World Wide Electric Bike 36v kit, Fusin gearmotor review

I just recieved the 36v version of the Fusin gearmotor kit. I did not buy the battery, so this reiview is just the motor, controller, etc. Dan K's review has lots of pics of the box and what's inside so I won't duplicate it here. Definitely the best shipping box yet on a motor kit. Everything seems undamaged, and for once, unbelievably, the box had very few scuffs on it. Unfortunately since I did not buy the battery that usually comes in the kit, I screwed myself, and can't tell the polarity of the power wires. The kit came with no real instructions, but it did come with a nice wiring diagram of the many wires from the controller. That diagram tells me the polarity, but it does not help me since there are no markings on the plug. I have a pm off to Louis for the answer. Had I bought the battery, I would be fine, since I could simply plug it in.

No instructions came with the kit, but the worldwide electric bikes website has some. The Fusin motor site had a link but it did not work. The kit came with one part that seemed to go to something we don't have. It looks like a fork lock, and it's keyed the same as the lock on the power switch on the headlight.

Three things stuck out as questionable right away.

I know this motor is supposed to use less power than a direct drive, but the power wires are really thin looking. Especially the controller to motor, phase wires. Good wires can look thinner, I hope they are still big enough to not get hot.

The power supply wire is too long, and I think it needs a design change. The design takes power from the battery in the rear carrier, routes it to the handlebars for a switch, then back to the rear where the controller is. There is almost ten feet of wire between the controller and the battery. Holy cow that can't be good for voltage sag. My Aotema kits only have about a foot of wire between the battery and controller. Put the main switch on the controller and then route power for the light to the handlebars.

There is a lot of wires and connectors and such on the controller. This is a sophisticatied kit with lots of extra wires, but it does not look like it was designed to be exposed to the elements, It looks bad, and might be hard to waterproof. This many wires and connections is going to need a box or something since there is no body work to hide behind on an ebike. Edit. Looks better with some tape wrapped around it but it will need more waterproofing than that in wet climates.

We'll see when I get it running whether any of this matters. Compared to my other kits, the wiring looks horrible now, but later on I can do some bundling with tape and tidy it all up, and fabricate something to put all the connectors in. Maybe a metal band aid box or something like that can tame the wire tangle left from a quick install.

The kit is a bit harder to install than some, just because you get more. So you have to put on the brake handles, horn button, and headlight. Not a problem, but it does take more than 20 minuites to install it all on the bike. I'm very impressed with the motor itself. It looks like a real quality product to me. With the tire installed it weighs about 12 pounds. Real beefy spokes, and the rim is fairly nice for a single wall. It also seems pretty thick and tough, but not so crude as the aotema ones. Despite the first impression on the wiring I still think it looks like a decent quality set up, and customizing the controller connectors would add to the cost. I'll just need to find a way to make a weather resistant container for all the plugs. It seems like an issue now, since water is falling from the sky at the moment. We haven't seen that in six months, so suddenly a bunch of exposed connectors seems like a thing to worry about.


Edit..... The next mornig.

Louis was very quick to send me the info on the polarity of the power cable wires so I could hook up. On the main wire to the battery, the red one is the positive. Hooked it up and the initial ride impressions are very positive. There are a lot of really cool features on this kit and the cost is not more than many other kits.

Controller.

Writing this, at 350 miles now, I am very happy with the controller. It gets warm when worked hard , but not overly hot. Louispower has told me that it is a 16 amp controller, so with my 36v battery that rests at 44v, you theoretically have 700 watts when you need it for a steep hill.

Speed limiter. 8)

This works really good. It's turned on and off by connecting a couple wires that come out of the controller. It could be hooked up to a switch, or left stealth as it comes. When hooked up, the top speed is about 13 mph in high, and 6 mph in low. Great for loaning out the bike, or smaller kids, or like I will use it, walking the dog by bicycle. The advantage of the lower speeds is that you get a finer controll over speeds less than 10 mph. My direct drive motor is kinda hard to modulate the throttle at speeds less than 12 mph. This one will make it easy to go slow. Yeah I know, most ES readers will not be interested in slow, but it is a really neat feature for stricter places with harsh ebike laws.

