Air-full tire on hub motor for e-scooter

[tonyman]

I have a BMC HPC Black Lightning hub motor that i want to use for my e-scooter. What would be the best way to put a pneumatic tire on it? The flange holes are for bike wheel spokes

 

[jkrienert]

Sheldon Brown (rip) and many others have created a wonderful library of information that might help your search for knowledge.

Bicycle Wheel Spoking Patterns for Large Hubs

This article describes how to spoke a bicycle wheel with a large hub such as an electic-bike motor, while avoiding excessive spoke angle at the rim.

www.sheldonbrown.com

 

[neptronix]

Spoke it to a wheel first.

Do note that this is either a MAC or BMC.. these have poor efficiency in a 16" scooter wheel, aka 20" in bike tire size. The high pole count makes them unsuitable for a wheel smaller than that. The result will be that the motor overheats on the flats.

Consider using a wheel designed for the higher RPM a scooter runs at instead.

A small direct drive hub would be the optimal motor for a scooter... in terms of max efficiency and max power.

 

[tonyman]

Spoke it to a wheel first.

Do note that this is either a MAC or BMC.. these have poor efficiency in a 16" scooter wheel, aka 20" in bike tire size. The high pole count makes them unsuitable for a wheel smaller than that. The result will be that the motor overheats on the flats.

Consider using a wheel designed for the higher RPM a scooter runs at instead.

A small direct drive hub would be the optimal motor for a scooter... in terms of max efficiency and max power.

Thanks for replying. I am not looking for high speed, but high torque is super important. I live on a very steep hill, steeper than what most thing of when steep hill is mentioned and my last ebike could not make it up the hill without me doing some very vigorous paddling- about the same as with a non motored bike. Otherwise low speed is fine but i sure do not want to overheat the motor- how do i keep it at a speed it can easily handle? Thanks for the heads up about that for a question i didn't know to ask.

 

[E-HP]

Thanks for replying. I am not looking for high speed, but high torque is super important. I live on a very steep hill, steeper than what most thing of when steep hill is mentioned and my last ebike could not make it up the hill without me doing some very vigorous paddling- about the same as with a non motored bike. Otherwise low speed is fine but i sure do not want to overheat the motor- how do i keep it at a speed it can easily handle? Thanks for the heads up about that for a question i didn't know to ask.

I would install a temperature monitor. Since it's a geared hub, it won't be able to shed excess heat easily, so depending on how long the hill is, you'd want to stop to let the motor cool if it starts to overheat.

 

[Eastwood]

What would be the best way to put a pneumatic tire on it? The flange holes are for bike wheel spokes

And just to be clear about your question, it almost sounds like you’re asking if you can put a tire directly on the hub motor? So that’s not going to work because you need to lace the hub motor into a rim and that would be too big to put on a scooter.

What type of scooter do you have? Pics?

 

[calab]

What would be the best way to put a pneumatic tire on it?

A custom fabricated adapter attached to the flange's spoke holes where that adapter is the rim/rim bead the new tire sits on.

 

[neptronix]

Thanks for replying. I am not looking for high speed, but high torque is super important. I live on a very steep hill, steeper than what most thing of when steep hill is mentioned and my last ebike could not make it up the hill without me doing some very vigorous paddling- about the same as with a non motored bike. Otherwise low speed is fine but i sure do not want to overheat the motor- how do i keep it at a speed it can easily handle? Thanks for the heads up about that for a question i didn't know to ask.

No idea what wheel size you are using on this scooter but with a 12" wheel, this motor goes from ~85% efficiency while cruising in a 26" wheel . Now it runs at 56.3% efficiency in this wheel size.



You'll have enough torque to climb a wall but the motor will overheat at really slow speeds.

 

[amberwolf]

As calab says, you can machine rim flanges that can bolt to the spoke flanges, to put the tire on there without lacing it with spokes. Look at powerchair BLDC hubmotors for how those do this.

But as everyone else has pointed out, the motor itself is not designed for what you're after, and will probably not work very well for that, at least not for very long.

If it were wound for your specific needs, it might work better, but I don't know what winding you'd need. (the simulator might let you figure that out).

 

[neptronix]

The real problem is not the winding but the amount of poles in the motor being really excessive, gets worse the faster the motor spins.

 

[amberwolf]

Ah; I thought he was trying to go really slow? I guess I misread the thread.

 

[Chalo]

I have a BMC HPC Black Lightning hub motor that i want to use for my e-scooter.

Are you talking about a sit down scooter like a Vespa, or one of those goofy little toy scooters with bagel sized wheels?