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So, the problem I've been having since 2022 has been building a rear wheel for my e-bike. I bought a QS 3kW hub motor from eBay and found out I needed to build it myself. I decided to buy a Spank 26" rim for the build (https://spank-ind.com/products/spoon-32?variant=46031492941) but overlooked a minor detail. The motor I bought has 36 holes, whereas my rim has the standard 32. This has made spoking an insane challenge, and I can't figure it out. I've tried straight and single-cross patterns, but they end up causing loose spokes, which sounds like a safety hazard. Given the dimensions and such, I was wondering if anyone here could let me know of a solution (i.e. what spoke length and pattern could work). I'll try my best to provide any information anyone needs. Thanks in advance.

Motor dimensions

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    Hi, welcome to bicycles! You might really want to consider buying a rim with 36 holes; lacing 32 holes on a 36 spoke rim will mean you basically have 16 different spoke lengths, and the pattern will be really strange.
    – DavidW
    Commented Jul 30 at 2:14
  • @DavidW agreed - that needs to be an answer. Hopefully OP can return the rim and swap it for a 36H version, or sell the 32H and put the funds toward the correct rim.
    – Criggie
    Commented Jul 30 at 2:30
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    You mentioned lacing it straight(=radially). Drive wheels and wheels with hub brakes should never be radially spoked. Due to the near-perpendicular angle of the spoke to the hub's tangent, any torque applied at the hub of a radial-spoked wheel will result in a very great increase in spoke tension, almost certainly causing hub or spoke failure. From an indispensable resource in anything about bicycles, sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html
    – matega
    Commented Jul 30 at 21:01

2 Answers 2

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I think you really need to consider buying (or swapping for) a 36-hole rim.

Lacing 32 holes on a 36-spoke rim will mean leaving 2 holes on each flange empty, and longer runs closer to the gap. You'll end up with at least 4 and possibly 8 distinct spoke lengths on each side; if the wheel is dished that's 8 or 16 spoke lengths for the wheel.

The pattern will also look strange; not quite straight for a straight pattern, and crosses at varying distances from the hub for cross patterns.

I don't want to think about how hard it will be to evenly tension a wheel with that many different spoke lengths and angles.

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  • I happen to have around 50 kg of spare misc spokes. It's tempting to build a 32/36 combination wheel just to see how it would look, (not for riding)
    – Criggie
    Commented Jul 30 at 20:28
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    @Criggie I’m thinking it should just be a 32h wheel but with a spoke missing after every group of 8. Although that does mean that two of the groups will be using nipple holes drilled at the wrong angle.
    – MaplePanda
    Commented Jul 30 at 21:29
  • @MaplePanda yes exactly right. It would likely help to use a rim that has no drilling offsets for that reason. I suspect a heavy ridged rim will provide more support across the four "gaps" in the support.
    – Criggie
    Commented Jul 30 at 21:46
  • @DavidW Thanks for the suggestion! I decided to buy a new 36-hole rim and a set of new spokes based on what some tools online told me to get. Also, thank you for getting the image embed working; I'm still a noob in markdown.
    – L42
    Commented Aug 1 at 3:06
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If you really were to do this, despite all the overwhelmingly good reasons not to, as in a pure mental exercise or an economic situation where there's lot of brainpower plus computers and internet connectivity, but extreme physical scarcity of new rims but you can somehow get spokes in all sorts of lengths, there are basically two paths:

  • Use real math skills to model the whole thing out on paper. Congrats to anyone who can do that.
  • Use any 3d CAD software to create a simple model of the rim and hub. It just has to be a bunch of circles with points spaced evenly along. For example, the rim is two circles, one for each side's offset, with 16 points on each and with one set originating a distance away from the first equal to 1/32 of the ERD/circumference (the ERD is the circumference of both circles). Then put in the valve hole as another point. enter image description here Same deal with the hub, two circles for the flanges spaced apart from each other per the hub geometry, with points offset. Set up the drawing so the hub is in the correct alignment with the rim in all the obvious parameters to make it be a dished wheel, so that the last thing you're figuring out is the rotational alignment of the hub with the rim. enter image description here Then, the way I think this would go for 1x, is on each side of the hub you're going to be deciding two holes to leave empty, 180 degrees away from each other on each side. Choose one flange and ignore the other. On the flange you're working with, align the hub rotationally so there's a straight line between the valve hole, the empty holes on that flange, and the wheel center. Lock the hub rotation there. Then draw in 16 lines between the other hub holes and that flange's offset side of the rim to create your 1x lacing pattern on that side. (You don't say which Spank rim you got and some of them have been set up for cross-lacing, another curveball in all this since if you do have one of those rims you'll be punished more for going with one of the lacing permutations that has you ignoring the directionality of the drilling). enter image description here For the other flange, you have the choice of making the unused holes be right next to the first set of unused holes on the other flange, or offsetting them away some number of holes. The latter is geometrically dirtier (it can't be exactly 90 degrees away because of the stagger) but I think it would probably avoid stress risers in the flanges better, so probably do that. Then draw in 16 lines for that side's 1x pattern. enter image description here enter image description here The 32 lines are now your "pure geometry" spoke lengths. Then compensate for spoke elongation and rim compression as you would with any wheel, and buy those spoke lengths. I believe on paper it's going to be 16 different lengths, 8 per flange, but I don't know how close it will be after rounding to whole numbers. enter image description here

Editor's notes: the other side would have different spoke lengths if the wheel is dished (which I'd imagine your rear wheel is). Regardless, the above image verifies Nathan's hypothesis that there are 8 different spoke lengths per flange. You can access my Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD file here and input your wheel's dimensions to get your exact spoke lengths. Here are the (arbitrary) parameters I used to model this specific wheel: enter image description here

I would caution against any lacing pattern that mixes up the drilling offset direction of the rim. Hub motor wheels can struggle with spoke angle at the nipple at the best of times and basically have no tolerance for pushing it further.

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    Assuming I don’t forget, would you be interested if I followed the CAD instructions and got some images to add to your answer?
    – MaplePanda
    Commented Jul 30 at 21:38
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    @MaplePanda Sure! Commented Jul 31 at 4:59
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    What's crazy is that I actually attempted this some time ago. Initially, I tried using Photoshop to make a small mockup of the motor and rim to approximate a spoke length, but I realized that ignoring the third axis would definitely cause issues. So, I tried using cad software and making accurate models of the rim and motor, but it took more time learning the software than getting any progress done.
    – L42
    Commented Aug 1 at 3:09
  • @L42 Thankfully it's not everybody's first time using the software :)
    – MaplePanda
    Commented Aug 4 at 18:33

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