Do you prefer freewheel or cassettte for your hub motor?

seems more driven by availability and price than preference..
hardly any hub motors use cassette, bc its more complicated and expensive design..
 
Cassettes are technically stronger than freewheels. And you have more choices for the gear stack with the cassette.
But the pawls in the freewheel are the same strength for both, and are the weak point. If it breaks, it's going to break the pawls first.

I prefer freewheels because they're cheap, easy to find, cheap, strong enough for my abuse-prone needs, cheap, and also inexpensive.
 
I am 50/50, if there is a motor I like, like the Leaf 1500W that is now available in cassette for a few peso's more or a freewheel, I'd probably choose the cassette version.
 
efMX Trials Electric Freeride said:
axle is stronger with cassette design due to its wider bearing spacing..
its great that more hub motors are adopting this standard..

Bearings aren't why axles snap or don't snap at all. The outer bearing does nothing for you here. It only helps support the cassette itself.

12mm on one axle means you've got a loose fit on 99% of the torque arms out there. It's a bad start to high power. People snap the 14mm axles on motors with similar power ratings. Less metal than that was never a good idea.
 
The most common breakage I remember seeing here were early (ish) hub motors where the free whl. threaded mounting boss broke off.
At any rate, I let the motor do most of the work and I don't pedal hard enough to break anything, so my likes and dis-likes are more mundane.
The DNP is better than the reviews here.
But it's heavy and pricey for me to have the 11 T sm. gear, so I stay on it all the time (no shifting) so I get max service life. I also have a heck of a time getting the free whl. off after it's been on.
For the geared hubbies I use, the taller/narrower "Larger" motors like the Ezee, BPM, MAC, Etc. w/ an 8 or 9 speed DNP are the easiest installs. They just drop in. The short and wide mini's (MXUS FX07, Q100, Ebikling, etc.), when mated to a 9 or 10 speed cassette are getting wide enough to where things start getting tricky(depends on the bike, not all chain stays are created equal).
Even so, on low-power motors (that need some shifting), especially the Cute (Q100), where the cassette and the free whl. versions are the same price, I fight-in the cassette model. Even a budget cassette will shift better than the DNP. And since the used, gd. quality mountain bikes (best value in ebiking) that I buy come w/ a gd. cassette, I don't have to buy a DNP.
Bottom line, for my low-powered (assist) bikes, I prefer a cassette.
W/ my more powerful set-up, the DNP is fine.
 
When trekking across country, the cassette would be a far better choice especially in today's bicycle industry environment.
I doubt the 2 bicycle shops nearest me even carry any multi-speed freewheel.

For us city dwellers of large metropolitan light scapes, its just flip a coin.

Cassette
- More choices in gears
- Easily custom build any gear set you want.
*I dont think I've seen an easy to build custom gear set freewheel, aside from that one thread on ES getting out the grinder.
 
If you have a bicycle you plan on pedaling then cassettes win hands-down. Just better selection of gearing. Since most people can go faster on a ebike then having a wide range gearing is a big advantage. Sunrace has a wide-range 8 speed that would be very inexpensive to use, 11-40 tooth, for example. A 2x8 setup like that would give you meaningful gearing from 5 to 28mph. Or you could just forgo the front derailleur and get a nice 1x8 or 1x10 setup. Some 10 speeds setups go from 11 to 52 gears. Meanwhile the best you can get for freewheel setup that I am aware of would be a Shimano Megarange, from 14 to 34. The price difference between the two is like 5-6 dollars.

Also the other big advantage to cassette is that most bikes, unless you get something very cheap it's unusual to see bikes sporting 7 speeds on the rear nowadays. So when converting to a ebike it can allow you to retain your indexed shifters and existing gearing.

As far as axles go.. i never have broken one, but i have bent them. i don't think that is going to be a issue on a bike with 14mm axle, but technically speaking the cassette setup should be less prone to that.

Of course if you don't plan on pedaling much or want a very simple setup then you can't really beat a single speed freewheel.
 
Only one time did I have a opportunity to choose a cassette, and that was the Q100C vs the Q100H. Since the Q100's are dinky motors, I chose the freewheel version because it's a little wider and BMSBattery said it had more torque. And because I put them in 20" wheels, I had to go with the DNP 11T-34T.
 
W/ a 30% narrower stator, one would think the "C" model would be a "weak sister", but in practice, one doesn't notice a huge drop-off. But we are talking low-power set-up, something like 48V X 15A and no doubt the "H" would take more than the "C".
When we talk about why the C does so well, brings up an old theory that I don't think has been debunked. It is;
The greater power handling of the H (not 30% as advertized) is due to stronger magnets. This is based on the fact that there appears to be little physical differences (windings, size and turns, gear ratios, etc.),so by default, it must be the magnets.
I have run a good deal of power thru the100H. Up to around 55V and 22 to 25 Amper controllers and it held up, But w/ the hard hitting controllers I was using (Infineon"s , a LYnn mini-monster and a Grineon), the motor was starting to "hammer".
I first geared mini I used was the slightly larger MXUS and it is still the mini I compare all others to. We had some impromptu drag races between the two (Q100 H) both under about the same power and swapping bike to adjust for rider weight. The Q100 would always jump out to a one or two length lead, but bu 15 MPH, the MXUS would over take and walk ahead to it's 1 or 2 MPH higher top speed.
 
motomech said:
The most common breakage I remember seeing here were early (ish) hub motors where the free whl. threaded mounting boss broke off.

