Hubmonster teardown

ElectricGod

10 MW
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Nov 1, 2015
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Location
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For those that don't know, the hubmonster is a 6 phase hub motor. They are no longer made, but if you ever run across one, buy it! They are simply the best of the best hub motors.

There's 3 versions:
1. Mini hubmonster: It is a top of the line 3 phase hub motor. I have one and I know that it's far better than any other hub motor I have ever seen. They can do around 6kw
2. Midi hubmonster: This is a top of the line 6 phase hub motor. I've never seen one of these, only heard about them.
3. Hubmonster: I have 2 of these and you will see one taken apart below. They are possibly the best ever hub motor and have 6 phases. It's not uncommon for people to run them at 30kw or more. They run really well above 100v.

I've looked around and not seen anyone take apart a hub monster before. This motor has been recovered from a partly wrecked Zapino Zap electric moped that ran at 60v and used dual 12 fet controllers to run the motor. They rated the motor at 6kw which is laughably LOW. Last night, I finally got around to taking the moped apart and scavenging the good bits. I bought it for the motor. It's been sitting in the weather for quite a while so the entire moped was pretty badly oxidized and covered in dirt. This motor will be the power plant for my next build. I'm terrible at guessing weight, but I'd say 40 pounds or so.

This is after I removed it from the rim and cleaned up most of the grunge that was on it. Several of those 8 screws had the heads wallowed out. I don't know when it happened, but 3 of them were so nearly gone that I barely got them loose!

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Since these motors are 6 phase, you have 6 wires to connect to 2 controllers, 2 sets of halls and a temp sensor. The phase wires are white teflon coated 10 awg. Each phase wire is then covered in colored heat shrink.

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I've removed the 8 screws and am using large headed screws to lift off the armature. Without a 3 jaw puller, just don't EVER do this. The magnets are quite large and if you can't control the removal of the armature, you won't succeed!

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The magnets in the armature are massive and quite strong. I bet they are N40 or N45. There's 20 of them.

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The shaft bearings are 5205DU. Despite this scooter sitting in the weather for many years, these bearings are really smooth and perfect.

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The motor has 6 halls in it. What you are seeing is 2 halls from 2 separate sets of motor phases.

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The 6 halls definitely looks interesting.

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This stator is just a beast. It's 7" across and 2 3/8" tall.

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This is a bit disappointing. There's something like 30 strands of wire per phase that are about 30% larger diameter than the 10 awg wire that exits the motor. The red wire is length of 10 awg for comparison. No size difference! I have 8 awg teflon wire in a few colors. I wonder if I can cram 6 of them inside this axle? There's room around the six 10 awg wires and their extra layer of heat shrink. I bet 8 awg with no heat shrink around each wire would fit inside the axle.

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I was curious to find out how the motor phases were terminated. This is the 2 sets of WYE connections.

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It looks a good bit better now all cleaned up. I've replaced the 8 screws with new ones after tapping out their threaded holes to clean up any rust that might be in them.

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I have 2 hubmonster motors and controllers from 2 different EV manufacturers. They both use what appears to be identical controllers. The Zapino has no buttons at the handle bars. The RMartin has a single yellow button that toggles between low, medium and high power. Maybe that connects to the SPL connection on the controllers?

The extruded shell is enormous. With the 2 controller boards inside, there's tons of empty space in here. They could have easily made these shells 30% smaller. A modern 12 fet controller is shorter than the width of this shell. 2 side by side 12 fets are not as wide as the length of the shell. Never mind 1.5" less tall. This thing is just HUGE for what's inside it.

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Both independent controllers. They have throttle, brake and enable wired in common between them.

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Each controller has a really beefy heat spreader with a temp sensor embedded in it. There's four 470uf, 100v caps inside the "tunnel". I wonder what that trimmer POT does? All the small electrolytic caps are 50v.

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This is all of the control wires. The row of wires: red, black, blue, yellow and green are halls. Red, white and black is throttle. Violet is brake. The separate red and black wires are 5v and ground. The TIP41C is a 100v, 6a NPN transistor. It's probably part of a descrete linear voltage regulator circuit since there is no evidence of a switching DC-DC converter.

