Just got my tracking number! EDIT: it's here. First impressions after assembly

[Gionnirocket]

Unless something has changed recently, the ONLY gear available for an ULTRA is steel. There are NO composite gears available for the Ultra, and the Ultra gear is NOT the same as the gear used in the BBSxx series.

I would be pretty interested in silencing my Ultra. If there is a composite gear that comes up, count me in.....

Someone should whisper in @pushkar 's ear

 

[AHicks]

Someone should whisper in @pushkar 's ear

My read on Pushkar is that he believes the metal gear is the only viable choice. I could be wrong (memory ain't what it used to be), but he might be the one that convinced Bafang to go steel - because the composite MIGHT have an issue when the motor is run at 2500+ watts. Right, like John Q Public is going to be interested in that potential (2500w+)....

 

[voidedwarranty]

Yes it's already been done with a PEEK plastic gear.
PEEK (polyetheretherketone) is a high-performance engineering plastic with excellent mechanical strength and dimensional stability.
Bearing Grade PEEK– has enhanced bearing and wear properties. TECAPEEK® PVX is an ultra high performance bearing material with wear enhancing additives.
Luna has already vetted them with excellent success in the Bafang M600 and the BBSHD, what impressed me the most is that going from nylon to PEEK with extra grease also reduces the noise, a comment from a happy customer

LUNA PEEK GEAR

Just purchased the silent gear for a bbshd motor, My bike is 2 yrs old and mainly use it for hunting and have a deer cart and haul deer with the bike. I tore the motor apart think maybe some wear of the old plastic gear but there was none, I replaced the gear with the new peek plastic gear since I believed it would still be an upgrade to the bike. While everything was apart I cleaned up everything and filled every movable gear with mobil 28 grease and put things back together. I took the bike for a test ride this morning up some hills and was super impressed on how much more quiet the motor was. Once again LUNA you hit a home run with this gear. Next I would like for you guys to produce a peek plastic gear for the ultra 620 motor to quiet that beast down.

I think an Ultra with a Innotrace controller with a PEEK gear would be the ultimate Ebike motor.

This sounds like something I will be buying pre-emptively. Thanks for pointing it out

 

[Ebiker33]

This sounds like something I will be buying pre-emptively. Thanks for pointing it out

Your motor is already one of more silient ones, Luna ran a test on it without the PEEK gear and all you could hear was the tires humming along, there was zero motor noise that could be heard from 2 feet away.
The M600 was really noisy, louder than the ultra. It's interesting how different motors and bike frame are causing noise. EBR tested a Bosch system in one really high end brand and it was the loudest motor I have ever heard something was amplifying the sound and this was a very expensive Ebike. Court even mentions in his review that the motor was loud.

 

[Gionnirocket]

My read on Pushkar is that he believes the metal gear is the only viable choice. I could be wrong (memory ain't what it used to be), but he might be the one that convinced Bafang to go steel - because the composite MIGHT have an issue when the motor is run at 2500+ watts. Right, like John Q Public is going to be interested in that potential (2500w+)....

 

[Ebiker33]

We have a thread discussing this in the Watt Wagons forum not to highjack this thread any further, Pushkar said Watt Wagons limitations to around 1600 watts are the trade off, to me it's worth it.
Whoever can bring this to market first will get alot of sales, there are a ton of ultras out there on all different kinds of brands of ebikes.

 

[reed scott]

That's right Expat. The most reliable place to disconnect the battery power is by removing it, which is why Reention and others ditched switches and stuck to battery removal as the means of cutoff (the battery "plug" terminals are designed for thousands of contact cycles, and can also be easily replaced).

I believe this. It's the keyed locking mech that worries me.

 

[AHicks]

I believe this. It's the keyed locking mech that worries me.

Why the concern about disconnecting battery power?

 

[TForan]

This comment is (deliberately?) misleading.

