Hubmonster teardown

Getting them apart is relatively easy with a 3 jaw puller. Going back together is the more difficult part due to the strong magnets, small air gap, and wide stator, and the stator always gets pulled against the magnets on one side and can bind up on the way into the shell. If staying sealed a bit of grease on the magnets helps, but when going vented I always keep it as clean as possible.

Have you figured out what kind of temp sensor they have? I'd like to not even have to pop the cover to change to a 10k thermistor if possible.

If you go with PV controllers be careful of false positive wiring combos. For some reason on my current build it was very difficult to tell the difference between a false positive and a correct combo, because the no-load current was pretty low on the false positive and it made little noise on startup. I suggest determining the wiring without the tire and rim bolted on, so the correct wiring combo is more obvious with the extremely low no-load current.

John in CR said:

Getting them apart is relatively easy with a 3 jaw puller. Going back together is the more difficult part due to the strong magnets, small air gap, and wide stator, and the stator always gets pulled against the magnets on one side and can bind up on the way into the shell. If staying sealed a bit of grease on the magnets helps, but when going vented I always keep it as clean as possible.

Have you figured out what kind of temp sensor they have? I'd like to not even have to pop the cover to change to a 10k thermistor if possible.

If you go with PV controllers be careful of false positive wiring combos. For some reason on my current build it was very difficult to tell the difference between a false positive and a correct combo, because the no-load current was pretty low on the false positive and it made little noise on startup. I suggest determining the wiring without the tire and rim bolted on, so the correct wiring combo is more obvious with the extremely low no-load current.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...I had zero issues with getting the 2 motors back together without causing problems. In either case (coming apart or going together), the stator faces and magnets will rub a little until the axle bearings get seated again. I have yet to see this cause issues for the dozens of motors I've taken apart. Going slow by releasing screw force a little at a time on the puller really mitigates any issues and keeps good control over the motor as it goes back together.

Venting....I'll be painting the magnets and stator with electrical paint to help with dirt and water issues.

I don't know what temp sensor is used. They are so tiny and have no part number on them. I'd have to find out by experimentation.

False positive connections...yes...I've seen this before on a number of motors where they have 2 hall/phase combinations that run the motor, but one uses more current under no load.

ElectricGod said:

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.

Hubmonster sources:
RMartin EVD (hubmonster)
Zapino Zap (hubmonster)
Vectrix VX-1 (hubmonster)
E 3000 scooter (hubmonster)
EFUN-D/6000 (hubmonster)
EFUN-D/4000 (midi hubmonster)
EFUN-C/200 (mini-hubmonster)
Panterra Fusion (mini-hubmonster)
Luxxon E3000 (mini-hubmonster?)

OF course you can also buy hubmonsters from John in CR for $1200 + shipping...OUCH!!!

I'm working on getting a third and fourth one. One is in a working Zapino with fairly new SLA's in it. The guy is asking $900 for the scooter since it all works. That seems pretty steep IMHO, so we will see. I'll try to get him to budge on the price. I found another RMartin too, but so far the seller hasn't responded to me. He wants $250 for it. I'll take a used hubmonster at nearly 5X LESS cost any day over paying $1200 for a new one. Where there is no distinguishable difference, there is no difference IMHO. I can wait to find more of these EV's as they arise.

Click to expand...

Vextrix vx-1 is not a hubmonster bike. See teardown here:
View attachment One-easy-green-rider.pdf
Did you look at eFUNs product line and assumed they were all hubmonsters? What about the rest of them?

i think vectorix may have made an early version with a hubmonster but i havnt found one yet.

another 2 for the list would be-

x-treme xm4000li
x-treme xm5000li

both look to have full size hubmonsters.
these are basically the rmartin again.
seems like different "brands" in USA etc have just ordered from same(e-fun?)chinese mob and sold with their own branding.

of course, the new scooters made by this company look to have mostly gone the way of big fat 3 phase motors for economy.

