Will the wheel fit my bike?

Our kits come with standard sized eBike motors that are compatible with most bikes. Front wheel motors are designed for 100mm width dropouts on the front forks. Rear wheel motors have 135mm width which is the standard for rear dropouts.

If you have very narrow forks or an unusual frame style you may wish to measure up the space in comparison with the motor dimensions. See the motor diagram above – you want to watch out that there is enough space so the motor casing doesn’t rub on the bike frame / forks.

Please note, if you are buying the Xiongda double speed kit with disc brake, these have extra wide dropout widths (110mm and 145mm) so a bit of stretching and DIY is required to fit to your bike. We recommend getting the standard v-brake versions unless you are an expert.

Do I need a torque arm?

If you have a steel frame/forks then you don’t necessarily need a torque arm for a 250W kit, however we would still recommend it.

For 250W+ kits you should always use a torque arm. Check out our torque arm listings (see our shop) for more info

Is it road legal?

All of our single speed motor kits (all of our kits except the Xiongda double speed ones) are compatible with both disc and v-brakes. The motor casings have the 6 bolt fixture for you to fit on your disc and use disc brakes, and the rims are suitable for v-brakes.

The Xiongda motor kits come in 2 types, v-brake kits that have normal dropout widths (100mm front or 135mm rear) or disc-brake compatible kits that have extra wide dropouts (110mm and 145mm) please only get the disc brake ones if you are an expert and are comfortable fitting these extra wide motors.

Is it easy to install?

All our kits are designed with the customer in mind, and are super easy to install. Check out our “How-To” video above

If you are a real beginner with bikes and eBikes, we have a super easy kit designed to make the process as easy as possible. Check out our 350W integrated battery kit – just fit the wheel, screw on the integrated battery/controller to the bottle mount screws, connect up and go!

350W kit ideal for beginners : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/36V-350W-eBike-Electric-Bike-Kit-Front-Wheel-2014-Bottle-Battery-Li-ion-10Ah-/121670186249?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item1c541bb509

How much range will I get?

The range you’ll get depends an awful lot on how you cycle and the type of bike you use, but as a general rule of thumb expect 20-30 miles range from any of our kits

The best way to answer the question in more detail, is to work out how much “run time” you’ll get with the kit. A 36V 250W kit will be using about 8A of current when running at full power. With an 8Ah battery you’ll get 1 hour of continuous power, or with a 10Ah battery you’ll get 1 hour 15 minutes. Power 250W is about equivalent to a grown man cycling at medium power, so will get you to 10-15mph easily with no pedalling. So just cruising on throttle you could expect to go about 10-15miles. If you go at half throttle and add some extra pedal power you can therefore pretty much expect to go 20-30 miles.

However – if you put the motor on a very inefficient bike, or you’re cycling up very steep hills, this all changes. But we can assure you that our motors and batteries are among the most efficient on the market so you won’t get any better performance. Please consider using a good efficient bicycle to fit the kit to so that you get optimal performance.

What is the top speed?

All our kits are built with an inherent motor top speed of around 32kph, at which point the motor can’t be spun any faster unless you increase the battery voltage.

For road legality, all our kits can be limited to 15mph. Either by requesting a limited LED screen to go with the controller (available on request) or through using an LCD screen which gives you the power to manually choose the top speed to be whatever you want.

What is the difference between geared and direct drive motors?

All our kits have geared motors, which means that there is no drag when you cycle normally, and your bike will still work like normal when the power is off. If you get a direct drive motor then there will always be drag when you cycle and you are stuffed if your battery runs out.

The advantage of direct drive is you can use regenerative braking, but controllers that can do this are usually not very efficient and quite rare.

Geared motors are the way to go, be wary of cheaper kits on the market that look the same, but are actually cheaper direct drive motors that are less efficient and less pleasant to ride because of the drag.

Is it road legal?

All our 250W kits are road legal providing you request the speed limited LED display, or choose the LCD display and set the limit yourself to 15mph.

Our higher wattage kits are not road legal and should be used on private land because the legal limit is 250W. However you can limit the speed on these kits to 15mph if you want.

Does it come with tyre?

We don’t provide tyres with our kits, because you’ve hopefully already got one! Just swap the tyre over, and that way you have matching tyres, and the tyres you want, as opposed to a standard tyre provided by us which might not be the one you want.

Do your rear wheel kits come with gears?

Our rear wheel kits don’t come with gears or freewheels. You should use the one you already have on your bike (swap it over using a gear remover tool), that way you ensure that the gears/freewheel are the right ones for your chain / gear system. If we provided a pre-fitted gear or freewheel it might not be the size that you need…

What’s the difference between 24V/36V/48V?

Higher voltage kits are normally a bit more powerful and give you more acceleration. However the batteries are more expensive because they contain more cells.

