[Ausdroid]

Hello, we are building a 6 wheel drive 500kg robot vehicle and are stuck in our design flow as we have to choose between using a standard 2kW brushless motor and then building a hub with reduction drive, or using hub motors.

While we would love to use hub motors, we can't find any with an IP65 or IP67 ingress rating. As this will be used in hostile, muddy wet environments, this is a requirement.

So far, we cannot find any wheel motors that have a decent IP rating. Why is this? Do electric vehicles not go through pools of water? Do they not get submerged up to the hubs?

Any help in trying to find a 2kw waterproof hub motor would be great.

 

[Ausdroid]

That probably explains their overwhelming popularity. I thought it would be more to do with their more compact use of space, lack of requirement for reduction drives, transmissions and associated losses, reduced weight etc.

Silly me!

 

[Ausdroid]

For something car sized and operating at highway speeds - CRAP

Sorry, i thought I posted this on the Non Road Going thread.

Oh, I did!

Tesla are very clever, however that is a CAR!

Did I fail to mention this is an off road 6x6 that only weighs 500kg. How would you suggest that I drive six wheels without having motors on the hubs? Run six axles and CV joints?

 

[Ausdroid]

Brian,

Thank's for the engineering lecture.

Our vehicle is skid steer, it needs to be able to turn in its owns space. The suspension is long travel which eliminates the ability to use shafts and CV joints as they don't have the range. Even if we reduced the suspension travel to what CV joints could cope with, and we were to accept the additional wear, they can't cope with the torque at highly articulated angels.

In addition, there is a requirement to be able to easily change out a wheel and suspension assembly as it is expected they will be damaged often.

So we are stuck with motors on the wheels.

The only question, which I attempted to highlight in my first post, is whether we will have to design our own reduction drive into the hub, or whether we use hub motors.

Cost is not an issue as we have an appropriate budget.