My first test ride out with my FREY eMTB and the newly installed Bafang Ultra 1500 watt motor.
Surprisingly I was actually able to get my eBike into my 2001 New Beetle, I just needed to take the front wheel off, no big deal. Once I got to the trials near Surrey Athletic Park I met up with my buddy Steve-O who also just got a new eBike. (Luna x1 ludicrous).
The goal for today was to have some fun riding and make sure everything with our bikes was working well, and also not get too banged up ;)
For the most part I have to say I was really happy with how my FREY eBike performed, I have do a rear brake issue as I need to bleed it again as it was a little spongy and my highest gear was skipping just a little, but other than that my FREY eMTB with the new Bafang Ultra Motor was a pleasure to ride.
This video is more or less is a journal of me upgrading my FREY eBike motor from the stock M500 which is a 250 watt, 95 Newton Meters of torque to the Bafang Ultra (M620) 1000 watt, 1260 Newton Meters of torque.
I was hoping it would have been much simpler than it was but in the end this upgrade started out late January and just finished recently so almost two months of not being able to ride my FREY eBike for a variety of reasons.
Reason number one was the motor mounts on my FREY eBike where not compatible with the new motor so I had to weld in an adaptor plate which I thankfully ordered just in case, welding the plate in was an additional cost of $500 over and above the Bafang Ultra Motor Kit price of around $1000.
My next hurtle was all on me and if this had not have happened, this project would have only taken about a week or two to complete. When I was installing the motor I was not careful enough with my cable placement and when I place the last motor piece on the eBike which is a plastic cover, I accidentally put a screw through the main wire harness cable that at first did not short but once I put load through it the cable shorted which in turn shorted the main controller to the motor requiring me to buy anew controller at a cost of around $200.
My next realization was that when you replace a controller on the Bafang Ultra motor, you will then in most cases have to calibrate the controller to the motor which via my online investigation required something called Bafang BESST Programming tool. Unfortunately this did not work and just recently I found out from Bafang that the only way to calibrate my specific motor is to use one o their LCD screens called the C961 which can be programmed at their factory to calibrate my specific Bafang Ultra motor. They are at this time sending me the preprogrammed screen in hopes that I can get my motor calibrated and working
As I was growing impatient and at the time I felt like I was not going to be able to calibrate my motor, I ordered a second motor, yes this is now a very expensive project but hopefully I can get my non working motor working again and either sell it or have a backup motor if my motor ever fails.
Anyway this video is a mix of clips while all of this is happening, I can say I learned a lot about my motor and maybe if you are in a similar situation this video will help you and save some time and money.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 10:19AM