Electric Dual HUB Motor Disassembly & Performance

Yes here it is http://loftyambition.en.alibaba.com/product/60378436802-801618327/Electric_longboard_hub_motor_wheel_seal_design_prevent_water_and_sand.html

I’ve also just noticed they are 110kv, which means larger torque. But yea I don’t know how how they wound the motor with what diagram. So performance wise with other hub motor with similar specifications in real life condition are questionable.

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110kv for a hub motor, especially with a wheel so big…I ride 100kv with 80mm diameter wheel and on 12s easily hits 35mph

I’m still confused by your answer. Please bear with me. The bearing itself is surely all steel. The two parts the bearing sits against , the shaft and housing, are they both steel?

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@hummie Hmm okay if you say so, I am not a metal expert but it make sense that the bearings are steel. The shaft and the housing is definitely steel both back and front cover. They are really heavy, I mean seriously heavy.

I am not sure why you asked this, but I believe they should be made out of very strong material. The cover of the hub motor act as a rim. They are the one responsible to hold the load of the board. They have to be very round in order to keep the small gap between the stator axle and the permanent magnet around the motor to avoid friction. If the cover by chance are slightly bend, the rotation of the hub motor could not be perfect. It could cause friction, wobble and heat. This also applies if the small bolts are not being properly mounted and tightened.

Well done mate. But I still prefer gear system. Maybe someday you should consider going back to drive belt world. Same as bikes and cars with trams can change gear ratio! Bravo!

Actually Jacob has a nice mounting method where it can go on any trucks. These have a special hanger necessary.

@evan Well there are advantages of belt driven compared to hub motor especially in regards of torque. However I still feel that belt driven system have too much parts to maintain. Cleaning is horrible when you ride in almost rainy weather every time. Nevertheless belt drive needs to be adjusted frequently to make sure that the belt are tight, aligned and screwed properly as they tend to vibrate alot.

Hub motor single speed should be the future of electric longboard. Its a complete elegant solution. Its cheaper than purchasing motor, mount, belt and pulleys. Making it possible to go for dual configuration in slightly more pricier category. But the torque, the setup feels better. I believe higher torque, belt drive system are nice for mountainboard drive. They require more torque and made for special purpose of climbing, jumping, etc. Since longboard are made purely to be ridden on normal street path, hub motor is ideal the way I look at it.


@Hummie Yes I know jacob and your hub motor build. They are awesome and still in production - development. One two small thing that I don’t envy on jacob hub motor is the mounting option on standard truck axle. They need to be twisted to lock into the axle and the hold by a grub screw. Locking into axle have consequences like jacob stated that these eboards have power to accelerate and decelerate. It means torsional load are applied clockwise and counter-clockwise. So during acceleration or deceleration it could undo the locking, thats why the grub screw are to lock it further. It’s fine solution but somehow I have bad experience with twist lock mechanism to handle torsional load since I have ridden friction drive before. Also all hub motor are open designed and not sealed for heat exchange. The Netherlands is always misty and 80% of the days are cloudy and wet. I don’t cruise when it rains, but its unavoidable to go home completely wet.

Honestly if I have the ability to create my own hub motor, I would start from scratch. Starting from wheels, hub and axle. The specs would be

  1. Weather sealed but not heating up easily.
  2. Custom truck axle design is fine (buyer will need to buy the hub motor anyway, so the axle could be an all in one package too). As buyer I don’t mind getting a nice axle for hub motor config if they are mechanically excellent. Even if the truck axle is one piece with the stator axle, if they could align perfectly minimizing the wobble, i’ll be fine.
  3. It would be great to have varieties of different wheels replacement from color, size and durometer or even brand. That means the “seller” provide a lathed / cut branded wheels from Orangatang / abec 11 as wheel replacement. So we as longboarder could have the same wheels feeling as common longboard wheels.

I’m curious what the wheel/motor bearings are sitting on. Are they simply sitting on the long threaded bolt? Bearings siting on threads isn’t good. And if it’s structurally as I imagine…the weight of the rider is putting so much force on that lever, the bolt, and it’s not supported until it gets into the aluminum hanger. Strange because they have steel in the center of the stator, which is strong and good, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s not taking any load… The best and only thing good about the steel center is it’s a solid shaft for the smaller outside bearing which is a weak point.

At first I thought maybe it was a robust design with the inner steel but now… Maybe I have it wrong but is that long bolt, that the bearings are sitting on, spanning all the way through the motor and then it inserts into the aluminum threading? That’s a crazy long span and doubt the square peg will take much of the load.

Motors are almost waterproof as is. I wouldn’t worry about it especially if u seal the connections from the motor leads to the windings.

I thought Jacob changed from. The little grub screw to a nice locking mechanism,

@Hummie I think I might know what you are in doubt with they are not completely right, but the weak point still lies within the long bolt that hold the hub motor to the axle.

The stator axle is one solid steel axle with round edge on one side and dipped rectangular spot on the other side. They could be mounted on the truck axle without both hub motor cover installed. It will stay locked in that position. So the torsional load, are all being hold by this rectangular spot.

In short this rectangular insertion hold the hub motor axle in place. It holds the torsional load as well as making sure that the hub motor sit horizontally perfect to the truck axle. The long bolt will lock onto this black rounded side of the stator axle.

So the bearings inner side will sit on the outter side of this black rounded stator axle.

