Fusin Motors /WorldWide Electric Bikes 48V 10AH Kit Review

[Dan K]

The Basics:

Kit included

26” front wheel with hub motor (500W Nominal, almost 1000 Peak)
LED automatic headlamp with battery indicators & shutoff key
LiFePo4 48V 10Ah battery pack
Motor & regenerative braking controller
Rack for the above
Charger
Horn
3 Gear switch
Brake levers for regen braking

First Impressions:
The rack requires rack eyelets. The bikes I had in mind as donors do not have the eyelets, with the exception of the 700C ones. For my initial testing I'll be using my Ventana, a very high end MTB outfitted with the best of everything. It's the only 26" wheeled bike I have with eyelets. This is my absolute favorite bike, and I've spent a lot of money keeping it light and strong. The kit won't be staying here, I'll be lacing the motor onto a 700C wheel in the future to use it on another bike.

(edit: The donor will not be the Ventana. The washers inside the fork rub the fork on the Ventana, taking it out of the running. I'm going to try to make it work with a few other bikes. When I get one that'll work, assembly notes will be forthcoming, along with pics of the insides of anything I dare open up).

The kit looks pretty good out of the box. It came with a tube and tire, which was a nice surprise since the rim is Schrader drilled (which is to be expected for entry level bikes) and all my tubes are presta. The battery is pretty heavy, 19.2lbs out of the box. I'll weigh it again when fully charged.

Everything appears to be well made. As my pics show, it arrived with part of the rack poking out of the box. The rack legs were tweaked out a bit as a result, but bent back in without issue.

Can't really comment as to how true the wheel is, since it's not in a bike yet (I've got some filing to do). The spokes are loose, but machine built wheels always are. I fully expect to true the wheel, as I would any other wheel that was not hand built.

There is very little by way of instructions. The rack takes a bit of figuring to figure out how to mount. Not an issue for us technical types, but the layman may want better instructions.

The instructions are very clear not to discharge beyond 30%. I'm not sure if this is an indication that there is no BMS to handle LVC. If not, I'd consider this a serious flaw. The battery gauge does not give percentages, so if the controller or battery doesn't know when to shut down the power, you've got an issue on your hands unless you have a watt meter on the bars, something that the kit does not include. Aside from that, on first appearance, everything is tops.

I was pleased that the horn is separate, allowing one to skip it if they want. I would, but am worried about the exposed connections that would result.











^^ Rack mounting bits. It figures out easy enough, but is enough to make you pause at first.







The battery charge port leaves something to be desired. It does not spin far enough out of the way in either direction to allow the charging plug in, unless you bring it up and over the handle. Not sure how much this will shorten the life of the cover. I suppose nobody will be lifting it by the handle while it's charging, so that shouldn't be much of an issue.



^^ Notice how the cover had to come over the handle to allow access to the charging port.

More to follow...

[recumbent]

Whats the 3 gear switch for? The 30% battery use is interesting.

Seems like a nice and very complete kit, let us know how it works when you finish.

[Dan K]

The 3 gear switch is low/medium/high, to conserve voltage and provide more torque for climbing hills and difficult terrain.

The 30% thing is a standard disclaimer for all this type battery, ber Louis. This battery does have a BMS, so it's of no concern, when the juice gets too low the battery will cut out.

I should also mention, about having to fiddle with the rack, I got a generic off-the-shelf rack pre-drilled for this battery because the consumer racks were not in yet. The rack you will get if you buy the setup is different, designed just for this setup and holds the battery and controller. I got what was on the shelf so they could get me a kit for review.

I have a lot more to say about it, I've made a bunch of progress since last night, but need to do some other stuff first. I'll be back with another long post later on today

[Dan K]

Allow me to start with the disclaimer that I’ll post pics when the bike is ready, as of now I just hooked everything up to be sure it all works. Also, due to the donor I was forced to use and the lack of time to fiddle, all observations are motor only. The bike I have it set up on has a top pedaling speed of ~13MPH, so this is all motor only.

Initial ride observations

Top speed ~22MPH. Should be able to improve this slightly with higher tire pressure or a more aero body position. I’m hesitant to increase tire pressure until I find a better way of securing the battery. The rack they sent me does not secure it properly (again, not the rack buyers will be getting) so the bumps are pretty rough @ 50PSI & 20MPH. No desire to increase both at the same time until I improve battery placement.

