Anyone recognize this motor brand?

[B.Kane]

I was recently gifted this e-bike motor and rim after a discussion about building an e-bike. The gifter knew nothing about the item other than it was slated for recycling. After searching Google, I had no success in identifying the logo or similar motor.

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone can offer a lead or identify the make (brand) so I can do further research.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Barry

 

[byunbee]

I'm not sure what you plans are for the rear hub motor. It looks like it's in pretty sad shape. Do you know whether it even works? It may end up costing you more money and a lot of time trying to fix it or source parts to make it workable. You may want to just look for a new hub motor kit on Alibaba that comes with all the parts you need with the motor.

 

[harryS]

Is that a quick release latch on the end of the motor? I think most any modern hub motor would rip itself out of the frame if that was all that held it down.

I do not think this motor is worth pursuing, but for curiosity Is there a motor cable on the other side? How many pins on the connector?

 

[B.Kane]

Thanks for the response byunbee and harryS. I am attaching additional pictures showing the opposite side of the motor and the connectors.
I am in the early stage of investigation. If I can identify the brand, that should lead me to what connectors go to what or at least get enough information to even see if I can even power the motor.
Thanks for your help.

 

[Alex M]

Looks like a direct drive, possibly in 750-1000W range. Or a VERY old geared hub of much smaller wattage. It's not new, like others said might not be worth your time. Ebikes are not classic cars, older are not worth much. Doesn't really matter what brand, but you may talk to ES people if this is important.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

I was recently gifted this e-bike motor and rim after a discussion about building an e-bike. The gifter knew nothing about the item other than it was slated for recycling. After searching Google, I had no success in identifying the logo or similar motor.

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone can offer a lead or identify the make (brand) so I can do further research.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Barry

Barry,

That motor was developed by a company called "Wave crest" and produced E-bikes under the label "Tidal Force". They were one of the earliest folks to get into E-bike business and the whole story is available on Electricbike.com
Larry Hayes wrote a detailed article on this... check this out

The Strange Saga of Tidalforce

Wavecrest Laboratories was a company that apparently had everything going for it: deep pockets (see angel investor Allen Anderrson, who reportedly poured $30-40 million into the enterprise), revo…

www.electricbike.com

The company did go bankrupt and it has been so for many years. You may contact these folks and see if they have any parts

TidalForce Electric Bikes by Wavecrest

Tidal Force Electric Bikes by Wavecrest. Open 7 days/week, Toll Free technical support

www.electrikmotion.com

 

[J.R.]

Ravi beat me to it. I read the OP and recognized the motor so I retrieved these screenshots and link.

Tidalforce Electric Bicycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Then I realized I was a little late. It was high tech from 2003 to 2006. System was used for so called military ebikes. It wouldn't be worth spending a lot of money on today.

 

[Alex M]

Looks like they went out of business because didn't have the right battery back then. Not only it was NiMh but it also was in the hub, thus limiting its size.

 

[J.R.]

The owner and designer of Falco ebike systems worked for Wavecrest. Falco is a technologically advanced system, that looks a lot like a Wavecrest.

First 60 seconds:

 

[harryS]

Ah, I recall reading about them. I heard the French Army bought a bunch of them.

And they stored the batteries/electronics in the front hub, and that must be what B. Kane has, if it uses the puny skewer to hold it on the bike.

 

[antboy]

Barry,

That motor was developed by a company called "Wave crest" and produced E-bikes under the label "Tidal Force". They were one of the earliest folks to get into E-bike business and the whole story is available on Electricbike.com Eric Hicks from Lunacycles wrote a detailed article on this... check this out

The Strange Saga of Tidalforce

Wavecrest Laboratories was a company that apparently had everything going for it: deep pockets (see angel investor Allen Anderrson, who reportedly poured $30-40 million into the enterprise), revo…

www.electricbike.com

The company did go bankrupt and it has been so for many years. You may contact these folks and see if they have any parts

TidalForce Electric Bikes by Wavecrest

Tidal Force Electric Bikes by Wavecrest. Open 7 days/week, Toll Free technical support

www.electrikmotion.com

View attachment 54085

It's a slow work day, and the Saga of Tidalforce was a great little read. Thanks!

