Dengfu E82 - M560 750w Build (Was: LightCarbon LCE971)

[Sayonara]

i just want to say,

i have seen 3 cracked lc emtb frames that i build it the last 3 years. Yes Jim is easier to deal with compared to dengfu but i never seen any cracked dengfu emtb frames tho.. i did get help with warranty in all cases

for the broken bearing, i used a special bearing puller before to pull out bearings from carbon. it can be done smoothly id you have to right tools

if you dont have the tools maybe you can just pop off the bearing cover and try to add some grease. i have seen both lc / dengfu frames without any grease in their suspension bearings

they both use low quality bearings in my eyes

I haven't heard or seen any cracked frames from LC only the cracked test frame we saw in this thread earlier. Where and how did your frames crack?

Were those low quality bearings from LC on older frames or these newer ones also? The bearings they currently send with the frames are high quality.

 

[xtraman122]

i just want to say,

i have seen 3 cracked lc emtb frames that i build it the last 3 years. Yes Jim is easier to deal with compared to dengfu but i never seen any cracked dengfu emtb frames tho.. i did get help with warranty in all cases

for the broken bearing, i used a special bearing puller before to pull out bearings from carbon. it can be done smoothly id you have to right tools

if you dont have the tools maybe you can just pop off the bearing cover and try to add some grease. i have seen both lc / dengfu frames without any grease in their suspension bearings

they both use low quality bearings in my eyes

It’s fair to say I haven’t actually had my hands on an LC frame yet, so I shouldn’t talk them up too much, but based on others experiences and the number of quality bikes they seem to OEM for (Their painting album had lots of branded bikes in there and I have a local reseller who sells a bike based on the LCE930 that is well regarded), it seems they do make good frames.

The durability concern is the thing that kept me from using the LCE971, I personally just think there’s some fundamental flaw in the design and that’s what scared me away. I also wasn’t the biggest fan of the look of it with the squashed looking rear triangle that’s part of the VPP design, but that’s just me. I really hope they come out with a new M560 based AM/light enduro frame with somewhere in the 150-170 range of travel, I’d scoop it up in a heartbeat. Or if DJI ever ends up selling their power train separate I’d kill to be able to build an Avinox based bike myself.

Their website says they use Endurance Max bearings so that’s what I was going by, I thought those were quality bearings used by many, but again, I haven’t experienced it myself yet so I can’t say for sure.

 

[xtraman122]

Did a quick ride yesterday and again today between work meetings, I have about 14 miles on the bike now and love it. Such a massive upgrade from my alloy hardtail with 100mm of travel

The M560 has silly amounts of power, I've found it to be perfect on Trail mode (Level 2/5) where it peaks at 500W output. I've tried quickly testing out Boost (5/5) and it shoots right up to 1200W if you push it and feels absolutely crazy; I was able to accelerate, up a hill, to 20mph. Needless to say Trail feels perfect to me for regular riding, and I could see Eco even being plenty for a lighter rider or someone wanting even more of a workout (That seems to peak around 250W).

The GX Transmission is a dream too, after one small adjustment after figuring out what they wanted you to do in one of the setup steps, it "just works". Shifting is flawless through all 12 gears without hesitation and it seems to take a beating under power without issue at all, truly an awesome setup.

My one outstanding issue is still getting the Dengfu battery to work. I ripped the motor out last night hoping to find a loose connection for the battery CAN wire, but no luck. Wiggled all the wires, tried reseating things, it just won't power on. I think the battery itself is fine, I get 44V between the first two pins which I assume means the battery has some juice. I don't know if something is messed up in the BMS or my wiring harness is bad. I ordered 2 more 1T4 cables from Aliexpress this morning that will probably take 2 weeks to get here and then suck to install, but if that doesn't do it I'm not sure what the issue might be.

 

[Karamba!]

l




i build an e10 last month with a non removable cusfom 720wh battery

the battery was like 3100gr compared to official 4100gr
and i didnt use any battery locks /wiring which i weigh at 520gr

so yeah i think non removable battery could be better. for sure less frameweight is needed on top of less weight for baterry and no locks


i talk about the front and back metal holders including lock for battery.
these items are heavy and come with excess wiring that i also didnt need.
these locks weigh almost 520gram

also i used a diy battery in 3d printed case so no heavy metal case was used.

you could do that to the E82 as well to save some weight. make it into non (easy) removable battery


original e10 battery was 4kg, this diy is only 3200gr and 720wh.

View attachment 148545

Care to share how you fixed the DYI battery to the frame? Is the 3D printed battery casing to protect it, or as a mean to fix it to the frame?

 

[kaaskopf]

it has 4 threaded inserts on the corners. bolts go thru the 4 holes in the frame for the original battery locks

 

[xtraman122]

A quick update after about 45 miles or so over last week across a few rides. Everything still going great, no issues that I’ve seen at all and bike is a blast to ride. Hopefully my Dengfu battery works with a new CAN cable, although I really have no need for a bigger battery at all, the 720Wh is plenty for me.

