Horsepower of Kit Motors?

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Gadget470
The wheels were "speed matched" where the final stage of gear reduction left all wheels with the same speed by having different ratios.

Wildstang, and others using the same setup, achieved a certain speed and horsepower by matching the speeds while having different torque values to the sets of wheels.

That makes sense. I guess if they got in a pushing match going sideways, they could have some interesting differences in the wheel behavior due to the "different torque values".

Originally posted by Jnadke
Maximum Power (in Watts) output is typically calculated as:

Power = (Max Freespeed / 2) * (Stall Torque / 2) * Conversion Factor

Maximum Power (in HP) can then be calculated as:

HP = Power / 746


Really, horsepower is a misleading and useless number. Power output (in Watts) is by far a better and more accurate comparison. When coupled with efficiency, it's the best comparison.

Horsepower and Watts are the same thing, but HP is an Imperial Unit and the Watt is the SI (metric) unit. SI units are by far better units to use, because you will use less conversion factors (less screw-ups) when moving between Power output and Electrical input. However, remember to mention you are using SI units in all your calculations or you might end up like NASA!

Thank you. That link is a very cool source of info on motors. Who knows. If I can get some time to study all the tutorials on that web site, one of these days I might understand what our mechanical engineers are doing.