Oops! I bought a Chinese electric motorcycle...

WickedTico

1 mW
Joined
Jul 24, 2020
Messages
14
...before I found this forum. This forum is amazing, I didn't realize the wealth of information available already.

So I made an impulse buy. Stuck at home for 16 weeks and I'm running out of projects. I've always wanted a motorcycle, so I thought an electric would be a great project. I've got a full-time desk job and kids, so I was looking for something mostly built that I could upgrade overtime.

I bought an electric "RZ" model (whatever that means). Specs are as follows:
3000w Yuma Motor
YUANQU 72260
17in tires
72V45Ah lithium
200kgs without battery

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My questions are:
1. What initial speed should I expect?
2. What initial range should I expect?
3. What's the first upgrade I will need?
1. Any faulty or garbage components that I should expect to replace immediately
2. Desire 50 mile range
3. Desire 80mph speed
4. Accompanying upgrades to support 2 and 3 (ex: new brakes for higher speed; i'm guessing)
 
3000W will give you a steady 45 mph or so on a level road. Whether your new bike's motor can put out 3 kW at 45 mph is unknown. Whether it can accelerate to that speed in a reasonable time is also unknown. And how much 3 kW resembles its actual power output is an open question.

At that steady 45 mph on a level road, you'll be consuming about 100 Wh per mile, from a battery pack that contains a nominal 3240 Wh. That implies a 32 mile range at that speed if you don't have to stop, climb hills, or cope with a headwind.
 
Going to be hard to say buddy.

Best to wait and see when it arrives.

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk

 
Since you use the words "Expect" and "Desire," I'll remind you of another important word with these Chinese bikes:

Disappointment.

1. Expect to try to learn if your motor really is 3KW or maybe half that. Just from casual reading I think your controller is normally matched to a 2kw motor.
2. If the battery lives up to billing you could be coming close to your range. You read this board and you find a lot of people saying their batteries didn't work out. And it's almost the norm that people are adding cells, but they have to find where they can squeeze in more cells. The irony is, the harder they worked at engineering this bike, the harder time you'll have making room.
3. Just a thought: I'd say first upgrade the batteries so you'll have your 50 mile range AFTER you upgrade the motor to get 80mph. Normally these bikes offer motor options and tell you what the top motor will do. So you can look at your page and find that their biggest motor was probably an 8KW. (I seek one of these bikes, I know these pages.) The 5kw motor would take the YUANQU 72600 controller.

Brakes? People have spoken as though those bikes come with brakes enough, but they don't always work right.

Much pondering the issue around here. I say you have the right idea buying an electric rather than converting gas, so much work already done. https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=106116
 
Balmorhea said:
3000W will give you a steady 45 mph or so on a level road. Whether your new bike's motor can put out 3 kW at 45 mph is unknown. Whether it can accelerate to that speed in a reasonable time is also unknown. And how much 3 kW resembles its actual power output is an open question.

At that steady 45 mph on a level road, you'll be consuming about 100 Wh per mile, from a battery pack that contains a nominal 3240 Wh. That implies a 32 mile range at that speed if you don't have to stop, climb hills, or cope with a headwind.
Thanks for the estimates. Those should be ok initials for commuting. The seller estimated 55mph and 32 mile range.

Dauntless said:
Since you use the words "Expect" and "Desire," I'll remind you of another important word with these Chinese bikes:

Disappointment.

1. Expect to try to learn if your motor really is 3KW or maybe half that. Just from casual reading I think your controller is normally matched to a 2kw motor.
2. If the battery lives up to billing you could be coming close to your range. You read this board and you find a lot of people saying their batteries didn't work out. And it's almost the norm that people are adding cells, but they have to find where they can squeeze in more cells. The irony is, the harder they worked at engineering this bike, the harder time you'll have making room.
3. Just a thought: I'd say first upgrade the batteries so you'll have your 50 mile range AFTER you upgrade the motor to get 80mph. Normally these bikes offer motor options and tell you what the top motor will do. So you can look at your page and find that their biggest motor was probably an 8KW. (I seek one of these bikes, I know these pages.) The 5kw motor would take the YUANQU 72600 controller.

Brakes? People have spoken as though those bikes come with brakes enough, but they don't always work right.

Much pondering the issue around here. I say you have the right idea buying an electric rather than converting gas, so much work already done. https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=106116

I recently found that "Inja" series of videos as well, all I can do now is hope I get what I paid for. Glad I got the seller to mail it DDP to my door, so they should incur all costs until it arrives at my home.

