Is DIY dying?

S

saukit

10 mW
Joined
Jan 9, 2019
Messages
28
Hi all,
I don't mean to be inflammatory with the title of my post, but I am interested in other's opinions of the direction of the DIY ebike market. I'm primarily interested in mid drive motors, and it doesn't seem like anything new has come out the last few years in the mid drive market. Most of the discussion seems to revolve around the BBS and Tongsheng motors with not much changing on that front.

I was pretty excited about the Propel motors created by Paul D but they sold out quickly and he has gone silent on updates, at least on IG.

What do you think? Are we going to see lighter, more powerful motors and batteries aimed at the DIY market? Or will DIY fade away as mass produced ebikes get more powerful and cheaper?
 
Turn key options are going to have to get a whole lot cheaper and better performing before they scoop up most of the market that would otherwise DIY.

What we will see is more folks who didn't ride bikes, and perhaps didn't know about electric bikes, buying ready made e-bikes because that's the only way for them to get one. The market represented by feckless people is inexhaustible. It's all for the best, if it means fewer miles driven by fewer cars.

Bafang mid drives represent a significant engineering challenge for anybody who wants to improve upon them at a comparable price level. Tongsheng mid drives are probably driving people away from the idea as fast as they're converting them, due to bad design resulting in poor reliability. And bicycle components aren't getting any stronger just because a few crackpots are throwing inappropriate amounts of power at them. That imposes a built-in constraint on development of e-bike systems that use the bike's gears. It works out better for manufacturers who use actual engineering, and design their products to conform to common legal performance limits, than for the DIYer who has other ideas.

Batteries continue to improve in both price and performance. I think that's where the main action is for the near future. They've been the primary limitation on the popularity and performance of e-bikes for a long time.
 
I'm sure that there are some niches that are not yet being served, but...the last few years it seems like the low-hanging fruit has been picked.

Mid-drives that are installed by the bike owner is booming, and turn-key ebikes are booming. Not much left to develop that would have a broad enough market to justify the expense and effort.

Of course, I could be wrong...
 
saukit said:
Hi all,
I don't mean to be inflammatory with the title of my post, but I am interested in other's opinions of the direction of the DIY ebike market.
Click to expand...
There are more DIYers than ever. However, as a percentage of ebikes they are becoming smaller due to the popularity of mass market ebikes. And more and more retailers are supporting commercial ebikes.
 
Not counting the group here at ES, most people like to buy turn key. Think of autos they have been around for a while but the aftermarket thrives.

Even if most ebikes go main stream/turnkey there will be people modifying them. Some of us can not leave well enough alone.
 
New mid drive: Cyc motor, GNG 3000w cheaper than bbs02 (cyclone with proper aluminum mount and quality bb).
New geared hub: mxus xf19, super cheap from chamrider with battery.

I think it is alive and well.
 
I think there's a new wave coming. I know lots of people that ordered cheap generic factory ebikes during the pandemic as their foray into the hobby. I hear how happy they are initially to have the superman leg feeling, but eventually people develop the need for more range or power. DIY is usually the best option to get something more than the standard 250W geared hub on the cheap bikes.
 
Well, there might be fewer legal speed DIY ebike builders, but the high speed powerful ebikes will be DIY for a long time ahead. And, we all know that after riding legal speed ebikes, many will want better. So far, the market is very shy of fast ebikes. They care about the laws, and want to target the largest crowd of newbs. But, newbs don’t stay newbs very long. Soon they know what is possible to achieve.
 
saukit said:
Are we going to see lighter, more powerful motors and batteries aimed at the DIY market? Or will DIY fade away as mass produced ebikes get more powerful and cheaper?
Click to expand...

These are not alternatives to each other.

"More powerful" is meaningful to a lot of DIY types here, but only because this is the home of garage builder anarchists. Existing motors are already capable of exceeding legal limits, and in the case of crank drives already put more force on drive train parts than they're designed for. Don't expect much here.

"Lighter" is everyone's dream, particularly with batteries; DIY isn't going to get it first.

