7-speed shifting trike

I finally get to build a motorized trike for a customer, yippie, I have been wanting to;-}

I am using this Kent trike for the base.



Kent Bayside 24" Wheel 7 speed Adult Tricycle.
Constructed of high tensile steel.
*24 Alloy Rims and Hubs.
Lumbar Seat Back Support.
Forward Pedal Design.
Shimano Revo 7 Speed Shifters.
Rear Basket.
Rear Drum Brake. (front V)
It is not mentioned which baffles me, but that is a suspension front fork with V brakes.
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*What the heck is 24 Alloy? Is that the gauge or a metal type?
I don't think it is bad either way as the rest of the bike looks pretty darn solid.

This built was quoted as an electric but he is worried about the range and would rather have me put in 4-stroke.

With those gears I think something like 38cc would work center mount as he is not worried about stepping over it but I have a nice Cyclone center mount electric and going to look up a big battery to fit between the frame and the bottom of the basket.

Either way the motor will connect to the front freewheel pedal cranks like a JackShaft build so it can use the gears.

The trike is on it's way from Amazon for $500 delivered, I'll decide on the motor when I actually have the bike in front of me.

GearNut said:

KC, there is an older fellow that lives in a mobile home park near by that has an electric trike.
The batteries are in front of and below the rear basket. It has what looks like a windshield wiper motor linked with a chain to the rear axle.

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(smiles) Desire is the Mother of Invention, Real Genius is taking what you have and filling an urgent need by re-tasking the parts you have, that sounds like your old trailer park guy ;-}

Take those guys at NASA in the movie Apollo 13 when the air scrubber went out and they were dying in space.

The engineers were put in a room with a big empty table and box of stuff was dumped out on it, and the goal was to find some way to fit the round air gizmo from one thing into the square hole for the broken one and work with nothing but was on table AND the lives of all the astronauts on a short timetable was at stake.

I wonder if NASA has an accelerated math program so they could hire Rednecks like most of us for things like that? We would sure be good at it ;-}

But back to this Trike...

It really should be an electric so I am checking with battery makers for something I can use that will give me what I think it will take to pull it off and here is my last e-mail to one as each e-mail gets more defined.

Also note there is a back story with this guy as we spoke on the phone awhile and he seems pretty laid back like me so my E-mail is not strictly business 'politically correct' legal speak and wanted to know what I do.
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Hi Rob,

We spoke on the phone briefly Thursday about your web sites contact form not working so you gave me your e-mail address to get a quote.

I build motorized bicycles in Phoenix Arizona and though the vast majority of my builds are gas I do build electrics as well like this one.



In this case I mounted the controller to the front of the 36V LiFePo battery and it ran great for awhile but after 1 summer here that battery won’t hold a charge more than a day or 2 even turned off, and only good for a mile or two on a full charge so I don’t want to make the same battery mistake for this new build.

I have this electric motor kit:



I am going to mount that electric kit in this trike like I did the Cadillac above so it ties into the tricycles 7-speed pedal drive train.

(Trike pic at the top of this topic)

I am looking for some 36V Lithium based cell packs I can mount in a fairly flat (3” +- ½” tall) rectangle case that will fit on the frames back between the frame and bottom of the basket Minimum depth is 6” but I can go up to 12” if need be.

The width of the frame mount is 16” but I can go a little narrower if need be.

I have a suitable metal case for the batteries that even has a fan, an old TiVo DVR box that is 3x11x15” I can use.

Can you fit a charger and a single bank or perhaps dual easily switchable banks of Li cells in that space at 36V 35A each that can deliver the full 960W output for 90 Minutes either as one or 2 separate encased packs the rider can switch between?

At 20MPH that would deliver a 30 mile range before charging at max load but this trike will not be drawing max load most of the time, it has 24” wheels and a 7-speed gear system both the motor and the rider can easily turn the drive train.

My max budget for the battery/charger parts is $700 and I have this charger.

