Quietest E-Bikes and Motors

deerfencer

100 mW
Joined
Jan 5, 2007
Messages
42
Location
New York
Having been spoiled for many years (and about 15,000 miles with no motor issues) by my dead silent 2005 Tidalforce S750X, I am curious as to which current e-bike offerings are the quietest and would appreciate member input here, both in regards to turnkey e-bikes and independent motors. Are there any out there that are truly silent?

The one motor I suspect is silent is the Falco, mainly because the engineer behind it, Rakesh Dhawan (also CEO), was the one of the chief engineers at Tidalforce and is adamant about creating a quiet, seamless drive. Any Falco owners out there who can confirm this? What other e-bikes or motors out there are silent or extremely quiet?
 
deerfencer said:
Having been spoiled for many years (and about 15,000 miles with no motor issues) by my dead silent 2005 Tidalforce S750X, I am curious as to which current e-bike offerings are the quietest and would appreciate member input here, both in regards to turnkey e-bikes and independent motors. Are there any out there that are truly silent?

The one motor I suspect is silent is the Falco, mainly because the engineer behind it, Rakesh Dhawan (also CEO), was the one of the chief engineers at Tidalforce and is adamant about creating a quiet, seamless drive. Any Falco owners out there who can confirm this? What other e-bikes or motors out there are silent or extremely quiet?


Quietest would be a legitimate FOC controller running a DD hub
 
deerfencer said:
Translate please: what do FOC and DD stand for?


FOC is field oriented control

and DD is direct drive. ie not geared.

Sinusoidal is going to be quiet too
 
Any large hub motor paired with a sine-wave FOC controller is going to be pretty damn silent. My Cromotor+Adaptto is virtually noiseless. Same motor driven with a low quality controller is quite loud.
 
cal3thousand said:
Quietest would be a legitimate FOC controller running a DD hub

Know of any legitimate field oriented control(FOC) controllers?

Stuff made from http://accelerated-systems.com/ (ASI) is claimed to be FOC. Justin from ebikes.ca made a short run(no longer available) of a modified version of one of ASI's controllers he calls the BAC500+, which the next version seems is going to be the BAC800. https://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65031 I am spelling this out for information sharing and such. http://www.tecknowledgey.com/accelerated-systems-bac500-brushless-dc-motor-controller.html Here is a place selling the vanilla BAC500. Is this controller not legitimately FOC? I am curious about how one can know. Some claim their controllers are sinusoidal, like the S06S from bmsbattery, but many argue otherwise. I think it's great to be skeptical of various claims.
 
Ohbse said:
Any large hub motor paired with a sine-wave FOC controller is going to be pretty damn silent. My Cromotor+Adaptto is virtually noiseless. Same motor driven with a low quality controller is quite loud.

Haha as above. BAC I believe would do the trick, apparently Sabvoton also. Would avoid the 'sinewave' chinese cheap controllers as I believe it's more of an approximation rather than true FOC.
 
The quietest motors aren't available anymore except used. Any of the slant stator motors By WE or Crystalyte naturally ran smoother and produced less noise than straight stator motors, at a small cost in efficiency. Motors like the Tidal force were louder than the Clytes. I know because I've snuck up on a tidal force rider with one, and could hear his motor over mine :lol: Here's a video of me rolling along at 8-10mph with a Clyte on a monster bike. This is with an old school square wave Infineon controller.

[youtube]a0MTc__pUAk[/youtube]

Modern motors aren't as quiet naturally, but are still damn near silent.

What is more important now is the controller. A modern controller using FOC and sine waves will run quiet and won't get the harmonic buzzes, growls, and grunts that the old style controllers got.
 
<<Motors like the Tidal force were louder than the Clytes.>>

I don't believe this claim for a minute--my 2005 TF S750X is dead silent, not just quiet, and I've ridden it enough miles and years to know. What you might have heard was probably brake pad rub or something mechanical, not the motor. I also personally know e-riders who have owned both TFs and Clyte-powered rides and who have expressed the exact opposite opinion, namely that Clytes are powerful but far from silent.

Anyone else with experience with both motors care to weigh in here?
 
deerfencer said:
<<Motors like the Tidal force were louder than the Clytes.>>

I don't believe this claim for a minute--my 2005 TF S750X is dead silent, not just quiet, and I've ridden it enough miles and years to know. What you might have heard was probably brake pad rub or something mechanical, not the motor. I also personally know e-riders who have owned both TFs and Clyte-powered rides and who have expressed the exact opposite opinion, namely that Clytes are powerful but far from silent.

Anyone else with experience with both motors care to weigh in here?

My least favorite discussions are speculative and hearsay ones. Lets not believe, lets know and be scientific. Setup a testing apparatus and measure sound output in decibels for various motors.
 
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