500w vs 600 w motors

[ty cohen]

Is a 600w hub motor really that much of an improvement over a 500w motor of the same company? WE claims to have a new and improved 600w motor over its older 500w motor. Plus, a lot of manufacturers still make 500w motors. Will I get a noticeable improvement out of the 600w motor? Several dealers still supply the 500watt WE BL36's

Also, is a 48v batt really necessary over a 36v batt for hill climbing? I know that it increases speed up hills (torque), but can a 36v batt still be fine?

 

[Lessss]

Sure it's an improvement. It has a different label!

Maybe an extra winding or so.

Difference between 36V and 48V is porbably the difference between legal and non legal. 36V should be more than enough to get up to 32kph, 48 with an uncapped controller will do more.

 

[Ypedal]

Volts x Amps = Watts.

So "up"the voltage at the same amp limit you get more watts pushing you forward.

As far as 500 vs 600.. white vs black.. bah humbug.. these brushless hub motors are overbuilt and under-rated in most cases.. ( not a bad thing )

 

[ty cohen]

I was just on the bernson website and it had a 600w BD36 (damn good prices ) and it said 600 w output with a 900w peak output. So to get the most of the peak output power of this motor, a 48v/20ah battery would do it, right?

the brushed motors don't seem all that bad if all one has to do is change the brushes after a few years. They seem to be more suited for the short, fast rides.

 

[Rassy]

ty cohen wrote:

Also, is a 48v batt really necessary over a 36v batt for hill climbing?

I started with 3 BD36's on my trike/trailer at 36V 3P3S SLA 12AH (one motor on the front wheel and two on the trailer). Now I just have the 2 BD36's on the trailer at 48V 2P4S SLA 12AH. The hill climbing performance, over 15% grade, is about the same with the 2 motors at 48V as it was with 3 motors at 36V, so yes, the hill climbing performance does improve when running at 48V. I have tried several other tests between 36V and 48V on other bikes with similar results.

Edit: I have older WE controllers that are 35 Amp. When doing some tests with LiFePO4 where I limited them to about 25 Amps to avoid BMS cutouts, the performance on hill climbing was dismal.

 

[dogman dan]

Actually , the motor may be the same. As we saw with the math above, Amps of the controller, and volts of the battery determines watts. Given the er, not seen by myself range figures on WE adverts, I wouldn't take anything claimed too seriously. I know the newer kits have bigger amp controllers, or at least the BL does, so that may be watts up on that. Some of the really old motors were made by a different manufacturer, but the ones I have are AO-TE-MA products.

I love my BD36 motors, because I climb a huge hill everyday home. I just solved the range issue with a big fat Lifpo4 battery. I climb a one mile long 10% grade at 15mph if I peadle hard enough. At 48v it climbs the hill a lot better, but I get up it just fine at 36v, unless you consider that I melted some magnets off the hub. Silly me, I was still trying to climb that hill everyday in 105 F heat. So now I can say, I can't belive I could do that even once, let alone everyday. Fixing the motor was easy, so no harm done in the end. It does show though, that the things can take a beating. The brushed is the fastest strongest motor for the money about 24-25 mph at 36v, so changing brushes once in a few years will be worth it for me. Actually my plan is to get fresh stuff about once a year, and sell the old for about half what I paid. I never could afford that with cars, but I can with ebikes.