Hi all!
Over a year later...I finally got the Swytch kit and got it working!
So I ordered this thing in late June of 2018 and was told it would be delivered later that year. I actually ordered two of them. Time and time again, the company gave me delivery timelines that they failed to meet. I finally got one of my kits around February of this year. I installed it on the Dahon Qix D8 and went out for a little 20 mile commute trip. The kit seemed to work fine but there was immediately a problem. They include a torque arm kit that I couldn't use because it wouldn't fit around the aluminum fork of my Dahon. Since I didn't use it, the torque from the motor immediately started spreading out the dropouts and damaged the fork. I couldn't figure out a way around this issue with the aluminum fork and sat on the kit for awhile doing nothing.
In June, I bit the bullet and just ordered a STEEL Dahon fork to replace the aluminum one. It was a bit hard to find and I ended up getting it on eBay from Germany. That came in and was a quick swap-out with the aluminum one. I had hope that this thing would finally work. Somehow during the four months that the kit sat unused with only about 20 miles on it, it had error messages on it when started back up. Now that I had the right fork for the motor, the controller wouldn't work! It took a lot of prodding at Swytch to get them to review it for warranty, but I finally got through that process. They said they would send out a replacement controller right away, but after waiting almost a month I still didn't see it so I had to poke at them again. It finally came in last week. So about 14 months after initial ordering, I have one of the kits up and running.
First thing to discuss is the fork issues. This motor REALLY shouldn't be used with any aluminum forks. Even if the torque arm was able to be installed, I can't imagine that the dropouts could handle it in the long run. So that kind of limits you to the lower end Dahon models like the Speed D7 or Uno models unless you buy a nice once and then pay the $90 to get the steel fork. I've seen pictures of other users who have destroyed their nice aluminum suspension mountain bike forks with the standard kits.
The other issue is that the hub that is used for both the Brompton and Dahon kits have very thin axles specific to the Brompton's dropout spacing, which I think is 8mm. Dahon uses the same narrow 74mm hub as the Brompton BUT they use a normal 10mm dropout spacing. That means there ends up being pretty large gaps between the fork dropouts and hub axle. The little "shelf" of material on the hub between the axle and the hub shell also is really small. If you try to tighten down the hub nuts well, it actually kind of sucks that shelf into the fork dropouts and the inside surface of the fork then pretty much rests directly on the hub shell and won't let it spin. I ended up having to make shims to go inside the fork dropouts to fill in the 1mm in front and back of the axle. The shims were made with stainless steel inserts from car windshield wiper blades, which were bent into u-shaped clips. Those then were jammed up into the gaps with the loop ends of the clips hanging OUT of the dropouts.
So...the bottom line is that I did get it working. Now that we got it working, it does work fine and I'm pretty happy with it. It's only been another 20 miles or so and time will tell if the product holds up. That said, I probably wouldn't do this again knowing what I know now. The combination of repeatedly missed deadlines for delivery, difficulty getting support, still not getting my second kit, technical issues that really makes the kit far less compatible with Dahons as is claimed on the website, and maybe some poor QC related to my controller failing after only 20 miles makes the Swytch Dahon kit very difficult to recommend. I paid $575 per kit for the 50 mile Dahon kits, which I think was a bargain if the product worked well and was as easy to install as they suggested. My first kit ended up in the second shipment for US customers and have been informed that the third shipment will arrive in October with my second kit. Not holding my breath given what I've been told in the past. I've tried to be patient with the company as they're a startup. Maybe give these folks some more time to get up to full production before you consider their products.
I'll follow up with long-term reviews.
Tai
but it's what our real world community sez that helps.
