An E-Bike Motor From First Principles

Many of us have made electric transport of some form, whether a Hacky Racer, and e-bike, a go-kart, or whatever. We have invariably bought a motor, or if we are really adventurous, repurposed a car alternator. Not [Birdbrain] though, because she’s designed and built her own from first principles.

The video below goes into significant detail on the design of her motor, looking at cores, wire sixes, and configurations with a useful simulation along the way. We particularly like the way she uses a bandsaw to cut transformer laminations to shape for her core. The 3D printed housing initially isn’t strong enough for the forces induced by the magnets, but she attacks that problem with a new print. The motor works well, and as an added bonus there’s an introduction to the different types of motor driver. It seems the cheap ones don’t deliver a good waveform for the characteristics of the motor. Sadly she doesn’t fit it to a real bike in the video, but it seems this thing might just work.

If you lack the courage to make the whole thing from scratch, we took a quick look at the car alternator route a while back.