what would happen if...

deacon · #1 (**permalink**) 04-24-2009, 10:35 AM

I had a thought this morning.

On a adult trike... The crank is hooked to the axle and the rear wheels freewheel when coasting. Okay what if you were to replace the rear wheels with coaster brake wheels from a 20" kids bikes. Then put motors on the wheels with chain drive to the sprockets on one or both of the wheels.

Would you have a bike that with a free wheel crank when the motor was engaged. Or would it turn the axle and therefore the crank.

Cabinfever1977 · #2 (**permalink**) 04-24-2009, 01:36 PM

you dont need to relace nothing on a trike,just put a sprocket on one wheel and mount engine.i think the axle will stay still when engine is running or you are coasting.
when the wheels are moving the axle and cranks are not,remember the wheels are freewheeling.

but if you want to hook the engine to the axle center sprocket the cranks will turn with the engine. to fix that you would have to change the center locked sprocket with a freewheel hub sprocket and mount the locked sprocket next to it and hook engine above it.

i think my mother would like a trike and i wanted to put a electric helper motor on it.
bike price $269+ wow but i do have a electric motor/battery pack/throttle/controller/sprocket,etc.
but i dont have the money for the bike yet

deacon · #3 (**permalink**) 04-24-2009, 06:43 PM

The reason I asked is that the bike wheels already have the sprockets on them. There would be no need to bolt on a sprocket. You would definitely need a controller cause the sprocket is very small on the rear wheel. You would need to slow down that motor or risk whiplash or worse.

deacon · #4 (**permalink**) 04-25-2009, 11:09 AM

here's is another guessing game. With the hub bike I can do 2 1/4 miles and come in with 12.8 volts. With the pusher bike I can do 2 1/4 miles and come in at 13.0 volts left.. So when I combine them both on the same bike and off the same battery pack what do you think the result will be on the same 2 1/4 mile test track.

Actually when I get the new pusher motor and wheel in, I'm going to test it three ways. One with the primary drive as the hub motor and the pusher just for uphill ridding. Then with the pusher as primary drive and the hub for uphill and cornering. Finally with both motors on most of the time. At least as much as I dare if it runs much faster.

I am curious to see how much it takes to make it run. I think if I run the pusher mostly with the hub turned off, I should get some regenerative power from it. It probably won't be much.