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Close-ups of the board. There's a couple of empty through holes...SPL and CTR. I don't know what they do. The single red wire in the upper left is the enable wire. The MCU is a Microchips PIC16F72. They run on 2.0V to 5.5V. I see no on-board inductor or a decent sized electrolytic (100uF, 100v) that would make up a DC-DC converter. There's a L78L05 linear regulator IC. It can handle 24v max and 100mA load. I think these controllers get 12v from the EV's DC-DC converter and then use the TIP41 for current and the tiny 7805 to create onboard 5v.

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/devicedoc/39597b.pdf

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Phase and battery are all 10 awg wires.

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Underside of a controller board. These traces could be beefed up considerably. I wonder how the low side mosfets connect to the 3 phase wires? There must be a 3rd plane inside the board for transferring low side current. On the left are 6 high side mosfets and on the right 6 low side mosfets that connect through those 2 shunts to BATT-.

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Wiring is a bit odd. The red BATT+ wires from each controller terminate inside the shell into a single 4 awg wire that exits the shell through the center grommet. The separate black BATT- wires go all the way to the negative end of the batteries and exit via the left grommet. All 6 phase wires exit together with both sets of hall signals at the right most grommet. The control signals exit with the BATT- wires at the left grommet. Just my opinion, but I'd do a lot of this differently.

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Phase and hall connections. Every other small signal connection in this EV is done with water proof connectors except the halls. The hall connector is spliced onto the ends of the 10 hall wires. How hard would it have been to crimp the 10 wires directly into the 10 pins in the connector?

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Oh look water proof connectors! LOL. Left to right: Brake, enable and throttle.

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This 4 awg BATT+ wire is spliced to the individual BATT+ wires inside the controller. The BATT+ wire went into a 60 amp breaker before going to the positive terminal of the 5 SLA's. Both 10 awg BATT- wires from the dual controllers terminate at this screw lug which screwed down to the negative most battery terminal of the 5 SLA's.

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Here's the 2 scooters I have found that have the hubmonster. If you find one of these EV's they will probably sell for less than $300. I paid $260 for the RMArtin and $50 for the Zapino. John in CR has a supply of the hubmonster motors and he won't sell them for less than $500 each. Shipping will be considerable from Costa Rica to anywhere for a 40-50 pound motor. I found a fellow ES member in California that has 2 RMartins. He was offended when I offered him $260 for each of his poor condition EVD's. If you find one of these scooters, it will be worth it for just the 30-40kw motor!

RMartin EVD: It has a few scuffs on it, but it's 100% complete and working with only damage to a plastic swing arm cover. I'll probably refurbish this EV.

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Zapino ZAP!: It was laid down on the right side so the back wheel cowlings are completely destroyed. It was also dropped on the left side with front cowling damage, end of the brake lever snapped off and deep scratches on the back wheel cowling. Between the weathering and the damage, this scooter has been scrapped out for parts.

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Cool stuff, I have never paid attention to no mopeds, except the one that works at the gas station, and one last year but TBH I just looked and twisted my throttle onward. The hubmonster looks to be a great motor for high power applications, has a distinct shape to it. E-mopeds arent really a thing in Alberta, all the ones I see for sale right now are lame.

How much power would that beast of a motor pump out?
on a cont basis and max for a minute or 2?

Whats the spacing between the flats on the axle?

Whats the axle flat to flat length?
 
markz said:
Cool stuff, I have never paid attention to no mopeds, except the one that works at the gas station, and one last year but TBH I just looked and twisted my throttle onward. The hubmonster looks to be a great motor for high power applications, has a distinct shape to it. E-mopeds arent really a thing in Alberta, all the ones I see for sale right now are lame.

How much power would that beast of a motor pump out?
on a cont basis and max for a minute or 2?

Whats the spacing between the flats on the axle?

Whats the axle flat to flat length?

John in CR is the big expert on the hubmonster. He has been messing with these motors for quite a few years.
Without cooling of any kind that I know of, he's claiming 30kw continuous if I remember right.
With cooling, he estimates 40kw continuous, but you need to run at 100v+.
According to John, these motors do best at higher voltages.

The scooters that had these motors all ran at 66 volts and used the controller I presented above. The phase wires are 10 awg and to get to 30kw+ you need to do it at 100v or more. There's only so much current you can pump through 10 awg wires so you need higher voltage to get to higher wattage.

