These past few months, I have been hearing a lot well-nigh the New Talaria Sting, and how it compared to the popular Sur-Ron Light Bee. So many people were impressed by it that I decided to squint into whether or not there were any significant differences, and I did find some important upgrades that I want to desribe here, so lets get to it.
Who is Talaria?
I am unchangingly skeptical of any new me too visitor that seems to be copying a popular product, but without some digging, Talaria has been importing the Sting for over a year now. The Talaria name is Latin for winged sandal which is a reference to the Roman god Mercury, who could fly swiftly considering of the magical wings on his sandals.
Talaria Power Tech Chongqing, LTD” does have an office in Hong Kong, but scrutinizingly all of their operations are in Chongqing, which is located in the mountainous region of inside China.
The Primary Drive
There are two major differences between the Sur-Ron and the Talaria, and several small differences. The first big one is that the primary momentum on the Talaria is gear-driven, and I’ll explain why I like that.
Electric motorcycles have to make use of every cubic inch of space that is misogynist in the frame in order to maximize the power and range of the shower pack. This ways it’s important to alimony the size of the motor as meaty as possible. One way to get upper power from a meaty motor is to spin it up to very upper RPM’s. However, if you do that, it then becomes increasingly difficult to package the RPM reduction between the motor and the rear wheel. There are practical mechanical limits to how small you can make the drive-pulley, and moreover how large you can make the final-drive sprocket.
Both the Sur-Ron and the Talaria use a dual-stage reduction. Once you split the RPM-reduction into two stages, the pulleys and sprockets wilt smaller and they can then be found in increasingly affordable and misogynist sizes. This is expressly important for the second stage to the rear wheel, considering this is often where customers can hands swap-in a variegated sprocket in order to tune their ride to suit their particular preferences. A smaller final momentum sprocket provides a higher top-speed, and a larger one provides increasingly low-RPM wheel-torque.
Sur-Ron chose a toothed-belt momentum for the primary reduction, most likely considering a whup will typically run quieter than a chain. That was an unobjectionable nomination for the stock Light Bee, but as soon as they began to be imported in large numbers, enthusiasts began upgrading the power of their Sur-Ron, which made the belts wear out faster.
The firsthand upgrade is to switch from the stock HTD whup to a Gates-GT4, which is slightly wider and thicker. However, Sur-Ron owners began raising the power of the Light Bee to fairly wild levels, and these electric motorcycles seem to have uncounted opportunities for upgrades and customization.
For big power, the Sur-Ron primary momentum has the option of kits that convert it to a uniting drive, using either a #420 uniting and sprockets, or #219 Kart uniting and sprockets.
A second reason that using two stages is better, is that it hands allows the intermediate “jackshaft” to be located perfectly inline with the turning of the swingarm pivot. This ways that as the rear suspension cycles up and down, the tension on the final-drive uniting remains constant.
The Talaria chose to make their primary reduction out of helical gears, and they are protected inside a housing while spinning in sealed lubrication. Considering the teeth are angled, they run much quieter than the increasingly affordable straight-cut steel gears. It took me a while to find this tear-down pic verifying that the gears were helical. Pic courtesy of this youtube channel
Pic whilom showing the motor and primary geared drive. Chains can stretch over time, and belts moreover wear out, but…a sealed lube gear-drive should last the life of the motorcycle, in wing to stuff stronger.
Motor Upgrades
The second big upgrade that the Talaria Sting MX4 “R” has over the Sur-Ron Light Bee is their Interior Permanent Magnet (IPM) motor. The Sur-Ron and moreover the base-model Talaria Sting MX3 both use affordable “Surface Mount” magnets in their rotor, referred to as Surface Permanent Magnet (SPM). The “R” version is a huge upgrade, and I’ll explain what it is.
When an electric motor is progressive under load, a popular way to temporarily increase the power is to use a high-performance controller that can provide increasingly AMPS for a few seconds without overheating. Once you are cruising withal at a increasingly steady load, the parts can have some time to tomfool down. Dirt bikes are a little variegated than street bikes considering when psoriasis on off-road trails, they can spend increasingly time under upper load, with less trip time to tomfool off.
If you place a thin section of steel between a permanent magnet and a stator, the permanent magnet will magnetize the steel to a unrepealable depth, and this fact can indulge engineers to locate the magnet slightly farther yonder from the eddy currents virtually the air-gap of the motor.
The steel in the rotor is made from thin laminations that are magnetically and electrically isolated from each other with a thin coating. This makes them very resistant to generating eddy-current waste-heat. Since the magnets are a solid woodcut of material (not made from layers of laminations) they do wits some eddy-current waste-heat when they are tropical to the air-gap between the stator and the rotor.
The magnets’ sensitivity to eddy-current heat is one of the limitations on how many amps you can use, and moreover for how long you can wield those amps. The “R” model’s motor can take increasingly amps, and it can take them longer than the Sur-Ron’s motor, or the wiring model Talaria’s MX3’s motor.
This pic whilom is from a tear-down video comparing the Sur-Ron’s motor to the Talaria’s Wiring model motor. The surface mount magnets are unmistakably visible on both of them.
The Sur-Ron has had over a years head-start on developing third-party parts upgrades, compared to the Talaria, but any visitor that has been making upgrades for the Sur-Ron, seems to be quickly jumping on workbench with subtracting Talaria upgrades to their itemize too.
Seats and seat-risers can retread the height, withal with handlebar risers and pegs to customize the ergonomics of the velocipede to fit each rider better.
Both Sur-Ron and Talaria have a deep itemize of rear shock and fork options to upgrade and customize the riding response. Brakes remain one of the most popular upgrades, and depending on your upkeep and how nonflexible you ride, there are dozens of options to suit your needs.
Conclusion
The Current price of the Talaria Model “R” at Luna Cycle is $4500, which includes the gear-drive primary, larger battery, and the IPM motor. There is a less expensive base-model Sur-Ron Light bee from several importers, but the upgraded Sur-Ron “X” is $4350, and the Talaria is still increasingly powerful for only $150 more.
The Sur-Ron Light Bee is selling quite well, and it has opened up a huge market in the US as well as virtually the globe by introducing thousands of riders to how much fun a powerful and light electric dirt velocipede can be. Its sales numbers are well-deserved and if you can find them in stock, some retailers have advertised the lowest-powered version at $3600 during special sales. The upgraded Sur-Ron “X” and the base-model Talaria MX3 seem to be somewhat similar in price and features, with the exception of the Talaria having a geared primary instead of a belt, and the Talaria’s larger battery.
However, If you want to future-proof your purchase for power upgrades, the IPM motor on the Talaria “R” version makes it worth paying uneaten for, In my unobtrusive opinion. It starts out stuff increasingly powerful than any model of Sur-Ron Light Bee, and it has a lot of head-room for subtracting increasingly amps in he future than the Sur-Ron’s stock motor can take…although, to be fair…either one can goody from the pricey 72V mod.
