Refinement and also somewhat slower so you won't hurt yourself.
. Be careful on those moms with strollers passing you.
Great discussion everyone. The squeak could be the main bearing when it warms and is under load.
Bafang BBS02 and BBSHDs are notoriously silent. The frame-built mids were originally noisy but Bafang - eventually after an enormous amount of protest and widely available 3rd party solutions - changed the internal gear material to quiet them down. If you don't have that kind of gear inside your motor you can sub one in. Again the Linux/Windows analogy made above applies. That refinement is attainable with an afternoon's reading on the internet and another day or so of further learning while tinkering. If thats not your bag, then yes go write a check and be done with it.
I'm thinking the same thing. I don't want the bike to go out of service for weeks while I play with it in my off hours, so a fresh motor and then spending a few months of weekends pecking at it is the way I'm going to go. I'll use this motor to finally go all the way and do a total motor tear-down (with no operational consequences if I screw something up), which I have never needed to do. I may even strip the motor down to its casing and remove all the black coating and polish it. I've seen that done and its amazing.
I have to tell you, they look like a charging up-comer to the Ebike world.
Instead of stripping a motor housing I painted one once with high-temp engine paint. Not a perfect solution but sometimes good enough is okay to not get stuck. I was impatient to convert an all chrome bike. I might do as you suggest instead of tossing the retired one. Maybe I will have time to work on it when things slow down in February. Good idea. Thanks.
).Bafang can't quite get it right it seems. Either their steel gear is sufficiently strong but too noisy, or their nylon gear is quiet enough but not strong enough. Pick your poison.
IMHO, they had it right when the first brought out the G510 with a composite gear. It was a noisy minority that thought they might have a lot of trouble with the composite, convincing Bafang to go metal, which we are now stuck with.
Maybe they DID get it right: I'm willing to bet you that the speed freaks don't really care about the noise. They want power, period. Noise may even be a feature, not a bug. The more leisurey riders can choose to have a quieter drive. You have a choice.
This is exactly the case. The whole steel gear thing was driven by the hot rodders who were more or less melting the nylon gears originally in the Ultra - on controllers that were also running 2500w+. This is also why there are steel BBSHD gears available (and controllers that also can pump out 2500w) and the BBSHD with a steel gear is noisier.
Sondors created that bike as something that is meant for the formerly beginner ebike rider who wanted to step up to a higher level, to something big and kickass. No high end emtb rider was ever going to like that bike and this was known. Think about it: What emtb rider is willing to ride with a 50T front chainring?!? And a 21ah battery? You want to know where that extra 30 lbs comes from? That battery is a big chunk of it right there and a proper emtb doesn't need a battery half that size. I know on my enduro powered by a Cyc I learned very quickly I could ride until my ass gave out and I was barely 25% into my 20ah pack, which has been retired for a 12ah 25R pack that is still bigger than what I need. I could hang a little Mini pack under my saddle and be just fine.
I pounded on the nylon gear for close to five years with zero problems.
Same here I have 5 bikes with BBSHDs on them and I have never had an issue. The guys who peanut-butter the gears are the guys running 60v, 2500w and 3rd party controllers from places like HPC. Run the motor at its factory limits of 30a/1750w on a 14S battery and it will literally run all day in 100 degree heat.
Sonders also designed a frame with no regard to weight. It looks like they had plates welded together, rather than use hydroformed tubing like other builders. Hydroforming allows much better control over tubing thickness and stress points, and round or oval tubing is much better from a strength to weight ratio.
Yeah oddly enough the 'little' Sondors Fold is hydroformed so its not like they couldn't do it. At least they didn't put a 7spd on that one like they did on their other two mid drives; instead opting for a pretty decent SRAM 11s drivetrain. But as for round/oval tubing... remember they had a mandate to use the common 21ah/48v battery pack and that monster pretty much dictates a squared down tube. Its not a great choice for mountain bike riders but again that bike is shaped like a serious mountain bike, but its not meant to be one.
