alpharalpha said:
wturber said:
I've put about 6500 miles on my $235-ish ebay DD motor. It appears to be a Nine Continents 2706 clone. It has behaved perfectly. That said, I don't drive it hard. It seldom sees more than 1000 watts of power and typically sees 400-650 watts. I think the simplicity of design makes DD motors pretty durable. There are only a few things that can go wrong or wear out with the simple design.
Could you send me a link to the one you got for comparison? Main issue I'm running into is 700C isn't as common as 26" in the lower price range.
I wouldn't be running mine more than 500w either, liked the option of having a higher amp controller but don't really need it, and's just harder on the batteries.
I suppose a kit does make it all easier, the lower priced kits seem to have 500w controllers (22a) and I would've liked something closer to 40a that's why I showed the separate motor and controller.
This is the kit I bought.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/48V1000W-26-Rear-Wheel-Electric-Bicycle-LCD-Display-Motor-Kit-E-Bike-Conversion-/371289491857?hash=item5672940991
Key features Good
I really like the KT controller and display systems for inexpensive builds. Think of it as a poor man's Cycle Analyst. It gives decent information about what is happening with the bike and lets you customize controller features. The kit was complete save for torque arms and a battery and was comprised of reasonably well matched components/parts. It was fairly straightforward to install. The plugs were the newer smaller ones and all the connectors were correct for each other. The tire was decent and durable. Easy peasy.
Key features Bad
The freewheel was pretty crappy quality. The DNP I replaced it with not only has better gearing, but it is quieter and shifts nicer with its ramped cogs.
Key features Marginal/Debateable
The PAS sensor can be easily broken if your crank axle is a bit large and you force it on. So be cautious with installing it. The brake levers work fine, but they don't exactly scream "quality."
My rim and spokes lasted about 5000 miles. This kit comes assembled with 12 gauge spokes which is really not the best way to build a wheel like this. Counter-intuitively, heavy spokes don't necessarily mean a stronger wheel. You need to match spokes to the strength of the rim. 12 gauge spokes are almost always a mismatch on a bicycle rim. After 5000 miles of running a suspension-less and heavy rear end I finally started breaking spokes. This was probably due to small cracks forming from the spoke holes on the rim due to the large stresses from the 12 gauge spokes which probably led to uneven stresses on the spokes. So if you are planning on putting lots-o-miles on the bike, you might consider getting the wheel re-built straight away. If not, I'd say my wheel was reliable for the typical average to low mileage user. The rim itself seems to have been of decent quality. So having the wheel rebuilt right away with thinner gauge butted spokes might save you the bother of doing it later. Or you could do like I did and see how long it holds up. I only have about 1500 miles on the new rim and wheel build. So I can't say if it is actually any better or not. But it is supposed to be. My wheel re-build cost me almost as much as the original kit. But I used a pretty nice rim and probably paid a small premium for the builder I used. I think most local bike shops (LBS) will do it for around $75 using the rim that came with the bike.
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