John in CR said:

If staying sealed a bit of grease on the magnets helps, but when going vented I always keep it as clean as possible.

Click to expand...

You can use liquid soap. It should lubricate well enough for this operation, and then you can wash it out afterward, then thoroughly dry the motor, then close it up.

ridethelightning said:

i think vectorix may have made an early version with a hubmonster but i havnt found one yet.

Click to expand...

The teardown is from sep 2007. According to vectrix website they had a 10th anniversary for VX-1 in 2017. Don't think they could have released an update of the drivetrain, swing and controller in the possible months available. The legal bikes have to be homologated which would take about half a year for a big change like that.

i checked these out, these are confirmed 6-phase motors:
x-treme xm4000li
x-treme xm5000li

ridethelightning said:

i think vectorix may have made an early version with a hubmonster but i havnt found one yet.

another 2 for the list would be-

x-treme xm4000li
x-treme xm5000li

both look to have full size hubmonsters.
these are basically the rmartin again.
seems like different "brands" in USA etc have just ordered from same(e-fun?)chinese mob and sold with their own branding.

of course, the new scooters made by this company look to have mostly gone the way of big fat 3 phase motors for economy.

Click to expand...

I'll add these to the list on page 1

amberwolf said:

John in CR said:

If staying sealed a bit of grease on the magnets helps, but when going vented I always keep it as clean as possible.

Click to expand...

YOu can use liquid soap. It should lubricate well enough for this operation, and then you can wash it out afterward, then thoroughly dry the motor, then close it up.

Click to expand...

Electrical paint will keep the magnets from exposure. Just clean up any grease or oil first before painting the inside of the motor bell.

Slide a piece of paper over the magnets so that the stator can slide past the paint without scratching it off the magnets when you put the motor back together.

ElectricGod said:

ridethelightning said:

i think vectorix may have made an early version with a hubmonster but i havnt found one yet.

another 2 for the list would be-

x-treme xm4000li
x-treme xm5000li

both look to have full size hubmonsters.
these are basically the rmartin again.
seems like different "brands" in USA etc have just ordered from same(e-fun?)chinese mob and sold with their own branding.

of course, the new scooters made by this company look to have mostly gone the way of big fat 3 phase motors for economy.

Click to expand...

I'll add these to the list on page 1

Click to expand...

Might as well remove the Vectrix since it hasn't got a 6-phase motor. It's a 3phase with planetary gearset

Hi folks,

I should have 10 hubmonster motors very soon.

I'm working out my costs now. As soon as they arrive to me, I'll be putting several up for sale for essentially my cost plus shipping to you.

Supposedly several have never been used.

flat tire said:

...Just think about that for a second. Either they haven't thought it through, they're kookoo, or they're lying...

Click to expand...

Ah, yea of little faith.

NOTE: This is NOT a thread for selling anything...just pointing out that the motors exist and will get put up for sale elsewhere.

This is midi-hubmonsters. Three in the pile plus one more I already have. Go look at my tear downs for the hubmonster and midi for comparison. Not quite as powerful as full on hubmonster, but still way stronger than anything you will find new. And certainly WAAAAAAAY less money! Since I'm getting these for less money than the hubmonsters, they will be cheaper to you as well.



This is 9 full on hubmonsters. So far no word on the 13" cast rim they originally came with. Assume I won't have the rims.

ElectricGod said:

NOTE: This is NOT a thread for selling anything...just pointing out that the motors exist and will get put up for sale elsewhere.

This is midi-hubmonsters. Three in the pile plus one more I already have. Go look at my tear downs for the hubmonster and midi for comparison. Not quite as powerful as full on hubmonster, but still way stronger than anything you will find new. And certainly WAAAAAAAY less money! Since I'm getting these for less money than the hubmonsters, they will be cheaper to you as well.

This is 9 full on hubmonsters. So far no word on the 13" cast rim they originally came with. Assume I won't have the rims.