(not on the net 36V 4A charger pic)

And if it is even feasible I can ship you my existing 36V 960W LiFePo battery as trade in as well as I have no use for it now

It charges and works well if I leave it plugged in when not in use, it just dies way to fast so I would think it just needs new cell packs as the control chip and bicycle mounting case are top notch.

Let me know as the bike is on it’s way and all the motor kit parts are already here.

One more note, I am a certified electronics engineer that used to be able to design and hand make boards from the component level up. My 53 year old eyes and shaky hands don’t allow me to do that much anymore I can still read a schematic, remember Ohm’s laws, and know how to measure a circuit with a DVM ;-}

Thanks,

(my contact info)
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If you know a battery maker or are one yourself let me know.
All other advice or comments are of course always welcome and thanks for the help ;-}

No luck finding a custom battery maker over the holiday's but I had the motor test fit in and it's perfect, I don't even need the wider cranks.

My custom motor mounts are drying from their last coat of paint tonight, New Years Eve, but that won't matter to me in the morning, I had my share of them nights and this year it just the wife and I home.

I'll post some pics up tomorrow and Happy New Year everyone and may 2013 be better than the last few.

fasteddy said:

KC,

Try this chap. He's in Shanghia or Hong Kong I've forgotten which but he has a solid reputation with the ebike crowd. My next battery will come from him.

EM3ev is the company name.

He's an English chap that deals directly with the factory's that make the batteries and he then tests them before he makes the battery pack. He uses 123 cells. He may be a little slow in answering you but it took 2-3 days and he answered me fully. I believe he will make a custom pack for you but of course you will need to ask him about it.
Hope this helps.

Happy New Year

Steve

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Thanks Steve, that will be top of my 'To Do' list for tomorrow!

Here is where I am as of New Years Day evening.

My electric mounting plan is coming together.
Note that the wiring won't be done until my 'TiVo Box' mock-up battery under the basket is a real one but from this angle it just looks like a pedal trike with a fancy back light.



The 3-piece freewheel cranks with dual sprockets is in place with both the motor and rear 7-speed axle chained in and alligned.



This is another view of the shared pedal/electric full drive train from the back with the basket out of the way.



Note that the back left wheel just freewheels and the band brake is attached to the right axle with the 7-speed derailleur.
Also note that ambiguous looking black box hiding the motor is the controller.

From the normal left 'jump on and ride' side everything is pretty ambiguous looking as well with nothing in the way but you can see the motor controller mounted to the top of the back struts under the seat.



Also note that though I had to replace the stock bikes 1-piece BB cranks with 3-piece sealed bearing dual sprocket freewheel cranks they are the stock width as the motor is just far enough up and back so the pedals don't need to be wider to clear the motor.

Other than the battery the hard part is done and I can wrap up the handlebar controls in no time and very optimistic this trike will rock as nice it looks when I am done ;-}

GearNut said:

That's looking really nice. KC!
I have an old trike weathering away in my back yard. I am contemplating to motorize it.
The rear axle is different that any other trike I have worked on. It has a true differential in the center which is chained to a 3 speed "mid" hub.

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Hmm, at first thought a differential would be a good thing but is it a limited slip or a 'posi-track'?

We know one wheel has to give or you couldn't turn so most trikes just leave one wheel to free spin.

A limited slip transfers power to the easiest wheel to spin which is what most cars have and why a 'burn out' leaves one tread mark as the right wheel is usually the first to give.
On a trike that would be the wheel on the outside of a turn UNLESS one wheel comes up... In that case the wheel on the inside of a turn as it has no resistance up in the air and you would loose drive power.

Now a posi-track works the other way, it puts the power to the hardest wheel to turn and why a car with posi leaves dual marks from a burn out.
On a trike that would be good as the power would be to the wheel on the ground and could ride the thing on 2 wheels from either side.

It's easy to tell which one you have, tilt the trike up on 2 wheels and pedal.
Check it with the other rear wheel up too just to double check.

On this trike it is always the right wheel that is powered so I could ride it all day with the left wheel up in the air, until the right wheel buckled that is because a bicycle wheel just won't take that much lateral pressure for long.