Very powerful little motor. She’ll surprise you when you get on the gas. Nothing like the Clyte I rode, way more torque… hit it on this thing and it wants to pull the bars from your hands, leap forward, possibly spin the front tire and you worry about breaking chromo dropouts… all at the same time. I learned after one time to come onto the throttle easily.

Everything seems very well built and solid. I have not even bothered trueing the wheel yet (it was almost 3AM when I finished the build) and it seems sturdy. The battery box has been referred to as an “ammo box”. Twist grip feels good.

Headlight is pretty good, I’ll know more when I get some full speed runs after dark.

Optional “Speed limiter” stops bike around 12MPH. This has been disconnected since I tested that speed.
Range seems very impressive. My ride into work today was 8 miles, almost entirely WOT and with no pedal assist. When I let off the throttle 5 of the 6 battery level indicators were lit, within a second the sixth lit for a 6/6 charge level after 8 miles of WOT motor only, high gear riding. I look forward to seeing how far it goes before it cuts out. I also look forward to putting a larger chain ring on the bike so I can assist with pedaling in the 20MPH range. Still looking for a 50ish tooth 104mm BCD chainring.

I’m not sure the functionality of the low/med/high thing yet. I have some preliminary testing in but it was all very rough off-road testing. I want to find a hill on pavement that taxes the bike to perform a better test before I say more about it.

One thing I'm not impressed with so far, “Regen braking” doesn’t seem to do much I can tell. I’ll need to wait until I connect a Watts Up to be sure. When riding, there is no change when you hit the brakes. With the front wheel off the ground the regen brake does not stop the front wheel from low speeds, nor does it slow it from higher speeds. I can’t tell if it’s connected or not, and I’ve run it both ways. According to Louis, “with the geared motor this regen only works at the point when brake levers are started to be applied, if possible use a meter to check if a "reverse voltage" exists or not, that could be evidence of this. The EABS is a brake assistant system.
As we use a geared motor wishing to easy normal man powered cycling, these features are do not obvious. A voltage meter could check if this exists or not. We believe if use a normal brushless motor this function will be obvious.”

Overall I’m quite pleased with the kit. Assembly was a cinch. Every plug is unique so you can’t possibly connect the wrong thing. The power is there. The speed is 20+MPH. Range looks good, but I’ll need a full range test to say for sure. Much more to come, this is just a quick check-in after getting it together and taking a ride into work.

This is the time to ask questions. What do you want to see tested? (pics of the insides of everything are coming, I wanted to connect and ride it first). Anything at all you want to ask, feel free. I'll be doing more testing as the days roll by, and I will continue to update this thread. I'm really looking forward to my watts-up so I can see what the amp draw difference is in low/med/high on the same hill at the same speed, as well as to try to test this regen braking thing.

[snowranger]

Nice kit. I'm interested in how the 3-way switch performs, and how hardy the internal gears are.

What's the amp rating on the controller? 22 mph seems a little slow on 48 volts.

[Dan K]

I'm not sure the amp rating on the controller, hopefully Louis or Steve can chime in and tell us. Bear in mind 22MPH is in an upright position, wearing a jacket, on 45ish PSI in a tire that'll take 65. It actually may have been 23MPH. I put ~ for a couple reasons. Low pressure, not working on the body positioning, and the speedo is calibrated from the book rather than a rollout. I'll have an honest to got top speed later this week, with tires at full pressure, probably on GPS.

I'm not sure I'll be able to tell you much more about the L/M/H switch until I get a watts up, to measure the amperage it's pulling. If I find a nice brutal hill in the mean time I may be able to test how well it kicks "down a gear" to get you up a steeper hill. My only testing so far has been unfair, either on paved hills that the bike had no issue with in any gear or on super steep off-road hills that it struggled with in any gear, both in pulling the bike and in traction. I need a better test-hill, and have a couple in mind. One of them is absolutely brutal, and right by my house. I will give that one a test this weekend if I don't have a chance to do some testing before then.

As far as how hardy the internal gears are, I've only had it together a few hours (finished @ 3AM this morning) but I have not been nice to it, and don't expect to get any nicer. I'm running the 48V kit, the most power they sell, and am using it on and off road, and on hills. I have one hill I would like to test it on that I can't climb on a normal bike (and I'm an avid cyclist... anyone who near in Dover, NH and wants to chime in I'll give specifics or meet you there). If the gears can be turned to peanut butter @ 48V, I'm the guy to do it. Overvoltage is another animal altogether, and not one I'm terribly likely to mess with, at least not yet.