Regen braking.

Louispower has now said that the regen function in the controller is not going to be functional when combined with a freeweeling gearmotor. They are going to pull the regen stuff from the ads on the website. I don't have a motor to test the regen with, since my direct drive motor is sensorless, but have no reason to disbelieve that it works. For me, I really would not want regen braking on the front wheel anyway. I would think that as time goes by, a lot more controllers will be coming along that support regen braking.


Disconnecting regen and speed limiters. 8)

The instructions say do this connecting and disconnecting while the controller is powered down only. Both functions turn on or off by plugging or unplugging a wire from the controller. No need to open the controller box, so that is nice.

Three speed switch. 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

This feature is really great! Like the speed limiter, you can dial in the full throttle speed depending on what you are needing. With the speed limiter, you actually get 6 choices for top speed of the bike. Sure, a lot of folks will want to just put it on the fastest speed and leave it there. But when you are riding slower, a lower setting gives more throttle controll. This is really cool in my opinion, and maybe the biggest reason to choose this kit over a similar bafang motor. I'll get into how and why a bit later, but It became clear to me right away that the lower settings, like medium speed, is a lot easier on the battery than the high speed setting. The motor really does run smoother at slower settings, and uses much less amps than when set on the highest speed. I found it much easier to hold the throttle full on on a lower setting than to try to hold it part way on at high speed setting. It's a very cool feature, especially when trying to ride slower to make a battery go maximum range.

Top speeds. 8) 8) 8)

With the limiter turned off. 180 pound rider, upright position comfort bike, 40 psi tires, no wind, level ground. I do a ride each way and average it, since there is no such thing as perfect level ground where I live. 36v lifepo4 battery with a usual resting voltage of 44v.

Edit,, speed seems to have increased since the first ride, gears breaking in I guess. To see the highest speeds, a long run is needed so in stop and go riding, at least 1 mph less.

High setting-- 22.5 mph

Medium setting---19 mp

Low setting----14.5 mph

With the limiter on, 12mph for high, and 6 mph for low, I didn't try medium. To me this is perfect. The bike is totally and unquestionably legal to ride in the USA on the medium setting. When the cops aren't looking the high speed setting is only a hair slower than my aotema motor. Very impressive speed. It does take just a bit longer to reach the top speed than the other motor, since the wattage is a bit lower. One important point is that this motor will be easier on the battery than a 700 watt motor, but reaches similar top speeds. Easier on the battery can be very good.

Again, I REALLY LIKE THIS FEATURE! I'm going to really miss it when I go to ride my aotema motor on the other ebike now. I can't wait to see how it affects range and climbing longer hills. On a short test in some deep sand, the low setting had noticeably better torque, but not so much torque you couldn't stall the motor. It's not that powerfull, only a 350 watt motor after all, its not supposed to be a dirt bike. This feature would be real nice to have on a 5304 motor, so you could ride most of the time with minimal impact on the battery, and when needed, flip to high speed and haul buns.

Headlight and horn. 8)

Both work well, and now I don't need to go looking for something, or have to move my headlight from bike to bike. The horn is a tone that will get stupid path walkers attention, and the headlight turns off automaticly in the light, or even in a streetlights beam. You can't leave it on by mistake in the daylight. Very cool. The beam is not super bright, but it is very adequate for 15 mph riding at night. At full speed, it might be a bit sketchy , but it is still a lot better than a camping headlamp on the helmet. A keyswitch in the controller turns on and off everything. I have found that the light, which turns off when daylight comes, can be tuned by putting some masking tape over the sensor. Now it still turns off in daylight, but stays on if I ride under a streetlight at night. The horn , though loud as hell in the garage, is not quite loud enough on a busy street for a pedestrian to hear. On my bike trail, I am sandwiched between an interstate and a busy frontage road, so it's pretty loud with the traffic. The walkers, usually with ipods in their ears, can't hear you unless you are 20 feet from them.