You are right...typical e-mopeds are pretty weak. I have bought 2 50cc sized and they both have 500w motors. That's barely enough to get you to 25mph slowly on level ground. You can't push the weight of the scooter and rider up much of a hill without slowing down considerably. My first electric moped (XB-502) couldn't make itself take off from a stop without kicking off with a rider on it. Even over watted to 1000 watts it couldn't do it. A 500w hub on a 120 pound scooter is jsut waaaay too little power! I really don't know why anybody thinks 500w on a moped is remotely adequate. They are decent platforms for upgrading.

The XB-502 was originally running on 500w. Now it's running on a 6kw HLD inrunner. It tops out at 60mph and accelerates like typical cars. I don't think that's good enough so it's getting upgraded to a 10kw outrunner. I want it to accelerate better than most cars. It's needed a few other upgrades to make it stable at higher speeds and power, but it does it pretty well now.

The TaoBao moped is slightly bigger than the XB-502 and weighs a bit more, but still has a 500w motor. Go figure! I've never run it as it was built from the factory. I'm sure it's lame right now. It will be pretty damned awesome running a hubmonster!!! Slow, lame and weak...it won't be any of these!

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The only valid reason to pull the stator on one is to do cooling mods on the shell. The important stuff inside was all shared previously. How wide was the stator?...probably the largest if that's for the R Martin, but there were actually 3 different widths offered, and it's impossible to tell by the outside shell, because they shared the same shell.

The reason not to pull one apart without a very good reason is that you can't reassemble the motor without scraping the coating on the magnets and stator edges. I've had to even use a hammer for some lovin to get the stator back in due to the close tolerances and strong magnets. The factory had some way to keep the shell and stator centered during assembly. The only person I know with a failure was a fool who took his HubMonster apart several times and managed to loosen and lose the key preventing the lam stack from spinning on the center hub, and he managed to shear and short some phase strands when it slipped.

FWIW, no way am I parting with any of mine for anywhere near $500. That was a one time offer to EG with the understanding that I was going to get some high voltage controllers at a bargain price.
 
John in CR said:
The only valid reason to pull the stator on one is to do cooling mods on the shell. The important stuff inside was all shared previously. How wide was the stator?...probably the largest if that's for the R Martin, but there were actually 3 different widths offered, and it's impossible to tell by the outside shell, because they shared the same shell.

The reason not to pull one apart without a very good reason is that you can't reassemble the motor without scraping the coating on the magnets and stator edges. I've had to even use a hammer for some lovin to get the stator back in due to the close tolerances and strong magnets. The factory had some way to keep the shell and stator centered during assembly. The only person I know with a failure was a fool who took his HubMonster apart several times and managed to loosen and lose the key preventing the lam stack from spinning on the center hub, and he managed to shear and short some phase strands when it slipped.

FWIW, no way am I parting with any of mine for anywhere near $500. That was a one time offer to EG with the understanding that I was going to get some high voltage controllers at a bargain price.

Motor cost...yeah yours are pretty much unreachable cost wise for most people. Very few people will likely buy them when they can get a brand new fresh from the factory QS motor that was made less than 2 months ago. Like anything, the value of a thing is often times perceived more than it is a reality. As a result, despite the superiority of the hubmonster, it won't sell anywhere as well as a QS even at 1/2 the price you want. It may take a while, but I'm patient and obviously there are a few scooters around with these motors on them. I bet you could pick any state in the USA and if you keep looking around, you will eventually find a scooter with a hubmonster and do like I did...pay far less for an entire scooter than you want for just a motor. The RMartin cost me $260 and the Zap cost me $50. The Panterra which had a mini hubmonster cost me $60. I have 3 of these epic motors and spent $370 total.

3 widths of hubmonster stators and magnets? You never told me about that before. The above tear down is from the Zapino Zap which was mostly wrecked. As you can see, the stator is 2.375" or 60mm tall. What other stator thicknesses are there for the hubmonsters? Now I'm curious about the RMartin motor. I guess I should take it apart too and find out!

