Geared Hub Motor Quality

Grendlee

1 µW
Joined
Aug 25, 2020
Messages
4
Hi, I have come accross a few hub motor brands in the industry.

Bafang (most popular)
XiongDa
Mxus

what are the pros and cons of each brand for a 500 watt geared hub?

which is the best quality?
 
None of the above will be particularly crap quality. The days of geared motors breaking or melting the gears are long gone.

Possibly the best out there is the Ezee. Grin Technology in Vancouver is the vendor for it.

What is the best choice for you depends on a lot of other factors, particularly the total load you expect to carry. Thats you, the bike, the motor, the battery, and any cargo. Then that weight load a given motor can handle depends on the grades of any hills, and the length of the hill. In general, if your weight load is under 300 pounds a geared motor is a good choice.
 
There was a thread on the dual geared Xiongda. WHen spun in reverse, it engaged a hill climbing gear.

I wanted to try one, just a couple of hundred bucks to buy, but so many early adopters broke them, I'm glad I never did,
 
Hub manufacturers by build quality (my experience + forums reads):
1. Maxon (https://www.maxonbikedrive.com/en/buy/hub-motor) CH
2. Heinzmann DE
5. Tdcm TW
4. Ezee MYS
5. Culter Mac CN
6. Bafang CN
7. Nine Continent CN
8. Leaf CN
9. Shengyi CN
10. Xiongda / Mxus / Aikema / no name chinese
 
nice list!

Which of the top tier

ignoring price

make the most powerful (torque not speed)

without sacrificing too much reliability / longevity?

 
john61ct said:
nice list!

Which of the top tier

ignoring price

make the most powerful (torque not speed)

without sacrificing too much reliability / longevity?

Geared:
Heinzmann Cargopower: https://www.heinzmann-electric-motors.com/produkte/fahrrad-radnabenmotoren/cargopower
Though I doubt you can get one. The motor seems to be stuck in development.
Mxus GDR-19: cheap and plenty of torque, though it can be noisy
So your choice would probably be the mac or an ezee.

That being said, any 6Kg DD hub laced into a 20" wheel will easily smoke those geared hubs (maybe not the heinzman) away, because their sheer weight can take a lot more abuse, and there are no gears that could brake. Get a 36V version and feed it 40-50amps, and you ll have plenty of torque.

The question is always what frame do you have, where do you live (hills?) and what use you ll make of the motor (commute, offroad, cargo?). Depending on your answers to those questions, the "best" motor might be a different one for you.
 
Heavy tandem / cargo, long steep hills.

DD alone and ungeared may burn as speed gets too slow.

Thinking a second motor, geared in tandem would increase capacity, add "limp home" redundancy.
 
john61ct said:
Heavy tandem / cargo, long steep hills.

DD alone and ungeared may burn as speed gets too slow.

Thinking a second motor, geared in tandem would increase capacity, add "limp home" redundancy.

Tandem + hills + large wheels (26+) = tricky for hub motors. On the other hand, tandems have large frames with a lot of space for customization. Depending on your skills, perhaps the best solution would be a custom mid drive based on a big block or a stokemonkey. Simplest would be to slap in a bbshd.
If you want to stick with a hub motor, I'd suggest finding (or building) a frame with smallest wheels. 20x3" would be paramount for comfort and power. 20" + suspension fork and seats could also work.
 
qwerkus said:
Tandem + hills + large wheels (26+) = tricky for hub motors.
Will often be off pavement, need the bounce, likely fattish tires, 26" is a maximum total O.D. not rim size.

Want to start off without suspension, stick to low & slow.

Yes I am considering the one big custom mid drive, but no skillz nor tools right now, so looking at maybe going with multiple "plug and play" motors for a first round. Have family members I can hand down to later, so no waste.

I'm basically willing to try one "best in class" of each type, with a focus on the low speed torque, experiment with each, combine.

So this thread, geared hubs. . .