I was one of the early guys to shear the side cover off a MAC... had to ship the resulting carnage over to MAC's engineering team.
I think a lot of manufacturers back then were casting the freewheel threads into side cover in a very janky way. Less of a problem these days..

motomech said:
The DNP is better than the reviews here.

Aw man, i hated mine so much that i chucked it in the trash, the second i got my hands on an old shimano megarace. It was so questionably machined and so loud during freewheeling. And, being a geared motor fanatic at the time, my bike freewheeled often.

Sunrace and shimano make 7 speed freewheels with 13T lower gears. It's about as good as we can get. Pair that with the largest chainring you can fit.. and i imagine you could pedal up to 'round 35mph on 700c/29er size tires.

Sunrace also makes a 11t geared 9 speed freewheel but it costs a pretty penny and will not fit within standard 135mm drops.
 
White industries BMX single freewheel... expansive but, serviceable and built for a life time.
 
neptronix said:
Sunrace also makes a 11t geared 9 speed freewheel but it costs a pretty penny and will not fit within standard 135mm drops.

The Sunrace MFEX9-9AU 9x 11-32 freewheel is expensive and together with smaller motors like the Bionx fits nicely into 135mm dropouts.

The problem is that a strong rider on a small chainring can destroy them quickly. The bearings simply do not survive high human forces.

The expensive Sunrace freewheel costs 30-35 Euro, weights 600g and will last me 100km when riding uphill on small chainrings or 3000km when riding sensibly and using an additional bearing. It's only acceptable if there is no alternative like for my BionX SL Motors.

A Shimano HG400 9x 11-32 Cassette on the other Hand costs less than 15 Euro, weights 300g and lasts 5000+ km in hub motor setups.
If I prefer 11-25, 11-28 or 11-34 or 11-36 instead those are easily available as cassetes, but not available at all as freewheels.

How long the integrated freewheel system in hub motors with Cassette adaptors last and if you are able to get replacements is another story.

Btw, if you are a strong rider and use small chainrings it can become extremely difficult to dismount a freewheel from the motor.

Cassettes replaced freewheels in bicycles 30 years ago and this is for a reason.
 
Hi all,

We don’t have such much choice with hub motors. They are design to thread a freewheel. However cheap DNP freewheel broke easily (piece of junk). I broke at least 3 of them in less than 10 000 km and just by pushing hard with my legs, though a 56t 11t ratio.

Now I purchased a single freewheel 16t from white industry, £100 but worth I think every penny. To quote spinningmagnet on his website, with a MXUS motor I don’t need any derailleur, a single speed is good enough. Although having a 7 speed derailleur is good to try to hide the motor for the police.
Combining the 16t freewheel it with a massive 80t ring I should be able to peddle at 40 mph without any issue!

Peterfr
 
Cephalotus said:
...

Cassettes replaced freewheels in bicycles 30 years ago and this is for a reason.

Freewheels are still in use despite all tech evolution: BMX, slopestyle, trial... must be for a reason :wink:
 
I believe most Ebike riders are not super strong riders, if they wear Lycra, they most likely would not have a motor. For the majority of riders who commute, or ride to the store or to get some exercise, the DNP works fine.
 
motomech said:
I believe most Ebike riders are not super strong riders, if they wear Lycra, they most likely would not have a motor. For the majority of riders who commute, or ride to the store or to get some exercise, the DNP works fine.

The DNP seven speed works fine for me and I suspect that I'm probably in the middle power range of the lycra crowd. I do a lot of out of saddle climbing on my commute to help my DD hub with the 10-15% hills around here. That said, I'm usually in my 53 tooth which means less stress on the rear gears and at worst I'm in the 42 which isn't super low.

Of course, I may be happy because the original freewheel was such a piece of junk that anything would be an improvement, or it could be that I think it's fine because I've ridden conventional friction systems without all those nifty ramps cut into the gears or indexing for most of my life. And maybe using wax for chain lube helps? I dunno, but I've got many thousands of miles on my DNP and it is doing fine.
 
Freewheeling all the time on a fast bike, is what wears a freewheel the fastest. Pedalists have fewer freewheel problems than riders who are not (or fake) pedaling, on a fast bike especially.

Fit your ratchet driver on a drill and spin it for half an hour, you will feel what I mean. :D
 
Having a cassette hub motor, how would one go about going to a single gear.
Knowing us ebikers who use the throttle all the time rarely use but 4 or 5 of the gears on a rear hub motor.


Eyeing the Leafbike 1500W
 
If I had a low powered hub motor, where I can use all of the gears on a multi-speed cluster, then I'd opt for a cassette version, if available. I fried the DNP 11-34T 7spd FW on my fast hub motor bike (impossible to pedal on human power).

I replaced it with this 12T single speed offset freewheel, and when lubed only once with Phil Wood Tenacious Oil, lasted the next 10,000 miles through every thunderstorm, and freewheels completely silent, with no crunchy feeling or play at all. Even after sustaining 50 mph for several tens of miles day after day. It's the product + the lube that did the trick.
 
markz said:
Having a cassette hub motor, how would one go about going to a single gear.

There are adapters for that. Was just looking at them yesterday. I'll post a link later.

as promised:
https://www.amazon.com/CyclingDeal-Conversion-Single-Shimano-Adaptor/dp/B006WRW45O/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=single+speed+freehub+adapter&qid=1569040569&s=wireless&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Cyclingdeal-Conversion-Single-Tensioner-CyclingDeal/dp/B00811OLGE/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=single+speed+freehub+adapter&qid=1569040569&s=wireless&sr=8-2
 
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