Blog

Hello everyone and wishing a Christmas cheers from the team here at Grin. Our staff got inventive with party activities for the annual Christmas bash, and we hope that all of you will be out enjoying the holiday season too!

As can be expected, the staffing levels at Grin from Dec 23rd to Jan 2nd will be much reduced as people are travelling home to their families. We'll still be processing shipments and basic orders except on statutory holidays, but more complicated builds and support may need to wait until the new year.

We sent it out on our newsletter but forgot to post on our homepage. After summer of pilot testing and refinements the powerful 45mm fat all-axle motor series is now in full production.  All mechanicals details and user manuals etc. are on the all-axle info page, and we recently finished both the product summary video and installation videos too, have a watch:

It's fall season and not everyone is thinking about ebikes. But if you are wanting just a little boost to your ride right now, we're running a big promotion on the mini Bafang G310/G311 motor systems.  They are a great silent hub when used within their limitation, but we happen to have a lot more in inventory than necessary as it seems everyone is buying our All-Axle motors instead!  

So if a small 2.3kg (5lb) motor is the right thing for you, use the coupon code "G3FORME" during the checkout and get a 30% discount off the entire G310/G311 kit order (controller, batteries etc. all included). This applies to the superharness kits, CA3 kits, and Barebones kits.

This promotional sale will go on until our stock levels are at a more reasonable level.

We had a few setbacks in the rollout of the Superharness system earlier this year, but things are now moving smoothly with new produciton machinery cranking them out.  Here is a fresh video covering the the process to convert over a CA3 based setup to use the Superharness platform for those who have been asking about that: 

We've also been steadily adding to the list of superharness related peripherals, including new inline brake cutoffs, a lower cost bidirectional throttle, and adapter to use any throttle as a regen control. Plus there are more in active development (like dual motor superharness splitters!).

All of these parts are conveniently available in a dedicated Superharness section of the store page, or of course with any kit purchase.  

Heads up that Grin's offices and operation will be closed this coming Thursday and Friday as all our staff are on a company planning retreat to chart out the year ahead. All emails, phone calls, and shipments will resume on Monday Oct 7th. Thanks for your patience! 

PS

And if things have been seeming quiet on the Grin front lately, that is never the actual case, things are Always Busy. On our return you will see much more content related  This and This and This and This. 

Sadly a big batch of Phaserunner boards was assembled with a substituted part earlier this year, making them vulnerable to mosfet failure when used at 72V and in some cases even 52V. Unfortunately reworking the boards to fix this mistake was extremely difficult leading to a slow drip-feed supply over the summer.

Fortunately the taps have since been turned on and we now have V6 Phaserunners in great supply again, and with that comes some other pieces of good controller news!

Super Clearance Phaserunner V6

We had a large quantity of Phaserunners already fully potted which couldn't be reworked. From all our testing these still function perfectly fine with 36V batteries, and we're offering at a nearly 75% discount either by themselves or as an option with a kit. It's a great deal for those who want a high-end controller and don't plan to use more than a 36V battery.  

Phaserunner Baserunner V6 Updated User Manuals

We've also completed a much longer revision of the V6 Phaserunner user manual that covers in good detail the use of superharness systems and direct PAS / Torque sensor hookup.  This should close the documentation gap that exists with our superharness and 3rd party display kits and help those doing more advanced integrations.

Heatsinks Too

And at last, we've just received our first batch of a custom tooled heatsink extrusion sized perfectly to the Phaserunner motor controllers for those wanting to improve the natural cooling and increase the power at thermal rollback.  These are available now in our controller accessories page. 

Thanks to everyone who joined in last week for the release of the Freegen technology video and the follow up live Q&A session with Justin, Alon, and Michael. The response and interest levels have been amazing, and we really look forward the next development phases.

For those who want to see this concept in action, make your way over to Eurobike in Frankfurt this weekend and check out Charge's Booth, E18 in Hall 8. There are two fully running demo bikes that you can ride and test for yourself how strong and natural the braking feels, along with some bench models to help illustrate what is going on.

The judges for the eurobike innovation award clearly did not understand or appreciate what they had on their hands, so come see for youself what they missed!

If you are interested in latest tech to hit the world of electric bicycles, you'll want to check out our upcoming video about Freegen™, the best way to to have both perfect freewheeling and perfect regenerative braking on an ebike. 

This technology was first shown publicly at the Fully Charged Live show in Vancouver last fall, but until now the details were not very well explained. This video is our answers to that so that almost anyone can follow along and appreciate the brilliance of this idea.  

It's our first time doing a scheduled Youtube Premiere, which well allow us to answer chat messages and will be followed by a live Q&A session with the team. So mark it on your calendar folks, next Tuesday at 12 pm PST, 3pm Eastern Time, and 9pm in Europe! 

And we're loaded and off to Portland this weekend for our first time attending the Pacific Trike Fest celebration of all things recumbent trike. If you live in that part of Cascadia and want to field test a dual motor drive Catrike or generally talk shop with Justin at his booth, come and pay visit!

It's on Saturday from 9am to 4pm at the Portland Community College, Sylvania. 

Well thanks everyone, with over 16 video submissions we had a great representation of builds for our final best project video awards category. In the end, we felt that Martin from Normandy with his "Super 73 Upgrade" pulled all the elements together to just nudge out in front.

As a video it gives a compelling back story of Martin's experience with his first ebike taking him from high school to now studying electrical engineering in univeristy. It seamlessly flows into the challenges and solutions of fitting a motor into a bike with a different dropout standard, and demonstrates just how much new life you can bring into an old factory ebike. The entire production itself is top notch and a joy to watch. So congratulations Martin, $1000 of Grin buckeroos are now on your store account for whatever future endeavors suit your fancy!

We look forward to seeing more build content on your channel, you've clearly got a knack for this.

And 2nd Place

OK, so we were only planning a single prize but some of the others were so good that we needed to do more than a token thank you.  It was a very close 2nd place for Oliver in Australia with his dual motor Cyclopes build.  This fully custom fabricated sheet metal frame frontloading cargobike is an inspiring piece of art in itself, but one with demonstrated great utility for his rural lifestyle. 

And Many More

Finally, there are a number that didn't necessarily have the same video production chops as Martin and Ollie but that still featured great content and builds. It's a bit random but we felt that the following 3 submissions all had unique character and are also getting a $100 store credit prize

Grinvestors

So that's it for this campaign, thanks again to all who participated, and a big thanks as well to the Grinvestor who helped sponsor this. He wanted to remain anonymous, but is one of several dozen generous people who have helped finance Grin's growth and R&D by loaning funds to us in exchange for interest payments in the form of store credit.  Collectively our Grinvestor community has contributed more to enabling our success than all the traditional banking and loan finance partners combined, and they all deserve a shoutout!