Bafang front wheel Uber motors - which controller

2 Donor bike options

1. Bike with v-brake both front and rear, full suspension or just front syspension

upgrade front fork with a Rockshox suspension with brake caliper mounts

2. Bike with both front/rear caliper brakes,
Some of these have the gear shift mechanism built into the brake lever (shimano), I am guessing that will be problem to use the Tektro calipers and levers that come with the hub?

I used an adjustable resistor potentiometer and got the battery down in voltage then gave the resistor value a # that was high in voltage cutoff then went from there to dial in what lvc I wanted.

gobi said:

Thanks, I am handy with a soldering iron but struggle with small components, I need to practice soldering small items.

I just received some 6.8k Ohms resistors to over volt my HP server PS.

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If you bought the KT controllers, with an LCD5, you probably can turn the current by 50% with one of the C parameters in the LCD setup. Set C5=3. See your display manual. It does work. I was getting 140W in level 1 with a 25A controller. I trimmed it down to 100W.

I was going to point out that the 9 pin connector on the first controller will probably need am extension. looks pretty short, unless you mount the controller on the front fender.

I have two of these motors coming. Gotta find some beater bikes A nice 3 speed hub bike from the 70''s would work. I have plenty of 36V 12A controllers,

I have plenty of 36V 12A controllers,

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That's probably about right for these motors when frt. mounted.
I've run several different PSW P. 20 Amp controllers and at 48 Volts, that set-up just feels like a little too much. My long travel forks go thru their range of travel at a touch of the gas and w/ that much weight up frt., the bike wants to tip over off the side stand.
But, aside from the noise, I do like the motor. The size might be my "Goldielocks" motor, bigger and more capable than my usual Q100, but smaller and lighter than the Ezee, MAC, BPM size motors.
In fact, I like it enough that I ordered a 13 Turn bare motor that I swapped into the Jump wheel/hub. It's a cassette rear and w/ a 9-speed, measures out to 139 M/M. It fit in the drop-outs ok, but like all the wide "mini"/cassette motors I used, it requires a lot of dishing. The gd. news is, it looks like I can get there w/ the Jump spokes, but the bad news is that extreem dished whl.s are a PITA to true. I'm getting ready to loosen them all up and try again

Gobi's very first line in his first post;

I am a complete noob on this topic so please excuse by lack of knowledge.

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You know, when you sandbag like that, you waste people's time.

The two motors came, within 5 days after the order. I now have a years supply of plastic peanuts. Each wheel came with a dreaded Textro MD300 caliper, a mounted Textro rotor, and the wheel hardware.I believe the caliper screws were even tossed in the plastic bag.

The nuts are some funny six-sided assymetrical anti-theft band, but it's a standard M12-1.25 axle.You do get four of the better lawyer lip washers. The motor cable, by the way, does not come out of the axle. It comes out of a sideplate hole next ti the axle.

I tested one motor and it spins.

docw009 said:

I now have a years supply of plastic peanuts.

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Worst packing material ever ... landfill nightmare.

LewTwo said:

docw009 said:

I now have a years supply of plastic peanuts.

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Worst packing material ever ... landfill nightmare.

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Mine (two shipments of two wheels each) came packed in biodegradable starch peanuts. Like a cubic yard of them. It took me weeks of filling the compostables bin to be rid of them. Supposedly you can melt them in the bathtub under running water, but I didn't want to waste that much water.

Those weird anti-theft axle nuts are seven-sided. I ordered a batch of flanged M12x1.25 nuts and a bunch of SAE 7/16" washers.

docw009 said:

If you bought the KT controllers, with an LCD5, you probably can turn the current by 50% with one of the C parameters in the LCD setup. Set C5=3. See your display manual. It does work. I was getting 140W in level 1 with a 25A controller. I trimmed it down to 100W.

I was going to point out that the 9 pin connector on the first controller will probably need am extension. looks pretty short, unless you mount the controller on the front fender.

I have two of these motors coming. Gotta find some beater bikes A nice 3 speed hub bike from the 70''s would work. I have plenty of 36V 12A controllers,

Click to expand...

Good info, thanks, I am not sure when I will get the controllers, yes, I did order 1 LCD5 and 1 LED890 controller,
I should have ordered additional torque arms but in the rush I forgot :-(.

I received my wheels yesterday, holi mother of peanuts,
Chalo, thanks, cubic yards of the [edit] bio degradable stuff here.

3 wheels - 2 with shorter 9 pin wire and 1 with long wire, 1 with the schwable tire and 2 with no marking tires. tires had air in em, woa.

I turned the spindle by hand and it was NOT that free turning in all of them, so there would be some rolling resistance?

PSW Power order - any clue how long it take to mosey over? 4 weeks? I did not create an account and there seems to be no way to track my order [edit] I tried the order status page and says my order # is not valid.

Battery - I bought a bunch of the scooters batteries, I finally received the connector from Jehu and I did a quick capacity test and very happy with results, nearly 11 ah till BMS cut off, [max charge to 40v only]

motomech said:

Gobi's very first line in his first post;

I am a complete noob on this topic so please excuse by lack of knowledge.

