Actually, I have seen both of those some time back. The thread for edventures bike wasn't conclusive the last time I looked at it. Prob been over a year now that I read either of those threads.
Not quite what I had in mind on the execution, but the same general idea. I have this bad habit of drifting online when it starts to get late. Like I am doing right now.
You might as well leave your logic outside by the door, cuz ain't no one home upstairs at this hour. LoL
So yeah, I saw both of those. Guess I forgot about it.
I'll tell you what sparked my interest in the idea.
I've worked on lots of different types of commercial equipment over the years. Cooking equip, comm refrigeration, comm A/C, large dish machines, etc.
These large Hobart dishwashers use one really heavy duty motor for the wash pump. Sits outside the the base wash tank near the bottom.
Here is an example of a medium sized unit:
There is a doughnut shaped assembly on the end of the motor that looks akin to a turbo. That's where the impeller is.
What is interesting about these is how they seal the impeller and housing to keep the water from leaking past the shaft and getting into the motor.
They use a press fit ceramic bearing in the backside of the impeller, and another in the housing.
Now I know that is not super special. There are other applications that use similar designs. What had me surprised is the fact that those ceramic surfaces could handle that sort of vibration, jarring, impact, and resistance to chemicals for so long. Sometimes decades. And they ARE A BEAR to change out.
So that had me thinking if a similar setup could be applied to the outer casing of a hubmotor. Obviously, heavily modified.
After seeing how these have held up in these washing machines, I think it might hold up on an ebike.
Those Hobart machines are downright brutal. The dish station workers don't give one F what happens to these $10k+ machines. They let forks and spoons and crap get down in the wash tank, then get sucked into the impeller. And yes there are safe guards to stop that, but they will leave them off because they don't want to bother with cleaning them. *facepalm*
Changed out nearly 20 motors I'd say by now. And at $1k a pop for the motor... well yeah, it ain't cheap.
Anyways, it's an idea I've been kicking around for a while. Just thought I'd throw it out there.
Here you go. Seal looks like this:
Goes in this: