Production countdown!

Summer is coming and we feel you, you can't wait to have your BEST ebike kit to dominate the mountains, hills and cities all around the world. We know we let you wait more than expected: being the smallest fish in the pond brings its disadvantages. But, as Darwin said, it's not the biggest, not the stronger but those who will evolve quicker who will thrive. We're keeping evolving in the meanwhile, very fast. We are living these very last days before the production in a very hectic way: each days there's something new we'd like to share with you, and that's a part of the reason why it took so long to publish this update. We wanted to cover as much as possible and wait for the following milestone to disclose that with you. There was always a good reason to say: it's better tomorrow because we'll have more exciting news... Well, days passed by and now it's time to share everything with you, that you patiently waited so long, and we thank you once again for that! 
Let's go on with the exciting news:
​

Batteries arrived to extra UE Bikeers

Our extra UE customers finally received the batteries! The other parts and the chargers will be shipped together with the motor from our headquarters in Mantua, Italy. At the moment we are still waiting for the batteries that have to be shipped to our European Bikeers: those will be here next week.
If you already received the your battery, you should store them in a dry place, between 15°C and 35°C ( 59°F to 95°F) . The battery charger will come with the kit.

​Swag bag shipped!

We just shipped the Swag Bag to the backers who pledged for that. That is what's inside the package: a branded polo shirt, a Cap a high-quality woven patch with our logo.

​Introducing Irene

Some of you probably already interacted with Irene either by email or on Facebook messenger. She is the new customer relationship manager. She is an electrical engineer, she's now graduating in marketing and she is fluent in English, German and of course Italian: when we met her we knew we couldn't let her go. 
She's now supporting me (Matteo) to answer to all your request and to make sure that you'll receive what you pledged. So please bear with me if it happens that you write me an email and she's the one who replies. That allows me to dedicate more time in pushing the things forward and she's greatly helping me in that.
She's also the one who will translate the updates in Italian.
​

Controller box tooling modification is ready (finally!)

Fresh images directly from the foundry.

We had to modify the tooling to improve the IP grade and to correct some minor defects. As you can see from the picture below now we have just one opening instead of two. That is because we had the signal cables going to the box through rubber seals. The raw casting in the below picture are now machined and next Monday we'll ship those to our controller supplier, who will mount the electronics, fully pot them and send them here for the final assembly. We put our fully potted electronics on our endurance test ( see next paragraphs) and successfully covered thousands miles.

​
​First batch of BEST ebike controllers is ready.

The controllers are ready to be assembled with the boxes. You 'll see some pictures of the pick and place machine during the production process. This is the component which required the most time to develop and brought us behind the schedule. In fact the controller box design was planned after the completion of the controller development. The challenge here was to build an extremely compact electronics which could handle 100+ amp ( as phase current) , make it programmable by any smartphone and compliant with ebike's laws all around the world. 

The electronics consists in three pieces: one part is handling the high current ( PWM modulation) of the motor phases, one part is adjusting the power exertion accordingly to your inputs, and the third one - aka the Smartbox - is smoothly connecting all the systems ( motor, battery, controller and all the sensors and smartphone) together. So, if for any reason your battery temperature goes too high, or your motor temperature goes above the limit, the Smartbox sense that, command to the controller to reduce the power and sends the information to your smartphone.  As you can see, the upper face of the Smartbox ( below picture) is full of copper connection pads: those are the ones which gather the signals from all the sensors.

A bonus feature is the integrated theft-deterrence function: since there's a PIN number to input at the first run, only those who have the PIN number can interact with your BEST system. So if you set the assistance level to zero before leaving the bike unattended, is someone steals your bike, they will never be able to use the motor. 
​

Production windings are coming

Next week we’ll receive the first 50 windings. 
Firstly we'll get the windings of the 250W and 500W power versions because we already approved the final configuration and successfully tested it both on endurance test and real life scenario . After that the 749W and 999W will be coming. We're making those as second step in light of the outstanding torque we reached in our tests. That changed our plans a bit and we know we have more room in looking for the best compromise between torque and speed. We will receive the 749W and 999W ( and thus 1500W as well)  winding samples next week. Those we'll likely be the ultimate ones, so that we can proceed with those just one week after the first batch.
​

Start of Production countdown!

With all the components coming in, the next week we'll finally start assembling and shipping the kits. The target is to ship all the Kickstarter backers motors by the end of June, and possibly start shipping also the following orders between June and July. Our target is to ramp up to a production of 3 motors per hour in the first 10 days. As soon as the production will start and we'll get a steady production pace, we'll be able to publish a delivery schedule based on the ordering period, so that you can exactly track your delivery day.
​

App release coming next week.

We're so glad to finally publish our App, so that you can download it. The first version will be android and the following week the iOS should be ready. We'll post the download link in the next update. Some of you asked to have more insights about that: here's a video to let you know better graphics and features. 

A bonus feature is the integrated theft-deterrence function: since there's a PIN number to input at the first run, only those who have the PIN number can interact with your BEST system. So if you set the assistance level to zero before leaving the bike unattended, is someone steals your bike, they will never be able to use the motor. 
​

Endurance test keeps going on! 

You probably remember that we have an endurance test going on. Well, we stacked additional 7.500 km (4700 miles) on top of the previous distance. We already burned one bike trainer and the other one is about to go. We are now testing the motor at the limit of the higher operating temperature to thermally stress all the components. So the motor is now running continuously at 92° (198 F).
​

Eurobike

We'll be presenting our system at Eurobike 2017 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. We'll be next to the test area and if you are planning to go there, you're welcome to stop by.
​

Final note

During these last months we've seen many of you coming to our plant and testing the bike. These visits made us grow, we accepted and implemented countless feedbacks and our system got better and better. It makes us feel good to see your smile and the excitment on your faces when your test the system for the first time. That means we're on track and possibly will make the wait worth. That's our main target and you'll soon tell us whether we accomplished that.
As anticipated there's a surprise for all Kickstarter backers, an additional present to Thank You once again for being such an amazing community.
All the BEST,
Matteo, Luca and Bikee Bike team.