Ozark Trail Ridge gets returned

1Tuna

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Local time
10:46 PM
Joined
Mar 25, 2024
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51
Location
Eastern Iowa
Finally got around to doing the install of a BBS02B into an Ozark Trail Ridge 29" 9-speed. Not going to happen! Moving what I call the drive case so there is a 1/16" gap from the chainstay means a 6mm-7mm spacer would be needed. A 30t chainring came factory. With a Lekkie 42t it aligns with the smallest cog. Even if I used a 32t Lekkie which has a .8mm offset it wouldn't imo gain me better alignment. So I'll put it back to factory and do the return. Thank goodness Wally-World!
Looks like my 2014 Surly 26" LHT may make a candidate for the BBS02B judging the narrower fork spacing and chainstay. Oh well. photos
 

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Hello! I'm looking to do this exact conversion. What about just using a smaller chain ring (maybe even a 30t like is stock?) like you said, is it just you wouldn't be happy with the chain line alignment?

Edit: I'm really asking, did you return the bike and give up on the OTR because it wasn't going to be perfect, or because it was impossible?
 
Hello! I'm looking to do this exact conversion. What about just using a smaller chain ring (maybe even a 30t like is stock?) like you said, is it just you wouldn't be happy with the chain line alignment?

Edit: I'm really asking, did you return the bike and give up on the OTR because it wasn't going to be perfect, or because it was impossible?
What he is describing is, to all intents and purposes, very near to an "impossible" to fix problem. Bad chain alignment causes a lot worse things than just unhappiness. It is the cause of most of the bad things you hear about insofar as mid drive conversions are concerned.

This is the sort of thing you see when you have a narrow bottom bracket and wide chain stays. You have to put a spacer behind the secondary motor housing (the big roundie thing that holds the main reduction gear). This lets the secondary housing clear the chainstay (@1Tuna was doing it exactly right - getting a couple of business cards' clearance from the chainstay as contact with the secondary housing has been known to break a chainstay and is a bad thing).

Just doing the spacer is not necessarily a dealbreaker, but it definitely makes things less likely to work out, as the chain is pushed outboard and that means its a lot tougher to be able to get a good chainline that lets you safely use as many gears as possible. In @1Tuna's case he knew enough about mid drive installations to know a skewed chain is very bad (that is the cause of excess chain, chainring and cog wear on a mid drive conversion).

You asked about using a smaller chainring and thats going to result in making the problem worse. Bigger rings (42T, typically) have lots of inboard offset, while smaller ones that are smaller than the secondary housing by necessity have a lot less offset, which means the chainline is almost completely uncorrected. In this case the 42T - which is typically the best-case insofar as chain offset is concerned - didn't even come close to fixing his problem. So it can only get worse from here ... on this bike frame.

Here's a laundry list set of instructions on what to do and not to do. Building a mid drive ups the ante on the competence of the builder, and requires more effort. But if you do it up right the benefits are a completely reliable bike that doesn't have any additional wear from the motor being inline in the drivetrain, and can go anywhere thanks to being able to use the gears.

 
Woah, thank you so much for the thorough (quick!) response! I will definitely be looking into your provided guide and be rethinking how I go about doing this mid-drive conversion. I already bought the OTR and kinda love it as a mountain bike, so I think another bike purchase might be in my future, but the purchase will be heavily informed by compatibility with the BBSO2. If you have any suggestions for a good platform to build a BBSO2 conversion, that would be super helpful. And I thought it might still work, but if the chain line is only lined up on the last gear, and Im' using gear 4 frequently I can definitely see how that would wear through the transmission quickly and lead to all sorts of issues. (grind both the sprocket and the chain i would imagine)

PS: What is your opinion of Unit Pack Power? Im looking at a 52v 24ah battery, Im reading from an electrical engineer that reviewed the battery and tore it apart says that its a quality pack, and that its important to check because their quality can be highly variable...

This is the pack im looking at

And this is the engineer review:

LAST QUESTION, Do you have a preferred reseller for BAFANG kits?

Thanks for your response, this community is awesome
 
The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) in the United Kingdom banned the sale of Unit Pack Power (UPP) e-bike batteries in January 2024 after they were linked to a number of fires. The OPSS issued withdrawal notices to the manufacturer, UPP, as well as major online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba. The CPSC in the United States also issued a warning to consumers in April 2024, cautioning against buying or using UPP batteries after 13 people in the US reported the batteries overheating, including seven reports of fire. The CPSC also noted that the batteries were not certified by an accredited laboratory to meet UL safety standards.
 
My understanding is (at least for the CPSC) was limited in scope to a single battery type. I also heard that UL safety standards can only be applied to prebuilt bikes, and there is no such thing as a drop in ebike battery that is UL listed. I might be wrong through...
 
My understanding is (at least for the CPSC) was limited in scope to a single battery type. I also heard that UL safety standards can only be applied to prebuilt bikes, and there is no such thing as a drop in ebike battery that is UL listed. I might be wrong through...
You sound like your mind is made up. Good Luck!
 
Woah, thank you so much for the thorough (quick!) response! I will definitely be looking into your provided guide and be rethinking how I go about doing this mid-drive conversion. I already bought the OTR and kinda love it as a mountain bike, so I think another bike purchase might be in my future, but the purchase will be heavily informed by compatibility with the BBSO2. If you have any suggestions for a good platform to build a BBSO2 conversion, that would be super helpful. And I thought it might still work, but if the chain line is only lined up on the last gear, and Im' using gear 4 frequently I can definitely see how that would wear through the transmission quickly and lead to all sorts of issues. (grind both the sprocket and the chain i would imagine)

PS: What is your opinion of Unit Pack Power? Im looking at a 52v 24ah battery, Im reading from an electrical engineer that reviewed the battery and tore it apart says that its a quality pack, and that its important to check because their quality can be highly variable...

