The Mid Drive Hub as a Non Hub Group

spinningmagnets said:
From Warren, he uses the hub similar to the Hanebrink, halfway between the BB and rear-wheel, but with chains on both sides. A left-side cog on the 6-hole disc-brake flange is chained to the BB, and the right-side freewheel is chained to the rear wheel sprocket-set/derailleur. Pic is from an earlier chain configuration, but the hub has remained in the same location.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=23259&start=135#p540457
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Saturday was a good day!
I started my Project 2 Ebike, which will be a LWB recumbent, a la "Recycled Recumbents", and the coolest thing is it will be full-suspension, using parts from my first downhill bikes, (Trek 9000 and Pro-Forx LT's), you old school dudes might remember those 8).
Anyway I don't really understand the mondo gearing you can get on a recumbent and how you get your E-motor to use the bikes gearing?
Do you hook it up to the crank? or in between? What is the difference? do you get more gearing if you hook it up to the crank? I don't really get that bit.
Right now I'm planning on a Hubzilla as a mid-drive, 50 mph top speed and with enough batteries to commute just under 100 miles round trip (although I can charge it up at work, so I guess 50 miles range).
Very glad this group was started, I think mid-drives have more versatility, especially for range, than straight hubs (which was project 1)
 
2 newbie questions; 1, for full gearing advantage is it best to hook up the hub drive to the crank? 2, does the hub turn with it's drive sprocket?

Bonus question!; has anyone attempted a recumbent, or bike mid drive with a Cromotor? I'm thinking you'ld need to run heavier chain than 8 speed bicycle chain?
 
Here's a couple of vids to show what mine will do on about 1100 watts. After riding to this point and then climbing the hill the motor was maybe 10* above ambient or barely Luke warm almost not noticeable and so was the controller...

It will climb steeper than this but it gets very hard not to flip over, I was trying not to wheelie here but it still did a couple times...




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzA-CThP0ps&feature=youtube_gdata_player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM63WOAAQy4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
 
Still on my first ones. Over 1000 miles easy plus tons of off road. The trick is to let off the power just a bit when you shift up, downshifting you can leave the power like when your climbing...
 
Spider E Bike

detail-2.jpg


http://www.electricbike.com/cyclone-mountain-e-bike/
 
Whiplash said:
Still on my first ones. Over 1000 miles easy plus tons of off road. The trick is to let off the power just a bit when you shift up, downshifting you can leave the power like when your climbing...
Good to know. If a bicycle powertrain can hold up to operating mid drive for off road, it will easily take anything I would put through it on my commuter bike.
 
So on a similar note, has anybody had any luck with >2kw and an internally geared hub? I'm thinking a 3-4 speed hub that covers the normal range would be awesome. A start gear, cruise/climb gear and a flying gear... thoughts?
 
At >2kW, it would be wise to research the hub cooling threads. There is a long one for oil-cooling, and several discussing air-cooling. Since geared hubs have less copper mass and a smaller shell, they benefit the most from any cooling improvements, although direct-drive hubs clearly benefit also.
 
Oh sorry, I should have been more specific, I was meaning gears within the hub as an alternative for the cassette, not a geared hub such as a mac. There are a few big brand, expensive bikes (audi, blacktrail, m55, KTM etc) that claim 2kw and use a rohloff. I was wondering if anyone had any luck with an IGH that was a little cheaper that a $1500 rohloff. While 14 gears and a rohloff would be awesome, it is far beyond budgets for us, or at least me.

So any options out there?
 
If you do something like Recumpence did with one of his drives to prevent shock loading, I expect the IGH could handle quite a bit, even for cheap old 3-speed hubs. But if you don't dampen the initial surge of power, and the gear lash allows them to smack into each other under high power, it could cause the teeth to rip out at the roots. See one of AussieJester's builds (either the trike or the first bike after that) for some description and pics and links about that problem using Sturmey Archer 3-speed IGHs. Might also be some from 1000w either in his own threads or in a separate one.

A slipper clutch or a "cush drive" like motorcycles often have (rubber damper blocks between the sprocket drive engage points on the wheel (IGH in this case) and the sprocket itself) would help dampen that initial shock. Power control/ramp-up like is avaialbe in the CA V3 would also help.

Doing something within the IGH to reduce gear lash would help, but might require remachining things for greater precision/meshing.

Pre-tensioning the chain or belt drive to the IGH so that anytime you aren't actually applying power to it it still pulls the chain or belt just enough to keep the sprocket pulling on the IGH so that it keeps the gears meshed fully would also help by preventing the gear lash from having the gap that allows the smashing-together of teeth.
 
It isn't power, but torque you need to worry about with an internally geared hub. Keep the torque (times gear ratio) low enough, and the hub will be fine. A pedelec to force takeup of any lash in the system, and prevent the motor from delivering low rpm torque would easily let something like an alfine take a couple kw of power.
 
I have been considering drivetrain for use with 2kw mid drives too. What about the clutchless shift small transmissions from a small pit bike or moped they are usually two or three speeds. Then you could run moped wheels chains and sprockets for reliable wheelies. The weight penalty could be too much though.
 
View attachment 1
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1357521587.733839.jpg
What about something like this for the high powered converted hub motors. I would like to stick with moped chain and rear wheel so any transmission would have to be up front not in the rear hub.
 
I think the EVO 2-speed would be very appropriate for a cargobike using a left-side drive and one of these converted hubs.

"2-speed systems (R-D, dog-clutch or derailleur changing)"
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=8644&start=45#p134448

"Idea, cheap robust 2-sp transmission"
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9695&start=15#p167538

"Thuds 1st Build"
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=13731

Video of Thuds home-built 2-speed
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=8644&start=180#p199318
 
That link helped. Thuds build was amazing. But nobody tried the belt drive off the shelf unit.
 
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