Brake handles. 8)

They are OK, but not super cheap. All metal so that is nice, and long handles that are better than the mtb ones that came on the bike. I find brake handles are never long enough once you start stacking on a lot of throttles and shifters.

Hand grips and throttle. 8)

Again they are OK, but I personally don't really like a full throttle, so eventually I will end up sawing off half of the handle and make it into a half twist throttle. thought the handles were kinda hard and stiff, but once riding, I found them comfy enough for a long ride. One nice thing about the stiffness is that you can lengthen a too short handlebar just by letting some of the handle hang over past the ends of the bars. Works good with these stiffer grips, and no need to find a longer handlebar to fit all the throttles, shifters, horn button etc on there.

Dashboard. 8) 8) 8)

This feature I found I liked much more that I expected. It has an indicator light for various functions, powered on, headlight on, and battery power level. Since most battery level indicators don't work well with lifepo4 batteries, I didn't expect this one to be much different. Wrong! It really does work well with a lifepo4 battery. On a 12 mile ride, for the first 4 miles it just said full. But after a few more miles, I began to see a flicker when riding full speed on the first led. Switching to medium setting made it go away and light steady again. This effect became more and more evident the further I rode, and by the end of the 12 mile trip, I had two lights out when under load. Once stopped, all the led's would light up again. So this row of led's was giving me a real good indicator of how many amps I was pullling at the moment, by measuring voltage sag. Once I get some voltage readings to calibrate it, I should be able to tell what is going on with my battery at all times, and how pedaling just a bit harder pays off or not. It really shows the difference in efficiency and strain on the battery of using a lower speed setting than the high setting. It's not a cycyleanalyst for sure, but it is a lot better than the familiar three led throttle lights. Using this feature, I should be able to decide a lot better how to ride more efficient by montioring voltage sag. This may not work as good with a 2 or 3 c capable lifepo4, but with my pingbattery v1, 36v 20 ah battery , it works great as a monitor of voltage sag. A better battery with no voltage sag would not flicker the led's, but if the battery is that good, who cares? For me it's going to be a fabulous aid to my riding efficiency without forking out the dough for a cylceanalyst.

The motor itself. 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

The fit and finish is good. Some black paint on the inner hub is not so perfect, but once I put some dirt on it nobody will notice. The machining looks good, and the axle bolts and nuts had a good fit. In my install, the axle flats fit very snug into the dropouts. The axle has a notch in the end so the wires won't get cut the first time something bumps the end of the axle where the wires come out. If the bike falls over, the wires won't be sticking out the end further than the axle. Again, the phase wires look skinny to me, but in use, they must not be slowing me down too much, with a top speed of 20 mph. They will be fine unless they get hot. I'm just used to higher power controllers, so these 350 watt wires look small by comparison. The motor runs with a pleasant low whine, not at all loud or annoying like the heinzmann motor I had. That thing was unbearable at higher speeds than 10 mph. Sure, it makes more noise than a direct drive, but for sure it is ten times quieter than a heinzmann or a currie Ezip. Torque wise, I still haven't ridden enough hills yet to really say. Just that acelleration on flat ground is quite adequate, but it is not a dirt bike, or motorcycle that spins tires. It wasn't expected or wanted to be, at 350 watts. Actually, it performs a lot better than I dreamed it would at such low power levels. I have not yet put an amp meter on it.

Motor heating. 8) 8) 8) 8) In normal use, which for me means a nonstop uphill ride of 15 miles, I have not seen any excessive heating of the motor. I haven't yet cracked the motor open to put a temp sensor inside, but on the hub case and the axle, I rarely see temps much above 100F. In a recent torture test, I climbed a very steep hill for 1200 vertical feet of 5-7% and then rode back into a 35 mph headwind for awhile. I did get the motor up to 140F measured at the hole where the wires come out the axle. There was no signs the motor overheated, and the gears did not melt. That ride was done in 90 F weather.