Mr. Foran has left out a little detail that makes his motor different from those currently produced. The very early Ultra's (like the one Mr. Foran owns) came from the factory with a composite gear that ran silent. Because some mental giant came up with the fact that even though there were NO FAILURES of that plastic gear to date, if you applied enough power, that gear may become an issue. He was so convincing that Bafang retooled and started making motors with a metal gear. Those gears make noise. It's nothing really objectionable, I call it a low growl, but there is no getting around it. It DOES make noise, and the plastic gear to shut it up is no longer available.

Misleading ? A simple statement of the truth. Lumping all Ultras in one group is misleading. There are still many nylon gears out there.

 

[AHicks]

Misleading ? A simple statement of the truth. Lumping all Ultras in one group is misleading. There are still many nylon gears out there.

All due respect, but with uninformed newbies in mind, making a statement like you made, without further qualifying it, COULD possibly lead to somebody buying a new Ultra thinking it would be quiet. We both know better. That's all I'm saying. I agree there are a lot of the early (quiet) Ultra 510 motors out there. The chance of getting one are slim to none though....

And yes, I'm jealous as hell!

-Al

 

[roshan]

Yes it's already been done with a PEEK plastic gear.
PEEK (polyetheretherketone) is a high-performance engineering plastic with excellent mechanical strength and dimensional stability.
Bearing Grade PEEK– has enhanced bearing and wear properties. TECAPEEK® PVX is an ultra high performance bearing material with wear enhancing additives.
Luna has already vetted them with excellent success in the Bafang M600 and the BBSHD, what impressed me the most is that going from nylon to PEEK with extra grease also reduces the noise, a comment from a happy customer

LUNA PEEK GEAR

Just purchased the silent gear for a bbshd motor, My bike is 2 yrs old and mainly use it for hunting and have a deer cart and haul deer with the bike. I tore the motor apart think maybe some wear of the old plastic gear but there was none, I replaced the gear with the new peek plastic gear since I believed it would still be an upgrade to the bike. While everything was apart I cleaned up everything and filled every movable gear with mobil 28 grease and put things back together. I took the bike for a test ride this morning up some hills and was super impressed on how much more quiet the motor was. Once again LUNA you hit a home run with this gear. Next I would like for you guys to produce a peek plastic gear for the ultra 620 motor to quiet that beast down.

I think an Ultra with a Innotrace controller with a PEEK gear would be the ultimate Ebike motor.

Not sure why the Innotrace gets so much hype. We have 2 here on our bikes and we are not impressed at all.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Not sure why the Innotrace gets so much hype. We have 2 here on our bikes and we are not impressed at all.

I know.... it's kinda like that proprietary firmware that 4 people keep hyping.

 

[Ebiker33]

Not sure why the Innotrace gets so much hype. We have 2 here on our bikes and we are not impressed at all.

That is a very interesting comment, to me it means you have mastered the programming of the ultra from stock, I have heard this from other owners of your Ebikes.
Here the thing you don't talk about your tuning, maybe you should, just saying.
Because other Ebike companies don't do anything with it, Frey for example.

 

[ExPatBrit]

The derailleur shifts are still only 80% good. Not really very happy about shift quality, still working on fine tuning the indexing. 10 speeds is utterly useless where I live. I don't think I'm even using the first 4 gears anymore.

I just installed a 48T chain-ring and larger guard as an experiment, this works quite well gears 8/9 are cruiser gears now. My 67 year old legs can keep up with a comfortable cadence at 26+mph . I took it on the trail to check low speed steep climbing capability in the lower gears and it's totally fine.

Happy with my Bike!

 

[voidedwarranty]

I just installed a 48T chain-ring and larger guard as an experiment, this works quite well gears 8/9 are cruiser gears now. My 67 year old legs can keep up with a comfortable cadence at 26+mph . I took it on the trail to check low speed steep climbing capability in the lower gears and it's totally fine.

Happy with my Bike!

Yeah I'm wondering about chainring options. The bike as is will hit 32mph on throttle in 6th gear but pedalling at that speed in that gear is out of the question. 10th is fine for pedalling but in PAS5 and no throttle I'm only hitting maybe 25mph. I'm wondering if I drop the chainring size my top gears will pull a little better at the expense of pedalling. I don't really pedal much above 20mph anyways.

