one paid for it.

It sounds like a Kaabo e-scooter, a Samsung refrigerator, and most consumer electronics and appliances. Designed to fail because parts = $$$.* * In fairness, Kaabo e-scooters aren't designed, they're thrown together and spaghetti wire is rammed in every crevice without a sensible circuit or terminal diagram.

So out of the list, Kaabo e-scooters seem to be the only ones where the obsolescence is incidental, instead of planned :).

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#93

Post by lostlogin »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #89
lostlogin wrote: post #16

I’ve been doing a bit of (non e-bike) riding in poor weather of late, and it’s really surprising just how wet and dirty everything gets. After a wet road ride, every surface is covered in black, greasy dirt. It rots fabric, makes grinding paste in mechanical parts and generally makes everything worse. You need really good seals to keep that crap out.

I never see them in the US outside of city bike share programs, but I feel like most casual bike users would be better served by internal gear hubs and similar closed systems. The maintenance is minimal, outside of dropping some oil in every year. But for some reason, every bike in a bike shop, including the most casual upright bike, has a finicky derailleur. So instead we’re doomed to a life of misaligned derailleur…

I mostly agree - it’s just that every flat I ever got was the read wheel and it’s was a complete nightmare keeping the chain tension right.

When it was working, it was a thing of beauty.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#94

Post by wffurr »

analog31 wrote: post #74
germinalphrase wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would an internally geared hub solve for this type of wear?

IGH's are not all that rugged. Most have a published requirement for a minimum ratio between the chainring and cog, that translates into an approximate torque limit. I love my old Sturmey Archer AW hubs, but I'm not sure I'd recommend one for the aforementioned use case.

Shimano E5000 is an IGH rated for e bikes.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#95

Post by Etheryte »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #89
lostlogin wrote: post #16

I’ve been doing a bit of (non e-bike) riding in poor weather of late, and it’s really surprising just how wet and dirty everything gets. After a wet road ride, every surface is covered in black, greasy dirt. It rots fabric, makes grinding paste in mechanical parts and generally makes everything worse. You need really good seals to keep that crap out.

I never see them in the US outside of city bike share programs, but I feel like most casual bike users would be better served by internal gear hubs and similar closed systems. The maintenance is minimal, outside of dropping some oil in every year. But for some reason, every bike in a bike shop, including the most casual upright bike, has a finicky derailleur. So instead we’re doomed to a life of misaligned derailleur…

You're glossing over the fact that internal gear hub transmissions easily cost in the hundreds, whereas you can get a derailleur for a tenner or so. I've owned a number of bikes in my life and all of them have been cheaper than the transmission you suggest everyone should use.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#96

Post by andrewshadura »

lostlogin wrote: post #57
andrewshadura wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use mudguards, chain guard and coat guards.

Any recommendations? I had guards and found they rattled, slowed me and were less effective than what I wanted.

For chain and coat guards: Hesling. Plastic or cloth, they're equally reliable. For mudguards, basically anything aluminium from any Dutch maker. If you can get Azor, they're especially high-quality.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#97

Post by hughesjj »

WJW wrote: post #85
mjevans wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is IP67 safe to wash like a car? Soapy sponge and reasonable hose pressure (not pressure washer) spray?

IP67 means "completely dust proof and submersible up to 1 meter". You can safely hose it down to clean it, pressure washers are probably a bit much.

There's actually bespoke pressure washer codes for the IP system, suffixing with a K

https://www.polycase.com/techtalk/waterproof-electronic-encl...

That said even ip66 is supposed to be resistant to 'jets' of water, like ~hose pressure.

Also, fwiw, I've never seen these used on prebuilt ebike components.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#98

Post by xcskier56 »

dgacmu wrote: post #53
serf wrote: post #11

it's not surprising to me that the bosch mid-drives are failing, they're typically placed at an angle that catches all the run off from every tube at the lowest point on the bike (except on recumbents), and the controller is (usually) integrated. mid-drives are great, the gear advantage rocks; the bosch units suck but unfortunately they had so much industry sway that a lot of ebike frames are coming out built around…

The gear advantage of a mid-drive rocks but I was quite surprised that I chewed through a rear cassette in under a year / about 1k miles -- a 250W motor + heavy cargo bike + kid passenger + a large and pretty strong rider exert an awful lot of force. And with the assist, I almost never use the larger cogs, so all the wear gets concentrated. (This compares to many, many thousand miles on my road bike.) Still love the…

Maintain your chain! I chewed through a nice cassette on my mtb quickly by not watching my chain and replacing it when worn. A worn chain will dramatically increase cassette wear. I only replaced it yearly and should have probably done twice per year.

Since then, I switched to hot waxing my chains and have now gone a year with the same chain reading as almost new. (Actually use 2 chains but both are barely worn)

There’s a great site called zero friction cycling that details all of this. The key that they opened my eyes to was looking at the total cost of riding including the cassette.

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#99

Post by vvanders »

joe_the_user wrote: post #90
serf wrote: post #11

it's not surprising to me that the bosch mid-drives are failing, they're typically placed at an angle that catches all the run off from every tube at the lowest point on the bike (except on recumbents), and the controller is (usually) integrated. mid-drives are great, the gear advantage rocks; the bosch units suck but unfortunately they had so much industry sway that a lot of ebike frames are coming out built around…

I can't see how mid-drives are significantly superior. An electric motor doesn't need any gear advantage and sending more force to the rear wheel seems like it's actually a disadvantage since it put more stress on bicycle components that are often designed for just human levels of force. As far as I can tell, the mid-drives became dominant just 'cause people wanted to have something the looked more "seamless". I have…

Electric motors have a wide power band but it isn't infinite[1], gearing does make a difference. If I'm in a higher gear on an incline my motor has significantly less usable torque vs shifting down to a gear that's closer to the power band.

Now if that is worth the complexity/cost is a fair debate but there are mechanical advantages to mid-drive motors.

[1] https://forums.electricbikereview.com/threads/ebike-motor-po...

Re: 'The big problem is water': UK ebike owners plagued by failing motors

#100

Post by dgacmu »

wyre wrote: post #61
dgacmu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gear advantage of a mid-drive rocks but I was quite surprised that I chewed through a rear cassette in under a year / about 1k miles -- a 250W motor + heavy cargo bike + kid passenger + a large and pretty strong rider exert an awful lot of force. And with the assist, I almost never use the larger cogs, so all the wear gets concentrated. (This compares to many, many thousand miles on my road bike.) Still love the…

I have a friend in your same scenario. I’ve never thought to ask how quickly he goes through cassettes on that bike.

I think the follow-on post above about making sure to be better about maintaining the chain is part of it. I'm a little lazy with my road bike chain because I mostly only ride it in good weather, and I carried the same attitude to the e-bike, which gets a lot more stress per mile and I'm more likely to ride in rain.

I'm not hot waxing it, though it's tempting, but I do wipe it down and apply T-9 much more regularly now. We'll see -- I'm 400 miles into the new chain and cassette...

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