Why aren't Mac motors being offered more by Chinese vendors?

Why is it that only Em3ev offers the Mac motor yet, BMSbattery, ebikelife, greenbikekit, and the majority of most of other eBayers sell Bafangs, 8FUNs, Cutes, etc. But nobody seems to sell the Mac, not even a variation of the Mac. ???

Is that Mac just that bad, too low of a margin to sell? If the Mac motor is great, it should sell itself. So why don't these vendors sell it?

I think cellmans got a few of the locals locked in his basement producing them and has the market cornered until they escape :lol:

I thought the MAC was made solely for cellman?
But I consider the Mac/BPM/Ezee pretty much the same unit these days within reason. Better phase wires on the Ezee, some Macs were modded for temp sensor, and a wider range of windings for torque/speed.
Given the volume availability of the BPM, I'd suspect most vendors wouldn't invest the extra time to go looking for a supply of Macs.

Samd said:

I thought the MAC was made solely for cellman?
But I consider the Mac/BPM/Ezee pretty much the same unit these days within reason. Better phase wires on the Ezee, some Macs were modded for temp sensor, and a wider range of windings for torque/speed.
Given the volume availability of the BPM, I'd suspect most vendors wouldn't invest the extra time to go looking for a supply of Macs.

Click to expand...

Well that's the thing. The BPMs are like $120 USD plus another $100 shipping so might as well pick up a few spares. The Macs are about $250 each(double that of BPM) and then the BMC are like $600 each, 2.5X the Mac, and nearly 5X the price of BPMs.

Now the question is, are they significantly 2-5X better than the price you're paying or is it just better to keep a few BPM spares and replace them yearly or when they go out?

And the thing I'm noticing about the recent (say last 12 months) BPM hubs is the quality is on the up. Polished, smooth, and handling a lot of power if given a hard time but not abused negligently. 8)

You're all living in the past. The Bafang CST should be your motor of choice now as long as you can get one of the right speed. They're beautifully made and you get the spline for cassette gears. Xofo and MXUS both do their own version of it. I've tried the Xofo, which seems to be pretty good, but not the MXUS yet.

I have a 10T Mac motor kit from Cellman and they seem great so-far, not many miles yet though.

But I too am wondering the reason for not having more venders for the Mac motor. Cellman is a darn good dealer, don't get me wrong.

d8veh, bmsbattery only seem to supply the 500W CST as a bare motor?

Currently only 3 in stock by the looks of it too, rated as 36V - what do you run yours on?

Kudos

http://www.bmsbattery.com/ebike-kits/589-q11-48v1kw-front-driving-hub-motor-e-bike-conversion-kit.html
800 in stock

I use 36v for the Bafang. It gives 22mph on a flat road without pedalling with the 3 speed switch wires on the KU123 controller joined. Maximum speed is about 25mph, but help falls off after 22mph.

They also do the full kit:
http://www.bmsbattery.com/ebike-kits/563-q11-48v1kw-front-driving-hub-motor-e-bike-conversion-kit.html
Plenty in stock

I also have the Xofo version, which is slower. I ran it with 64v and 30 amps to give a top speed of 30 mph. It seemed OK like that, but I haven't run it far. I built it for a Ebike drag racing event, which it would've won if I hadn't crashed due to lack of traction from the tyres.

It's pretty easy to become a vendor for just about any motor sold out of China. You might have to buy a lot of 100, or it's possible you could negotiate a lower buy-in.

After tearing them both apart, I feel the cheaper BPM is adequate for most non-technical buyers. The magnets and stator-teeth are 25% wider on the MAC, so I'd say it has more potential power capabilities, but...if the BPM does the job you have, the vast majority of buyers won't want to spend the extra $100 to get the MAC, and truth be told, even if they have the bucks, I'd recommend they put any extra cash they have in getting the best battery pack they can afford.

Personally, I am continuing to experiment with the MAC because it can handle more power, or conversely it will run cooler at the same power level as the BPM.