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Shared previously? I guess you mean this thread. Oh well...not to steal your thunder, but I've added lots more. :)
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46898

Taking the motor apart was not hard with a 3 jaw puller. No hammering required! The puller lets you pull it apart and put it back together again while under nice slooow control so no slamming together happens. It really was not all that hard to do. I've taken apart quite a few motors now using a 3 jaw puller and some way to hook the jaws to the motor for leverage against the magnets. The second picture is a Motenergy 3031-001. The magnets inside are 2.5" across and 1/2" thick. This motor is physically about 2X larger than a hubmonster. It came apart easily with the puller. Disassembly and assembly of motors without damaging them isn't very hard with a little care and the right tool. I wouldn't try taking apart most PM motors without a puller.

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Looks like a really well designed hubmotor! Im impressed!
 
60mm is the most powerful and fastest with a Kv of just over 18. The lesser version are wound slower (so higher resistance) to offset the lowering of Kv to offset the narrower stator. No need to open...measure phase-to-phase resistance and Kv to know what you have.

While 3 jaw pullers make getting them apart easy, they don't always go back together so easily. If keeping it sealed you can use some lube, but it's no like lesser motors where crap gets in them. Even used the HubMonsters always look pristine inside. That's due in large part to almost the entire inside being used, with little dead air to suck water in when they cool when wet. On my 20mile generally uphill commute in I ran a sealed MidMonster so hard I felt the need to hose it down daily upon arrival for a year and a half. Plus I was in rain many times, so when I changed the tire I popped the side cover off and it too was pristine.

BTW, I doubt the Panterra motor is a MiniMonster, since you haven't mention it being a 2 speed. Those had an ingenious mechanical switch on the windings, which was also their downfall for high power use. If it is one, I'd suggest using 10ga jumper wires to solder it permanently in high. The contacts to complete the switch just aren't up to high current use. Several of us have used them at over 10kw without issue, and a properly ventilated and locked in high one could go to near 20kw peak input at 33-35s. They use the same high quality stator steel, curved magnets, and low pole count make them high efficiency too. The only scooters I know of sold in the US and Canada were called Erato. I remember seeing Panterra replacement motors online sold for under $100, back after PepBoys stopped selled Panterra scooters.
 
John in CR said:
60mm is the most powerful and fastest with a Kv of just over 18. The lesser version are wound slower (so higher resistance) to offset the lowering of Kv to offset the narrower stator. No need to open...measure phase-to-phase resistance and Kv to know what you have.

While 3 jaw pullers make getting them apart easy, they don't always go back together so easily. If keeping it sealed you can use some lube, but it's no like lesser motors where crap gets in them. Even used the HubMonsters always look pristine inside. That's due in large part to almost the entire inside being used, with little dead air to suck water in when they cool when wet. On my 20mile generally uphill commute in I ran a sealed MidMonster so hard I felt the need to hose it down daily upon arrival for a year and a half. Plus I was in rain many times, so when I changed the tire I popped the side cover off and it too was pristine.

BTW, I doubt the Panterra motor is a MiniMonster, since you haven't mention it being a 2 speed. Those had an ingenious mechanical switch on the windings, which was also their downfall for high power use. If it is one, I'd suggest using 10ga jumper wires to solder it permanently in high. The contacts to complete the switch just aren't up to high current use. Several of us have used them at over 10kw without issue, and a properly ventilated and locked in high one could go to near 20kw peak input at 33-35s. They use the same high quality stator steel, curved magnets, and low pole count make them high efficiency too. The only scooters I know of sold in the US and Canada were called Erato. I remember seeing Panterra replacement motors online sold for under $100, back after PepBoys stopped selled Panterra scooters.

Well cool! The above tear down has a 60mm thick stator. I haven't tried testing Kv, but it's probably 18 too. I'll be messing with it more soon.

What do you think this motor is? It's what I'm calling a mini hubmonster...whether that's correct or not...I don't know. There's no internal switch. Maybe there's a variation of the hubmonster series you don't know about? Every aspect of this motor is made just as well as my hubmonster shown above. I bet this motor can do 10kw easily. I've run it at 3kw and it was quite impressive and never got even remotely warm. It too looks pristine inside. The Panterra it came on sat in the weather for many years before I rescued it.

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liveforphysics said:
Looks like a really well designed hubmotor! Im impressed!