Hill climbing. 8) 8)

Yup it climbs a pretty steep hill. Like 7% with no problems. But it won't do it fast. Remember, this is the 350 watt 36v version. The 36v kit has a 16 amp controller. The 48v kit has a 22 amp controller. So really, its pretty impressive that it doesn't simply stall on anything above 5%. Again, the speed settings do work well for this. On the steepest part of this hill, which may be even more than 7% for about 100 feet, All three settings were climbing at about 6-7 mph with easy pedaling in the lowest gear. A run at the hill helps with the high speed setting, but before long, good ol physics insures that on a really steep hill, 350 watts is not going to zoom up it. But on the low setting, I definitely saw less voltage sag to go the same speed, and the motor sounded like it was straining less. Returning to the steepest part, I did a torture test, a no pedaling start on the steep. It did it on all three settings, but it was definitely easier on the lowest setting to get started on a real steep hill. I find a real test of a motor is if it can start up on a really steep hill. It can be pretty tough on a direct drive motor, but this little fusin motor passes the test with ease. After a bunch of rain yesterday, it was a cold morning, so I can't say yet about the motor getting hot on a hill. Pushing only 350 watts, this motor should stay pretty cool. That is one thing that got me interested in it. Though it may be slow, it climbs hills just fine.

Power use 8) 8)

Not sure yet, since I have no cycleanalyst, it takes me awhile to get accurate estimates by measuring charging kwh. On this 12 mile ride I used 9.5 AH of 36v lifepo4. I did a lot of different kinds of riding, some with pedaling some without, at all the speed settings, so this is just about meaninless as a data point. But at least the way I rode today, range is just about the same as my aotema direct drive hub. I know from experience with my Heinzmann gearmotor that I can really improve on this, by using a higher tire pressure, and lots of pulse and glide riding to maximize the coasting distance.

Edit. On a second ride, this time using mostly the medium setting I am getting range very similar to my other motor. A 36v 20 ah lifepo4 should take me about 25 miles, and a 10 ah pack about 12.5 miles. Bear in mind, I pedal but not hard, and the second ride included some stout hill climbs.This ride was made at about 18 mph on the medium setting. At first I thought, hmm, It should be better, and I bet with practice I can improve this. But basic physics is not going to change, My weight, wind resistance, height of climb aren't going to magically change when I switch motors. If I ride really slow I bet I can get big mileage increases by pedaling more. But at this speed, its the motor doing it, and any motor is going to use a similar amount to do similar work. In other words, all these motors are pretty efficient except the brushed ones. So it's not suprising that the ranges are similar at similar speeds.

Other voltages?

Forget it. Looking inside the controller box, I see at least two capacitors marked 50v , so for 48v you need the 48v kit. I sorta hoped it might run on 24v, since I have two 24v 8 ah nicads in the house. Nope, on the 28v, nicad battery, the dashboard won't even light up. So there must be a lvc somewhere that is higher than 28 v. That is actually good news for lifepo4 owners, or sla use. But I had thought I might be able to use the nicads too, and have some huge range with this bike. Not till I buy some more 36v battery. No big deal, I'm planning to ride across the state on the direct drive aotema bike anyway. BTW, I'm about 1/3 of the way through the ride, and have done all of it within 120 miles of home.

Range.

No real world , ride the whole battery to cut out range test yet, but I did a 4.25 mile loop and then measured the kwh to recharge. Here's the data from that test. Yeah I know, miles per amp hour is hated by the engineers, but for us mortals, miles per amp hour is fine as long as we know the voltage and battery chemistry. This is a 36v pingbattery lifepo4 that has a resting voltage of 44 volts. Full throttle and no pedaling on this test.

High setting. Used .13 kwh to charge so 3.25 ah used. 1.3 miles per amp hour. Projected range for 9 ah avaliable in a lifepo4 battery, 11.7 miles

Medium setting. Use .10 kwh to charge so 2.5 ah used. 1.7 miles per amp hour. Projected range for 9 ah from a 10 ah lifepo4 15.3 miles

Low setting. Used .08 kwh to charge so 2 ah used. 2.12 miles per amp hour. projected range for 9 ah 19.1 miles.