GearNut said:

It is an open diff, what you referred to as limited slip. When one wheel looses traction that wheel gets all the power, the other wheel that still has traction gets nothing and you go nowhere fast.

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I think even that could be good thing...
When the traction is equal the drive power is equally distributed to the rear wheels.

I temped the battery in the trike and took it for a ride yesterday and was startled to say the least!

First off was discovering that popping a wheelie on a trike is not as fun as it sounded. As soon as the front wheel left the ground the powered right wheel sent me in a tight left hand turn that most certainly have set me pivoting on the left back wheel if I kept the throttle on.

Next up was how damn awkward it is to ride a trike!
There simply is no 'body english' in a turn by leaning into it, the front wheel is the only thing that turns you and you feel even the littlest change in how the front wheel faces.

Once I got comfortable I put it through the straight away wide open shifting run and though it took off like the scarey bullet I knew, I could feel a subtle yet constant pull to the left under full power at every shift I had to compensate for.

This is a customer build and all he wants is enough torque for hills so he never has to pedal and 20 MPH for 20 Miles.

There is no speedo on it but I am a pretty good judge of MB speed and she topped out about 20-25 MPH and stayed there with ~75% motor effort which is the most important part of range.

As far as torque goes, sheeeeet, the customer could put a full pony keg in the back basket and ride up an 8% grade without pedaling.

A trike is not my kind of personal ride but I can sure see the benefits of one for people that simply need a stable platform they can easy mount and go with no need for balance. It is that 'balance without momentum' thing you simply want or need and a trike sure works for that.

Utility is another matter too, a trike beats any 2 wheel bike regardless of baskets, racks, or saddle bags, it is big stable platform to load, transport and unload from.

I can certainly see a trike like this as a shop bike for our local parts runs which is often and a spiffy demo bike, but as a super double bonus I might even get my wife to regularly ride it as she is also one of the growing crowd of 'I can't balance on 2 wheels' baby boomer adults ;-}

silverbear said:

K.C.
Three wheels is a world of difference from two. The first time I rode my American flyer with the sidecar I almost ran into a tree. I was used to steering by leaning into a curve and with three wheels that doesn't work, whether sidecar or trike. You want to turn you have to turn the handlebar and then I felt like my balance was all wacky because I couldn't lean. It took me a couple of weeks before I got truly comfortable on the bike. Now it is like second nature. Still, I slow down a good bit for turns.
SB

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(laughing) It is nice to know I am not the only adult that felt inept on a trike again since childhood ;-}

Trikes are all new to me again which reminds me, you ever take a kids tricycle and flip the fork over to make it a low rider?

When I was just a kid we did that with a pillow on the 'back step' for a seat and I would guess so was the guy that took the plastic 'Big Wheel' to market way back then.
They are as popular as ever to this day.
Recumbent trikes are an off-shoot of that as well, low and stable.

In a few hours when it warms up I'll do a little more serious test riding, I am thinking a 'test ride' up to the gas station to fill up some gas cans I can fit in the basket for my gas bikes, how ironic is that huh? Hehehehe ;-}

fasteddy said:

KC,
I was wondering where you bought the Currie motor.

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So the maker is Currie? I just went by the sticker on it and I didn't buy it from cyclone I got a couple 36V kits from SickBikeParts as part of test thing but that's all I can say.

Going out Silverbears driveway I went into the woods as well

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Cool, you guys are real life friends and neighbors. I have a couple fellow local gas 2-wheel buddies but no electric ones let alone trike guys.

Taking the ebike to get gasoline. Priceless.
Steve.

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Actually it was pretty fun going to the gas station on the trike.



It looks silly with the protective wrapping still on it and the tempted in battery but that didn't keep a couple of people from coming up and asking me about it.
They snickered about my riding an electric to go fetch gas as well ;-}

Edit: I just noticed 'Wilfred the Stupid' in the background of my trike pic.
For a dog that only knows eat, sleep, and play ball even he seems to know something just isn't right about that picture. Then again maybe he just thinks it has a ball in it and I'll throw it for him hehehe.