I am a beginner at the e-boards, but I have been doing some brief research over the past months, and have planned my first build. I was looking into boosted boards, but I saw more potential. I had my build planned out, but then panicked when the new trend of direct drive without belts was announced. I was wondering if anyone could explain more about the positioning of motors because I am very confused. Also, there is a lot of controversy if the direct is better or worse… what are some of the pro and cons to it? I am only in high school, but understand a lot of engineering. Also, doesn’t the belt drive have more potential to modify torque, acceleration, and speed? Thanks so much!
Well, in this forum, there seems to be a bit of a mix up of what a direct drive is. There are some threads where hub motors are being called direct drives. In other threads, direct drive is a set up where there is a motor pulley and a wheel pulley minus the belt. Which one are you talking about exactly?
Hub motors
Belt systems are proven to be more efficient than current hub motors on the market and they are tried and tested and reliable. They are for the most part easily interchangeable and sourced, tons of option to fit your design and needs. It’s what Boosted, Evolve and the Raptor use. Hub motors are a sleeker design but for the same output of power you draw more watthours so you get less travel then you would with a belt drive keeping all else equal. Until there is a hub motor that can pull less power consumption and have thicker urethane to protect the motor itself I would say you should have no fear in going belt driven.
you can always upgrade your build further down the line once enertion posts real results of the new rspec motor dual set up vs the enertion hub motors hes working on. And also provide the power consumption for them, and should there be an obvious gain in performance for a small sacrifice of efficiency then thats when hub motors can compete with belt drive set up.
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hubs are the future but you can’t beat belt and pulleys in my mind in range with a hub. They simply draw more amps. But they can be very powerful. Hubs are the future in my mind and I will never go back. I’ll take the inefficiencies for simplicity, and no matainance/alignment issues. If you need more power, the real solution with hubs is more motors. With a 4wd hub (small motors), I can match a well gear, fast dual drive satalite config board with around the same stator size. Some will say it’s just a waste of money, I think it’s worth the extra money to do a 4wd hub motor board to get the performance of a 2wd satalite board.
If you simply use a bigger stator, you could do 4wd, but the problem is the vesc max current. Hubs draw more current and need higher C batteries and bigger batteries. With 4wd, I can speed the amps out through 4 vescs instead of 2, essentially doubling the max continuous amps I can do without over heating the motors or vescs.
I believe the 4wd hub board I ride daily now will still beat the raptor in terms of torque and match it in top speed. But time will tell. By the time the raptor 2 comes out, I’ll be using motors that are 3x larger anyways.
My point though, is the technology is here right now for hubs. But 4wd is the most efficient way of doing them as you can spread the work out and really get the performance you need. I live in San Francisco and I’m over 200 lb. I can climb 21% grade hills at 18 mph+. Hubs are the future, and I’m telling you from experience, 4wd of hubs right now work great. But we need improvements in the vesc and mottors to get down to 2wd efficiently. And there’s 3 new motors coming out in the a few months that have promise to do just this. and the vesc 6 will hopefully be the higher amp solution for 2wd hubs.
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Getting ready #toomuchdirectdriveonthefrontpage #enertion #botarmy #raptor2 #28nov #preorder #innovation #bullshit