Hub Motor & Urethane Riding Qualities

You must be new around here ( :wink: ) but I’ll have you know that I’ve got a bunch of eskaters in the NYC region clamoring for those sweet, sweet 107s. Not to mention the boys and gals in this forum. I can most certainly guarantee you that once it becomes available in the NYC area it’ll be scoop up faster than Trump’s drop in approval ratings.

On a side note, I’m a huge fan of your brand. I wont ride any other urethane wheels unless they’re Abecs11 approved. So big ups to you man. Whoever shaman you paid to imbue magics onto your wheels needs a pay raise.

When i was looking for a longboard to start -and not have a clue about electric boards- i read some downhill riders use different angled trucks for their board, like 40 front 15 back, to turn from front and not lose back that easily.

flywheels and superflys are awesome but is there any chance in the future they will come in colors other than bright green? Its really hard color to match to your average build unless your a green lover. I know its the signature color and all but its so harsh. :confounded: A lot of DIY builders like to take pride in the look of there boards and wheel color is a big part of that. Out of your past colors the transparent red bigzigs are really nice.

Sorry for going off topic. :flushed: and I agree more urethane is better than less.

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This is one reason i bought some of the new evolve wheels. It’s just really hard to match bright green to my board aesthetic. Also the new evolve wheels have a 55cm contact patch which is much appreciated.

Chris, is this new Superfly’s offset? That is a big problem for some dual builds, an offset wheel leaves more space for the drivetrain

Yes they are.

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I think you have that backwards. The Classic centerset version of the 107mm Flywheel is 76mm wide making it 38mm from the center of the hub to the inside edge of the wheel. The offset version is 26mm from the center of the hub to the inside edge of the wheel which is identical to the 83mm, 90mm, and 97mm Flywheels.

So ironically even though we called the 107mm wheel the “Electric Flywheel” is the one wheel that almost no one used for electric skateboards. It is too wide to the inside for most people to be able to use dual motors. Since most everyone wants/uses dual motors, we made it the same as the other Flywheels so that all existing wheel pulleys fit perfectly. Here’s a 97mm Flywheel and a 107mm SuperFly “inside” the original 107mm Flywheel.

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Long term we could make some in different colors, but for now I think that there will be a number of different color ABEC 11 Flywheels that are from our co-branding partners. Metro Board will have red, Carvon blue, Ollin black, Evolve charcoal …

For now I’d just dye them black using Rit …

That is why I make 5°, 10°, 1°5, 20°, 25°, 30°, 35°, 40°, 45°, 50°, 55°, 60° baseplates. We slalom geeks never use the same truck in the back as we use in the front. After that the street lugers and downhillers use splits, and the rest of the world has been slower to catch on.

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So Ollin will have black wheels ? :heart_eyes:

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So you’re saying the Evolve GT 97mm wheels are made by you? If so, I just got a boost of confidence!

Im enjoying the conversation about wheel size, thickness of urethane and hubmotors. I agree that handling is very important for safety but also for riding comfort and fun. In another thread I mentioned I used a Boosted Board for a couple of days, and although it doesnt have amazing speed, acceleration and range compared to my DIY, it definitely was just as much fun to ride, simply because it handles so well and carves so nicely.

@ChrisChaput you mention that if you would ever develop hub motors, you’d go for a very large diameter wheel to have enough thane thickness to get the right handling. I personally have concerns this could negatively affect handling by increasing the ride height unless you compensate with a drop down deck. Wheel bite and weight are also increased. What do you think about that?

I mentioned one way that I would approach the challenges regarding hub motors. Here’s how I’m looking at our current situation. “Our” meaning the electric skateboard building community. And I’m not going to speak on behalf of the guys oversees who are just trying to make a buck by selling some piece of junk that looks decent enough but falls apart or dies in a week or two. They build boards to make money. I want to make boards for skaters who can tell the difference between acceptable and exceptional.

To get a decent urethane-to-hub ratio you’re going to have to one of two things, or a little of both. Increase the height of the wheel, decrease the size of the hub/motor, or both. Because of my (negative) experiences with metal cored wheels delaminating on the first run (Labeda 90mm Streetluge Wheels), I always want to make sure that my thane is securely fastened to a structural component such as a hub or a sleeve that provides a good chemical bond. A good PU material like Estaloc works great but I still use a mechanical lock as a fail-safe. If 2mm is the minimum wall thickness for the sleeve, you’d have to add 4mm to the hub motor diameter. If you used a 5065 motor then you’d be looking at a 54mm minimum hub diameter and a wheel that’s at least 65mm wide, more if you want your axle-nut to be recessed.

That’s a pretty small motor and yet it’s a pretty big hub. It’s 9mm bigger diameter than the Flywheel hub so to get the same urethane depth you’d need a wheel that was 9mm taller. The 90mm wheel goes 99mm. But if you look at the fact that the 45mm hub is half of the 90mm wheel, then a 54mm hub would need a 108mm wheel to be half.

So that’s just the math behind urethane depth, but are the current 5065 motors good enough to power your board with 99mm to 108mm wheels? If not, then what can we do?

  1. Find a way to make small motors powerful enough
  2. Put bigger hub motors into bigger wheels
  3. Put bigger hub motors into the same sized wheels

I don’t have as much confidence in making huge technological gains in “small motor” power. It will happen, I just don’t know when and by how much. I know a bit about making nice big wheels, and I don’t like not having enough urethane. What makes sense is to get the best small motor that you can find and make the wheel with the most urethane that you can handle.

You can drop decks, drop trucks through the deck, and use rocker to lower your ride height. Big wheels are tricky. Wheel bite is a bitch. But I’ll do whatever I can NOT to go back to steel wheels.

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We don’t make the Evolve GT wheels (83mm, 97mm), but Evolve may be releasing some genuine ABEC 11 SuperFly’s in different sizes and/or colors.

I’m pretty sure that Jeramiah likes black for Ollin so maybe you should tell him that you think that would be sick …:wink:

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gotcha, well hopefully the thane on these are close to the quality of yours!

Mr. Chaput’s inspiration and dedication changed the face of skateboarding I know that it also changed the face of electric skateboards. Stoked on it all!

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Concrete Wave in the house!!! Nice to see you here Michael.

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nice to be here…the water is fine…just gotta be careful not to get my skate wet!

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Hey Chris, could you explain a bit more about this… What is Rit? Sorry if it’s a stupid question, but I would like to have a try