Maytech vs Koowheel - why the price difference?

ESK8 Electronics
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Hi all,

Dummy alert I’m new to electric skateboard building - I read what I could, but still have a lot of (probably dumb) questions /Dummy alert

Currently, I am thinking about building a DIY esk8, and because I’m on a tight budget (plus I live in EU), I looked at the Chinese market.

For a couple of reasons, I want a hub motor drive. On Aliexpress, I found these two offers:

Maytech:

Koowheel: (link edited, thanks for the heads-up, Nick!)

Both are approx. the same price, but the Koowheel is the complete board incl. Batttery, while the maytech is just the drive & electronics.

I don’t need the board, as I’m converting a deck of my own. But I wonder if I should just strip down the Koowheel…

Why this difference between them? is Maytech substantially better?

Thanks a lot for sharing your insights.

1 Like
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I think you got the wrong link for koowheels, presumably you meant this one.

First of all, the specs for that are bullshit. With 2x 250W hub motors it probably doesn’t go 45km/h. And if it does it DEFINITELY can’t climb a 25% grade hill. It’s listed as having a 4.4Ah 10S battery pack, which should yield around 15km of range, not even close to the listed 35-40km.

As for Maytech, their products are generally pretty good. In that package the hub motors are listed as 800W (presumably 2x 400W). Still not very good but reasonable for hub motors. It also comes with 2 VESCs which are likely much better than what you can find in the Koowheels board.

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i think @RunPlayBack did a video about having the koowheel board that i saw somewhere but haven’t seen a follow up video about performance. Maybe he can chime in on his thoughts.

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Long story short, I was in NYC a few weeks ago and visited the Ride Genesis headquarters. I borrowed one of their boards because I was filming a reality show and they wanted to feature an electric board. Since it was last minute and transporting my custom eboard would have been a pain, I opted to use the Genesis as a loaner. I was able to do a quick unboxing video, but didn’t get to do a full blown ride video because I didn’t have all my camera gear. For the price - it is what it is - it has some decent torque but the bushings, deck and hubs felt a little stiff for my liking (I also didn’t have my skate tool so there’s that). My DIY builds are definitely superior and probably worth spending the extra $ rather than risking failing parts.

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Thanks a lot for the insights. What generation was the Koowheel? V1 or V2?

I still wonder about the Maytech drive. Their VESC seems to be good, and I know that their motors are well appreciated in the drone builder community. Can someone chime in on them?

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they also make decent esk8 motors, id say maytec have a better reputation for making good products then koowheel

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Someone who knows its way around the technical details - can you compare the tech specs of Maytech and Koowheel? Are they per se comparable, or is Maytech clearly superior in this respect?

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Of course, so sorry for the confusion with the bad link :unamused:

Thanks for posting the correct Koowheel link.

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The hubs are pretty much the same, but with a vesc they should be smoother. you can get the hubs alone for $200, so that bundle is more expensive lol

the koolwheel is fine if you just want to take a few short rides, it has good torque, can handle hills, but its really cheap, it’ll probably break somehow…

and i haven’t seen replacement drive “wheels” for any of these hubs. one time use?