Click to expand...

awesome !
this is a massive opportinity for anyone who has been after these great motors since John in CR stopped selling them some time back.
I for one know what its like to trawl endlessly through Craigs list and ebay for months hoping to find an old sad hubmoster for sale at reasonable price, then to hope you dont get scammed buying it. i could not find one in the end, and im glad, cause now these are available!

im looking foward to seeing the resulting build threads of this haul!

interesting post.
the reason i started looking for hubmonsters is that i wanted to get a bigger motor, but had been consistently annoyed by the fact that all my bikes, using cromotors(several) qs205, crystalyte 5404, etc had all been great but when i wanted to push the amps to keep up to speed on the freeways, it was always the motor overheating that was the limiting factor. thats with different wheel sizes, 16" through to 19", the controllers could do it, the batteries were up to it, but the motors would always overheat in about 10min max. ferro fluid, hubsinks only helped a bit.
so i was thinking of qs273 for the next phase....for that kind of weight it had better be really good

then it dawned on me that its the efficiency, which i didnt really consider in my early years, thats so important(i just figured- "hey iv got plenty of battery and its cheap to charge.."

well now i know why the other motors just arnt so good.

also, with a big battery and longer trips, that wasted heat and less range as result becomes more significant.

Exactly! Heat is our limit and heat is the opposite part of efficiency. I cringe whenever people want to push to higher power by pushing higher current. That part is relatively simple. Every motor has a current limit and you simply look at phase-to-phase resistance to calculate the primary component of heat quite easily.

By that logic you should wind for the highest Kv, because it proportionately increases current handling by reducing resistance. For higher power that requires increased rpm with a smaller wheel, which helps reduce the detriment of reduced torque/amp that comes with higher Kv. Where the lower efficiency hubmotors fall apart is high core losses that from a practical standpoint use above 1000rpm or so. Even above double that HubMonster has limited heat.

[moderator edit to remove off-topic content]

Just to set the record straight I sold the 3 different high efficiency hubmotors produced in that factory for what worked out to be cost. I had a small markup to cover contingencies, which got eaten up by several motors with wire harnesses damaged in shipment before I finally got the factory to listen to me about how to properly protect the axle end for shipping.

The $1200 that EG mentioned was years after I stopped selling them and really didn't want to sell any I had in my possession, He kept pushing me for a price so I threw one out there, which had to also take into account import taxes and expensive shipping to me. Once I found out how good they were back in 2012 I wanted to generate volume to be able to continue production, and the low price I believe was a mistake because it put them in the realm of too good to be true. Cheaper, lighter, much better quality, drastically faster and much higher power potential than eg the Xlyte 54xx series motors.

I can't believe I'm still getting grief about trying to share the wealth with ESers. I shouldn't have wasted time selling any and just kept them to myself. Oh well, live and learn.

Yeah! My hubmonster thread is no longer locked.

I've been thinking about that stack of motors and how to test them out.

I have several 12 fet PV controllers. These motors were running on scooters on dual 12 fets already. Unloaded for bench testing this ought to work great. I can test each set of phases independently and running at the same time. I'll be spinning them up at 82v most likely for bench testing.

Something I'll hopefully get next month is a decent inductance meter. That will help with checking the phases more accurately. I current meter is pretty cheap.

just thought id add suggestion to make a list of good rims that could be adapted for hubmonster use. im looking for some just now as my hubmonsters came with rims that were not really usable.

would be nice to be able to buy the stock rims new but id say id have a snowflakes chance these days.
btw, someone has some motors for sale..
https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-1025574671-motor-eletrico-scooter-bike-6-fases-25000w-_JM

ridethelightning said:

just thought id add suggestion to make a list of good rims that could be adapted for hubmonster use. im looking for some just now as my hubmonsters came with rims that were not really usable.

would be nice to be able to buy the stock rims new but id say id have a snowflakes chance these days.
btw, someone has some motors for sale..
https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-1025574671-motor-eletrico-scooter-bike-6-fases-25000w-_JM

Click to expand...

too bad...he's not in the USA.

I came across a Hubmonster variant...

