It's a very long story. Other than putting the troll into a funny farm, all the bad crap I described above happened because of that total piece of crap.
The name Bruce Teakle rings a bell, but the flaws with the motor were well-documented long before Eric Hicks, owner of Luna Cycle, got involved.
The motor internally spun in both forward and reverse, using a different set of gears for each direction. One set for higher speed and lower torque, another for the
opposite effect. It would strip the gears if rolled backwards while in HI gear, but also strip them under normal operation. There were several different controllers
offering automatic or manual shifting, each had their issues and all would destroy the gears.
There is a VERY good website Owned but not managed by a very nice dude, and Mostly managed by good, knowledgeable people, where this motor was discussed in
detail and at great length, disassembly photos, etc., and it was well concluded that though a really neat idea, dating back to the 1890's, it was "mechanically unreliable"
and "suffered from a serious design flaw. " Over a dozen reports of total failure of the gearset, root cause issues with the clutch and its operation, directly related to the
whole concept of reversing the motors rotation while in use. Actually the total was 13, counting one user who installed a replacement gearset and shredded that one too.
All failures ocurred in less than 1500 miles, I re-read the whole thread and counted when asked to verify as described below. Most of these occurred while in motion and
NOT while backing, as that issue was pretty well known early on.
The thread died, no more interest, until several months later, when suddenly, a well-known and respected poster recommended to a total noob, the Xiongda 2-speed.
Somewhat amazed, I replied "it breaks a lot".
I did not know this at the time, but Eric Hicks, owner of Luna Cycle, had just obtained a large quantity of these motors, with his logo engraved on the side covers, was calling
them a "double-speed, double-torque" motor, capable of 750 watts, when it was actually only about a 30% increase in either speed OR torque, not "double" and not both
at the same time, and rated at 350 Watts, not 750. He actually bragged that he had beers with the Chinese salesmen and they assured him the gear breakage problems had been solved,
though he initially denied that any such problems had ever existed.
As publicly admitted by the mods, more than once, Erics, owner of Luna cycles, was known to use mutlple personnas and usernames in order to promote his products
After my "it breaks a lot" comment, there was long conversation with one of Eric Hicks, owner of Luna Cycles', alter-egos, where he strongly objected to my suggestions
to potential buyers to "read the thread and count the broken motors". This was called "inflammatory language." The first of many such conversations.
Turns out the "respected user", owner of one of the largest European ebike forums at the time, had recently received approx $500 worth of free product, for "evaluation
purposes", from Erik Hicks, owner of Luna Cycle, though no printed evaluation was ever posted.
That's about a third of the story. The threats, doxxing, bribes, and banning all came later.
If you want the rest, let me know.
