Treadmill Motor (candidate for e-bike?)
 

The treadmill here at work is opened up for maintenance so I took a look at the motor. Here are the specs:
3HP Continuous Duty @ 13vDC / 2672watts
It is 11" long x 4.5" dia, with a 1.5" shaft.
There is a also a fan connected to the end opposite the drive shaft.
So would this be a decent bicycle motor?
S.

Except for the fact that it's way big, and probably pretty heavy (25 lbs?), the specs are fine. In fact it's likely overkill for an e-bike. Run that at 24 volts and you'd have a silly fast machine.

Yep, what Darin said.

Overkill, especially considering that the biggest electric scooter motors (good for +35mph) are just over 1000 watts.

Oh, and Ben Nelson's motorcycle uses a 4hp (continuous) Etek motor.

It IS a little long, but it could be centered with a jackshaft arrangement.
Maybe for a motorcycle then? Obviously treadmills get going hellu fast, but I would have thought that their motors would be made for high rpms as opposed to the torque needed to get a bike moving.
S.

It'd probably work well for a low speed motorcycle or moped type of EV.

Sounds like a perfect candidate for very a fast ev-kart to me.:D

What brand of tread mill is this on? just in case any of us wanted to get one for our selves.
If you ever used that motor at full power it would draw 205 amps, that is alot of amps! you would need 2/0 or 3/0 wiring, that is .40" to .46" diameter, so with smaller wire size you are never going to get full power out of that motor, so basically you are going to have a motor that will never be over loaded, and should never wear out, with that you should be able to up the voltage and be fine with 24V battery and speed controller.

Can you post a pic of that?

I think its been put back together, but Ill try to get a pic of it.
Either way, the next one that breaks down, the motor is mine!
S.

Any progress on this? I was thinking about doing something similar...Are you sure it isn't 130 volts? i have a treadmill motor that says 2.5 horsepower, 130 vdc, 18 amps. Its a PM motor so you would need a speed control right? some smaller motors r 90 volts. High voltages are used to keep the current down.