Oh yeah, since I'm doing the review I should include the manufacturer/seller info.
Kit by Fusin Motors http://www.fusinmotors.com/
US Distributor is World Wide Electric Bikes https://www.worldwideelectricbikes.com/

[snowranger]

Yes, keep on the throttle.

Why don't you time yourself going up a hill three times at each setting?

[Dan K]

Yes, keep on the throttle.

Why don't you time yourself going up a hill three times at each setting?

That's an excellent idea. I'll give that a whirl tomorrow, if not tonight. I think tonight might be a case of seeing just how far I can stretch the battery, mostly pedaling and going slow. I'd like to ride it from my work to my home, which is ~35 miles. On a 10Ah battery that's going to involve going really slow, coasting a lot, pedaling a lot, etc. We'll see if I go that route, and how it works out. Tomorrow will be back to the brutal testing.

I should mention I got another ride in at lunch, that was where I got into the "unfair" off-road tests. I did 6.5 Brutal miles. WOT over a big bridge (climb and descent) over a major local river, and lots of off-road stuff. Being really, really hard on the kit. It was not done charging yet from the ride in to work, and has been on charge for 2.5 hours since I got back from that ride. It's still charging. I'm hoping it's finished before I leave work, so I can attempt that long distance ride. The battery indicator was still reading plenty of charge left (all 6 lights when off the throttle) when I returned, so I'm hoping it doesn't need too long to recharge. Then again, I put 6.5 very difficult miles on a not fully charged 10Ah battery, so it could be pretty low. It's hard to say. I will probably be here 2 more hours, giving it 4.5 hours charge time. I may have to disconnect for a bit to do some rack/mounting configuring, so maybe 4 hours charge. It only had 1.5 hours charge after the ride in to work this AM. At a true 2A it should be able to charge the battery from kaput in 5 hours, but it’s my understanding that’s not how these things work, since they slow down at the end to balance and whatnot. We’ll see, I’m just really hoping that light turns green before I leave work today.

edit: The hill I was thinking of appears to be 20% grade according to mapmyride, if I'm using the site properly. I don't think that's fair to expect of ANY motor. I can't ride a normal bike up this myself, and on my road or mountain bikes I end up in the lowest gear and struggling, although I can get up it.

edit #2: I just looked over my shoulder and after 3 hours the light is green, fully charged! Not sure if it got that way 10 seconds ago, or while I was typing about it not being charged yet, but either way I'm good for tonight. Sweet...

[dogman]

Leave that thing charging at all times you aren't riding for at least the first week, most lifpo4 needs a few cycles to break in. You should get a bit more range a few cycles from now. Keeping it balanced in the first week is a good thing, and in my opinion, you should avoid riding till cut out for a half a dozen cycles. Right now is when you are most likely to damage a cell by overdischarging since the pack is more likely to get unbalanced till it breaks in. It would be a shame to create a runt cell tonight. The battery indicator lights are designed for sla's and are mostly useless for lifepo4. Sla's will gradually sag, giving some warning of their level. Lifepo4 will give the same voltage for 95% of the discharge, and dive off a cliff at the end. So your indicators are likey to say full full full full, empty. No half full. This is why people love thier cycleanalyst. They can just read total amp hours or watt hours used.

[dnmun]

it may have speed limitng enabled to meet the euro standards.

eventually you will need to open the controller so we can figure out which one it is, and see if it can be upgraded for more power.

i am gonna do that with the 36V22A 9FET infineon controller i got with the 9 continents motors from jason.

i just bot a box of 100V1000uF caps on ebay so i can upgrade it to 72V lithium.

maybe someone else has this kit and they have the controller open?

[Dan K]

Leave that thing charging at all times you aren't riding for at least the first week, most lifpo4 needs a few cycles to break in. You should get a bit more range a few cycles from now. Keeping it balanced in the first week is a good thing, and in my opinion, you should avoid riding till cut out for a half a dozen cycles. Right now is when you are most likely to damage a cell by overdischarging since the pack is more likely to get unbalanced till it breaks in. It would be a shame to create a runt cell tonight. The battery indicator lights are designed for sla's and are mostly useless for lifepo4. Sla's will gradually sag, giving some warning of their level. Lifepo4 will give the same voltage for 95% of the discharge, and dive off a cliff at the end. So your indicators are likey to say full full full full, empty. No half full. This is why people love thier cycleanalyst. They can just read total amp hours or watt hours used.