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

It's a slow work day, and the Saga of Tidalforce was a great little read. Thanks!

Thanks. I enjoyed reading about them few years ago.
It was also quite eye opening to see how e-bike enterprises go down. Kudos to Larry Hayes for writing such a detailed report and Eric Hicks for publishing it on their website.

 

[Scott Adams]

There was a much smaller, but very active online forum for Tidal Force riders. Now that I think of it, it was reminiscent of EBR today, with a good deal of enthusiasm.

When I rode one, it was speedy and fairly powerful. There was an active DIY upgrade group who were replacing the batteries with Li ion. Maybe some of the members of that group are members here at EBR now?

They failed more for business reasons than battery issues. My first Bionx at that time also used NiMH. Their military contract fell through and the bikes were sold at fire sale prices at Costco.

 

[Ken M]

My opinion is that a lot of early ebikes failed because of low capacity battery tech. Not until about 2015 did truly viable bike batteries emerge (something say less than 10lbs and 400wh+). I rode some ebikes well before 2010 and they were fun for the block or two you could go before the low battery warning came on.

I'm going to make a comment about "system integration." When you see a design like the Wavecrest with the battery and controller inside the hub motor it's always done for the wrong reasons (usually because some bean counter is telling the designers it's a BS way to make something proprietary). The ebike industry would have much higher penetration in the US if the early models that in some cases had excellent motors but bad batteries and controllers. Falco I think is still selling a 5-phase motor which is more efficient that 3-phase but there are no off-the-shelf controllers for it so the cost increase exceeds the efficiency increase making them a bad choice most of the time.

 

[J.R.]

I think the all important point here is the OP only has the front hub. The rear hub is the motor and the front hub is the battery and controller. The battery is likely a dead NiMH and the controller likely wouldn't work with lithium ion. No motor there to rehab.

 

[FlatSix911]

Barry,

That motor was developed by a company called "Wave crest" and produced E-bikes under the label "Tidal Force".
They were one of the earliest folks to get into E-bike business and the whole story is available on Electricbike.com
Larry Hayes wrote a detailed article on this... check this out

The Strange Saga of Tidalforce

Wavecrest Laboratories was a company that apparently had everything going for it: deep pockets (see angel investor Allen Anderrson, who reportedly poured $30-40 million into the enterprise), revo…

www.electricbike.com

The company did go bankrupt and it has been so for many years. You may contact these folks and see if they have any parts

TidalForce Electric Bikes by Wavecrest

Tidal Force Electric Bikes by Wavecrest. Open 7 days/week, Toll Free technical support

www.electrikmotion.com

View attachment 54085

Very interesting history of development for DARPA and the military... thanks for sharing.

 

[tomjasz]

Post on endless_sphere.com . Best brain trust for old motors.

 

[Rin]

I actually have two of the Tidal Force frames, that I bought off a guy at ES that was selling them over 10 years ago. I made one into a regular pedal bike and the other I made into an ebike with a 9C kit. The frames were and are great. Generally they were considered great ebikes for their time. Should be a number of people on ES could tell you more about them.

 

[Trail Cruiser]

I would say not worth restoring it.

You can try but the time, effort, and dollars spent to make it work with proper matching controller, battery, cadence sensor, throttle, control display, and mechanicals would be very expensive compared to just buying a brand new and more advanced ebikes of today.

 

[Broseman]

Hi B. Kane.

Yes. It's a Wavecrest Labs, front hub battery. It's made of 30 D-sized NiMH batteries made by SAFT, America. They only had a capacity of 9Ah and had a bad reputation for having high IR which resulted in heavy sagging voltages under load.

If you had the rear motor and the console that mounted to the bike's handlebar, you could easily resurrect the bike by adding a 3rd party battery and putting a jumper into the console. This bypassed the need for the front hub motor and allows you to use any battery that can provide the needed max C rate.

I've got a lot more information on my blog about my Tidalforce bikes here:

EBikeRider

My journey of building, testing and riding an electric bicycle

ebikerider.blogspot.com

Ambrose