What maybe we could hope for, though, is new designs that are lighter, reasonably powerful, and combine some of the advantages of the existing systems. For example, a real "mid drive" with its own drive train, and gears. Hub motors with variable gears. Motors with clutches that allow the user to turn freewheeling on and off. Some of this stuff exists, and DIYers generally are just not adventurous enough to use it, so ... I don't know.
 
In terms of HP per Kg, the DIY crowd is far ahead of the ebike market. Light weight has that meaning too. In terms of absolute weight, no DIY builder can compete with the major bike manufacturers.

Batteries will change. We are all waiting for better density. The more the industry will demand better battery technology, the faster they will happen. So it is good for us that more manufacturers are producing ebikes, e-moto and cars. They are accelerating the development, and the DIYers are quick to use new means available to improve their bikes performance.
 
I don't think DIY will ever die, just my humble opinion. There will always be people who look at something and think, "I could make that better."

As far as ebikes, DIY will persist because I think it will be a looooong time before the factory ebikes can meet the DIY sector's dollar per watt ratio. As an example, my current build cost a total of approximatley $900 for an ungoverned PAS/throttle 1300W mid-drive ebike with a 16aH 52V pack.

Like many of us I often browse CL for next bikes and often see people trying to sell slightly used factory ebikes for astronomical prices. The most recent one was a 250W Specialized Turbo Kenevo with a 700wH battery for $8000 https://chico.craigslist.org/bik/d/chico-2020-kenevo-specialized/7185635146.html That is just........ Wow
 
donn said:
saukit said:
Are we going to see lighter, more powerful motors and batteries aimed at the DIY market? Or will DIY fade away as mass produced ebikes get more powerful and cheaper?
Click to expand...

These are not alternatives to each other.

"More powerful" is meaningful to a lot of DIY types here, but only because this is the home of garage builder anarchists. Existing motors are already capable of exceeding legal limits, and in the case of crank drives already put more force on drive train parts than they're designed for. Don't expect much here.

"Lighter" is everyone's dream, particularly with batteries; DIY isn't going to get it first.

What maybe we could hope for, though, is new designs that are lighter, reasonably powerful, and combine some of the advantages of the existing systems. For example, a real "mid drive" with its own drive train, and gears. Hub motors with variable gears. Motors with clutches that allow the user to turn freewheeling on and off. Some of this stuff exists, and DIYers generally are just not adventurous enough to use it, so ... I don't know.
Click to expand...

I think this is a great summation of what I was trying to get at with my original post. I'm not so much interested in "more power" but more the power to weight ratio, both for motors and batteries. My current BBSHD build doesn't need any more power, but if it was significantly lighter and had torque sensing I might be in the market for a new one. Right now the current offerings haven't seemed to change much in a few years with the exception of the Ultra/M motors that require a custom frame.

A 48v/52v mid drive with a battery in the 15ah range and torque sensing (that can be bolted directly to most bikes) that weighs in the neighborhood of 10-12 pounds for everything would be the holy grail for me. I don't see that happening any time soon though.
 
saukit said:
A 48v/52v mid drive with a battery in the 15ah range and torque sensing (that can be bolted directly to most bikes) that weighs in the neighborhood of 10-12 pounds for everything would be the holy grail for me. I don't see that happening any time soon though.
Click to expand...

Not when the battery leaves you only 0-2 lbs to work with.

What we don't hear a lot about here is lightweight low performance assist. For example, Bianchi's E-Road has a 250W motor in the rear hub and a 250Wh battery, in under 8 lbs. That's a sort of reasonable target, if you can find a light motor that can take the load. If 12lbs is OK, you could think about a XiongDa 2 speed, which might make more efficient use of the limited power. Put that on a nice road bike that you got for $200 on craigslist, and laugh at your friend with the $6K Bianchi.
 
In my opinion, the make vs buy choice favors buy when looking at the lower end of the ebike world. There are lots of decent ebikes I can buy for under $800 that I cannot build for that kind of money. You can get bikes with integrated batteries for less than that at Walmart's online outlet, with WMT return polices. In one forum I follow, one guy reported getting a second, maybe a third hub motor when he complained about a broken spoke.

Still, they don't sell 1000-2000W direct drive bikes that go 30 mph. You gotta build them.

