Intra Drive crowdfunding UK production of gearbox e-bike drive

Motor & Gearbox will be in my next eBike, just hope that it’s 2nd generation by then.

It’s a good idea. I doubt very much that crowdfunding will raise enough to develop it.

I’m another that loves the idea of a motor gearbox combo. Been following Intradrive for a while, was a bit gutted for them when Pinion got theirs to market first

EDIT: big selling point is the compatibility with Shimano mounts though. Would make it quite tempting to buy a second hand shimano bike with budget put aside to convert to Intri Drive if/when it dies

there are a few others about also such as the latest Valeo/Effigear

https://www.effigear.com/en/content/24-smart-e-bike-system

@vanhalen

you might think they could move to offering an kit system for existing shimano motor users as one way into the market

Hi this is Mark from Intra Drive Ltd.Thanks for your interest!
The weight is 4.5kg without cranks – this is displayed on our website.
The torque, which is normally specified at the output sprocket on mid drive motors, is hard to define, because we have an 8 speed gearbox….  so it changes depending which gear is selected.  I can give you some numbers, but they won’t be directly comparable to Shimano Bosh etc.  Hence we do not publish this data (and neither do Pinion).

Torque of mid drive motors (Shimano, Bosch, Brose, Mahle etc) is defined at the output sprocket, which is after the reduction gearing within the drive unit.  It could be defined at the input (eg at the motor shaft, before reduction gearing), but this isn’t the industry standard.

The torque our motor produces before the reduction gearing is about 3Nm (peak), but obviously this is a meaningless number if comparing to the torque at the peak output sprocket of the Shimano EP8  (85Nm).

Power is simply Torque x rpm. so you can define power or torque at any point within a powertrain.

Torque is quite a confusing metric for most people, and as I say we’d need to specify 8 different torque values (one for each speed) so we decided to instead express the output as power in Watts.

@mravilious – what makes them more durable than the competition? Is it the integration of gears and motor into a single unit or something specific to the gearbox or motor designs? How will you demonstrate its better than the other guys (enough to convince a crowd to fund it)?

I’m another not yet ready for an ebike, but when I am, it will hopefully be something like this.

Getting rid of the derailleur and the unsprung mass of giant 700+ gramme cassettes can only be a good thing.

dazzydw: The big improvement in durability with our powertrain comes mainly from the gearbox.
Gearboxes are inherently more durable than derailleur gearing systems.

Take the gearbox in a car for example: generally speaking it requires no maintenance and is still going strong after hundreds of thousands of miles when other parts of the car reach end of life.  This is because gearboxes use hardened steel gears, lubricated with oil, and protected from the elements.

Contrast this with derailleur gearing: pressed steel sprockets (not high strength hardened steel) which easily damaged and are exposed to water, dirt, road salt etc.

We have tested the gears within our gearbox on a high power dynomometer we built, which is capable of loading the gears with the worst case peak load they will ever see in the real world, continuously.  In this way we were able to complete the equivalent of 10 years of real world heavy duty use within a few weeks. We then continued the testing, and the gears eventually failed in the way we had expected, based on simulation models we had previously run using specialist gear design software. Your question has made me realise we should really publish the results of the testing!

Also it’s worth mentioning that we’re not the first to develop gearboxes for bicycles, Pinion GmbH and Effigear (France) have been manufacturing gearbox drivetrains for bikes for 10+ years, and these products are well proven to be durable.  In June this year, Pinion launched a combined motor and gearbox for the e-bike market, which has been very well received. PINION MOTOR.GEARBOX.UNIT | Motor and gearbox in one unit

Our combined motor and gearbox is directly comparable to Pinion’s system: equally compact, similar motor power, similar weight.  Bombadier group (Canadian manufacturer of trains, jet aircraft and many other things) heavily invested in Pinion, so clearly they are convinced that gearbox powertrains are the future for e-bikes!

I think this looks great but I’m unsure of who (other than really small brands) is going to move away from Shimano, Bosch and SRAM. Yes, there’s increasing numbers using Bafang & Fozthingy but not in noticeable numbers.

It looks pretty rudimentary at this stage. Compare this with the new Pinion system and it looks years behind. A bit more work on the design needed I think. Good luck.

nauticalbiker
Full Member
It looks pretty rudimentary at this stage. Compare this with the new Pinion system and it looks years behind. A bit more work on the design needed I think.

That’s hardly insightful, you’re comparing something thats in full production to a prototype

At first I thought this was a product launch from Freeflow Technologies but instead it looks like Intra Drive are a completely separate Scottish based ebike company.

I would support them but I have a strict ‘never give Edinburgh people money’ policy 😉

Seriously though, I’m not really interested in ebikes for mountain biking but it looks cool so hopefully it’ll take off.