Best Hub Motor?

marty

marty

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Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
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Location
Buffalo, New York USA
Hi all. Marty here. I'm back. Remember me from the old vis4voltage forum? The Rocket Bike is no more. It is now a gas power leaf blower. Having great fun with Bionx PL350 kit.
http://www.bionx.ca
Will post some pictures soon. After disabling Max Speed Limit. Top speed without peddling is still about 20 MPH. Got code to change all settings.

Ready for Electric Bike Number 2. Want 30 MPH. First question is [what is best hub motor?] Will be rear wheel.

Next questions will be? What wheel size? Battery type / voltage? Somewhere around 48V - 72V? Controller? Throttle? Last part of this project will be the bike. There is no $ limit. Cost will be whatever it is? Want the best.... Well ok.... Want best, Not most expensive.

I am 5' 6" There are no hills where I'm at. Farthest trip I would take is 20 miles.
 
Is the unsprung weight of a hub motor going to be a problem for your rear suspension? What kind of bike are you going to put the power system on?
 
Well I use the Crystalyte hub motor kit; they're very reliable at 48V and the 5303 (aka Phoenix Racer) can easily exceed 30 mph on flat ground in a 26" or 28" wheel. I get 34 mph in a 28" wheel, though I've heard of others getting 35-36 mph in a 26" wheel, so the motor might not be producing enough power in my larger wheel (larger wheels are harder to move but result in a higher speed at a given revolution rate). Anyway, it accelerates pretty slowly without pedaling. The 5304 in the same wheel size accelerates a bit more quickly but can only just reach 30 mph in a 26" wheel, from what I've heard.
 
5' 6'', not heavy, no hills, want speed:

I think either the 406 (knightmb here runs with that in a steel front fork)
OR the BMC geared hub motor (EV Tech handles that one).
Knoxie has run the BMC on front and Maytag here has one on the rear.
Check out Maytag's review thread. He's having a lot of fun!

member Ypedal here is a C-lyte dealer and you knew him at oldV as Zuzzzb....

uh! sorry, I mean: BUZZZZ Good guy!

___________
_____

If torque and start up power are not the main want, but max efficiency at 30, the 406 seems like the first choice--though I imagine the wattage difference between a 406 and BMC will be very small at top speed (owing to the overruling, huge drag of wind resistance)

But for torque across the band and great speeding too: the geared BMC type motor is sweet and it is very light relatively speaking.

___________
_____

In my vivid (too active) imagination, on the day that things go wrong,
and this has never happened so far as I know.....

Say you have a BMC or other internally geared hub motor
and say it somehow locks up inside (is that possible? sure must be).

And if we lock a rear wheel at speed it will crash the bike for sure.
Therefore for the highest speed runnings I just feel better thinking either of a simple ungeared hub motor
(which too bad will spoil manual pedaling)

or... a bottom bracket drive or a Currie style drive.
Maybe it's not a valid worry about geared hub motors.
I've never heard of anyone else opine on them before.
Perhaps the internal freewheel would strip and rip apart, and so the wheel would turn onward.

But if a rear wheel does lock up you just lay down and slide
 
Reid,
Thanks for writing what I forgot to say. Light weight is important. This is a bicycle, not a motorcycle. Here are weights of different motors. I emailed Kenny at http://www.crystalyte.com and Doug at EV Tech http://www.texaselectricbikes.com

Re: Geared motors failing? OK? Any other differences? Do gears make noise?

EV Tech - 12 LBS
don't say brand. Reid say BMC

Crystalyte
408 Motor 6.5kg = 14.3 LBS
406 Motor 6.5kg = 14.3 LBS
X-Lyte 5304 9kg = 19.8 LBS
X-Lyte 5303 9kg = 19.8 LBS
 
Reid Welch said:
Say you have a BMC or other internally geared hub motor
and say it somehow locks up inside (is that possible? sure must be).

And if we lock a rear wheel at speed it will crash the bike for sure.
Therefore for the highest speed runnings I just feel better thinking either of a simple ungeared hub motor
(which too bad will spoil manual pedaling)
Click to expand...

The BMC hub motor has a freewheel, so I think if the motor / gears decide to seize, the wheel will still turn and you could still pedal.

If a controller shorts (seems to be fairly common) it's possible for it to short in a way that shorts the motor windings. In this case, the motor would act like a sudden brake, most likely resulting in skidding. This might be bad on a front wheel installation.
 
Hi

In the case of the BMC a controller failure wouldnt lock the wheel as it freewheels, it could possibly on a none geared motor.

It would be possible for any of the direct drive type kits to lock the wheel I suppose, unlikely though and infact If that worries you cycling in general probably does also!

Cheers

Knoxie
 
For both reasonable weight and 30mph, the only hubmotor I can think of would be the BMC. Or how about trying to reverse-engineer the BionX to soup it up? EG plop a Cylte controller on it..
 
Mathurin,
Pretty sure that messing with Bionx would only mess it up. Works perfectly now.
consolegros.jpg
 
Hmm, I'd love to try a BionX for a few months or so...
Too bad they're so expensive.

But I mean, must be a brushless motor like all the others, with hall sensors, hey? So even if there's like 5 of them, you could use two clyte controllers and used 1 and 2/3rd of them...
 
OK, good inputs. To be sure: Have never heard anywhere of any hub motor of any sort doing a total lock up.

I do "know" that when my former seatpost rack cracked at the seatpost bracket, it dropped like a sprag (it bore two 10lb SLA batteries) and dug into the top of the tire.

The break happened while the bike was rolling off a curb at walking speed,
I wasn't even on the bike.

Had this happened at speed (and many here do use seatpost racks, and all of them are aluminum, and aluminum gives way without the slightest prior warning), the jab would've locked the wheel instantly.

I just fear lock-ups pretty keenly and so I think for ways to avoid them,
rare as they may be. The cantilever seatpost rack bearing a stiff load is
the biggest risk of all, I think--can swear on that point.

OK, no more worries. The nearly silent-running plastic geared rear hub BMC motor
that EV Tech sells is under review by two USA members here at present.
The front wheel version is under review by a UK member.
Knoxie of course knows them all intimately.
He's the prime source for real-life reports at this time,
he has the most running experience with the BMC geared hub motors on the board.


A 406 on 48V as I think it's run by knightmb will also take you 30mph,
and it's so simple and zero mechanical maintenance; I think Michael/knightMb has 20K miles on his 406? And runs way over 30mph.

Ask and go with Ypedal's advice on that choice of course
---he's a good new dealer.

cheers no fears,

Chicken Little
:wink:
 
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