I have been looking at the Carvon V4’s a lot lately and it gave me an idea. The problem with hub motors is what Carvon says, there is the wheel so they take they weight and you get much less PU for your wheel. So I finally saw a pic of the hangers they come on and it got me thinking. If one could produce hangars like those, you could take any hub motor, and then you would need to develop an adapter plate to connect to the outside of it, and you could run any hub like a direct drive. The part the goes to the wheel is already made in many forms, you’d just need to machine one that is connected to a base plate that you can screw into the hub motor like you would the outside of the wheel if it were set up normally.
How difficult do you guys think that would be to produce / CNC?
This would basically just position the hub motor further in, allowing for the adapter to be connected and then the wheel, creating a direct drive, like the V4’s.
The axles won’t be strong enough. I believe the Carvon motors use 12mm axles. You’ll have to figure out a way to first increase the axle size inside the hub motor.
Just need to CNC a plate like the black part on the motor and you can turn any hub motor to direct drive. If this was a normal hub motor though there wouldn’t be a hole in the center, so you would need to add in the center a short axle for the wheel to secure too, as if the actual axle went straight through the motor. Would just need to get swappable wheel connector patterns to secure too the base plate and then you could use pretty much any wheel you want.
No I totally intend to buy at least a couple of sets, but I’d also like to learn how to make my own motors and I think the direct drive is the perfect type of motor for Esk8. Tons of people made their own versions of belt drives and the same with hub drives. There isn’t a patent on how you can power your Esk8, I’m sure if I don’t make any motors with a similar concept of the direct drive, there will be plenty of other’s out there to do it for me. Atm though, the best option for me is to support Carvon and buy from them.
All innovations are usually based on prior technology. I messaged Jerry about his motors a few days ago and he said his V4 SD was actually an airplane motor, it just fit the applications he was looking for, so even those borrowed from some other technology. Hub drives have clearly been the next major advancement in Esk8 motors, and they have been advancing and now we have one maker who has introduced the direct drive which is the next logical step in advancement. I’m sure there will be even more advancements after this, but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing some options with regards to the direct drive hub motor. That creates competition and competition drives advancement. My idea for this hub adapter plate I think is a good start to that process.
Fair enough though I am not sure about your idea of hub adaptor plate. That is Carvon V4 motor with hub adaptor plate for ABEC, hub adaptor plate for pneumatic six shooters, etc. the picture above is a Carvon direct drive motor and a Carvon ABEC and b adaptor plate.
Not trying to poke the bear, but I don’t know if this is really an advancement or not…
Direct drives have their own issues, no system is perfect at this point.
Carvon can talk about full urethane ect. ect. but the reality is that we have only 6mm less urethane then a standard abec wheel. It’s more a marketing point than anything. So you don’t like our 83mm wheel feel? Put on a 90mm wheel with hummie hubs and you’ll get more urethane then the abec 83mm wheel. Most hubs however can’t do this, because they expand in diameter. With hummies hubs, we’ve expanded in length instead. This allows us to keep the can small diameter wise for more rubber, while creating one of, if not, the most powerful hub motor ever created.
Good luck even running your carvons with 83m wheels. You will get thrown off from even small rocks getting caught between the can and the street. 90mm is better, but it is it’s biggest vulnerability.
In terms of direct drive though, carvon has done somethings right, but they still use off the shelf motors, strip them, and adapt them to a truck. As a result, they can’t do custom kvs, and most importantly, they are stuck with thin strand wire. This means for the same motor size, they will get less torque because they will have less copper, since insulation on that thin wire is more than half of the wire. Even comparing a 18 to a 24, the 18 has double the copper of the 24, but is rated to 4 times the amps. We’ve seen this play out with testing to result in a far more powerful motor that can handle far more current. That’ll mean you can pump in more amps without fear of blowing the motor.
Not trying to talk shit, cause like I said, no one has a perfect solution. Good wheels with good cores are still a struggle for pretty much every hub motor. I just think saying hubs where a stepping stone to the direct drives is not true. Especially when you consider carvon was doing direct drives back when hub motors where not really a thing. I wouldn’t say either was a stepping stone to the other.
Let me add. Converting some jacob hub motors. Bored the center stator out to 12mm. All I have to do now is machine a 12mm hanger to fit the DD and add a crown. Can be done and rather easily if I do say so myself. Just remember you aren’t really going to see any performance increase over the original hub you modified. You’ll just get a much more plush ride.
Edit: …and a sense of pride and accomplishment -E.A.
It’s not marketing, I don’t want a skateboard with less than 4 longboard wheels. It’s simple. There are lots of other problems with hub motors that you glossed over, like heat dissipation, inflexibility of change, and VENDORLOCK! You’re stuck paying whatever price the vendor charges for the wheel wrappers, which is an automatic NOPE in my book. And what if the vendor goes out of business? You have to toss the motor once you wear out the wheel wrapper. Or, convert it to direct drive like it should’ve been in the first place