Does the Grin "gmac" slot in with generic mac on that list, or do Justin's enhancements slide it up a bit?

For me, always a focus on the low speed torque scenario, never speed.


 
Been reading extensively here and elsewhere for about 8 years. I read VORACIOUSLY.

Focus on small geared hub motors, as they best fit my needs.

30 years experience in diagnostics and troubleshooting.

Bafang - huge numbers, few negative reports outside of usage beyond recommended parameters.

MXUS - what I choose. Nowhere near the numbers for Bafang, and, specifically for their small geared units, very, VERY few breakage reports. Six years, approx 15,000 miles, zero issues.

Xiongda - I am going to strongly disagree with Dogman here. Outside of people who are paid to say nice things about these, and even including several of those, very few folks would recommend them. Major design flaws, severe quality control issues, "total crap" would be a good and fitting description. Eric says they are great, and that should tell you a lot.
 
Surprised nobody has mentioned the MAC and GMAC geared hubs? They are just about the strongest available.
 
He won't even say what its for.
 
AHicks said:
Surprised nobody has mentioned the MAC and GMAC geared hubs? They are just about the strongest available.
Mac is on the list, and I just asked about gmac
 
AngryBob said:
MXUS - what I choose. Nowhere near the numbers for Bafang, and, specifically for their small geared units, very, VERY few breakage reports. Six years, approx 15,000 miles, zero issues.
I started w/ a MXUS geared over 10 years ago I got from the long gone Amped Motors and although I don't think it lasted quite as far as yours, it was a great motor. Eventually, the left side axle bearing started to go, possibly because salt air/water where I used the bike. I could hear/feel it when the bike was leaned when turning left. I could have replaced it, but I just gave it to a kid in the neighborhood.

We used to drag race, me w/ a diminutive Q100H, he w/ the MXUS. The bikes/batteries/controllers were pretty much the same, although I considerably outweighed him and it was close. The Cute would jump out in the lead, probably because of it's compound gearing, but by 15 mph, the MXUS would motor by to it's 1 or 2 mph higher top speed. The speed rating of the Cute was 260 @ 36V, while I think the MXUS was 270 @ 36V.

Been using the Q100's since they first came out and while they are more fragile than the other minis, they really came into their own when the "H" model came out. Even though they are tiny and only weight 2.2 Kg, they will absorb 900 to 1000 Watts day in and day out, if one is careful on steepish hills.
Since I'm happy w/ 22 mph, I like to get my 900 watts from 52V X 17 Amps feed to a 201 (low speed) motor, the same speed I get w/ 48V X 17A on the 260 motor. 52V X 17A on the 260 motor will add a mph or 2 and it will climb almost as well.

On the original subject of geared hubbie quality, I've gone thru a lot more controllers than motors even though they are mini's.
 
MACs are still my #1. Bafang would be my second choice.

I also have an ezee... very well built.. but you're going to pay quite a bit for that extra build quality.. worth it to you?

Xiongda sent me one mis-manufactured motor and then replaced it with one that actually lasted longer than 2 miles but had such shoddy internal build quality, it's sat in my bin, unused, for a year now.
 
It is worth noting that the two motors with exceptionally poor quality control from Xiongda that Neptronix is referring to were NOT the infamous Xiongda 2-speed, but a completely different and unrelated model.

Numerous such reports makes one wonder how anyone could possibly put this company in a list of the top three small geared hub makers.

Perhaps someone in California with a hundred or so of them sitting in his warehouse with his logo emblazoned on them, which no one wants? Also interesting that the 2-speed thread has once again recently come back to life, albeit briefly.

Methinks someone is getting desperate for cash.

Life can get tough when you can no longer afford your herd of flying monkeys.
 
john61ct said:
qwerkus said:
Tandem + hills + large wheels (26+) = tricky for hub motors.
Will often be off pavement, need the bounce, likely fattish tires, 26" is a maximum total O.D. not rim size.

