im observing how were drifting back to belts vs whatever in this thread…perhaps its indicative that not many of us have actually had the chance to try out both the drives that are the subject in this thread which are chain drives and gears
anyone out there that actually have real experience with both drive concepts?
I have both.
My problem with gears is that the stones get stuck between the gearbox and the wheel and tear the tire, and sometimes the inner tube.
Maybe the gear box shouldn’t be larger than the hub.
Gearboxes are exposed to stones. I tried to repair that but it last one session only!
With time and vibrations, the motor slides down and the motorspur comes into contact with the wheelspur and crush i!t :
I definitely fixed that using these :
My problem with chains is that the stones get stuck inside wheelsprocket :
Two guys on the french forum killed motor axle this way.
I fixed that adjusting the chain so that it is loose enough to make room for two stones stuck in the wheelsprocket.
In the end, I prefer gears. I have E-TOXX first version of DirectDrive. It’s already really good, and the new version with smaller gearboxes will be even better.
Noise is not a problem. I don’t feel vibration with gears, but I only use it with a mountainboard.
thanks a million!!!
do you feel a big difference between both drives? why do you choose a gear drive over chains (given that both can be protected from dirt and debris).
Glad to see stones don’t give a shit about anyone. They seem to be a problem for everyone but direct drives. They’re a problem for hubs too because the thane is so thin.
In my experience gears are more compact. typically have smaller center to center distances than chain.
And since the tooth size is smaller for gears there’s less nonlinear energy transfer for smaller gears. A 9 tooth sprocket would start to have issues with vibrations.
When free spinning, a small sprocket will yank back and forth on opposite sides of the chain when maintaining a speed. This is because as the tooth count decreases the “roundness” of the sprocket becomes more and more granular. It’s really a regular 9 sides polygon, not sacircle. Something like 7 teeth would be completely unusable, but a gear of similar diameter but greater tooth count would be acceptable.
You also get overlapping diameters with a gear and need clearance between sprockets in chain. That just decreases C2C more.
And a shorter C2C means your motor mounts can be lighter and not as thick, due to a shorter lever arm.
On a separate note, gears and chain try and bend the motor mounts on opposite directions. A chain drive will pull the motors out away from your board under load, while a gear will push the motors together. Just handy to keep in mind if anyone’s designing a mount.
@slick : I didn’t try “protected” chain drive. I prefer the gearbox because with the chains while I’m riding I keep being concerned by stones getting stuck in the wheel sprocket.
Il like the way the mounts can not touch the ground when falling. More compact.
compact design is an advantage of course. got it…thx!
If you really care that much we should get a quality dB meter and send it across belt guys and chain guys here on the forum and compare the numbers 
Have you ever heard a 125cc 2 stroke ktm dirt bike?
Thats the perfect sound for a motorised skateboard imo 
honestly, I really don´t mind the sound of my chains…it´s reminiscent of a turbine when im accelerating and it´s relatively quiet when i´m coasting. i´m sure gearing ratios also have an impact on the sound beeing emmited from the drive train.
what´s really bothering is the sound resonating from the board and enclosure itself on my build. its low pitched and low enough to get those dogs attention. a few days ago a dog tried to bite my board. stupid mutt got lucky it didnt put its nose into the chain drive.
how´s your chain drive progressing? got all the parts and started building yet?
i ordered the wrong screws for my motor mount, so i can not measure the exact mm of the sprocket to shave off on a lathe when they come i will finally have a ridable board, i got all the parts in double, in case anything fails
I´m glad I´m not the only one that did that mistake hahaha - I´m stuck with 50pcs of M3 x 8mm screws. I should stop shopping online beyound midnight LOL
I also got the m3 maytech uses m4… The hole on the motors is 3mm since your measuring the tip of the thread but the screw is 4mm…
We can push a surprising amount of power from these motors given we custom made them for purpose. They’re sealed and featured a reinforced shaft and two support bearings, they’re hardly toys.
I do apologise for the toy comment that was not nice and incorrect you guys have great engineering but power wise I’ll have to see to believe.
i don’t think we’ll be disappointed. “tiny” motors have never had a real issue with delivering power. In my experience, the issue is with heat dissipation. I feel pretty good that they solved that issue in some clever way that we’ll find out about soon enough.
great.
just saw this video:
@captainjez you guys using gears? spur gears or helical?
Damn I’ve never seen the word down’t before.
Down’t do that mmmkay. @b264
On topic, they are damn noisy. Doesn’t surprise me it is a pre-production model. Still seems to be the exact same unfinished awd they’ve been passing around. Still no sign of their release remote in the wild either.
Edit: Thought this was a new video they’ve released. It isn’t.
That’s the sound of gears self destructing.
That video is old and was with a very broken test board.