This data makes it crystal clear that the speed settings definitely do mean better range if the lower speeds are chosen. I think it's fantastic that you can just select a speed that matches your needs and not have to concentrate on not blowing your energy by letting the speed creep up when you need the longer range. The efficieny of the higher speed setting seems very similar to my other motor for similar speeds. There may be some difference, but not enough to matter that much, so don't choose a direct drive motor because it's more efficient. This motor is just about the same as my 700 watt aotema for efficiency at 23 mph cruising. A hill climb might be a different story, I'll have to test the efficiency of both motors on hills to know. I suspect that at similar speeds, they will be simlar.

Forks 8) 8) 8)

I know some of you are wondering, when will he go over the handlebars with no torque arms. The answer is never, this install went very clean on a set of steel cheapo suspension forks. They are horrible supsension, but the dropouts are really strong. I have a very fussy procedure for tightening the nuts and it works good. The short version is, I start with just snugging them down. Look for anything wrong, especially a tendency for the axle to squirt out of the dropout. Tighten some more, this time medium snug. Look again, look real hard! If all ok, tighten fairly tight. I use a short handled crescent wrench so I don't get so much leverage that I strip an axle. Look at it all again. See the pattern? Lots and lots of looking for any hint of a bad fit. After some time, at least a half hour, I put the final snug on the nuts, very tight, but still carefull not to strip a nut. This last tighten should be a very small rotation of the nut. If it's more, Whoa dude, whats going on? At this point it should be bomproof. I have 3400 flawless miles on this kind of front hub install and I have NEVER had a nut loosen. If a nut ever loosens, something is seriously wrong with the fit of the nuts and washers, and don't ride till it's corrected.

Heh Heh, send me one free, and I'll test it for ya. Edit, spammer post removed, Thanks mods!

Louis sent me a very quick reply on the wire polarity for the battery wires to the controller. Again, if I bought the kit with battery, I'd not have had the problem. Thanks Louis!

Do you have a link to the other review? I'll try a search for it.

<edit> Found it. http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9707&p=152374&hilit=fusin+hub#p152374
I take it this hub has the selectable windings for different speeds? Let us know how that goes. It's a pity that you didn't get the battery too. I'd be interested in that.

Dogman,

After you sort out your kit, i believe that you will find our "rat's nest" to be the easiest wiring harness you have ever worked with. There is no question as to what connects where, each of the plugs is unique so you cannot connect anything incorrectly and the only "extra" plug is one for the pedelec, which we did not choose to include at this time. The extra lock mechanism will no longer be included in future models of this and our other kits but there are going to be some interesting upgrades in the future.

WEB

Yes I agree, it is very easy to work with, and the wiring diagram is very nice to have if any repairs were to be needed. I admit, I got spoiled by first brushed motors with nothing but two wires in two wires out and a throttle. This kit, with all the nice features has a lot more wires. It's only a problem since my battery box is pretty tight and doesn't have the room for the plugs and stuff to hide inside. But it does make it a tad harder to do a clean install. It looks bad now since I just did a fast install to test functions. I just need to decide how to go about tidying it up is all. I'm not going to slam you in this review, but I will talk about every detail, good or not so good. Just edited the first post to include the first rides impressions. I REALLY LIKE THIS KIT. A few extra wires are really worth it for the extra features. If i don't like the plugs, I can always cut em off and replace them with more weatherproof types. It should be easy to build a metal box to put all of it inside weather tight, and still have good heatsinking on the controller.

Question: Do they ship to New Zealand?

World Wide Electric bikes is USA and Canada only it seems.

Dogman,

I hope you have better luck than Dan K

The motor does appear to be a step up from a Bafang in the top speed department. I could see how the 3-speed switch would be nice for faster motors as I have a hard time riding at normal speeds with my 9C motor. It seems Crystalyte will be offering such a switch as well ( http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10107&start=0 ).