Just for clarity, this is the photo of the back side of the hub motor.

In the end the bolt has to hold the hub motor rectangular spot with the truck axle rectangular spot are always perfectly intact. So the whole load sits on that tiny rectangular spot, which is quite small and weak. Also the insertion of this long bolt to the truck axle is only about 1 cm (you can see it from the photo above the discoloration on the bolt), which is quite short while the bolt its self is 6cm long. So the bolt doesnt hold any torsional load at all!

This design could be perfected if the chinese manufacturer extend this small flat rectangular spot all the way through the hub motor stator axle. Ensuring that is perfectly perpendicular all the way from the edge of truck axle to the edge of the hub motor stator axle, spreading the torsional load and weight along the rectangular shaft.

the torsion load I wasn’t concerned about. and not catastrophic if it fails. Maybe strip the wires at worst but not have the wheel come off.

You say the bolt only goes into the aluminum hanger a cm? Scary.

The bearings do they sit on a shaft that’s threaded? That has to be bad but not as scary as the 1cm threading of aluminum that’s right at the fulcrum

If u want to get a set of the motors I had made to see how they compare I’ll send them to you for the 200$ Plus shipping. Be nice to see how they compare.

Someone…the only person I’ve heard of…is getting the NGV motors and was also getting mine but backed out of mine. Disapointing as I’d like to have heard a comparison of those as well

Maybe they’re all great.

I’ve only done 150 miles with mine before they shorted through a simple insulation problem but I wonder how things will go at mile 50,000. I’ll still be riding them if they’re going and definately don’t want a wheel falling off.

Can u put a longer threaded shaft throught the hanger?

Bearings on threads though…no one does that probably for a reason.

Yeap I know that belt drive is hard to go drop-through setup which I really want to. But hub motor can’t change truck/wheels easily because the design, maybe someday it might be change or something.

So at this moment the best way to us should be like having both setup and skating crazily everyday hahaha.

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@evan To be honest changing the wheels are more important than trucks from my pov. Because the affect of trucks to the style of longboarder doesn’t change significantly compared to the wheels. Since elongboard are not meant to do tricks, from my pov it doesnt matter at all. In fact how many times do you think you change set of trucks compared to set of wheels. The amount of trucks out there are only a few, even then belt driven mount also currently only supporting paris and caliber 2 trucks.

@Hummie yes it’s scary! Thats why if you scroll back above, I do NOT recommend this hub motor for heavy duty and heavy load purpose as most of the stress are being hold by that small rectangular spot. Although they are NOT aluminum, they are steel for sure, from mechanical perspective they will for sure have to hold the entire stress we put.

The bearings doesn’t sit on the threaded shaft (the bolt). The stator axle has its on hollow shaft and the threaded shaft goes in it locking the stator axle to the truck. Anyway I’d be happy to have your Hub motor to be compared side by side. But first let me get my VESC shipment from Chaka have this tested, if my budget fits for 2nd build I would definitely contact you.

Nevertheless Is there any photos where I could see how you mount the hub motor to the truck? I didn’t seem to see it / understand it properly from ES. For the rest of the build of the chinese hub motor compared to your build seems to be quite identical despite different size of bearings and how the cover are locked with the motor can.

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i think there’s a video where Jason talked about this hub motor . somewhere in his youtube vlog or instagram vids . fyi , theres alot of china e~skate hub motors popping up in alibaba & aliexpress . idk about amazon or ebay . maybe there is too . some even offer complete dual hub set up incl remote , 2 escs + programmer and 22V 18650 pack battery . at only USD$469 (i think)

same as you , i dont like the colour . darker blue is ok , since it’s touching the ground . cobalt blue like those wheels ? are not my taste . its a “turn~off” colour .

@mostwanted Yea Jason talked about this hub motor within one of his youtube vlog. I already have this hub motor for sometime already about (1 - 2 months, beginning of this year). I’ve been thinking to post this with my upgraded build later, but I changed my mind. It seems better to have it open in another post :smile:

As far as my investigation, there are only 2 suppliers I could found that sells electric hub motor for longboard. However I decided to go over Lofty Ambition as it seems to be more solid build (in my pov).

I’ve been thinking for sometime now to have my wheels painted black, maybe dyed black. Not sure if that would work.

So the skate hanger is steel?

Doubt u could dye the wheel.

Yes they are steel, in fact they are all steel. There is no plastic involve in this hub motor besides the bearing cover. These hub motor are quite heavy in my opinion. I actually expect hub motor to be lighter and more powerful.

I wouldn’t have thought plastic but maybe an aluminum hanger. Steel hanger…that is surely heavy. That’s a lot of steel

Yea I doubt theres anything aluminium here (besides the bearing, just like I was initially think).

I’ve never heard of any aluminum in bearings. Maybe they’d do the shields

There’s no way those hangers are made from steel. I can tell from looking at the threaded hole alone. Does a magnet stick to them ?

@trbt555 Yes I am wrong again :slight_smile: it’s from aluminium. However the rest are from steel (cover of the hub motor), they are attracted to magnets. The hanger is from aluminium. Strange aluminium are really expensive and if the Chinese is using it, I suppose the hanger are CNC machined. However when the bolt is attached without the hub motor, they doesn’t seems to aligned perfectly. Nevertheless I never expect I have aluminium hanger as all of my trucks are cast trucks.