If you hunt around, you'll eventually come across an old scooter with one. That's how I got both of mine. Or you can just buy one from John in CR. However you get one, it's a compelling hub motor.
 
ElectricGod said:
liveforphysics said:
Looks like a really well designed hubmotor! Im impressed!

If you hunt around, you'll eventually come across an old scooter with one. That's how I got both of mine. Or you can just buy one from John in CR. However you get one, it's a compelling hub motor.

I sent one to LFP a few years ago. He just hasn't put it to work. I thought we'd get to see just how fast one would really go, since he's much more of an adrenaline junkie that I am...as least before he got the old "ball and chain". :D

No that's nothing like a MiniMonster...way too many clots and polls, which means it will overheat if you try to go fast.
 
John in CR said:
No that's nothing like a MiniMonster...way too many clots and polls, which means it will overheat if you try to go fast.

This motor uses a lot of the same features as the hubmonster. It has that sheet of fiber glass under the windings. It has curved magnets wit the same dull metal coating on them. The lams are .3mm. The shape of the bell section is very similar to the hub monster. It has a bolt flange for a rim. I'm sure some hub out there besides hubmonster motors use a bolt flange, but I've never seen one. I personally have 6 hub motors and only this motor and the hubmonsters use a rim flange. There's lots of details about this motor that are very similar to the hubmonster "way of doing things". IMHO, it's a part of the same product line or maybe it was made in the same factory side by side with the hubmonster series. Whatever it is somebody copied them pretty closely.

I don't know yet what I'll do with it, but we will see how well it performs. I intend to run it hard. It's a really well made motor. I bet it performs as well as a "real" mini hubmonster.

John...do you have the dimensions of the mini-hubmonster stator? It would not be hard to pull this motor apart again and measure the stator. What's the chances they are identical and NOT being related?



I have been thinking about the hubmonster from the Zapino scooter... :)
I like outrunners and mid-drives best. I don't like unsprung weight if it can be avoided.
I want to run this motor at it's limits if possible. It will need cooling.
I want to make it into a proper shaft driving outrunner that's useful as a mid-drive solution.
I want to use gearing to properly match the motor to the EV.

if there is one thing I enjoy doing, it's modding stuff and this motor is begging for it! I've recently taken up learning some basic machining so why not MOD this motor in the process?

1. This part of the motor would be more or less salvaged as is. The bearing would get pulled out and replaced with an insert that is an interference fit in the hole. A .75" shaft would be used inside that to make this into a proper motor bell. Shaft to bell reinforcing would be needed since all motor torque would be transmitted from the bell to the shaft at this union. The rim bolt flange would get milled off. The "bell top" would get several openings made in it for ventilation.

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2. This would become the top of the stator. The existing shaft would get removed and possibly reworked so it can spin. Make that center hole a little larger if it's less than .75". On the center area I think I can attach a part that can be a bearing carrier and screw down in 4 or 6 places with M5 screws. It would also extend around the OD of the cast center. If the aluminum center casting is not overly uniform, the carrier would just have a larger ID to fit around those irregularities. I'd use JB weld to fill in between the casting and the bearing carrier ID.

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3. This would be the "bottom" of the outrunner. Inside the OD of the casting is a shoulder. It looks like it's machined. The tops of the spokes are milled flat. I think this area could hold a part that would hold a skirt bearing and a shaft bearing. I don't know how quite yet, but this part would also become the "core section" for the motor. It would need to be securely mounted to the existing cast core so it can't break loose. I have a few ideas how to do that with screws and make it quite strong. All the wires would also exit through the added core section.

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4. The cover plate would get the center hole milled out so a fairly large diameter skirt bearing can fit here. Like the "top", vent holes would be added for air flow. The added center core section from number 3 would extend out the center of this plate along with the wires. Bolting to the core section for mounting would be fairly easy. Where the fixed shaft is now a spinning shaft would exist. When done this hubmonster would become a proper outrunner that drives from a shaft.

