LightningRods
1 MW
Lots of questions. That’s good. The new drive has piqued your interest.
You can still have a freewheel on the right (pedal) side but it’s not necessary. The motor sprocket on the left just uses the B.B. axle as a convenient location to spin on its bearings. A regular ISIS spider will work fine on the right.
You can pedal without the motor running but you’ll be cogging it since the motor is directly connected to the rear wheel. Any time you have regen you’re going to be turning the motor when you pedal.
You can run the motor without pedaling. It will be like coasting on a regular bike. The freehub in the rear wheel will freewheel on the pedal side. Choose a pedal gear that matches your ground speed under motor and you can pedal along.
I’d like to see how possible it is to work with existing manufactured hubs before making custom billet hubs. The custom billet jobs are expensive to have made and if a cheap solution turns up I’ll be stuck with them. Simon’s approach is run a narrower manufactured hub and then space the rotor off of the sprocket. In the double left side rotor/sprocket setups I’ve seen, including the 165mm hubs I had made, the sprocket is inboard, the rotor is outboard. Here’s one of the available adapters: https://www.bicycledesigner.com/harmony-adapter---bolt-on.html
The prototype LHD drive shipped out to Simon yesterday. I’m having five more sets made the end of this week. I’ll post more photos once I have the parts.
This design really opens the door for higher power levels. Matt Shumaker has been running Astro 3220 power on the left side for many years. The difference with this design is that the kv of my motor is much lower and so the reduction can be way simpler.
You can still have a freewheel on the right (pedal) side but it’s not necessary. The motor sprocket on the left just uses the B.B. axle as a convenient location to spin on its bearings. A regular ISIS spider will work fine on the right.
You can pedal without the motor running but you’ll be cogging it since the motor is directly connected to the rear wheel. Any time you have regen you’re going to be turning the motor when you pedal.
You can run the motor without pedaling. It will be like coasting on a regular bike. The freehub in the rear wheel will freewheel on the pedal side. Choose a pedal gear that matches your ground speed under motor and you can pedal along.
I’d like to see how possible it is to work with existing manufactured hubs before making custom billet hubs. The custom billet jobs are expensive to have made and if a cheap solution turns up I’ll be stuck with them. Simon’s approach is run a narrower manufactured hub and then space the rotor off of the sprocket. In the double left side rotor/sprocket setups I’ve seen, including the 165mm hubs I had made, the sprocket is inboard, the rotor is outboard. Here’s one of the available adapters: https://www.bicycledesigner.com/harmony-adapter---bolt-on.html
The prototype LHD drive shipped out to Simon yesterday. I’m having five more sets made the end of this week. I’ll post more photos once I have the parts.
This design really opens the door for higher power levels. Matt Shumaker has been running Astro 3220 power on the left side for many years. The difference with this design is that the kv of my motor is much lower and so the reduction can be way simpler.