Darn. Good to know. So I suppose the huge ride isn't a good idea tonight. Or at least, if I do it, it should be mostly pedaling, maybe with some assist for the hills. Maybe I'll just take the road bike...

Thanks for the feedback on this. I didn't realize those indicators were for SLA, that explains whey they still read so full after so much riding.

[Dan K]

it may have speed limitng enabled to meet the euro standards.

eventually you will need to open the controller so we can figure out which one it is, and see if it can be upgraded for more power.

i am gonna do that with the 36V22A 9FET infineon controller i got with the 9 continents motors from jason.

i just bot a box of 100V1000uF caps on ebay so i can upgrade it to 72V lithium.

maybe someone else has this kit and they have the controller open?

I'll open it up for sure, no worries. I just wanted to put it all together and get a few cycles through it to make sure everything worked first. General rule I like to follow with taking new stuff apart is make sure it works first.

[dnmun]

no rush, the regen we already knew was vaporware. it does seem to be a common old wives tale to go easy on the lithium initially, few do.

you don't have to open yours, someone will read this thread when they get one, and eventually we will see inside. the wires for the granny gear should help figure stuff out on the pcb too. and then we can guess about what to do to overvolt them.

[Russell]

The bike I have it set up on has a top pedaling speed of ~13MPH, so this is all motor only.

What is this some kiddie bike? What kind of bike with gears has a top pedaling speed of 13mph? Spin baby spin

Initial ride observations[list]
Top speed ~22MPH.

Hmmm...and that's on 48V so we could expect 16.5mph on 36V???

Range seems very impressive. My ride into work today was 8 miles, almost entirely WOT and with no pedal assist. When I let off the throttle 5 of the 6 battery level indicators were lit, within a second the sixth lit for a 6/6 charge level after 8 miles of WOT motor only, high gear riding. I look forward to seeing how far it goes before it cuts out.

Voltages, Amp-hours, Watt-hours please

I also look forward to putting a larger chain ring on the bike so I can assist with pedaling in the 20MPH range. Still looking for a 50ish tooth 104mm BCD chainring.

Geez all you need is to get your legs spinning! Heck I can cruise comfortably at 20mph using a 42T/16T combo (95RPM), well when the wind and grade is favorable that is

I’m not sure the functionality of the low/med/high thing yet. I have some preliminary testing in but it was all very rough off-road testing. I want to find a hill on pavement that taxes the bike to perform a better test before I say more about it.

How about testing what the top speed is in each "gear" on a flat road. If it works as advertised there should be a difference.

One thing I'm not impressed with so far, “Regen braking” doesn’t seem to do much I can tell. I’ll need to wait until I connect a Watts Up to be sure. When riding, there is no change when you hit the brakes. With the front wheel off the ground the regen brake does not stop the front wheel from low speeds, nor does it slow it from higher speeds. I can’t tell if it’s connected or not, and I’ve run it both ways. According to Louis, “with the geared motor this regen only works at the point when brake levers are started to be applied, if possible use a meter to check if a "reverse voltage" exists or not, that could be evidence of this. The EABS is a brake assistant system.
As we use a geared motor wishing to easy normal man powered cycling, these features are do not obvious. A voltage meter could check if this exists or not. We believe if use a normal brushless motor this function will be obvious.”

Well hey isn't that what all of us were saying? We could see regen on a direct drive motor but with a geared motor it doesn't make much sense.

Overall I’m quite pleased with the kit. Assembly was a cinch. Every plug is unique so you can’t possibly connect the wrong thing. The power is there. The speed is 20+MPH. Range looks good, but I’ll need a full range test to say for sure. Much more to come, this is just a quick check-in after getting it together and taking a ride into work.

Good review so far but I hope you get your WU meter soon for some hard numbers

-R

[louispower]

Thanks for the time and efforts.

1: the controller is 18A max by 48v controller. It is a well sealed controller.
The max amperage by our 48v controller could be 22A upon specif order requirements;

2: The meter is updated from a traditional meter for sla battery, now it seems to work not very well with the lifepo4 battery, that is it could not show the voltage changes very exactly. We are working on this wishing to improve it soon, that is to give the meter board more exact datas to reflect the capacity changes.

3: 3 speed gears could be tested on a flat road and on hills separately. That is to drive on same terrain with each of the gears and fell the difference.

Well, about the rege we will see when a voltage meter is connected what it will read when braking.