If I go larger with the chainring I suppose I would find myself using more lower gears.

Such a tough decision.

 

[ExPatBrit]

Yeah I'm wondering about chainring options. The bike as is will hit 32mph on throttle in 6th gear but pedalling at that speed in that gear is out of the question. 10th is fine for pedalling but in PAS5 and no throttle I'm only hitting maybe 25mph. I'm wondering if I drop the chainring size my top gears will pull a little better at the expense of pedalling. I don't really pedal much above 20mph anyways.

If I go larger with the chainring I suppose I would find myself using more lower gears.

Such a tough decision.

I occasionally commute (20mile R/T) on my Juggernaut, 25 mph is a good comfortable cruising speed on the flat. With the old 44T chain-ring because my legs couldn't help I was pulling more battery power than I wanted.
Previously only using gears 5-9 now with 48T 2-9 is usable. 1 is still too low for how/ where I ride.

 

[voidedwarranty]

Further update:

Finally got some time to take out the brake pads and inspect them. I have a great deal of experience with disc brakes from a professional automotive standpoint so I've attached some photos to help illustrate what I have found.

First things first. Semi metallic pads are always prone to noises. The metallic fibers are great for initial bite but are also the cause for many unwanted noises. Some times when the pads are formed groups of these fibers clump together or tend to break apart leaving a rough cratered surface when viewed super close. Unfortunately I don't have any macro lenses to illustrate this but the photos were taken with a decent high quality camera phone so zooming in can help some.

I found some instances of this cratering which is easily rectified by a light even sanding with fine sand paper over the surface.

As you can see one of my rear brake pads has a severe groove. This was sanded down until the groove was not visible. There were no corresponding marks on the rotor face.

This next part I think makes all the difference. Chamfering. So my pads are sanded smooth but if you look closely at the edges, they are rough and pitted. Again this is common with semi metallic pads. Best practice is to sand the edges lightly on and angle to smooth out all those rough spots. This will help further in preventing squeal noises.

This may require some zooming to see the difference but after a light sanding of all the edges everything is completely smooth and ready to go back together.

Make sure to clean the rotors before reassembly while you have the calipers off.

This chamfering method is actually an approved warranty repair at BMWNA for brake squeal complaints. I find it works very well. Hope this helps anyone who is experiencing some brake noise issues and doesn't want to toss a nearly full brake pad.

 

[Handlebars]

Further update:

Finally got some time to take out the brake pads and inspect them. I have a great deal of experience with disc brakes from a professional automotive standpoint so I've attached some photos to help illustrate what I have found.

First things first. Semi metallic pads are always prone to noises. The metallic fibers are great for initial bite but are also the cause for many unwanted noises. Some times when the pads are formed groups of these fibers clump together or tend to break apart leaving a rough cratered surface when viewed super close. Unfortunately I don't have any macro lenses to illustrate this but the photos were taken with a decent high quality camera phone so zooming in can help some.

I found some instances of this cratering which is easily rectified by a light even sanding with fine sand paper over the surface.
View attachment 83407

As you can see one of my rear brake pads has a severe groove. This was sanded down until the groove was not visible. There were no corresponding marks on the rotor face.

View attachment 83408

This next part I think makes all the difference. Chamfering. So my pads are sanded smooth but if you look closely at the edges, they are rough and pitted. Again this is common with semi metallic pads. Best practice is to sand the edges lightly on and angle to smooth out all those rough spots. This will help further in preventing squeal noises.

View attachment 83409

This may require some zooming to see the difference but after a light sanding of all the edges everything is completely smooth and ready to go back together.

Make sure to clean the rotors before reassembly while you have the calipers off.

This chamfering method is actually an approved warranty repair at BMWNA for brake squeal complaints. I find it works very well. Hope this helps anyone who is experiencing some brake noise issues and doesn't want to toss a nearly full brake pad.

Thanks for the detailed education.

 

[TForan]

Not sure why the Innotrace gets so much hype. We have 2 here on our bikes and we are not impressed at all.

I have zero desire to change anything on mine regarding the controller. I think you nailed it.