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Hi folks,

I believe I found the Chinese manufacturer for the RMartin. They have a moped called the EFUN-D. It looks like the RMartin EVD with a few updates.

https://efun-ev.en.alibaba.com/?spm=a2700.icbuShop.88.16.37ae36bclerAeV

https://efun-ev.en.alibaba.com/product/869640083-215969130/6000W_EEC_heavy_duty_high_speed_electric_scooter.html?spm=a2700.icbuShop.41413.21.37ae36bclerAeV

I've also found a few other scooters that are running hubmonsters from back in 2006-2009. Here's my current list.
NOTE: Just becasue you see the below list does not mean every last scooter listed always has these motors. For example the VX-1 has used several motors of which one is the hubmonster. If you look at this thread, you'll know what a hubmonster looks like.

Hubmonster sources:
RMartin EVD
Zapino Zap
Vectrix VX-1
E 3000 scooter
EFUN-D/6000
x-treme xm4000li (might be a midi)
x-treme xm5000li (might be a midi)

Midi-hubmonsters:
EFUN-D/4000
EFUN-C/2000

Mini-hubmonster variant:
Panterra Fusion
Luxxon E3000
 
Well...I have come across a junk yard that has a large selection of junked mopeds. In that collection are a number of RMartins and Zap scooters. I'm currently in negotiation with the owner for all of them that he has. He wants to sell the scooters whole, not just the motors. I guess that's OK. There's other parts on them I could find a use for. I don't have an exact number yet, but something like 6+. I'm still talking about pricing, but if this works out, I'll have several hubmonsters for sale for far less than $1200 each. My cost will directly reflect on the price I would sell them for. I'm not looking to make ridiculous 400% profits per motor...just cover my costs plus a little for my trouble. I want to get really good hub motors back into the hands of people that can make them run.
 
ridethelightning said:
im up for 1, maybe 2 at least, as you know :D

My desire is to get this epic motor into the hands of people that will use it and NOT cost them a liver and a spleen.
 
I'd also like to put my name in for at least one, if I can. I'm working on a 150-200V controller that should make a HubMonster lots of fun.
 
Well...that deal on the bunch of scooters with hubmonster motors is going no where fast. I'll keep in touch with the guy to see if he will pry loose some info so I can make a decision, but he's really sloooow about replying to anything I ask.

I found another motor that I'm pretty sure is a hubmonster so I bought it. It has 6 phases, same size as hubmonster, but the shell looks a bit different. It's probably the real deal, just a slight variation on the theme. Once I have it in a couple of days, I'll pull it apart, take pics and that will tell me everything I need to know about it.
 
The Zapino motor arrived so here's a couple of pictures next to a known hubmonster. This motor has 6 halls and 6 phases. The shell looks different (domed ends), but it's the same size as the hubmonster. The shell is cast to the rim unlike the hubmonster which bolts to flanges in the rim. I think it's a hubmonster, but we'll see soon enough!


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I was dying to pull apart the hub motor that arrived today to see if it is a hubmonster or not. The different shell due to the cast wheel arrangement had me wondering. I'd like John in CR to weigh in. Maybe this is a midi-hubmonster. It's a bit smaller than the hubmonster shown above. I paid $255 for it. Still a bargain price even if it's a little smaller than the biggest size hubmonster. I bet it will do a solid 25 or 30kw. The tire shown above was a Kenda, but pretty thoroughly aged so I took it off. I forgot how hard it is to get tires off 10" rims. Good grief! When this motor gets used a new 4.00-10 tire would look pretty nice on there.

My guess is this motor sat in the weather a long time. The cast aluminum is oxidized, but not pitted. After cleaning it up, it looks better, but it's not shiny anymore. It would look a lot better with a coat of paint or buff it back to shiny metal again. I mentioned above possibly making a hubmonster into a proper outrunenr, this motor has a lot of potential for mid-drive axle driven use.

I don't have both halves of this connector and it needed to come off anyway to take apart the motor. Never mind that there's no way it can handle more than maybe 3kw. This was what fed power to the motor...can you believe it? I'd give the pins inside maybe 40 amps peak before they burned up.

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Solder flow was none too good. The center pin was unused. Look at the top most pin and the 2 left side pins. That top pin has virtually no solder on it at all and the other 2 just partial solder coverage. This is that crunchy, brittle crap solder you get for cheap out of China. I didn't know you could get this garbage in 2008. About all it's good for is tinning wires!

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6 spliced together hall connections. Who knows why this was done! There's much better ways to connect up halls!!! The other 2 hubmonsters I have were done the exact same way.

