To Mac, or not to Mac?

My ancient Conhismotor dd had died and I'm considering replacing it with an 8t or 10t Mac. Maybe even a 6t. I'm talking about the upgraded ones, unless anyone advises otherwise. I'm wondering which one would be best for me. Your advice would be massively appreciated.

I weigh about 12.5 stone.
I'd say my bike weighs about 17kg including the battery.
My area is fairly flat, but there are a few short hills about. Not very steep though.
My journeys are a mixture of stop-start and long free-flow sections of road.
I run a 48v 20ah lifepo4 at 30amp max through a lyen 12 fet controller.
I'd be looking to run the Mac on a 26 inch rim on hookworms.
I'd like to see at least 30mph on a long flat.
I pretty much just want to run it full throttle when not stopping...

I think that's all the important info?
Thanks in advance!

Depends on what voltage your 48v battery is hot off charger.

I have both the 10t and 8t which I run on 12s lipo 49V HOC.

Only the the 8t will get you the speed you want but the 10t will still get you 27mph (on my voltage)

I would always go for more torque ie the 10t but seeing as you don't have that many hills I think the 8t would tick all your boxes.

Kudos

If you are planning to use your Lyen controller with the MAC, do some searching here on the forum. I had a Lyen 9Fet I tried to get to work with a 6T MAC and could never get it to run smoothly. Some others have had a hard time getting the Lyen controller to play nice with the MAC too.

kudos said:

I have both the 10t and 8t which I run on 12s lipo 49V HOC.

Kudos

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I see things like 12s and so on here on the forum. Im completely ignorant on lipos and codes. How many amps can 12s output?

Sorry for the hijack!

Dan L.

I have a MAC 6T on a specialized hard tail running 24 x 3.00 tires. It is slated for a DH Comp but that is not done yet. The only issue that I have noticed is that from a stand still it stutters if you give it a lot of throttle and then cuts out. If I release the throttle and then just give it another go while rolling, it goes just fine. Not sure what the deal is with it or if it is common to all MACs, just 6T's or just mine. I didn't get it new so I don't know if it is upgraded or not.

Once it gets going, it is FAST; almost 30 mph on 36 volts.

'Cal

Danschutz said:

kudos said:

I have both the 10t and 8t which I run on 12s lipo 49V HOC.

Kudos

Click to expand...

I see things like 12s and so on here on the forum. Im completely ignorant on lipos and codes. How many amps can 12s output?

Sorry for the hijack!

Dan L.

Click to expand...

Dan,

I wouldn't worry about how many amps lipo can output, it's way more then you will ever need. If you really want to understand it look up 'lipo c rate'.

I happen to use a 40amp controller which is easily served by standard lipo.

The higher c rate lipo can output hundreds of amps which is used for some high end radio control vehicles, but unnecessary for ebike needs.

Kudos

8 t if you really want that speed. 6t sucks imo. Too tall a winding for 26" wheels. The one I rode flew once up to speed, but took off much much slower than a similar top speed dd motor. That might have been better with a higher amps controller.

Personally, I'd choose the 10t. No, I never rode one. But I see a lot of talk here from those that love them. 27 mph is enough. I'd rather leave the line better than have 3-4 mph more.

12s means twelve cells connected in series. In the lithium cobalt and lithium manganese types, 14s is "48v" But 12t runs good on 48v controllers, and can be a simpler set up to charge.

In lifepo4, 16s is "48v"

P means parallel. So a 4p 12s pack means 4 cells connected in a group, and 12 of those groups connected in series.

12s 4p is different. 12 cells in series, and 4 of the series connected strings then connected parallel. Lots of the "lipo" RC pack setups are 12s 2p, with 5 ah cells for a 10 ah, 44v pack.

I had an 8T mac and absolutely loved it but I always wanted more power and killed it by abusing it with 3500 Watts, 16S LiPo and about 55 amps, top speed 41 mph !

The clutch gave up in the end, that was the old clutch though the newer ones are much stronger, the gears are bullet proof.

An 8T is all you'll need, it flies up hills at 40 amps, and it still should be powerful enough @ 30 amps.

The mac has amazing power for it's size and suits bicycles much more than scooter motors that have been modified into bicycle wheels. Long steep hills every day may not be the best at full throttle.

It was pretty efficient, 8ah 16S would take me 20 miles with no pedalling and a few hills. @15-20 mph. 48V will see 31 mph max.

If I were to go the hub motor route again I would most likely opt for a 12T upgraded motor, one of cell-man's frame batteries, maybe 48v 11ah and while it wouldn't be too fast it could still do 20-22 mph, I don't need speed any more. Steep hill climbing assistance is more important to me now.

I think hubs are fine if you don't want to pedal much and if you don't have mega hills and slow trails with mega hills. For normal riding an 8T mac is all you'll ever need and offers a good balance between speed and torque with a 48v battery.

