First of all this is the trike in question-
For those of you who don't how I have been building friction drive ebikes for sometime.
After several scars and almost burning the house down. my wife convinced me to move to electric hub motor. She was also tired of coming to visit me in the local ER. So I build the above.
Another thing you should know is I'm sneaking up on seventy and have lousy balance hence the tricycle. It was the base of choice for it's stability. As with everything, this was my first trike. I went on to build some moped friction drive three wheelers but I never got a pedal system worked out. Now I have been official forbidden to build another one. That explains the trike's hub motor.
For the good things about it. I can carry my fishing gear and I do. That is what is in the black bag in the basket is for. It can also roll along quite well with a couple of SLA battery packs. Also tools and water find their way inside that basket. Probably a dozen donuts as well as a lock and chain.
But this post is about the SLA batteries and how I use them. I might as well start out with the makeup of the packs. The batteries of choice are 12v 12h batteries. I have three of them in series to make my 36v 12ah pack. I use two distinct packs rather than one double pack. I also have cut of switches on each pack and one master power cutoff switch in the power line to the controller.
You probably ask why all the cutoff switches (made from 68 cent household switches) Well to be honest I have destroyed so much electrical stuff from shorts I'm a little anal. So I have those cheap switches on everything even the output lines of the chargers. Since I make my own battery packs I can make them any way I want.
The batteries for a single 36v 12ah pack run about 79 bucks. I really don't count the price of the solder into pack. I buy several $1.60 extension cords for the wire and connectors. with all this junk I assemble the cheap fellow battery pack as follows.
Get your self more or less the right size cardboard box place your three batteries inside. wire them in series. Now the one positive and one negative battery terminals you have left you want to wire this way. Modern electrical cords have a fat and skinny prong at one end (hear after called male) and a fat and skinny hole on the other, end (here after called female end)
You want to cut the male end of your extension cord off leaving about 18" of wire. Now we are always going to make the negative - leg of our circuit on the fat prong side of the wiring ALWAYS.
So follow the fat prong wire (hereafter to be called negative wire to the end. then solder or otherwise attach it to the battery's negative (black) terminal.
You want to cut the red, positive, +, or skinny prong wire, somewhere convenient to install the house switch. Once you get each end of the cut wire attached to the switch, then solder or otherwise attach the skinny prong wire or positive wire to the battery terminal with the + or red marking. What you have now is a battery pack with a switch so that the male end is not hot (if the switch is turned off that is) and you can move it around and store it without worrying about a short.
Follow that and do exactly the same to the second pack. So you have now completed the full batteries for your SLA powered ebike. Oh yeah how do you attach it to the bike you asked. Glad you asked.
Take the female end of one of the cords and cut the positive or skinny side wire to install another on of those household wall switches. Then install it to the wiring provided by the manufacturer of you motor. Make sure you have to polarity correct. Now you can put the turned off battery circuit completed from the controller. Turn it off at the master switch so that you can work on it without any risk of damaging the controller. You can also charge the battery packs in all kinds of ways without risk to the electronics of the bike.
One last element Chargers...I bought two battery chargers. From my research I determine (possibly erroneously) that I could charge my pack at 3 volts or more without damaging it but I decided I could not float charge them for long periods at more than 1.6 volts. So I carefully chopped off the male ends of two extension cords. I very carefully wired a household switch into each of the positive wires of those male extension cords then attached them to the battery chargers being very careful to get the polarity correct.
I know this sounds and probably is a little anal but it's a very cheap one time purchased insurance policy.
So how does this Rube Goldburg system work and why do you want it, you might ask. And I am sure you are about now. Well for one thing you can hook up two charged packs and take off somewhere with only one of them turned on. The other will be in reserve. ride as long as you want knowing you can always get home even if your battery fails. Simple turn of the dead off and turn on the good one and go home to recharge.
If you don't need the second pack just recharge the one without doing any heat damage to the other. Reverse the packs to use them equally (More or less) You can also use both chargers at once to decrease your charge time if you are willing to throw the dice.
Your circuit will look like this . Battery-on/off switch- male end of extension cord - plugged into female end of cord- switch- controller.
When you want to charge the battery turn off master power switch to the controller plug battery charger into the extra connection of the female extension cord used in your power circuit and charge away. You can also use a extension cord to plug both chargers into the circuit at one time. I do that. Remember before you unplug the charger turn the inline switch off so it cant short.
I know this is a lot of work and a lot of bs but it works great for me but I'm a little nuts anyway.
