Decathlon R500 Electric Cargo Bike speed limit

[DecathlonR500]

Hello all,

I am completely new to E-bikes and I just purchased my first one. I happen to choose a cargo bike as I need to carry heavy stuff from time to time. This is the exact model I have:
https://www.decathlon.es/es/p/cargo-bike-electrica-bicicleta-de-carga-longtail-carga-trasera-elops-r500-azul/_/R-p-329177?mc=8605830

It is using a 48v 250w motor that produces 58Nm of torque and 685 watts of peak power. The battery is a 48v 14Ah (672Wh) using Samsung lithium cells.

Love it but I wish there would not be a speed limit of 25km/h (this is on paper, but actually it is pushing to 28 sometimes by the motor and then suddenly goes back to 25 - feels like it want to go faster than 25). And I am also not able to put more by pedaling - it feels like the motor absorbs my pedaling and does not produce any more speed.

I am wondering what would be the best way to increase speed to at least 35km/h. From what I understand it is not possible to unlock it from the display and there is nothing mentioned about it in the manual.
Is there some-sort of universal way to unlock it by changing the lcd screen? I am even considering adding extra motor on the front wheel (to give me extra 10-20km/h) if it turns out there is no other options.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you so much!

 

[amberwolf]

If there's no setting for speed limiting, then to change the limit or remove it, you'd probably have to replace the controller and display (as a set, since there's no standard intercompatibility with these things) with a set that don't have any restrictions and can be setup the way you want the system to run.

Unfortunately for us, these types of restricted/limited systems these days tend to be not user-alterable regarding such limitations, probably for legal reasons, depending on the locality they are made for.

There is a "bypass" that works by removing the abilty of the system to read speed at all:

If the system has a separate wheel speed sensor, either frame mounted or in the motor wheel, then you may be able to defeat the limit by disconnecting that sensor, or moving it's magnet (on the wheel or inside the hubmotor) away from the sensor so it can't read it, or removing the magnet entirely.

Sometimes systems that use sensors like this have timeouts, though, so if they don't detect speed pulses for a certain amount of time (a minute, two, etc) the system turns off to save power, thinking you have parked it and forgotten to turn it off.

For systems like that, you can instead build a bit of electronics (easiest with Arduino/etc) that takes the pulses that come in and "knock off" some off them so the output is fewer of the same kind of pulses, and whatever reads that output will see a slower speed than it really is, by the proportion of remaining pulses to original pulses.


Keep in mind that depending on load (weight, slope, air resistance / headwinds, terrain, etc) the system may not be able to generate enough power to go as fast as you want, without changing other parts. The battery can only generate so much continuous current, for instance, and forcing it to supply more for longer may heat it more, wear it faster, even cause it to fail, if it exceeds what it's capable of. Same for the motor. (and controller if it's not changed for a bigger one to bypass the limits)

If you go to http://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html you can play with different systems / bikes and riding conditions to simulate what you have there, and see how that stuff works.


If it's a geared hubmotor, it can't "absorb" your pedalling, but the controller can reduce motor power (even to zero) as you pedal more so that it doesn't exceed the limitations it has programmed into it. That probably feels similar; if it takes more power than you can produce via pedals with the gearing that the bike has under the conditions you ride under, it will even prevent you from going faster than the limit. If the gearing and your personal power output allows it you could still go faster than the limit.


If it's DD (direct drive) hubmotor, it could do electric braking (regen) to prevent going any faster than the limit, and this could actually prevent you from going any faster than the limit, by applying this braking whenever going faster than this speed--it would even do this downhill without pedalling and without using the motor--if the system is turned on, it would try to limit your speed regardless. If the system is turned off, then this form of limiting won't happen, and you then would know if it was this type of system (if it does it when on, but not when off).