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First look inside...nice and clean and I see 6 halls. Looks like a hubmonster so far.

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3 jaw pullers ROCK! There is yet to be a motor I could not safely take apart with this tool. I used 3 M8 screws in the holes for the brake rotor and pushed the shaft out...piece of cake!

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The other side of the stator. Those phase wires are epoxied down just like the other hubmonsters.

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The hubmonster comes in 2 stator heights...55 and 60mm. This one is 55mm.

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Stator diameter of 162mm or 6.3". My others are 7" or 180mm across. My guess is a midi-hubmonster.

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Nice curved magnets.

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That's a MidMonster, and probably wound to a Kv of 14rpm/v. Why are you taking these motors apart? Nothing good can come of it. They are long out of production and can't be purchased anywhere. Like I said before, the only reason to disassemble them is to modify for cooling. How about you stop making power claims about motors you've yet to run. Did you even measure phase-to-phase resistance, because that's the only way to understand current handling? How about no-load current, because that gives you an idea of voltage limit? While a MidMonster might take 30kw, it would require something like 200V and would require good cooling mods.
 
John in CR said:
That's a MidMonster, and probably wound to a Kv of 14rpm/v. Why are you taking these motors apart? Nothing good can come of it. They are long out of production and can't be purchased anywhere. Like I said before, the only reason to disassemble them is to modify for cooling. How about you stop making power claims about motors you've yet to run. Did you even measure phase-to-phase resistance, because that's the only way to understand current handling? How about no-load current, because that gives you an idea of voltage limit? While a MidMonster might take 30kw, it would require something like 200V and would require good cooling mods.

For "cooling mods only" is your opinion for the only reason to disassemble a motor.

IMHO: (good reasons for taking apart any motor)
1. Information sharing with the larger EV community.
2. Personal curiosity!!!
3. Taking pictures to document construction.
4. Modding into a proper shaft driven outrunner.
5. Modding for internal cooling.
6. Modding to beef up weaknesses or poor construction.
7. Changing out bad or upgrading bearings.
8. Replacing failed halls or adding halls.
9. Adding a temp sensor.
10. Replacing the phase wires with bigger wires.
11. Shaft modification or replacement.
12. For the fun of discovery and exploration!

I'm sure there are other good reasons that don't come to mind immediately, but 12 is pretty good!

Besides, I've taken apart a far bigger motor (Motenergy 3031-001) than a hubmonster safely and caused zero damage to it. No harm comes to the motor and in that regard taking them apart has a null effect. The 3031-001 makes the hubmonster look quite small and weak. Never mind the 2 awg phase wires compared to 10 awg wires on the hubmonster! This motor will come apart again when I add halls to its 2 stators and when I replace the shaft and make and output shaft bearing carrier for it.

Purchasing them...hmmm...last I checked you have quite a lot of them! I've been able to find and purchase 2 hubmonsters, a midi-hubmonster and another hub motor that is probably a mini-hubmonster variant. I know where I can locally buy another 2 hubmonsters today if I'm willing to dish out $1000 each for them. I have a lead on another 6 to 10 of them that are used for $250-300 each. I have a lead on 10 more that have never seen use. I don't know cost yet per motor, but less than $300 each. That sure sounds like they can still be purchased to me!

Power claims...I'm not making any...just quoting what you've said previously. They are your claims, not mine. I could go look up those quotes, but don't care to.

Thanks for identifying the motor...now we all know the dimensions of the midi-hubmonster and have lots of nice images of one!

14kv...cool...that's great information too.

Thanks for the feedback on things to check. I can absolutely present phase resistance since I have a micro-ohm meter. Of course this motor has been in my possession a mere 24 hours now. I got the motor taken apart and back together last night. Perhaps I can post inductance and resistance tonight.

Running the motors will come too...soon enough. just a matter of time and opportunity. For now at least, I have more things on my plate than I can do so this will wait until I have cleared a few other items from my bench that have been needing my attention longer. I've made commitments to friends for a few things that need to get done first and of course I have my own list of projects that are in progress that take precedence.