They also don't sell my 30-35 pound folding ebikes, well they do, but they cost $2000+. Mine are $200 for the motor, and I've been known to run them for 30 miles on $50 worth of battery.
 
I'm not sure what the real point of the thread is supposed to be. But DIY never dies, it just puts itself to bed and wakes itself up when necessary.

As with the point about what you can buy now. When you can only buy a 16" wheel bike with a 250w motor, there will be a lot of work done on building bigger bikes. When they can buy bigger bikes but it comes up short somehow, there will be less work to upgrade it. But then there might be a lot more people working on them than there were building before.

There's not much to say except there will be about as much DIY as people need there to be.
 
docw009 said:
There are lots of decent ebikes I can buy for under $800 that I cannot build for that kind of money.
Click to expand...

You fool yourself. There's nothing decent about e-BSOs. A sub-$1000 e-bike tends to be even nastier than a sub-$200 pedal bike.
 
In my experience riding a 1000w, 52V errand bike around town and BBS02 or pedal MTB on the local trails four times a week, I've encountered many OEM ebikes but have never seen another DIY bike. Awaiting a lighter mid-drive since I almost never use PAS above level 3 (of 9), so interested in a lower power, lighter motor. Don't anticipate batteries getting much lighter in the near future, but Luna's 3 & 1/2 pound 52V, 6 ah is plenty for my 15 mile 2,000' ascent rides.
 
Dauntless said:
I'm not sure what the real point of the thread is supposed to be. But DIY never dies, it just puts itself to bed and wakes itself up when necessary.
Click to expand...

My intent with this thread was to gather opinions about the technology advances (or lack thereof) in the DIY market. From my admittedly inexperienced perspective, the DIY offerings for motors and batteries don't seem to have anywhere near the same level of effort from the manufacturers to cut weight, offer smaller form factors, and so on.

Prebuilt ebikes seem to be getting better pretty quickly. In the meantime, we still have the same BBSHD and batteries that were available 3-4 years ago.
 
2old said:
In my experience riding a 1000w, 52V errand bike around town and BBS02 or pedal MTB on the local trails four times a week, I've encountered many OEM ebikes but have never seen another DIY bike. Awaiting a lighter mid-drive...
Click to expand...

This is my experience as well, although I just have one ebike set up for around town and I don't ride eMTB.

The red text is what I am trying to get at. It's been a long wait IMO.
 
saukit said:
Prebuilt ebikes seem to be getting better pretty quickly. In the meantime, we still have the same BBSHD and batteries that were available 3-4 years ago.
Click to expand...

If you're using 18650 packs, then maybe you're right. But I don't anymore, and the variety of automotive cells that are available to me has gotten a lot better in the last 3-4 years.

It seems like aftermarket support for BBSHD has gotten better during that time too.
 
Balmorhea said:
If you're using 18650 packs, then maybe you're right. But I don't anymore, and the variety of automotive cells that are available to me has gotten a lot better in the last 3-4 years.

It seems like aftermarket support for BBSHD has gotten better during that time too.
Click to expand...
Interesting...so maybe I'm just not "DIY" enough to take advantage of the existing improvements in battery tech. That's something I'll have to explore. Any suggestions on what automotive cells you've had a good experience with?
 
saukit said:
Interesting...so maybe I'm just not "DIY" enough to take advantage of the existing improvements in battery tech. That's something I'll have to explore. Any suggestions on what automotive cells you've had a good experience with?
Click to expand...

Panasonic 25Ah PHEV2 format cells have been great.
ximage,qunique=9f1d815.pagespeed.ic.dEloI9ua7C.webp


My last new pack used a 12S 20Ah module from a Mercedes Benz. I wouldn't bother breaking up that module for a different voltage, but as a discrete unit, it's very good. The die cast aluminum housing looks like it might come in handy for something later, but was too heavy for my application.

[youtube]7PhRhCHQBZI[/youtube]
 
For me, battery improvement would be be increased wh per weight. We seem stuck with incremental gains, and I don't expect much improvement in the near future. Also, a four pound DIY mid-drive motor like some of the OEM's would be nice. I realize that's not the focus at ES.
 
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