I like less clutter as well and I have cut off useless wires coming from a couple of my controllers to clean things up. I guess the extra features are nice but the fact that the switches are integrated into their throttle and grips turns me off. If the headlight is decent it would be handy though a digital display with CA features would make it really nice (I can dream ).

AmpedBikes is going to offer a geared motor soon at a good price so I'll wait to see how it compares before buying another motor. Heck I've already accumulated three motors with one, a rear 9C, just collecting dust :|

-R

Like with the Aotema kits, there are compromises that come with the reasonable price. I can see a lot of mods coming on this kit, but first I'll give it a fair test, and ride it a thousand miles or so unmodified. The things I'd like to see will cost money, so I can certainly see why they made the choices they did on the wiring plugs. For a lot of us at ES, it's needing improvements, but for the average joe, this kit has a lot to offer, with everything you need for commuting all integrated. As long as it doesn't go up in smoke, or mash the gears, It gets my seal of approval as a good kit for the price. Better stuff out there? you bet, but I can't afford it this year. So far this kit is a great kit for the money, and best of all, the wife just got back from a ride and approves too. She's a lot harder to please than me.

I did another test on the regen braking. Nada, nope, nothing, it doesn't do anything. Maybe I need a replacement controller for it to work. The ebrakes, that cut the motor off any time the brakes are pulled, work fine, and keep working no matter what you do with the jumper wire. It may be somthing as simple as a bad plug on the jumper. I'll look into it but really, I don't care too much if it works or not. I still think it's impossible to regen brake with a freewheeling motor. But I'm not an engineer, I can be stupidly wrong all the time.


As for better luck than the other Dan, ( I'm a Dan too) this is a clean install, and I know I can trust it. I had the same thing happen with my first aotema, except I only made it a half mile when I spun the axle and cut wires, and fried a controller.

Heres a few pics of the thing. first just the hub and rim.View attachment 3

Inside the headlight, showing the main switch wire colors.

The whole bike, really crudely installed, till I test stuff. I finally learned not to spend too much time on routing wires till I know it all works.

The controller plugs. I guess this is kinda normal, but for me it seemed like a lot of plugs and wires out in the open. This is my first motor with hall sensors.

Sorry about the too big photos. I sure miss my old photo software. I need to revive an old computer just to run it.

I'd like to know what voltages the various leds on the dashboard switch at. Anyone got any ideas?

I'll be trying to find that out eventually. Only had the kit in my hands about 30 hours as I write this. My WE throttles would let me know right away when my voltage was below 25 volts. Like that does any good with lifepo4. A bit late even for sla in my opinion. I only see any activity on the batttey monitor under load of course, my lifepo4 can run till cutoff, and then if started up again, it still reads about 40 v resting. So once I stop riding, all the led's light up again. To get numbers I'll need to ride along trying to read a voltmeter on the fly.

Wiring tamed.

Ok it wasn't so hard, but my first impression is just that, a reaction to what I see when I first install the kit. A half a roll of black tape, bundling the wires like a cars wiring harness tamed the tangle. I went ahead and wrapped up the plugs too, so they are now at least water resistant and I don't see a rainbow of wires, and no worries now about one scuffing a short somewhere. Now after only a few minuites of effort I have a pretty clean install exept for the wrong color wire ties. It looks a lot less like a rolling bomb now. Cut the red wire or blue?

Off on another subject, I haven't spoke much about the bike itself. Another wallbike, this one was fetching about $160 last summer. Clearanced now, I got it for $110. It's got a lot of the same components as any wallmart mtb, with the main difference being a frame style with a bit bigger triangle, and as a comfort bike, a single front chainring of moderate size. Not positve I counted the teeth right, the front ring is either 37 or 38 teeth. So it's pedaling speed is about 15-18 mph in top gear. Cheapie 7 speed gearing in the back, Cheap v brakes, etc. I liked it for a bike for my wife, or if I change out the crank and put my monster on it, I can run it as a commuter. For now, it's perfect for this motors slightly slower speeds, especially if I use the medium setting. I like the chain guard so pants stay clean if you want them to, and unlike the beach cruiser, this one fits on the bus bike racks. Once I have a better Idea of the reliability of the motor, I will most likely be moving the kit to the schwinn. The only mods on it besides the motor is the bmx handlebars that give me a really comfortable riding position, about 4 inches taller than the riser bars that come on the bike. The other mod was putting the shifter on the left side, upside down. Throttle in one hand, shifter in the other, as it should be.