1. Verify all components.
2. Controller and Motor at the same time.
3. Batteries to support increased motor. What about BMS? is that something that it should come with? Is it something I would replace if I have to go custom? Can I just add more capacity to existing?
 
WickedTico said:
3. Batteries to support increased motor. What about BMS? is that something that it should come with? Is it something I would replace if I have to go custom? Can I just add more capacity to existing?

Here's where you get to become a battery engineer. The kid on Youtube adding a plug to put some of his radio control batteries onto his Razor MX650. Well, it was lead acid cells getting a few RC Lipos joining, each charged separately with their proper chargers, what could possibly go wrong? If it did go wrong, he never posted a warning. He was selling his homemade plug addon.

You'll have more volatile batteries. What BMS should be there would only be good enough for the original batteries. If you had your own separate extension with their own BMS and charged them separately, you might be okay. You'll be the experimenter that tells us how it went. I would caution against dismantling and rebuilding the original cells with new ones, hard to guess the quality of the match you'd get. Of course it it worked as well as with all new cells that would be the best thing.

It's a tough question to answer.
 
I got the yuanqu nd96660 controller with software to tweek it. Probably the same soft... i'm trying To make it work with a qs138. I might be help full and you too! 😂
 
WELTERN said:
I got the yuanqu nd96660 controller with software to tweek it. Probably the same soft... i'm trying To make it work with a qs138. I might be help full and you too! 😂

Thanks. Got confirmation it shipped 8/24. Will let you know when it arrives!
 
WickedTico said:
My questions are:
1. What initial speed should I expect?

Never heard of this controller, but if the "260" in the 72260 number refers to the phase amps, then it won't be glorious.
If it refers to the battery amps, then it might be pretty nice.
So it's hard to answer, you'll need to open the bike and show us pics of the controller when you'll receive the machine, then maybe we can tell you how good (or bad) it is. If I had to bet right now, I'd say that the controller is likely to be an APT controller. In which case, it would be a good controller brand, but unfortunately you picked the weakest version, which is only 60Amps battery. That might be real sluggish.
Usually at 72V you should be able to reach 70-80 km/h easy, but I'm not sure it will be the case with such low power controller on such heavy bike.

WickedTico said:
2. What initial range should I expect?

Totally depends on how fast you ride. Usually a 40Ah battery should give you anything between 40 to 80/90 km of autonomy, but that totally depends on you riding style. Also, it will depend of your battery quality, if it struggles to deliver the power then your automony will decrease dramatically.

WickedTico said:
3. What's the first upgrade I will need?
1. Any faulty or garbage components that I should expect to replace immediately

First thing I would replace is all the wiring. It's usually garbage and the main cause of lots of problems later.
Also, the front brake calipers look like they won't last very long, I'd change that.

There is a good chance that the battery won't be anything good, so I'd probably try to find a better one.
I think the only thing that you can probably keep is the motor, if it is a QSmotor. They are usually pretty good and will last a really long time if they pass their first 1000km.

WickedTico said:
2. Desire 50 mile range

Again, depends at which speed. But obviously you'll need a bigger battery.

WickedTico said:
3. Desire 80mph speed

Higher voltage battery, likely over 100V, new controller capable of handling such voltages at minimum 200 Amps of battery current.
Motor might be fine, but not sure.

WickedTico said:
4. Accompanying upgrades to support 2 and 3 (ex: new brakes for higher speed; i'm guessing)

First thing would be the tires, they usually suck real bad, then lighting. Already mentionned brakes and wiring. I recommend you to cover any plastic in vinyl and well as paint the inside of them, some factories use crappy plastics that don't tolerate UV really well, so after a few months they start disintegrating. My bike came with amazingly good plastics which was a big surprize, but most other bikes I saw were real bad.
 
Welcome. I did the same with a Grom Clone, bought it and then found ES.

I will be interested in your progress.

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=108183
Some info on my project.

Good luck! I have been having a blast building this thing.
 
Ok so it FINALLY arrived yesterday! 11/17 after it was paid for 7/22 and shipped 8/23.

The shipment actually arrived in the US on Oct 2nd. But the freight forwarder took this long to figure out how to get it from Maryland to Florida! However, the shipping terms were DDP so it was on SELLER to get it to my HOME.

