How much does motor brand matter?

[omar0]

Hello.

We are attempting to start a delivery startup using e-mopeds. However, ever since we started, we have been facing one motor problem after the other. We suspect most of the problems are heat and shaking related. Yesterday, we opened up a hub motor to check the insides due to it suddenly stopping. We found soldering that had fell off (melted), and somewhat detached hall sensor probes.

We are wondering, are our motors too weak for what we’re doing so therefore they’re heating up too much? Or is the build quality bad? Or is hub motor tech just not cut out for this kind of work yet?

We work the motors around 16 hours a day (2 shifts)

I’d appreciate any input on this.

 

[glennb]

impossible to say without all the technical detail. If you’re not a technical person you’ll want to find someone who is to gather the information and present it here in your stead.

 

[E-HP]

We are wondering, are our motors too weak for what we’re doing so therefore they’re heating up too much? Or is the build quality bad? Or is hub motor tech just not cut out for this kind of work yet?

We work the motors around 16 hours a day (2 shifts)

I’d appreciate any input on this.

Ya, don’t know what motors you’re using, so can’t tell you if they are too weak. I can say that you are abusing them if they are melting on the inside, and either running beyond their specs, or you’re running them too slow.

 

[scianiac]

Yeah from that failure, melted phase wire solder joints, you are driving them too hard as even a cheap motor, which could have other issues, won't do that if driving at a reasonable power. I mean I have crimped my phase wire connections in hub motors to avoid solder possibly melting but I knew I was going to be abusing the motor lol.

You have to figure your drivers probably drive at max throttle for every acceleration because that level of acceleration is probably still fairly tame and if there is a lot of stop and go that could mean a lot of heat. You have to factor that unlike a personal bike where the user cares about taking care of their bike, your drivers do not so you have to overbuild things to account for that. For instance have you seen how city rental ebikes are built? They are built like tanks, crazy heavy and overbuilt because they know they are going to be abused.

Since I'm assuming you are buying the mopeds pre-built you could ask the seller to equip or set the controller to a lower power level, assuming the bikes would still work for your application at slightly less power.

 

[neptronix]

Motor grade matters a lot less than controller and battery grade.

Motors typically range from at the cheapest, functional for a year, at the most expensive and well specced, may last decades.
The price difference between a totally crappy motor and a good motor is pretty small, so aim for the low-mid to mid price range when buying one.

My money priorities to get a quality build on a budget:
Battery ( buy the highest quality you can afford, i like ebikes.ca and em3ev.com because they offer good quality per dollar spent )
Controller ( get one from a reputable maker, most companies suck at making these )
Motor ( ebay special ain't too bad, personally i prefer higher grade for better efficiency )
Bike frame ( a $250 bikesdirect bike or used bike is totally fine )

 

[lnanek]

You could get a motor with a temperature sensor and a controller with thermal rollback.

 

[MxusMick]

The hours you put on the bikes daily is heavy duty, and if you run a throttle slow heat builds up, and if you stop and start alot with a heavy load heat builds up.