dogman said:

Definitely the best shipping box yet on a motor kit.
.

Click to expand...

Ever ordered from ebikes.ca ? Man, they box their stuff up really well too.

Not a motor yet, just batteries that were very well packed. I liked the big foam blocks molded to the shape of the rim, see the other fusin thread for pics. This is the first time a motor arrived to me with a straight rim. After about 40 miles, spokes are getting loose and the wheel is starting to "talk" to me. This is normal for breaking in a fresh spoke lace on a motor wheel I think. Time for the first tune up. Anyway, it was a lot better packing than the standard WE box I am used to.

First ride on the new motor to work and back today. Part of the route goes up and down short but sometimes very steep hills. The steepest one is pretty tough on this voltage kit. No doubt about it, this hill that has just about 50 feet of 10% can stall it without vigourous pedaling in the right gear. I bet it will zoom it with the 48v kit, but not on the 36v version. Another big hill on the way home is about a mile and a half long, and varies between 5 and 7 % was no particular problem for the motor. Usually I climb this hill on the direct drive motor (700 watts) at 15-18 mph. On the fusin, the steepest part slowed me to 12 mph, but it was never close to a stall condition with me pedaling lightly, raising no sweat.

So my impression of the kit on a long commute is not bad at all, as long as the hills are not super steep. Some residential streets in some towns will give it some trouble, but it will easily make it up the hills in most places. It will also slow down some in a really hard headwind. Today some of the route went into 20 mph headwind, and it was a few mph slower than normal. Still able to go 17-18 mph into that wind up a moderate hill so nothing to stop you getting there.

Energy use on the way to work was less than I am used to. Mabye 20% shorter charge time today than the direct drive motor. I would guess a lot of this was due to a lot of coasting I did on the way down the hill. On the other bike, the 58 tooth front crank means I can go full throttle and pedal along. On this bike I do more of a pulse and glide style riding. This is a bit of a problem though, since you end up constantly varying your pedaling cadence. Or you end up overpedaling the motors speed, and are doing all the work while the freewheeling gearmotor spins merrily away in there, but slower than you are riding. It's a weird thing that happens with freewheeling gearmotors so it's better to shut off the motor, coast till you can keep up with the pedals again, and then pedal some. It's very effective, but kinda hard on the leg muscles compared to a steady cadence for many miles. With practice I may get better at setting a throttle that matches my cadence, and not be doing so much pedaling faster than the motor spins.

Which brings us to the throttle. Just a personal preference, but the full handle throttle goes tonight. I just find it very difficult to use unless the throttle setting is full on or off. I think a half throtte is easier to set a half throttle position on. So I'm going to saw it in half to make a half throttle. This may not be an issue for other people, but it is for me now, since I'm using a bike with a pretty small front chainring at this time.

Edit, Overnight the recharge took less than usual, but I had a nice tailwind for 6 miles. It will take a few rides to know what it's real energy use is. I haven''t had time to even do the usual range test on the circuit I used to test range on the other motors. Too much fun this weekend with hot air balloons to ride the bike.

Today I rode without charging far enough to see some action on the low battery indicator. Too hard to ride while reading the voltmeter and when I stopped, the led's all lit back up again so no data on what voltage the various leds indicate. I would guess that some go dim by 36v. But I did confirm that after I saw the red low battery light on the upper left lit up, I was still able to ride 4 more miles at full throttle on high speed without hitting the batteries lvc. So the led's do give ample warning to either be close to home, or go into hypermile riding if not so close. With experience, this feature should give ample warning that the batteries lvc is getting close. I never got more than 1/4 mile of warning out of the other motors throttle low battery light with a lifepo4 battery. Nice, I don't mind so much getting caught out with a 2 mile ride home, but if it's getting close and I am 6 miles from home, I will now know in time to do something.