Notice the steel core. All the others I've ever seen have a cast aluminum core. They don't have hall boards either. Maybe this is a very early version before the engineers were told to get the cost per motor down?

It looks exactly like a hubmonster on the outside.



I think this rust will clean up easily.



A hall board with emotortech.com and EMK3000 on it. Google was not much help with these.



Other than the spoked laminations extending to the axle, this stator looks just like any other hubmonster I have taken apart.

OMG! Can the original poster please fix the pictures in the post? Why do links to photobucket when this site supports uploading ? Was it different at one time? That is a highly informative write up, rendered nearly useless due to pic evaporation. Fuk fotophucket man, those clown came to market with an unsustainable product offering. It’s systemic and all over little forums like this one.

Anybody got the pics?

PtheDude said:

OMG! Can the original poster please fix the pictures in the post? Why do links to photobucket when this site supports uploading ? Was it different at one time? That is a highly informative write up, rendered nearly useless due to pic evaporation. Fuk fotophucket man, those clown came to market with an unsustainable product offering. It’s systemic and all over little forums like this one.

Anybody got the pics?

Click to expand...

What pics do you need and to accomplish what? The only reason to take one apart is if you plan ventilating to go to extreme power like 25-50kw peak input, or using a lathe to trim up to 1kw of weight from the cast steel shell. Otherwise the most you want to do is pop the side cover off to change the thermal switch out to a thermistor, and while you're there might as well add an extra since there's 2 unused wires in the wiring harness going to the inside.

The OP was banned last year, but I've had a couple apart and have pics of some stuff. I need to know what it is you need.

I agree on the fotobucket crap. I always upload my pics to the forum so that stuff doesn't happen.

Just a picture of each unit. How to tell them apart. Too bad he got banned, was he grouchy and complaining about old posts?

I have 2 Zapino’s and now 2 Zapino’s but they look totally different. Trying to understand which motor is which.

Also, my original Zapino controller is 2 controllers in one, same PCb. I have a short to ground, replaced one whole side, still shorts to ground!?!!? Ideas please?

PtheDude said:

Just a picture of each unit. How to tell them apart. Too bad he got banned, was he grouchy and complaining about old posts?

I have 2 Zapino’s and now 2 Zapino’s but they look totally different. Trying to understand which motor is which.

Also, my original Zapino controller is 2 controllers in one, same PCb. I have a short to ground, replaced one whole side, still shorts to ground!?!!? Ideas please?

Click to expand...

The diameter of the shell will tell if it's a HubMonster or MidMonster. The factory made a number of variations of each, different stator widths and different windings too. Measurements from the outside will tell you all you need to know, and then if you also tell me the wheel outside diameter as well as scooter and rider(s) weight along with riding terrain, then I can give sound advice on current limits. The other 2 measurements needed are Kv and phase-to-phase resistance. Kv is the same whether running 1 controller or 2, so you don't need one of the dual controllers working to get Kv.

Don't bother with trying to repair the controller unless you really want to stay with the anemic stock performance. The lady I've dealt with for years who oversaw factory sales probably still has some of the controller, though they're expensive for what they are $300 or so. The way to go is running them with dual controllers. If you cut the wires to run dual controllers, make sure to label which set of halls goes with which set of phase wires. It will run with them crossed, but with less torque and less efficiency due to the resulting 3° timing advance. I run Nucular controllers on mine now and would never go back. A pair of 12F's and one display will push a HubMonster really well, and the MidMonster will work with a pair of the tiny 6F controllers. That solution costs more, but it's well worth it with a cooler running more efficient motor giving you extended range, torque throttle for throttle control we only used to dream of, and variable regen braking so the mechanical brakes are almost never used. The controller are loaded with all kinds of other features that I haven't even scratched the surface of.

i have a hubmonster i never opened, i didnt come with a controller. is there some method for figuring out which halls and phases match up? i like the sound of the nucular controllers, i have some adapttos i could use but i suspect the nucular ones are better for tuning.