Article Elife X – a Norwegian bike using Bafang and the E10 frame

[knut7]

We test ride the Elife X. Even though this is a bike for the Norwegian/Nordic market, it’s still an interesting bike. Elife has taken part in developing the Dengfu E10 frame. Also they’ve had Bafang create a EU legal version of the powerful M600 motor, the M600S. Check out our video review for all the details.

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[Waynemarlow]

Big wish is that Bafang will allow these engine profiles to be used by others with the M600. Certainly the freeware available for the other Bafang motors transform them, perhaps Bafang just need to make a software App much like Shimano for the user to customise their engine to their requirements and they are suddenly into selling a lot more motors than at present.

 

[knut7]

Yeah, the EU legal M600S is an interesting motor. Unfortunately it's not easy doing adjustments to the software. We can use the Besst tool to install the new update, but we can't alter the settings, nor can Elife. Bafang has sendt us a few different SW versions during the testing. And we're waiting for more, before we start doing the motor review.

 

[Kyokushin]

What is the difference between M600S, M600 and M500?

 

[Waynemarlow]

M600 is supposedly 120 Nm of torque with American speed limits, M600S is a Euro de tuned brew of different ramp up rates and lower EU speed limit, M500 is supposedly a 75Nm lighter motor with EU speed limit.

My guess is that one could knock off 20Nm on each of the motors according to ground reports but as a M600 landed on my door yesterday to go into my E10, I should be able to concur or disagree.

 

[Kyokushin]

I can't find anything on Bafang about M600S, i found on Bafang website only M600 and M500 with 95Nm (not 75 Nm) where technically both are almost identical where difference is stator. Have you link to M600S? I would be more than happy to be able to reade more about this engine.

 

[Waynemarlow]

M600 appears only available to ELife, there’s no chatter in other very informed forums about it, just the various standard versions and the upgraded versions that Luna sells.

 

[Jon A]

I'm going to guess (especially if this bike is successful) you'll see this version of the M600 (M600S) offered by other manufacturers in the future. Unless Elife paid a huge premium, I doubt Bafang gave them exclusive rights worldwide--maybe in Norway, but not worldwide. The regular M600 is already offered in other bikes.

 

[Animalector]

MY.guess would be software detuned M600 so that customers can just firmware patch it later on their own much in the same way they deregulate motorcycles to comply with learner limits. It's what I would do

 

[ornias]

MY.guess would be software detuned M600 so that customers can just firmware patch it later on their own much in the same way they deregulate motorcycles to comply with learner limits. It's what I would do

Which would be illegal in europe and most countries.
250w nominal means "overheats if used for hours above 250w", you cannot do that in software. Lawmakers are not complete idiots sometimes...

 

[Animalector]

Well actually the international standard is pretty prescriptive about how to measure 250W nominal.. nowhere does it say anything about burning motors out. not that I can recall reading anyway. so having an M600 chassis, so long as it meets the requirements of the international standard would be fine.

 

[ornias]

Well actually the international standard is pretty prescriptive about how to measure 250W nominal.. nowhere does it say anything about burning motors out. not that I can recall reading anyway. so having an M600 chassis, so long as it meets the requirements of the international standard would be fine.

250w nominal is the point of temperature equilibrium within the manufacturer allowed temperaturerange. Aka: the power consumption at the highest temperate allowed. (See: IEC60034-1)

So no, it doesn't literally call it "burning out the motor", but that's in practice what it means.

It gets a bit tedious repeating myself by now though: Software tweaks are:
- NOT sufficient for EN-15194-2017 compliance
- NOT sufficient for IEC-60034-1 compliance

Previously there where some workaround in the old EN-15194 variant (which allowed measuring at the wheels), but those have been voided with EN-15194-2017

TLDR:
The framework is quite solid.
m600 coils are NOT EU legal (obviously the frame is).

 

[Animalector]

I think this is a good discussion,

I'm looking at the current Australian Standards for reference.. Firstly, AS15194-2016 still allows for mechanical measurement of power in Annex D by measureing speed over 20m and applying a forumla to calculate power.