Edit. After a charge, the kwh used indicates I still had 2 ah left So when most of the led's have gone out under load with the medium speed setting, I still have 3 or4 ah left in my 20 ah battery. Awesome!

You are not sure if regen is working? According to many, regen is usually not recommended with lifepo.
Also, many say ebike regen is like a trickle charge. I bet it takes lots of downhills to recover 1 amp hr.
But with SLA you take what every regen you can get.

I don't doubt for a minuite that the controller is capable of regen. But I totally doubt that the freeweeling motor in the kit is capable of generating a signifigant current. I don't have the equipment to test it. I can say that absloultely nothing I can feel happens if the regen in activated. If it is a problem, like with lifepo4 and the controller is used on a direct drive motor, the regen can be disconnected easy.

Rode the bike all the way till the battery cutoff today. I was able to ride 4 more miles after the red low battery light lit under load. I was pretty much able to tell at any time how many miles left I had, from about halfway on. The ride lasted 30 miles on the medium speed setting, riding around 16-17 mph. 1200 feet vertical up, 400 feet vertical down. Sometimes I had a headwind uphill, and some tailwind downhill. Pedaling a lot, as is the nature with gearmotors, coasting when possible, or pedaling no motor. At no time did I pedal hard, or break much sweat. While useless for telling battery strength while sitting still, the voltage drop under load reads nice on the leds and lets you know how much you have left. The leds start going out at about 25% discharged if using high speed , and at about 50% discharged if using medium speed. This is for a 36v 20 ah lifepo4 batttery.

Had a wierd thing also on the ride home. Taking the scenic route home, I began to ride a dirt road directly under some very high tension power lines. Very soon I was feeling a definite tingle when my bare inner thigh brushed the seatpost rack quick release handle. I doubt it had to do with an electric bike, but I got the hell out of there before my controller went crazy or something. Very spooky to feel the powerline trying to energize me. I was definitely building up potential. The lines hang pretty low at that spot.

30 miles is good range, especially with alot of grades. With 36/12 SLA you could have done 15. Your test suggest more
range with low gear and less with the highest gear. Efficiency-wise, how does it compare to Aotema Brushless?

Seems be slightly more efficient as I am using it, but to really tell, I'll need to run it on the same bike. The efficiency is from slower take offs with a lower amp controller, and more pedaling since it coasts nice so pedaling without the motor on more seems natural. For now, it's way more efficient on this bike since I can only pedal along at speeds around 16 mph. I get exactly the same range on the aotema bike if I ride at the same speed.

So while the motor is not more efficient per se, the bike I have it on, and the three speed switch make the fusin easier to ride in a more efficient manner. On the aotema, its just so easy to pedal fast with the huge gear and ride full throttle, that it gets kinda hard to keep the speed in the medium range for a long ride. You just tend to gradually creep the throttle up till it's full on again without realizing you did that.

Edit.

If you read them, please disregard any comments I made about the controller. I did have a problem and it was my fault. The way I installed the motor allowed the motor wires to rub on the wheel. Since I have a suspension fork, the rubbing was only happening when I used the front brakes, and I thought the sound was the brake pads. I did check the wires, but when I got off the bike, the fork would lengthen and pull the wire straight again, so it looked normal when I looked. Duuh. Finally the wires rubbed through, and it got more obvious where the problem was.

You just have to figure out the details of how your new ebike functions/disfunctions. That takes time and experience.

Yup, 300 miles is not even long enough to really get to know a motor kit. At this point I can only say, get the 48v version if you have hills to ride that are steeper than 5%, or need more speed than 20 mph on the flats. A long enough run can get you 23 mph, but mostly it runs 20 mph on the high setting.