James Bruton’s New E-Bike Has a Wheel Facing the Wrong Way

I don’t think there is anyone on this planet that loves omni wheels quite as much as James Bruton does. He uses them in all kinds of projects and has a particular fascination with building vehicles that incorporate omni wheels. If you were to keep things conservative, you’d end up with something like an omni wheel-equipped forklift — a practical application that people actually take advantage of in warehouses around the world. But practicality isn’t Bruton’s concern, which is why he can build an e-bike with one omni wheel facing the wrong way.

This isn’t even Bruton’s first omni wheel e-bike — it is at least the third that we’ve covered. But it is the first to have this particular wheel arrangement, with one omni wheel in front facing the normal direction and another omni wheel in back facing sideways.

These also aren’t normal omni wheels, which usually have free-spinning rollers. This is something else that we haven’t seen made by anyone but Bruton. Instead of free-spinning rollers, its rollers are driven through an innovative hub and belt system. Driving one belt turns the entire assembly, like a conventional wheel. But driving the other belt rotates the rollers perpendicular to that. So, the single “wheel” can produce movement in any direction under power.

If you ignore the wheels, the e-bike resembles a small chopper and that is the result of the aggressive rake angle of the front forks. As is typical for Bruton, the entire vehicle is mostly aluminum extrusion and 3D-printed plastic parts. Though this also has aluminum plates to join and strengthen the aluminum extrusion of the frame.

The electronics also match what we’ve come to expect from Bruton. The motors are beefy ODrive M8325s units with ODrive S1 controllers, which include encoders. They receive commands from a Teensy 4.0 development board that Bruton paired with a SparkFun BNO086 IMU (inertial measurement unit) to monitor tilting. Bruton added an LED strip to the electronics enclosure and that acts like a spirit level, providing a visual indicator of tilt. Instead of a traditional throttle, Bruton put two big joysticks on the handlebars and those let him control power to all of the motors.

This strange e-bike seems to perform pretty well. It is stable and can remain upright while maneuvering around. And that maneuvering is as weird as you would guess from the unique wheel arrangement. But Bruton found that it was actually more intuitive to drive in reverse, which made leaning for steering feel more like it should. Even that wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it worked and now Bruton has one more bizarre vehicle in his garage.