BTW...my next build will be on this scooter and will use a hubmonster at 131v or 32S. It will look like it's all stock and factory built, but under the covers it will be running the hubmonster I got from the Zap. I'll need to acquire a cast rim to bolt onto the motor as the steel one that was on it was crap. Part of the hold-up is appropriate 150v FOC controllers that don't cost me my liver and a lung! That issue will soon be overcome. I think I can keep the weight down to less than 200 pounds without too much trouble. It's just time and money and opportunity that are holding up progress!

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These run virtually silent with trap controllers, so why worry about going FOC, especially since you can build your own high voltage controllers? It would be nice to know if they'll work with FOC, since I worry some that there could be some interference between the 2 sets of "fields".

Regarding converting to a shaft drive outrunner, it seems like a lot of work for no real gain, since it's easy to bolt a drive sprocket to the disc brake mount. There's not much weight to shed, since the vast majority of the motor weight is in the stator. On a MidMonster I converted to mid-drive use did get rid of most of the aluminum shell exposing the magnet backing ring, but it was less than 1kg of savings. With a HubMonster there's more to save by getting rid of the rim flange and shaving the steel shell down. You can also get rid of much of the bulbous steel part that is the brake disc mount while retaining enough material to bolt a drive sprocket. Due to the high torque and relatively low rpm, you don't want to go with a small drive sprocket like a more common outrunner would use.

Look at how pristine all of the interiors are, though none of yours appear to be their final models that all had hall circuit boards. That's why I say don't monkey with the factory sealing job unless it's to do ventilated cooling mods. The only person I know who opened his more than once ruined his motor.

FWIW I'm not selling any of the motors I have. My offer to you was only to do some kind of deal where I end up with high voltage controllers.
 
John in CR said:
These run virtually silent with trap controllers, so why worry about going FOC, especially since you can build your own high voltage controllers? It would be nice to know if they'll work with FOC, since I worry some that there could be some interference between the 2 sets of "fields".

Regarding converting to a shaft drive outrunner, it seems like a lot of work for no real gain, since it's easy to bolt a drive sprocket to the disc brake mount. There's not much weight to shed, since the vast majority of the motor weight is in the stator. On a MidMonster I converted to mid-drive use did get rid of most of the aluminum shell exposing the magnet backing ring, but it was less than 1kg of savings. With a HubMonster there's more to save by getting rid of the rim flange and shaving the steel shell down. You can also get rid of much of the bulbous steel part that is the brake disc mount while retaining enough material to bolt a drive sprocket. Due to the high torque and relatively low rpm, you don't want to go with a small drive sprocket like a more common outrunner would use.

Look at how pristine all of the interiors are, though none of yours appear to be their final models that all had hall circuit boards. That's why I say don't monkey with the factory sealing job unless it's to do ventilated cooling mods. The only person I know who opened his more than once ruined his motor.

FWIW I'm not selling any of the motors I have. My offer to you was only to do some kind of deal where I end up with high voltage controllers.

FOC improves motor control on any motor. You get you more power and less heat due to FOC. Feild weakening is improved with FOC as well. This is the best option for the most performance from any motor. I really considered using 2 24 fet PV controllers and may still, but the new FOC PV controller is coming out soon and at the right time for this build so why not?

Resealing this motor is easy. All I have seen is a thin bead of silicon between the shell and the side cover. And yes...I'll definitely open up the motor end plates for cooling. I intend to see about that wattage you claim is possible and cooling will be necessary.

My guess is the "guy you know" that damaged his motor was trying to force it apart and didn't keep proper control of the stator and armature. I've worked out how to keep control so the motors I take apart never slam together and come apart slowly and without harm. Sometimes the motor itself provides the points of contact needed and sometimes I make a part that helps me. Even a 65mm outrunner gets taken apart and put together carefully in my hands. I never use uncontrolled muscle force or yanking.

shaft drive...you may be right...it's an idea I'm throwing around. Since the motor is wound to a low KV, a sprocket on the motor would be fairly large to gear for a wheel. Something like 30 teeth or so to a 60 on a 16" wheel...so you are probably right, shaft drive to get smaller sprockets would not really help with the original wind.

Selling your motors...good to know that they are not available! It is probable that I will find more, but perhaps not quickly. I want any surplus I find to be available to others. I personally have no reason to keep more than 4 or 5 for myself. Any others I find, I'll want them to go to DIY EV builders at an affordable price.
 
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