For those of you who don't how I have been building friction drive ebikes for sometime.
After several scars and almost burning the house down. my wife convinced me to move to electric hub motor. She was also tired of coming to visit me in the local ER. So I build the above.
Another thing you should know is I'm sneaking up on seventy and have lousy balance hence the tricycle. It was the base of choice for it's stability. As with everything, this was my first trike. I went on to build some moped friction drive three wheelers but I never got a pedal system worked out. Now I have been official forbidden to build another one. That explains the trike's hub motor.
For the good things about it. I can carry my fishing gear and I do. That is what is in the black bag in the basket is for. It can also roll along quite well with a couple of SLA battery packs. Also tools and water find their way inside that basket. Probably a dozen donuts as well as a lock and chain.
But this post is about the SLA batteries and how I use them. I might as well start out with the makeup of the packs. The batteries of choice are 12v 12h batteries. I have three of them in series to make my 36v 12ah pack. I use two distinct packs rather than one double pack. I also have cut of switches on each pack and one master power cutoff switch in the power line to the controller.
You probably ask why all the cutoff switches (made from 68 cent household switches) Well to be honest I have destroyed so much electrical stuff from shorts I'm a little anal. So I have those cheap switches on everything even the output lines of the chargers. Since I make my own battery packs I can make them any way I want.
The batteries for a single 36v 12ah pack run about 79 bucks. I really don't count the price of the solder into pack. I buy several $1.60 extension cords for the wire and connectors. with all this junk I assemble the cheap fellow battery pack as follows.
Get your self more or less the right size cardboard box place your three batteries inside. wire them in series. Now the one positive and one negative battery terminals you have left you want to wire this way. Modern electrical cords have a fat and skinny prong at one end (hear after called male) and a fat and skinny hole on the other, end (here after called female end)
You want to cut the male end of your extension cord off leaving about 18" of wire. Now we are always going to make the negative - leg of our circuit on the fat prong side of the wiring ALWAYS.
So follow the fat prong wire (hereafter to be called negative wire to the end. then solder or otherwise attach it to the battery's negative (black) terminal.
You want to cut the red, positive, +, or skinny prong wire, somewhere convenient to install the house switch. Once you get each end of the cut wire attached to the switch, then solder or otherwise attach the skinny prong wire or positive wire to the battery terminal with the + or red marking. What you have now is a battery pack with a switch so that the male end is not hot (if the switch is turned off that is) and you can move it around and store it without worrying about a short.
Follow that and do exactly the same to the second pack. So you have now completed the full batteries for your SLA powered ebike. Oh yeah how do you attach it to the bike you asked. Glad you asked.
Take the female end of one of the cords and cut the positive or skinny side wire to install another on of those household wall switches. Then install it to the wiring provided by the manufacturer of you motor. Make sure you have to polarity correct. Now you can put the turned off battery circuit completed from the controller. Turn it off at the master switch so that you can work on it without any risk of damaging the controller. You can also charge the battery packs in all kinds of ways without risk to the electronics of the bike.
One last element Chargers...I bought two battery chargers. From my research I determine (possibly erroneously) that I could charge my pack at 3 volts or more without damaging it but I decided I could not float charge them for long periods at more than 1.6 volts. So I carefully chopped off the male ends of two extension cords. I very carefully wired a household switch into each of the positive wires of those male extension cords then attached them to the battery chargers being very careful to get the polarity correct.
I know this sounds and probably is a little anal but it's a very cheap one time purchased insurance policy.
So how does this Rube Goldburg system work and why do you want it, you might ask. And I am sure you are about now. Well for one thing you can hook up two charged packs and take off somewhere with only one of them turned on. The other will be in reserve. ride as long as you want knowing you can always get home even if your battery fails. Simple turn of the dead off and turn on the good one and go home to recharge.
If you don't need the second pack just recharge the one without doing any heat damage to the other. Reverse the packs to use them equally (More or less) You can also use both chargers at once to decrease your charge time if you are willing to throw the dice.
Your circuit will look like this . Battery-on/off switch- male end of extension cord - plugged into female end of cord- switch- controller.
When you want to charge the battery turn off master power switch to the controller plug battery charger into the extra connection of the female extension cord used in your power circuit and charge away. You can also use a extension cord to plug both chargers into the circuit at one time. I do that. Remember before you unplug the charger turn the inline switch off so it cant short.
I know this is a lot of work and a lot of bs but it works great for me but I'm a little nuts anyway.