This is the pack im looking at

And this is the engineer review:

LAST QUESTION, Do you have a preferred reseller for BAFANG kits?

Thanks for your response, this community is awesome
Don't try the conversion on the Ozark Trail Mountain 29" unless you want to ride around on the smallest cogs and risk motor and chain issues. Follow what m@Robertson says!
 
Woah, thank you so much for the thorough (quick!) response! I will definitely be looking into your provided guide and be rethinking how I go about doing this mid-drive conversion. I already bought the OTR and kinda love it as a mountain bike, so I think another bike purchase might be in my future, but the purchase will be heavily informed by compatibility with the BBSO2. If you have any suggestions for a good platform to build a BBSO2 conversion, that would be super helpful. And I thought it might still work, but if the chain line is only lined up on the last gear, and Im' using gear 4 frequently I can definitely see how that would wear through the transmission quickly and lead to all sorts of issues. (grind both the sprocket and the chain i would imagine)

PS: What is your opinion of Unit Pack Power? Im looking at a 52v 24ah battery, Im reading from an electrical engineer that reviewed the battery and tore it apart says that its a quality pack, and that its important to check because their quality can be highly variable...

This is the pack im looking at

And this is the engineer review:

LAST QUESTION, Do you have a preferred reseller for BAFANG kits?

Thanks for your response, this community is awesome
This is the battery (manual attached) I bought and has only been through a few charging cycles. I will research issues, then decide what to do.
As far as kits, I bought from JohnnyNerdOut, after returning a few components I didn't need, his customer service replies stopped. Maybe I nagged too much?
 

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Yeah, he had his heart set on a UPP battery no matter what anyone said. Let’s hope he got one of the good ones.
I would suggest charging and storing it outside in his BBQ grill.
 
The UPP batteries in question are a triangular shape and have been pulled from the manufacturers website.
 
What is your opinion of Unit Pack Power?
The product safety agencies in both the UK and USA are what you should be paying attention to. In the UK, they banned the sale outright of UPP batteries. In the USA they issued a stop-use advisory and recommend the batteries be disposed of. I believe it was the USA notice that said UPP refused to do a product recall.

While these official warnings were fairly recent, this was not new news to anyone who has been informed on the subject of ebike batteries. The poor quality of the packs has been well known and I have personally seen a tear-down from a competing manufacturer who was only reporting results to a small, private group... they labeled the battery exactly as the UK and USA governments did: Dangerous and unsafe.

LAST QUESTION, Do you have a preferred reseller for BAFANG kits?
I buy individual parts. I don't do kits. You can see all the bits that go into a mid drive kit here, and then go and buy what you want individually.


You will save a fair bit of money in the process. I do recommend Luna Cycle as my preferred BBSHD vendor for a bare motor. What they sell will work just fine with a 52v battery at the max output of 30a. For about another $100, a bare motor from California Ebike is a good source. But they are using the newer firmware limitations Bafang has introduced. That means 30a for the 48v motor and 28a for the 52v motors. There is no need to do this from a mechanical standpoint, but the reasons it happened are entirely greed-oriented and too much to go into here. Buy a Luna motor and get better firmware and pay less if you can. If they are sold out of the motor size you want, wait a few months and they will restock.

More on the UPP batteries:
It is true both the UK and USA stop-use warnings focused on a single pack type. This does NOT mean other pack types were safe. It means the one the governments tested (and that had fires documented) were tremendously unsafe. Others were not inspected. It strikes me as the height of wishful thinking to take the position that different packs that come from the same manufacturing plant - and the same manufacturer who decided to put such dangerous packs on the market - only had that shoddy workmanship confined to the one model. If they decided to cut corners andf sell crap, why would anyone expect them to make a different decision on a different pack in the same (ultra low) price range?

Remember again, UPP refused to perform a product recall on batteries that were found to be so unsafe they were too dangerous to use or repair, and this finding was confirmed by two separate government agencies.

Do NOT look for a bargain on a battery. There is no substitute for quality. UPP's problems were by no means limited to what the two governments found. Those were only the latest confirmation of something the ebike DIY builder community has known for years. Unfortunately people want to save money and are willing to look the other way and roll the dice.
 
Hey you guys are so awesome for providing thorough, awesome answers. I am not dead-set on UPP. Not issuing a recall when there is known problems with a product is a HUGE red flag to me, and while I might get an ok battery, rolling the dice when the consequence is an out of control lithium fire, I think both I (and my home insurer lol) would sleep better at night with a higher quality battery.

I am glad to hear from 1Tuna that the chain line issue was a deal-breaker. I actually contacted 2 other people on reddit who went through with the conversion and BOTH of them told me mounting the motor was a challenge (one even grinded down the motor casing to make it fit!), and the chainline was so off that they couldn't shift into first gear unless it was ideal conditions. You guys have helped me understand that there is more that goes into a mid-drive conversion than just popping a motor on a mountainbike. Thanks to yall, I have a greater understanding of what I do NOT know and there will be more that goes into this project than just buying a random bike + battery + kit.

I will keep you guys updated on my journey, as of right now Im looking at a specialized rockhopper comp 29 as my platform for conversion, but am worried that the 73mm bottom bracket width will make sourcing a correctly fitting motor more difficult (its always something!)
 
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