What really makes a good rear Hub motor?

[GoinGrey]

With so many hub motors out there, how can you tell besides brand if its good or not. But even name brand motors have issues. Is it possible to have a off brand that is good? Competition is heating up , prices are dropping, but so is QC and maybe a competitor trying to get into the market might make a good motor. How can you tell who made and type of hub motor without a brand name but just has numbers and letters? I know hub motors eventually need maintenance, but are there bullet proof rear hub motors out there?

 

[indianajo]

First you need to determine what type of riding you will be doing. Lots of short hills, heavy loads, you need a geared hub motor. Fast urban riding in flatter terrain, you need a direct drive hub motor. Long grades that go up steeply longer than 12 minutes, only a DD hub motor will do, although they will use more electricity than a geared hub motor in that circumstance.
The 3 hub motor dealers I have heard good things about are ebikes.ca in canada, lunabikes in LA, and Em3ev in HK. luna sells a lot of bafang geared, but they only stocked one to fit fat tire bikes when i was buying. Luna carried replacement gears for those. Last year Luna was selling MAC geared hub that has a good reputation, but only in front wheel configuration.
Several people are selling crystal DD drive, that they brag about.
I bought a 48 v 1200 W geared hub motor from ebikeling in 2017 that was only $221 with full kit. That bike conversion never got me more than 7 miles without failing, but after I got the battery to town and tested it, it turned out the battery was at fault. I've since put 3000 miles on it with only loose motor cover screws as a problem. I don't expect it to last forever considering the price, so when higher tarriffs were announced last summer I bought a MAC12 as replacement. I haven't installed it yet.
As the geared hub was marooned 30 miles out winter 2017-18, I bought a Luna battery and a $189 generic 1000 W DD hub for proof of concept. The DD performed okay, but drug when unpowered like I was in 2 higher sprockets than I really was. So when I got out to my camp in the summer I installed the geared hub. Turns out the controllers were compatible between the two, using a white rectangular connector for the 5 sensor wires. So I'm still using the DD motor controller with throttle. I hated the PAS from the ebikeling controller, and the ebikeling display fogged up in the rain even inside my lawnmower shed.
I'd say anything luna, grin tech or em3ev sells is probably a reliable high end part. I have reservations about sending my debit card # out of the country, if the server is hacked not even the RMCP will care much about a foreigner's problem.
I don't expect to find repair parts for either kind, but I had the DD motor cover off. It uses standard dimension 6801 bearings, so if one of those ****ese bearings wears out, you can get real ones from the auto supply. I've bought them from air conditioner parts catalog, to install in lawnmower quills.

 

[GoinGrey]

Thanks indianajo,
Really good info. Living in Houston lots of flat terrain areas where I live with the occasional inclines.

 

[AHicks]

I don't know of a "bad" hub motor that's creating a lot of trouble for it's owners, so my definition of "good" would be the one that suits it's owners wishes/riding habits the best. Here, you need to decide if a gear driven rear hub will work the best, or if a direct drive works best - for YOUR application. There's a HUGE difference in these 2 types of hub drives!

From what I've read and experienced personally, the direct drive rear hub will work better when used as a "commuter", where riders/loads are lighter, speeds are generally higher (over 15mph) for greater distances, and generally level terrain. Direct drives start working efficiently at higher speeds. They suffer when climbing, especially at lower speeds, and accelerating from a stop.

Everywhere else (IMHO) will favor a gear driven hub. With most providing a 5:1 gear ratio, they are better at climbing hills, accelerating from a stop, and accelerating quickly to cross a busy road. They are generally much "peppier". The down side to a gear drive, is they start loosing efficiency at higher speeds (say 15-20mph), while they do tend to be noticeably more efficient at lower speeds (under 15-20 mph).

 

[harryS]

You've got gear drive hub and direct drive hub motors. The latter only have bearings to wear out. If ridden in an adult fashion, direct drives probably last a long time. Some owners claimed over 20K on their Bionx, but Bionx went bankrupt. Geared motors use nylon gears and I expect them to eventually wear. However, the tradeoff is better torque in a lighter package, well worth to me.

As for who makes the best, Bafang is the largest motor maker in the world, with annual sales of over 1 million units a few years ago. However, anyone with a machine shop and a labor force willing to wind cores by hand can crank out motors. This pic is from the dongdian website, who made the motors in my first ebike conversion (ebikeling like indianajo).. There's no high tech there, although a big shop like Bafang likely uses robots.


When looking for a hub motor ebike, I think that the motor is a commodity item. Sure, if they use a Bafang, I think they used a little better motor. My first bafang motor, an SWXH 250W job, I bought an extra set of internal gears for it. The motor was $70. The gears were $15. I'll never need those gears.

 

[Browneye]

I wrote this much earlier, must have forget to post...
Bafang - a bazillion of them out there. Very happy with ours, no issues.
If it breaks I would simply replace it.
Lots of builders using them, not common for a conversion kit here in US, where MID-drives are more popular.

Are you buying a bike? Or doing a conversion?

 

[AHicks]

Not going to knock the Bafang, but before you buy one, check out the MAC line of drives if given the choice. I get the fact that there aren't a lot of OEM builders using them....

 

[GoinGrey]

Thanks everyone for the responses it is very helpful. I plan on buying a ebike for my needs which is just mainly flat terrain. We have miles and miles of greenway paths here and the motor and battery are important options when deciding. Still to new to this on considering a conversion , but in time I will give it a shot.

 

[AHicks]

Keep asking questions!

 

[indianajo]

Vinka is not very well known ebike motor manufacture
If you look at the spec, it's a 80nm of torque mid drive motor, supports up to 28mph (45km/h) and all that, it's a decent looking motor.
But how do you know if it's a good or bad motor?
It's not well known in North America, so is it bad?
It's a Chinese brand, so is it assumed that it's bad?

They are all made in *****. The quality depends on how much of an ******* the QA manager is. Like does he show up Sunday AM to see if they workers have emptied the reject bin into shipping cartons and gone to party in the break room? Does the QA manager take bribes? Does QA get their test equipment calibrated by a standards lab, or are the numbers made up? That whole country had advanced training in falsefying paperwork under the previous regime. Some companies have serious QA, some do not. Experience tells. Brands without US experience are a **** shoot. The reason US distributors matter, they have dropped the brands that they got burned on. I bought MAC because good reviews go back 5 years. I got burned on batteries from e-bay & amazon, those fly by night sellers of returned product can change their name if they get one bad review. I lucked out on a generic cheapo motor from E-bay, but the bearings are obvious trash that probably wouldn't last 2 years. ***** has a serious problem with shiny gray metal they call "steel" but it is not. Try a tool from Harbor Freight, for example. My testosterone poisoned co-worker at the last job used those to tear up half the fasteners he touched, then we drilled them out with $11 US made left hand drills the company provided. I had real steel tools but he was always first on the job, until they fired him for falsifying paperwork.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]