I don't intend going back to hubs any time soon, crank drives such as the Bosch allow me climb a 23% hill if I want with only 500 watts and it will never get too hot and I can get away with only 400 watt hrs battery which I usually only ever use 40-50% on a 30-35 mile cycle with very steep hills. One of the reasons of course for such good range is the motor cuts assistance at 17 mph. Still plenty for me.

Yeah, 8 t is a plenty fast motor. But not one for 3000w on up.

dogman said:

Yeah, 8 t is a plenty fast motor. But not one for 3000w on up.

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No 3kw isn't good long term but for bursts it's fine. I think my mistake was the phase amps up at 12 amps or so, I'm a bit of a torque junkie !

Even at 2kw 40 odd amps on 48V it was able to climb hills pretty fast and I think this helps to keep the motor a lot more efficient than climbing at a slower speed where the motor is less efficient and more heat being generated.

The motors are even more robust now with a much beefier clutch.

For the Op though I think the 8T is ideal, it will give him the 30 mph he is looking for and still decent torque. The 30 amp controller will never kill it. And it free wheels much better than any DD hub.

You mean some people run 3000w and don't give it to the motor continuous? I've heard of that.

Once I have that much torque, Ill take it to the dirt, and ride with the whole rim buried in sand, or up a rocky mountain.

But if your speed is only 30 mph, then you'd just pull that short burst getting going, then settle in at 1000w or so.

gazmunch said:

I'd like to see at least 30mph on a long flat.

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Then it's going to be the 8T for over 30mph

Thanks very much for the responses, chaps. 8t it is then!

I've been offered a first generation 8t Mac for £100. I'm assuming it has the original nylon gears, but will hopefully find out for sure today. This sounds like a great deal to me, but just wondered what your opinions were.

Thanks!

Should be able to hit 30 on 1200w or less, so I see no reason reasonably long runs at 30 can't be done on the 8t.

I'm just the slow motor guy here, always urging the slower rpm choice. I like the better take off, and live where hills can be 10 miles long.

Thanks Kudos and Dogman

The 10T with the 36v - 72v 30A controller from cell_man runs at 31 mph on 60v as well and will outperform the 8T going uphill just as the 12T will outperform the 10T uphill. Ive heard the 12T is a beast and I have the 10T and its a monster both on hills and flats. You really cant go wrong with any of the MAC hubs as long as you keep in mind that its only going to do so much compared to the uber powerful DD hubs and use no higher than a 72v battery with them. But they are hands down more powerful than most geared hubs on the market today.

Right, I've struck a deal for a newer (not newest) version of the Mac 8t laced into a 24" wheel. Really pleased with this deal and I can't wait to get it and put it on to my bike.

What controller are you getting with it? As Im sure you know the MAC is very picky on the controller used with it and I had it running with my old GM PRO 901 controller which was very odd to say the least.

12 fet Lyen

I've got the Mac 10t in a 700C rim with 12 fet 72v controller powered by 10S/10Ah's of HK lipos and it eats hills for breakfast and does about 40kmh HOC. She pulls a max of about 1400 watts when climbing WOT. I reckon 40 clicks is enough speed for me as my bike is a piece of shit and I'm afraid it may break up if I go any faster :wink: I've done about 4000km on this rig so far and it hasn't skipped a beat.

I imagine that the 8t in a 24" rim on 15S of lipo would be pretty close to your mark of 30mph.

I recently finished my first build enough to ride it and have about 30 miles on it. I bought the 500W Mac 10t with 36V frame battery pack and 25A controller. In the Cycle Analyst I set the max watts to 500 and max amps to 25. It seems people are running their Macs above the wattage specification for the motor. Is that correct? How high can you go without risk to the motor? 25A x 36V would be 900 Watts. Can I set the max watts in the CA that high?

Oldwahoo thats a good tricky question, it depends on how many Lb of thrust the internal gears or clutch can handle before failing, i never bumped into this info.
its not simply watts and amps in the sense you mean, those are for overheating at continus use.
you can set even 50A, but depends on if you twist full throttle from start or gradually and how many phase amps are setup in your controller.

example if your battery amps are 10A and phase amps 50A 1:5 ratio, and you change to batt 50A and phase 250A the gears might break, but if its 1:1 ratio batt 10A phase 10A and you change to batt 50A phase 50A the gears wont break because its similar to the 1st setup of batt 10A and phase 50A 1:5 ratio.

if you twist the throttle full from stop, you make controller send max amps that are set, if you throttle gradually you dont command it to send max amps, and as you aproch max speed of your voltage the amount of amps that your controller can send tapers off because of Back-EMF, even if its 500A you wont reach it

If you have a problem with Lyens controller, check and see if it's a eb212 or a eb312. Little trouble with the eb312 on a MAC, but some times runs rough with eb212.

Dan

Cheers. I know that my controller works with the Mac that I'm getting because both the Mac and controller have come from the same chap, and have been used together without issue on one of his previous builds.

If anyone with Mac experience could help with the issue in having with mine, it would be massively appreciated.http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=59967&p=896406#p896406