People subscribed to elofty thread might have seen that eLofty might be making 6x2 pneumatic wheels( designed by me) for the purpose of using them with their direct drives. Through this thread, I am helping out Kenna(from eLofty) to figure out the interest in such a product. But wait, this wheel is not just for direct drive. It has been designed to be used for belt drive as well.
She intends to make a mould for the wheel hubs(and then a bit of CNC as opposed to pure CNC from solid block) and that will put the price close to the cheap aliexpress hubs that you have seen around here. The advantage of these hubs(apart from the price) would be that they would use standard bearings and would fit on standard skateboard axle, so a lot more variety of trucks to choose from. They will be available as 2 options: pulley or direct drive. Please vote to tell us if you would be interested in either product. Also do let us know if you want a different size wheel.
As for the tires themselves. She is contacting different suppliers, so we might have more variety.
The parts are:
inner_hub outer_hub
Option1(for direct drive):
One complete set includes 4 identical wheels so it can be used for 4WD.
The wheel hub is made of inner_hub+outer_hub.
You can also attach the pulley to the wheel in option1.
Option2(for pulley setup):
One set includes 4 identical wheels, 2 pulleys for rear tires and other necessary hardware.
The wheel hub is made of outer_hub+outer_hub.
I think developing both ideas would be great, as it would allow these wheels to be used in a variety of different places.Option 1 can be used in both DD setups as well as belt setups because people may already have Kegel pulleys that they might wanna use here. Option 2 is great because the actual pulley uses very little material so would be good for low budget setups, and it can be used with the other 6x2 wheels that are available. Can’t wait to see how you guys go with this
I think I have seen people saying that they have put bergs on aliexpress hubs. If that’s true then it will work on these ones too. Maybe you’ll find with a bit of searching.
Maybe getting 2 of each wheel types would make sense. 2WD setups are much more common than 4WD. For 2WD DD, getting two of the option2 wheels for front would save a little bit on weight and would also add some flexibility. You may want to use the wheels with a belt drive later. That would then be a matter of adding the pulleys and swapping back and front wheels.
For direct drive with pneumatics, 4WD would be the way to go for most people, unless they are a short lean person. If people are going to use 2WD direct drive then also the Option 1 will work fine. It’s just a tiny bit heavier. I doubt the price difference would be significant. The upside is that if they want to upgrade to 4WD, they just additional motors.
Yes, the weight would be a tiny bit higher but otherwise 1 and 2 are same. You can slap the pulley on option 1 too.
Having said that, I don’t see why any possible combination of hubs and pulleys can’t be made available. However, the point of this thread to gauge the numbers of wheels that might be bought, if this product comes to market.
So the thing is there are 2 different cores by default: Let’s call it inner_hub(with kegel holes) and outer_hub(without kegel holes).
Option 1 wheel is inner_hub+outer_hub.
Option 2 wheel is outer_hub+outer_hub.
I can’t use just the inner_hub everywhere is because the larger diameter of bearing-holding-part intersects with the fill valve. What I can do instead is reduce that diameter. The issue is that it won’t surround the kegel adapter pins anymore and the hub would also lose considerable strength.
I have a whole thread about using those aliexpress wheels with 3d printed pulleys and now dickyho thankfully has aluminum pulleys for those wheels.
But those require extended axle to work(like TB218 trucks)
The reason I have option 2 is because otherwise the wheels will be limited to just direct drive(they should work with TB DD too). With option 2 they can be easily used for pulley drive too.
the kegel holes don’t go all the way through, so the only kegel pulley that you can use has to have a bearing. That means, it can’t go on standard axle.
