This would normally be a riding day for me, but I got up late and decided to finish the drive installation, instead. Since I've previously installed two Tongsheng drives, installation of this drive was straightforward. I did have to fabricate a power cable extension by soldering connectors on the ends of positive and negative conductors. Didn't take long to accomplish. Before I sleeved and hung all the cables, I installed the battery, powered up the drive, and made sure it worked by pushing the throttle. Finished the installation late this afternoon. Will enter the appropriate settings in the display and test ride the trike tomorrow. ECO cycles has an online video that shows how to set up and operate the display. With the installed 52T big ring, the owner should be able to reach 28 mph at under 90 rpm cadence. Tried to activate the battery warranty, but as usual the listed website address for the Chinese manufacturer is bogus. The battery charged fully, so it's OK, so far. If the trike is ridden in assist levels 1 and 2 of 5, range provided by the large 20 ah battery should be in excess of 150 miles. Total cost of the drive, as installed, is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1050, if my figures are correct. Pretty cheap for a max legal power drive and the largest available 48v battery. Obtaining components from Aliexpress might be cheaper, but it might take months to receive them.
The drive slides into the trike's empty bottom bracket shell. A large silver-colored nut secures the drive in the shell. A spanner wrench is included
in the kit. A cheater bar has to be used to apply adequate torque to the nut.
An anti-rotation clamp needs to be installed on the boom, and screwed to the drive, because the silver nut will eventually Completed drive installation. Cable runs are wrapped with a split covering
loosen. This clamp is not furnished in the kit, so must be purchased separately. and concealed under the boom and boom receiver. All exposed cable runs
have also received a split covering. Connectors under the trike have
been wrapped with self-sealing rubberized tape. Note that the drive has
two chainrings, but no derailleur. Riding will normally be done in the
big ring (52 T). If the drive fails or the battery runs down, the chain can
be manually moved to the small ring (42T) and used as "get me home"
gearing.
Left view. Right view. Will be hard for a road bike rider being passed to detect the trike is
motorized.
Rider's view. The purpose of this photo is to demonstrate that two different 170 mm crank arms
are installed on the trike. The arm on the rider's right side is straight, while the one
on the rider's left is offset. I haven't checked, but supposedly this corrects for the
drive's 20 mm offset to the right from the trike's centerline. It also reduces the Q
factor. The right arm is from Bafang and the left from Tongsheng. The Bafang arm
can be purchased separately when the Tongsheng kit is ordered from ECO Cycles.