A 24V 250W and a 36V 250W kit will give roughly the same acceleration. However a 24V 10Ah battery will not give you as much range as a 36V 10Ah battery.

What’s the difference between a brushed and brushless motor?

Brushed motors are very old technology, and have just two wires coming from the motor (+ve and negative). Inside there are metallic brushes that connect to the spinning motor and these cause inefficiencies and eventually wear out.

Our motors are the modern brushless type, making them quieter, more efficient and longer lasting!

Will it work with just the pedal assist sensor (PAS)?

Our controllers work with just throttle, just PAS, or both. It will take a signal from whichever one you plug in. If you have both plugged in, then whichever one you are activating the most will drive the motor.

Will it work with just the throttle?

Our controllers work with just throttle, just PAS, or both. It will take a signal from whichever one you plug in. If you have both plugged in, then whichever one you are activating the most will drive the motor.

Can I use your brake levers with my hydraulic / wire brakes?

Our brake levers are standard mechanical brake levers that are compatible with any wire operated braking system. Please note they are not compatible with hydraulic brake levers which are more sophisticated.

Which throttle should I get?

We have 2 types of throttle, “half twist” and “thumb twist”

Half Twist Throttles

These work like motorbike throttles, you slide them onto your handlebars and fix tight. Then you can twist the full throttle between 0 and 180 degrees (hence “half twist”) . They do take up a lot of space on the handlebars so not ideal if you have twisty grip gear shifters.

Thumb Twist Throttls

These take up less space than the half twist throttles. They are just a small plastic ring that fits over the handlebars with a lever you push with your thumb to activate.

Wires

Both throttle types have 3 wires, red = +ve 5 V input, black = 0V output, and the third wire (blue/white) is the signal which ranges between 0V and 5V depending on how far you twist the throttle.

Technical FAQ

Display always shows low battery?

The LED and LCD displays we sell estimate the battery charge state based on voltage, which drops as it runs out of charge. The relationship between charge and voltage is different for different battery types and so if you’re using a different style of battery you might get funny readings.

Our LED and LCD displays are designed for the most common type of battery – lithium ion.

For instance, a 36V lithium-ion battery starts at 42V when fully charged and drops to around 32V when discharged. So the display looks at the voltage and guesses how much charge is left.

Lithium-polymer (LiPo) and Lead Acid batteries are also common but they have different voltage discharge relationships and so you will get strange battery level readings if you use on of our displays with one of those battery types.

Battery level going up/down?

The display estimates battery charge from the voltage. If you draw lots of current from a battery in a short space of time it will hurt the voltage which will drop quite suddenly, if you then leave the battery a while and let it recover the voltage will go back up again, hence your display will show the charge going down and then up again

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How should I charge my battery?

Please only use the charger supplied to charge your batteries bought from us. When charging both lights should be red, when full the charge light will go green. Please do not leave charging for too long once charged, and let us know if you notice any unusual light patterns when charging.

See our “battery care” section for more info on how to look after your battery.

My wheel won’t fit

Our motor wheels are designed for compatibility with most bikes,with 100mm dropout width on the front and 135mm dropout width on the back. The axle thickness is 10mm – if you have particularly narrow fork dropouts then you may need to file them slightly to get them to take the motor axle.

How do I connect the motor wires?

The standard colours for three phase motor wires are blue, green, yellow.

Our motors and controllers follow the same colour combinations, so if you connect blue-blue, green-green, yellow-yellow then it will work fine.

However other manufactures don’t always have the same convention as us so you may find to get the motor to work you need to swap the wire connections around e.g. blue-green / green-yellow / yellow-blue

Motor running backwards / not running

If you are using one of our motors with someone else’s controller, or one of our controllers with someone else’s motor, then you may find the motor wire colour combinations aren’t quite the same (see FAQ below on motor wire colouring conventions).

If you find that the motor is making noise but not turning, or turning backwards, then please just swap around the motor wires until it starts to turn forwards.

If you have a hall sensor motor, then please always connect the hall sensor wires and motor wires in the same colour combinations.

For instance if you connect the motor phase wires like:

blue-green / green-yellow / yellow-blue

then also connect the hall sensor wires like

blue-green / green-yellow / yellow-blue

(always leave the red and black hall sensor wires connected as red-red, black-black)

How do the brake levers work?

The brake levers we supply work simply by switching between open circuit and short circuit. Open circuit means brakes are inactive, and when pulled, a short circuit is connected which instructs the motor to shut off.

This way, you don’t have to connect the brake levers, the controller will work with them unconnected by default.

If you are using them with another controller then please check whether it requires an “always on” signal because this could mean that the controller doesn’t work with them unplugged, and that it will only drive when you pull them.