Generally speaking mid drives are the way to go. The info below is referring specifically to BBSHD and BBS02 as these are the ideal motors for this use.
A few of the most important things to keep in mind in making sure that they have a good experience:
A few of the most important things to keep in mind in making sure that they have a good experience:
- Keeping spare parts on hand. This can be very useful in providing immediate diagnostics if the customer runs into an issue, and as a physical bike shop you would be uniquely positioned to provide this service in a way that an e-commerce company simply cannot. The most important things to have on hand:
- Bafang program cable
- Any display that is BBSxx compatible
- A controller [if using BBSHD you want this, if using BBS02 you want this]
- A multimeter [most typical multimeters will be fine]
- A charger [likely in 48v or 52v]
- A chainring spacer [For BBS02 you want this, for BBSHD you want this]
- Bottom bracket spacers if you don’t already have some
- Solder sleeves
We sell all of this on the site and having these parts would allow you to do relatively easy troubleshooting for about 95% of anything that comes up. When we troubleshoot over email a lot of the times we need to have a lot of back-and-forth with the customer to figure out the issue because the customer usually does not have these items in their possession. If you have them you can simply swap out each part until the motor is working again to find out which part is bad, which is very straightforward. Here is the documentation we have which is a basic step-by-step guide for troubleshooting which goes hand-in-hand with these components
- Waterproofing. No kit is perfectly waterproof, and while BBSxx kits are one of the best in this regard they are not 100% waterproof. You would not be able to submerge them in water and generally speaking we do not recommend frequent usage around water (particular saltwater) unless doing additional waterproofing. We cover waterproofing here in this thread.
Doing this at the time of conversion can be done usually very quickly and prevent issues further down the road. Mostly it just involves covering exposed connectors and adding a bit of grease around the controller gasket. - Fitment. This is one of those things that can vary depending on the frame that your client would like to convert. To ensure that they have the best experience it can be very useful to read our extensive documentation on checking whether a particular motor would be suitable for a particular frame. This is the main starting point for checking fitment and it has links that go into further detail on edge cases such as press-fit frames, carbon frames and technical considerations for mounting 100mm BBSHD into a 68-73mm BB shell.
Ideally we would recommend to have a look at our master repository and give it a brief read through, check out some of the videos embedded, click some of the links. Most customers do not read the huge amount of technical documentation we have written so having even a passing familiarity with these documents can be very helpful in assisting a client. - Modifications. There are 3 main topics I want to focus on here. You have aftermarket chainrings, gear sensor installation/maintenance, aftermarket cranks.
Aftermarket chainrings can be very ideal depending on the client as they allow for optimizing for torque or top speed, as well as potentially providing greater inbound offset than stock which may be preferable in order to have the best chainline. It helps the customer to get the performance dialed in where they want it and can help deal with chain derailment due to bad chainline depending on the offset provided. See this page for offset comparison also see this page for a technicians perspective on chain derailment.
On the gearsensor it is important to keep in mind it takes a decent amount of time and you really need some good park tool cable cutters for the derailer cable and hose. Installation and purchase of this component is optional but highly recommended as it helps the client to shift smoothly by cutting power for a fraction of a second while shifting. Here is how to protect it and here is how to do maintenance on it. Likely maintenance will never be an issue if it is protected and installed properly to begin with but it does cover some important concepts like not greasing the wheel the derailer cable sits on.
On aftermarket cranks, likely this won’t be a problem if the crank bolts are properly torqued down with a torque wrench. However there can be good reason for swapping to something more high-end like the Lekkie cranks we sell, as the metal is harder at the tapered hole. If the stock cranks sustain impact damage or the crank bolt is not properly tightened to begin with then this can cause deformation in the tapered hole. Once this happens the crank has to be replaced. As a bike shop you might already have some left-hand cranks that are square taper you could install right off the bat, though if you are installing a left crank on the right-hand side would want to Loctite on the pedal threads to keep it from working itself loose over time.
- A reliable battery. Without question the most reliable battery on the market by far is the Wolf battery. Often a customer that does not do their own conversion will not have read the same information provided by DIY ebike battery suppliers including care, maintenance etc.. So you really want to go with a battery that is impact proof, waterproof, fused, and has built in fire retardant.
What you most want to avoid is providing customer builds with softpacks. These are meant for people that really know what they are getting into. A shark pack or dolphin pack is okay, but your best choice is going to be Wolf, which has less QC issues compared to any Chinese battery by an order of magnitude. The exception to this guidance would be if you are building a custom enclosure for the softpack battery.