Any body know of any wheel building threads

[bigisland]

Was looking if there were and wheel building threads on ES specific to hub motors?

Thanks

[StudEbiker]

Building a hub motor wheel is not much different than building a regular wheel except the spokes will be much shorter and you will probably do a 1 cross instead of a 3 cross pattern. Here are two articles that were very helpful to me when I was building a wheel. If you take your time, don't rush, and take small bites (don't work too late on it, do a little at a time and rest and think), it's not too tough.

http://www.miketechinfo.com/new-tech-wheels-tires.htm

http://www.troubleshooters.com/bicycles ... /index.htm

[El_Steak]

Thanks for the links, I built my first wheel yesterday using them as a guide and got some pretty good results.

Less than half a millimeter wobble from side to side and a bit more than 1mm "out of round". You got to be patient though, it took me over 4 hours to get it done. I'll try and fine-tune it to perfection tonight.

[Farfle]

Just like a lot of things, the more practice you get the faster it gets, my first wheel build took 2 days, the second only took one day, and now I'm down to a few hours per wheel, it really is an art.

Heres a decent step-by-step guide, pretty much everything you need to know from top to bottom:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

[bobc]

I'll just mention the obvious things to reduce the pain.......
1) the spoke holes in the rim are probably handed, alternatively to right and left hub flange. If you get this wrong the extra angle at the end of the thread near at the nipple will cause spoke breakages.
2) be methodical - count round from the valve hole & don't miss spokes out
3) do 1/4 turns (multiples of) on the nipples
4) if you try to get it absolutly perfect it will take days.....
5) twang the spokes to even the tension
6) near the end of the process, go round squeezing spokes together to stress relieve
7) final tensioning - tighten then back off 1/8 or so to take the twist out of the spokes
It's easier than folk make out, and gets easier every time.... ;^)

[Dingo2024]

If anyone is REALLY into wheel building then this is definately worth buying.....

http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php

I can personally recommend this guy

Ian

[Ypedal]

Far from a complete guide, but a few bits and pieces on a hub motor perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-QZazAY0cc

[joe tomten]

I've built up several wheels now between hubs and nexus internal hubs.

I just keep re-reading the the sheldon brown wheel building page.

Read what Justin has to say as reinforcement and as it pertains to wide flanged hubs. (below the calculator on:
http://ebike.ca/SpokeCalc.shtml )

bobc's list is good, though I've never thought about the final 1/8 turn backing off.

I use a long handled smooth sided wrench to stress relieve the spokes.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html#seating
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/stre ... eving.html

don't be afraid to bend the spokes in big gentle loops to get them where they need to go. Avoid sharp bends.

Sometimes when I have serious dishing to do on a rear hub I'll put all the sprocket side spokes in from the inside of the flange, rather than in and out as is typically done. I think Justin covers this.

Don't be afraid to take it all apart and do it again. More experience is better.

[El_Steak]

So I got the wheel pretty much perfect (everything within half a mm). I was all proud of myself until...

...I took my first ride this morning. I had to stop after about 4 miles as the wheel was wobbling terribly

All the spokes were loose, I had to give them a FULL turn to bring the wheel back to acceptable tightness. Of course its a bit rough now, but I was able to get to work at legal speed limits (really slow on a 100V bike).

So tip #1: always carry a spoke wrench with you !

[Ypedal]

hehe.... yep.. once you get it all together you have to strech those spokes and true up again.. i grab pairs of spokes on both sides of the wheel and squeese as hard as i can and work my way around the wheel twice .. re-true.. repeat.. until they stop getting loose.. i have never had them come loose during a ride !!

[El_Steak]

I did a lot of spokes pair squeezing when truing the wheel, maybe I wasn't pulling hard enough. I also think that I had left the wheel overall not tight enough.

I expected this a bit however since the 2 wheels I bought before from ebikes.ca came loose after the first ride or two and had to be retrued by the bike shop.

The only wheel I have not had to fix was the one JohnRobHolmes built from me. It was still perfect after 1000KM of high-speed commuting

[Ypedal]

along with the spoke squeezing i sometimes grab the rim itself and brace my thumbs on the fork/frame and pull hard.. spin 1/8 turn, pull again.. repeat on other side.. and keep tightening the spokes until i fear stripping the nipples.. i build my wheels tight, no spring.

[joe tomten]

the proper Stress relieving of spokes requires greater forces than can be applied by hand in order to be effective.

Read the two references in my post above about stress relieving.

Once I started to properly stress relieve the wheel I no longer had the issue of spokes loosening up after being "completed".

[vanilla ice]

A few more things to keep in mind.. that nobody told me when I started:
You want the spokes at the rim seam angled in so the spokes are pulling the rim edges towards each other.
You want the spokes angled away from the valve stem hole so there is plenty of space to fill the tooobz.

These don't really apply to most hubbies but anyway..
You will want only the last crossed spokes of a cross2, 3, or 4 lacing pattern laying over each other touching.
You can usually make spokes work even if yours are off by a few mm by going up or down 1 cross on the lacing.

You can even make oddball spoke groups work, like if you have 18 of this length 20 of this length.. by doing 50/50 patterns with radial left, cross right. Or 1cross/3cross. Or you can do crows foot or hybrid patterns with even smaller spoke groups. And the mixed patterns are NOT necessarily weaker than a full lacing pattern.