"Bafang-BPM and MAC comparison for a mid-drive"
https://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=51313

mac is a fairly big company, I visited one of their plants in china many years back. They went into lawnmower electric motors in a big way because the order numbers were huge, they developed the geared motor now copied by others. They were always a little bit more expensive than other hub motors, but the prices people are asking are rediculous. From the source the mac motor is not expensive but they dont do small order numbers usually. I dont think they ever intended to supply the chinese market. Within china hub motors are dirt cheap, $50 to $60usd for a non geared motor. Mac were charging about $100usd for the geared motor when I was involved. The indian plant has taken on the chinese design and cost price should be same or lower than china considering wages in india.
Considering the cost price of hub motors within china you can easily work out what sort of markup is being made.

d8veh said:

You're all living in the past. The Bafang CST should be your motor of choice now as long as you can get one of the right speed. They're beautifully made and you get the spline for cassette gears. Xofo and MXUS both do their own version of it. I've tried the Xofo, which seems to be pretty good, but not the MXUS yet.

Click to expand...

The Bafang CST does seem real nice. But the issue is that it is still only 36V 500watt supported. It isn't rated for 48V, and I wouldn't want to overvolt like that.

i think puma and mac are the same....i had a puma and i bought the green gears[the white nylons lasted about 100 miles] for it that also fit the mac ... i dont know if the puma brand is still available.i havent heard anything about them for a while

spinningmagnets said:

Personally, I am continuing to experiment with the MAC because it can handle more power, or conversely it will run cooler at the same power level as the BPM.

Click to expand...

Gday Spinningmagnets. The current view seems to reflect that it's the clutches giving up at ~2kw on geared motors (it used to be the gears). I'm assuming then that the stator width of the Mac is secondary to this? (And from memory the width is linearly proportional, but the diameter is a squared relationship?)

Cheers.

d8veh said:

You're all living in the past. The Bafang CST should be your motor of choice now as long as you can get one of the right speed. They're beautifully made and you get the spline for cassette gears. Xofo and MXUS both do their own version of it. I've tried the Xofo, which seems to be pretty good, but not the MXUS yet.

Click to expand...

What's special between the CST vs the standard rear bpm?

I'm assuming it's because you can get a smaller number of teeth on the rear cog, as most 6,7,8 speeds tend to stop at 14teeth minimum?

Cassettes are easier to swap out (compared to a multi-sprocket freewheel) if you are high mileage rider and wear out your sprockets often. Also easier to have several sets and swap-in a different set for different rides. I must admit they also have a very wide range of tooth-counts available.

cwah said:

d8veh said:

You're all living in the past. The Bafang CST should be your motor of choice now as long as you can get one of the right speed. They're beautifully made and you get the spline for cassette gears. Xofo and MXUS both do their own version of it. I've tried the Xofo, which seems to be pretty good, but not the MXUS yet.

Click to expand...

What's special between the CST vs the standard rear bpm?

Click to expand...

When you look inside the CST, you see a precision instrument. When you look inside the BPM, you see a Chinese electric motor. Bafang changed lots of things inside to improve the quality. It's a "next generation" motor. Also, there's the obvious difference of the cassette spline, which gives it a big advantage over most of the others that have free-wheel threads, so you're stuck with crappy gears.

whatever said:

mac is a fairly big company, I visited one of their plants in china many years back. They went into lawnmower electric motors in a big way because the order numbers were huge, they developed the geared motor now copied by others. They were always a little bit more expensive than other hub motors, but the prices people are asking are rediculous. From the source the mac motor is not expensive but they dont do small order numbers usually. I dont think they ever intended to supply the chinese market. Within china hub motors are dirt cheap, $50 to $60usd for a non geared motor. Mac were charging about $100usd for the geared motor when I was involved. The indian plant has taken on the chinese design and cost price should be same or lower than china considering wages in india.
Considering the cost price of hub motors within china you can easily work out what sort of markup is being made.

Click to expand...

I believe you are not correct here. The MAC is a copy of the BMC geared hub. The story goes back more then ten years now. Chandu Vanjani designs motors for many applications. He developed the geared hub for Currie bikes back then and as soon as the were being built in China the quality went down. At that time the MACS were copied from the original geared hub. cellman is still trying to produce a copied version of the V4 clutch. Hope you get there Paul.

The BMC motors were built in India in Chandu's factory http://bmcus.com/ . He used to work for Kollmorgan. He recently improved the design of a Swiss scooter. They were so impressed they offered him distribution rights for the US market. I have know him for 7 years now. He now owns the sister company PPL that builds microscope platforms. I recently designed an inspection system for JPL Pasadena for him.

He fronts me motors for sale. Not $600.

Got specials now and then (the plug) haha http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=47599

I think I would like to get spinningmagnets one of these 1000w torque motors for review with the better lamination's and V4 clutch.