I'm also using AS 60031-1 which is based on 2009 IEC-60034-1 I think.

Anyways according to that one, Thermal Equilibrium is: "the state reached when the temperature rises of the several parts of the machine do not vary by more than a gradient of 2K per hour"
And in my words, it's not getting any hotter... which makes sense to me.

Now also in 600034-1, it says for "Continuous Duty" which is "Operation at a constant load for a continuous time sufficient to allow the motor to reach thermal equilibrium.
This is where I think it is up to the manufacturer... Considering the Motor (coils, stator, PLUS the controller) as a system, so if the manufacturer states that a motor system is 250W, such that you put a mechanical load on the motor output, and run the motor to it's maximum power, wait for thermal equilibrium, then measure the load output... It will be 250W.

If the manufacturer Stickers it as 250W, having measured it in this way @ the thermal equilibrium, it is compliant, regardless of how big it is. or what it might be capable of.

However.... the M600 is actually rated by the manufacturer at 500W (and there is a sticker on it that says so) therefore no matter what firmware you patch it with, it's non-confirming to the standards. But if Bafang put a 250W sticker on it, and limited it to 250W, it's all good.

That's my take on it. Happy to be corrected.

 

[ornias]

I'm looking at the current Australian Standards for reference.. Firstly, AS15194-2016 still allows for mechanical measurement of power in Annex D by measureing speed over 20m and applying a forumla to calculate power.

Current only accepted standard is EN-15194-2017.
The older standard allowing mechanical measurement is depricated for a while by now.
This measurement was actually used by the TSDZ2 and other motors to be able to push just a little more power than actually allowed, with less efficiency.

It's important to note that "motor" has multiple definitions here.
IEC-60034-1 applies to the electromotor unit itself, not to the final product (the bike motor). More precisely: The Coil and Stator.
It's used everywhere in the industry to define uniform power-definitions of electromotor units.

It's important to note two different parts of the controller as well:
- Motor Control (Empowering the coils)
- Motor activation (enabling, disabling and setting motor output)

Just because motor activation of an electromotor has a digital "lever" (the motor activation controller), does not mean you can (ab)use that to fake a lower poweruse of the actual eletromotor (Coil, Stator and motorcontrol-controller).


To be clear: it is possible to cheat the system and I know 99% certain manufacturers do it already: Documenting a lower maximum temperature treshhold. But this has to be "in good faith" and "reasonable", to be actually allowed. But setting a few degrees (5-10) lower than what you would actually deem safe, as a "safety margin", is more than reasonable.


But:

I think this is a good discussion,

First off: there is no "discussion". It's just facts.

I've also explain it about 10 times by now just last year on the usual suspect forums, including this. Made huge writeups about it multiple times, wrote documentation on the DIY ebike legal framework on github, discussed it with manufacturer employees to verify etcetcetc.

For me the point of "open discussion" is a bit done. The above is the current technical regulations behind the legal framework in the EU. Deal with it, just like the industry does.

*The industry does, for example: the m500/m510 coil and stator where specifically designed to be the max-power EU compliant motor, according to Bafang inside sources.

*edit*
To make something clear, it's not that i'm saying you are an idiot or something. You seem like a smart guy.
It's just that I've had about 5 "random guys in forums that thought they understand it" just this month and I rather focus on documenting things on github than explaining the same thing 99 times on forums and facebook ;-)

 

[Animalector]

First off: there is no "discussion". It's just facts.

So we're discussing the facts??

I've also explain it about 10 times by now just last year on the usual suspect forums,

I'd like to read some of this, please post a link perhaps rather than typing it again.. Perhaps a link to the GITHUB??

To make something clear, it's not that i'm saying you are an idiot or something. You seem like a smart guy.

Cheers,

 

[Zimmerframe]

Perhaps a link to the GITHUB??

I think the ones he's referring to start from here :

OpenSource EBike

OpenSource EBike has 24 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

github.com

With quite a bit in this one :

GitHub - OpenSourceEBike/Bafang_M500_M600

Contribute to OpenSourceEBike/Bafang_M500_M600 development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Animalector]

Thanks for that I'll have a read.. cheers

Andy