The box was terrifying. However, so long as nothing is sticking out, it should be good right?
outsidepackage1.jpg
outsidepackage2.jpg
outsidepackage3.jpg
outsidepackage4.jpg
Well thank goodness it was so well packaged!
insidepackage1.jpg
insidepackage2.jpg
insidepackage3.jpg
insidepackage4.jpg
Obviously IMMEDIATELY tore it apart...albeit carefully.
insidepackage5.jpg
I was very impressed with what was left. All I had to do was attach 4 screws for the handlebars, and another 4 screws for the rearview mirrors and screen.
hub.jpg
HUD.jpg
unwrapped.jpg

Now preliminary, non-scientific data:
  • The battery arrived fully charged, according to HUD. I verified the charger works and it recharged this morning.
  • Arrived with 2km on it, it died after 48km. 28.5 miles later (was advertised 35 mile range averaging 56mph).
  • I pushed it pretty hard without grabbing the Interstate. Reached 113kmh; 70.2mph (advertised to go 95/kmh).
  • I can't compare acceleration, as I've not ridden a motorcycle in over 10 years. But rough numbers, I was able to reach 50mph in one block (350-400 ft) so 50mph in 4-5 seconds...sounds nice.

Overall, without changing anything, I'm very happy

I'm thinking first step will likely be to add cells for greater distance; even at 113kmh I'd feel safe on the interstate.
Second step would be a faster charger than the included 88.2v 5A C600 charger.

I'll worry about tinkering with the insides once I have some more miles on it, or when I'm ready to add cells.
 
You're lucky that it wasn't damaged from being dropped - that happens to a LOT of Chinese bikes en route - many of them on the way to my house.

It is NOT a good idea to range test the bike until it shuts down. If it has a good, conservative BMS, then hopefully you got lucky. If not, you may have done some damage to the battery. Consider end of range when it starts to slow quite a bit, and stop and recharge at that point (which is why many range tests are done close to home, like circling the block for the last couple of miles).
 
I meant to ask about that...it never slowed down. It just cut off...still showed half the battery available though! Started beeping like crazy when I would try to turn it on again.
 
Does it give a voltage display? What voltage was showing when it shut down? If there was no voltage sag to speak of and it didn't slow before stopping, then it probably shut down soon enough to avoid battery damage.
 
No voltage numbers...just a battery representation.
odometer.jpg


It was at half when it shut down. Is it the BMS that is doing that? Can I program it to stop at 20-30% instead?

I'm sure I'm going to have to crack it open to get more specifics.
 
If I had to guess, my guess would be that you have one or more weak cells that are triggering the low voltage shutdown before most of the cells are low. The two buttons on the dashboard don't change to other displays?
 
Typically in EV systems made from individual modular components (vs designed as a complete system from the ground up) the controller has an LVC that is conservative, to shutdown the system long before battery damage could occur.

Then the battery itself (BMS) has a last-ditch LVC that shuts off to protect the cells against overdischarge--whether this is conservative or right at the bleeding edge of cell damage depends on how the battery builder decided to go....

There may also be a third (top) level LVC, if there is a main brain on the bike that manages the whole system, that could be even higher than the controller's LVC.

I doubt the bike's manual (if it even has one) tells you what each of these is set to, etc. The manufacturer *might* be able to tell you...but they may well not have any idea, if all they do is build the bikes from parts from other places (and their sources may change, so their specs may also change without notice).

Whether any of it is programmable also depends on the above--if nothing it came with says it can be or tells you how, it's not likely that it is user-alterable without replacing hardware...but you could get lucky.
 
WELTERN said:
I got the yuanqu nd96660 controller with software to tweek it. Probably the same soft... i'm trying To make it work with a qs138. I might be help full and you too! 😂

Did you managed to get it working with the QSMOTORS QS 138 mid drive motor ? How does the interface look like, is there an option for English language . ?
 
Help! I can't title this thing. Florida wants a Certificate of Origin and a Customs 7501.

I have the Certificate of Origin, but it doesn't have a VIN on it.
The customs form went to another company in the US who then shipped me the bike, so they won't give me a copy, and even when I called, Customs says the Customs Broker filed it for non public road use.

This is an expensive off road bike that can't off road :shock:

Any suggestions?
 
You are likely Screwed with no VIN. I suggest you find out if your state has a procedure for acquiring a VIN for custom built motorcycles or scooters, and see if you can go that route. You'd have to de-brand the bike and make it look home-made...
 
There's a VIN on the steering head, but clearly not in a US database...I heard Vermont will title anything...has anyone had luck going this route?
 
What does that mean? Is this number 17 digit? So the California DMV sent a guest speaker to a group full of people who were a threat to build their own, mentioned generating a VIN there wasn't one. I think you might have to look beyond your initial contact with your Florida DMV.

https://driving-tests.org/vin-decoder/
 
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