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You know, when you sandbag like that, you waste people's time.

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dang, busted, I am actually the chief motor engineer at bafang, this is a new show on chinese tv, undercover ebike tales

I appreciate the education and you guys sharing your knowledge and pointing me in the right direction.

Motomech, my apologies if I wasted yours or anyone's time.

Though I am an engineer by degree, I have been mostly hand holding and changing diapers for the last decade and been out of the tech scene.

Testing the wheel motor -

How are you guys testing the motor?

Can I apply voltage to the 3 phase connectors and test it?

You have to test it with a controller. I tested my second one today and it also runs. Some more observations,

1. The peanuts are Bio Degradable! They dissolve in water. Must be starch based.
EDIT: I didn't see Chalo had discovered this before I did.
2. There is an internal speed sensor in the motors.
3. Tires are rated "E-bike Ready", a claim I've never seen before.
4. Tube has a knurled ring on the valve stem. Never seen that on my Shraeder valves before,
5. One wheel going to need some spoke trueing, It's really bad, but I can dial it in,
6. These motors use up all of the 100mm in the fork. I barely got room for a washer on the disk side.

.

Huston the eagle has landed, DHL package from PSW came today,
wohooo.

Bike: Bikes have been out of stock till now, I found a Schwinn Sidewinder 26 inch in stock for $199 which has a low middle bar. I bought it. I am not sure if the front fork is up to the task, I searched for threads in here for ebike build using sidewinders, I found one thread here but I could not tell if they did a front hub build.

The bike has a steel frame, disks (160mm I assume), no rear suspension.
No sure if it will fit the munchkin.

A guy few blocks sold me a full suspension Mongoose for $20, but it is a 24 inch frame. This one has no front disk brake mounts.

And another free bike from a neighbor, it was sitting outside the deck when she bought the house. I took off the fork and steer tube (lot of rust) and measured it, 1inch and 6.5 inch long. I was thinking of doing what was suggested by Moto, getting a front 26 inch fork with disk caliper mounts. I looked on ebay and amazon, I found 1 inch forks but they all had 200 mm threaded steer tube. Not sure how I am going to fit that.

Torque Arm, I looked up the torque arms on Grin and I am guessing that TorqArm_V3 will be a good candidate for my MTB fork?

I need to reread the post on how to hook up the controller and do the "Learn" feature and test the hub motors.

I check the "Trueness" of the wheels, I found 2 were nearly perfect, I need to pick up spoke tool (watch some videos on how to true wheels)

The triangular bags I bought off amazon are too narrow, let's see if I can fit the small 5 ah scooter packs.

FYI. 6 magnets in the Bafang motor's speed sensor. I counted 50 flashes for one Hall Sensor while spinning the wheel backwards. For a KT controller with LCD3, I set P1 =50 and P2 =6. On my test stand, I got 22 mph unloaded speed. For an LCD1, I had to set P1 =100. Maybe there is one flash for every two magnets. 50 seems low.

No problems with the 9 pin connector. It follows commonly the accepted pin-out. probably a Bafang standard anyway.

I loosened all the spokes on one wheel. Turns out they are 12G. I haven't seen that in years, since I started spoking my own wheels. The 1/2" wobble went to 1/8". It only took a couple of more spoke twists to trim it straight.Then I snugged up all the spokes by hand til they felt tight, That was easy.

gobi said:

I found a Schwinn Sidewinder 26 inch in stock .... I bought it. I am not sure if the front fork is up to the task ....

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https://www.walmart.com/ip/Schwinn-Sidewinder-Mountain-Bike-26-inch-wheels-black-rose/857861835

I brightened the image up a bit to make some more of the dropout details visible. I note that the dropouts are welded into the fork lower assembly.

Question: Are those forks steel or aluminum ?
The description does not say and the user manual is waste of time.

Gobi, where do you find 1" solid steerers with disk brakes on ebay? I've only seen suspension forks, which I'm not going to use for FWD. There are plenty of 1 1/8" forks. A threaded can be converted to threadless if the tube is long enough that there will be no threads under the top collar.

In my case, I don't have bikes yet. If necessary, I can lace up an old rim to use caliper brakes.

LewTwo said:

Question: Are those forks steel or aluminum ?
The description does not say and the user manual is waste of time.

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The Amazon ad for a woman's 26" sidewinder says steel frame and fork. I know that Schwinn did sell mountain bikes with steel suspension forks. I found one (Schwin SC2000) in the trash and made an ebike out of it, but I replaced the fork with an $49 part I found on amazon.

That steel fork was awfully heavy. And for all of its weight, the steel steerer tube was so thin that it had crushed where a previous mechanic had overtightened the collar.

docw009 said:

FYI. 6 magnets in the Bafang motor's speed sensor. I counted 50 flashes for one Hall Sensor while spinning the wheel backwards. For a KT controller with LCD3, I set P1 =50 and P2 =6. On my test stand, I got 22 mph unloaded speed. For an LCD1, I had to set P1 =100. Maybe there is one flash for every two magnets. 50 seems low.