Want to start off without suspension, stick to low & slow.

Yes I am considering the one big custom mid drive, but no skillz nor tools right now, so looking at maybe going with multiple "plug and play" motors for a first round. Have family members I can hand down to later, so no waste.

I'm basically willing to try one "best in class" of each type, with a focus on the low speed torque, experiment with each, combine.

So this thread, geared hubs. . .

Does the Grin "gmac" slot in with generic mac on that list, or do Justin's enhancements slide it up a bit?

For me, always a focus on the low speed torque scenario, never speed.

Regarding your GMAC question, same quality as the MAC, with design improvements, but maybe a bit technical when it comes to optimizing. Mechanically solid, but the electronics it uses to do what it does (variable regen, etc.) may put it out of reach for a lot of guys that don't want to do some tinkering. Probably not the best choice for a rookie build. The MAC, if you can find one, would be much simpler.
 
I'm pretty sure you don't need variable regen for a GMAC, and you don't need a GMAC for variable regen.

The only peculiarity to account for is that it has rather high resistance when unpowered, so a happy user will be one who always has the power on. Grin Baserunner/Phaserunner controllers make that easy, having the feature built in to supply a small constant power that compensates for the drag, but if you don't have that it isn't any real problem - you just have to add power when you're tired of it dragging. Direct drive users have been dealing with this since day 1.
 
donn said:
I'm pretty sure you don't need variable regen for a GMAC, and you don't need a GMAC for variable regen
Interesting!

Which of the others offer it?

I don't mind complexity, so long as helpful resources exist, definitely looking for regen and motors that will work well with FOC.

 
Variable regen is a controller feature that works with any motor that can do regen.
The GMAC is not any more/less complex to deal with than a DD.
 
neptronix said:
Variable regen is a controller feature that works with any motor that can do regen.
The GMAC is not any more/less complex to deal with than a DD.

This needs to be put in a little better context, don't you think?

For starters, a DD regen will work just fine with a pretty simple/inexpensive controller and an on-off switch. That same controller, set up the same way and powering a GMAC, would have the rear tire locking up when applied.

The GMAC would require the sophistication available with a Phaserunner (and CA3) to control the regen potential from an armature turning 5 times faster than a DD, able to supply up to 90 amps of braking power. That's some serious braking I personally would want to be careful with....

Anyone trying to tell a total rookie any different is doing that rookie a dis-service - suppling bad information that could cost somebody a serious amount of time and money to find out they were fed a line of BS, intentionally, or not.....
 
Well in my case since I want top-notch latest-technology ideally true-FOC controllers anyway, for many other reasons

That is a very useful and relevant post.

Seems to me that variable regen is often featured in such controllers.

Are there other **geared hub** motors listed above, that might be as good or even better than GMAC

as in, more powerful, wrt torque at low speeds

reliability / longevity being paramount

for my use case as outlined above?

 
john61ct said:
donn said:
I'm pretty sure you don't need variable regen for a GMAC, and you don't need a GMAC for variable regen
Interesting!

Which of the others offer it?

Well, you do need a GMAC if it must be a geared hub motor. Otherwise it's direct drives. As far as I know other geared hubs have a freewheel - and none have a mechanism for locking and unlocking it, so you have to choose when you build the wheel.
 
Not that I "only can use" a geared hub motor, but that **is** the topic of this thread, and it remains more valuable sticking to that, other categories can be discussed in other threads.

So thanks for confirming the GMAC is unique wrt regen.

But if I **do** go to multiple motors, then the geared one does not need to be the one delivering regen, a second ungeared DD to kick in once speed (heading up the slope from stopped) is up to 6-10mph ?

So my original question still stands:

Which top quality (reliability / longevity) geared hub motors are more powerful (torque not speed) than GMAC?

@qwerkus mentions Ezee, also MXUS GDR-19 but that's cheap (and noisy).

Or is GMAC the 800lb gorilla?
 
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