 

[kaaskopf]

clean build

hope you have a lot of fun with it

i did see one thing tho, you running a speedgrip up front ? i would change that to a supertrail otherwise its going to be slippery when wet...
i used these tires for some years and i also use speedgrip but rear only. even there it feels to slippery when wet.

 

[xtraman122]

clean build

hope you have a lot of fun with it

i did see one thing tho, you running a speedgrip up front ? i would change that to a supertrail otherwise its going to be slippery when wet...
i used these tires for some years and i also use speedgrip but rear only. even there it feels to slippery when wet.

They are, yes. These tires should have just been sent back when they arrived in the wrong casing but I just kept them because the retailer gave me a big discount to keep them. Wasn’t the best choice in tread, should have gone with something a little skinnier, and probably the wrong compound.

With the weather here lately wet is the least of my concerns, we’re currently under “severe drought” conditions where I live, and combining that with the immense number of leaves that have fallen in the last few weeks makes for conditions where you can’t even see the ground most places you’re riding. The dry leaves all stacked onto each other is like trying to ride on a bunch of pieces of paper, you just slide right out anywhere you attempt to break with any meaningful force or lean the bike in a turn and usually aren’t able to regain traction either.

I’ve already had the front wash out on me twice where they were layered up real bad. The tire will grab the first layer of leaves of then have the leaves it grabbed onto work like a ski on the 5 layers below.

I plan on replacing the tires with a better suited setup, probably in a 2.4” width at some point. I was reading about the Tannus inserts and they sounded pretty cool. You get many of the benefits of both tubeless and tube setups in one, and it often ends up being a bit lighter than a CushCore setup due to not having sealant or needing to run as thick of a casing tire.

 

[kaaskopf]

i run both cushcore and tannus on my bikes.
my e10 has these same nobby nics in 29x2.6. with the tannus tubeless inserts (red old style) for trail riding
i love them!
they run very smooth and efficient. give some support in sidewalls and dampens the vibrations a bit. Also make sures the bead cannot come from the rim in low pressure conditions.

on my burly enduro build (kunlun , see the build on this forum) i run eddy currents in supergravity casing with cushcore pro. this setup is heavier but also much more puncture resistant. also much much slower rolling....


for your bike you could put these speedgrips on the rear of the bike and get something more like a magic mary supertrails for more front grip.

What do u think in the end about diy emtb ? Do u still think it was worth all the trouble ?

 

[xtraman122]

i run both cushcore and tannus on my bikes.
my e10 has these same nobby nics in 29x2.6. with the tannus tubeless inserts (red old style) for trail riding
i love them!
they run very smooth and efficient. give some support in sidewalls and dampens the vibrations a bit. Also make sures the bead cannot come from the rim in low pressure conditions.

on my burly enduro build (kunlun , see the build on this forum) i run eddy currents in supergravity casing with cushcore pro. this setup is heavier but also much more puncture resistant. also much much slower rolling....


for your bike you could put these speedgrips on the rear of the bike and get something more like a magic mary supertrails for more front grip.

What do u think in the end about diy emtb ? Do u still think it was worth all the trouble ?

I’m somewhat split on the experience, I love tinkering and knowing the inside out of how something works so I can fix it myself, but don’t like having to order everything from China waiting weeks every time you need a tiny little part and having next to zero documentation on anything. Even the Bafang drive systems are only really meant to be sold to bike manufacturers with the way they have relatively little documentation, require dealer logins to use BESST, etc. The complete lack of documentation and difficulty in ordering frames from Dengfu is a pretty miserable experience too. What I’d like to see is a US based distributor for Bafang (For the integrated mid drive stuff, not just the BB motors) and some frames as well. I just don’t think there’s a big enough market for it, most of the people able to afford a $8-13k bike often aren’t the ones with the time or patience to work on it themselves.

I definitely do like aspects of it though, for example I love that I can buy a complete new motor for around $700, a whole new battery for about $400, and even replace the frame if something went really wrong for about $1k. I also like being able to tweak settings with BESST, like removing the silly speed limiter for example.

Whether I would do it again or not is undecided. I’d need a really convincing frame option and some better battery tech and frame integration to make me do it for my next bike. With the much lower weights of some of these bikes (Amflow) now due to the more energy dense batteries and nice small downtubes and better integrated displays, I think I’d pay the premium to get that sort of experience. What I would hate about it is having to deal with an LBS for any issues, I’m just the type that likes troubleshooting and wrenching on things myself and can’t stand being locked out of working on my own stuff. I’d probably want better choice of motors too, I don’t necessarily hate Bafang, but when building a bike I’d like to be able to pick between Bafang/Bosch/DJI for example.

 

[xtraman122]

Figured out my silly battery issue with the big Dengfu pack - Someone on Facebook said theirs did something similar and throwing it on the charger “woke it up”. It sounded ridiculous so I tried it, and low and behold it worked, couldn’t believe it. All I had to do was plug the pack into the charger for a minute and then threw it into the bike and it powered right up, his thought was that they go into some sort of weird sleep state if not used for a long time. The battery clearly wasn’t dead and needing to be charged, it was at 70% when I got it to turn on.