No problems with the 9 pin connector. It follows commonly the accepted pin-out. probably a Bafang standard anyway.

I loosened all the spokes on one wheel. Turns out they are 12G. I haven't seen that in years, since I started spoking my own wheels. The 1/2" wobble went to 1/8". It only took a couple of more spoke twists to trim it straight.Then I snugged up all the spokes by hand til they felt tight, That was easy.

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Ok, I understand the concept, have to wait to try it out.
My controller has sensor wires but I have to match em up and connect them. I bought the extension cable that breaks out the 9 pins, looks a bit daunting right now.
[edit] colors all match up exactly, wow, that is simple enough,


So loosen all the spoke and tighten them to straighten them?

Your KT controller probably has the female 6 pin plug, they should have inserted six wires. Red, White, Black on the side with the tab. Yellow, Green, Blue on the other side.

The adapter cable might not have its pins installed. Just match them up so the same color connects when the plugs mate. That keeps it within the conventional standard should you ever change motors.

Red/Black are power (nominal 5V). White is speed sensor. Yellow, Green, Blue are the Hall sensor outputs.

Picture

docw009 said:

Gobi, where do you find 1" solid steerers with disk brakes on ebay? I've only seen suspension forks, which I'm not going to use for FWD. There are plenty of 1 1/8" forks. A threaded can be converted to threadless if the tube is long enough that there will be no threads under the top collar.

In my case, I don't have bikes yet. If necessary, I can lace up an old rim to use caliper brakes.

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It was probably ebay (used) or amazon, I will look for it later,
This is the current fork on the bike.

docw009 said:

Gobi, where do you find 1" solid steerers with disk brakes on ebay? I've only seen suspension forks, which I'm not going to use for FWD. There are plenty of 1 1/8" forks. A threaded can be converted to threadless if the tube is long enough that there will be no threads under the top collar.

In my case, I don't have bikes yet. If necessary, I can lace up an old rim to use caliper brakes.

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https://www.ebay.com/itm/164824333455

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265108566532

I found that older Schwinn Ranger and Other MTB bikes with 1 inch steer, the fork have the mounts for disk brakes. I found a few on facebook market and craigslist, but these sellers wanted too much $$$ plus they were 30 mile drive, not worth the diesel or time as I found a new Schwinn above from walmart new for $198.

LewTwo said:

gobi said:

I found a Schwinn Sidewinder 26 inch in stock .... I bought it. I am not sure if the front fork is up to the task ....

Click to expand...

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Schwinn-Sidewinder-Mountain-Bike-26-inch-wheels-black-rose/857861835
sidewinder fork dropouts(1024).jpg
I brightened the image up a bit to make some more of the dropout details visible. I note that the dropouts are welded into the fork lower assembly.

Question: Are those forks steel or aluminum ?
The description does not say and the user manual is waste of time.

Click to expand...

The Fork or dropouts are STEEL, the entire piece is steel, I put a magnet all over it and it sticks!

I was checking the clearance between the brake disk and the fork/dropout and I see an extra nut there in the factory setup in the Schwinn,
Do I need to put this nut in the bafang [which is bare, no extra nuts in it]

gobi said:

The Fork or dropouts are STEEL, the entire piece is steel, I put a magnet all over it and it sticks!

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A front motor mounted in a cheesy pogo stick fork like that will clap out the fork bushings very quickly.

On the plus side, ruining such a nasty fork so you have to replace it is actually doing you a favor. Replace with a rigid fork, because there are no decent suspension forks with steel lowers.

Chalo said:

gobi said:

The Fork or dropouts are STEEL, the entire piece is steel, I put a magnet all over it and it sticks!

Click to expand...

A front motor mounted in a cheesy pogo stick fork like that will clap out the fork bushings very quickly.

On the plus side, ruining such a nasty fork so you have to replace it is actually doing you a favor. Replace with a rigid fork, because there are no decent suspension forks with steel lowers.

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Ok, I will run it till it I get the replacement fork.
Can you suggest some rigid fork, I was looking up other user's build and found DrBass using RST forks, would that be a good brand to buy?

I am going to check fitment now with the uber hub.

gobi said:

Chalo said:

gobi said:

The Fork or dropouts are STEEL, the entire piece is steel, I put a magnet all over it and it sticks!

Click to expand...

A front motor mounted in a cheesy pogo stick fork like that will clap out the fork bushings very quickly.

On the plus side, ruining such a nasty fork so you have to replace it is actually doing you a favor. Replace with a rigid fork, because there are no decent suspension forks with steel lowers.

Click to expand...

Ok, I will run it till it I get the replacement fork.
Can you suggest some rigid fork, I was looking up other user's build and found DrBass using RST forks, would that be a good brand to buy?

I am going to check fitment now with the uber hub.

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That's rigid as is "no suspension". Which one to use depends on what kind of steer tube you have and how long it is, what the axle to crown dimension of your bike's original fork is, and what kind of brake you will be using.