I actually want to mill it once I get a 3 axis (early next year probably). The design has a few cool features, but also many downsides. First of all it’s 5 milled parts + way too many screws and 5 long hex spacers. Lot of mill time, lot of weight, lot of material, and lot of tapping threads manually. So it’s expensive to make. But it’s also a cool design because I can easily mill it on a 3 axis in a single operation (this was #1 design criteria). Other features are, that the spokes can be swapped for other designs easily, and most importantly, I can remove the outer hub part without removing the axle nut - meaning tube and tire replacements would be very easy. This feature was inspired by Exway’s upcoming system, not my own idea though
I will probably 3D print a prototype before commiting to mill it out of a lot of material, though it won’t be rideable, because the design requires metal threads for a hopefully adequately robust assembly.
PS: I can’t hide the valve behind the hubcap, because it’s not possible to flip it. The assembly would get in the way on the other side, and the hub is not wide enough to hide it on this side. (It’s 50mm width + 5mm + 5mm for the edges of the rim.)
This would be MBS pattern, but the first set is gonna be made in probably like 9-10 months only. And would for sure need testing before I would release it for sale. The price would also be high, probably even compared to other CNC’ed hubs. The issue is, that while I managed to make it easily millable on a 3 axis, I added a lot parts which means lot of mill time and lot of material. Also it would be like 620g or so per hub even without the record amount of fasteners used (at least in the current iteration). So likely between 675-750g in the end. Probably the heaviest in class. With that said, the swappable hub spoke / cap and the easy tire change might be good enough features that some people would be willing to pay extra for.
I could try to shave it down to a degree, but it’s still gonna end up heavier than other hubs, no matter what I do. Would probably be able to shave it down to 500g with fasteners I think. Will see what i can do, it’s still like 9 months or so before I will be able to buy a capable CNC I think.
Also if I sell a few things that I will make on the CNC, I could use the profit to reinvest into the business by acquiring a second smaller 3 axis CNC that I would try to convert into a 4 or 5 axis machine. That would open up a lot more possibilities for less complicated, and ultimately lighter designs. No chance I would be able to afford something that’s sold as 5 axis.
Must have been a coincidence, because the only thing in vesc that tells it to drive the motors at the same or similar speed is if you have traction control enabled. Otherwise you can definitely have 1 tire slip out and spin faster, especially on turns.
But that’s a smart way to test it to be fair, I’m tempted to do that myself to see the difference.
Keep in mind I am yet to do any optimisation weight wise. Could probably work it down to be in the 450g range I think, will see what I can do later. I can definitely shave down weight from the spokes and the bearing seats. I should also model the hex spacers and the screws to get an exact number. Right now I am just guessing the weight of those.
The final product will be much lighter than the current iteration, but it will still be heavier than other hubs due to the extra material that the interconnects require. To make it millable on a 3 axis in one operation, I can not think of a design that requires less than 5 parts.
@Arzamenable, that seems to me to be a li-ion ultracap, often with a current rating of about 1C. That would be 0.5A.
It might be Sigelei branded (they wrap and market some standard li-ion cells for vaping) but that doesn’t appear to be a “vape” battery IMHO. I’ve never seen a vaping device use a standard li-ion cell in a capacitor shell.
Could make the surface smoother, I just have to look into it how I can model that in.
