Abandoned the scooter

deacon

deacon

minor bike philosopher
After I threw the hall sensor hub motor away, I added the pedal first motor I had experimented with on the scooter to my tricycle. I am happy to say that it worked great, EXCEPT when I had to dead stop on a hill. Getting the trike to move up hill from a dead stop using only the pedals, even for the couple of feet was a nightmare. It wasn't too bad till I ended up in rush hour traffic with the trike acting like it was a car with a bad clutch.

So I had this 1000 watt friction drive motor I wanted to use somewhere. You guessed it. I have a 1000 watt friction drive motor sitting on top of a 1000watt hub motor. I went for a test ride today for the first time and it exceeded my expectations.

Each motor has it's own 48 volt battery, controller, and throttle. So from a dead stop on any hill, no matter how steep, the friction drive will move it enough to engage the 'pedal first' hub motor. Once the hub is going I throttle down the friction drive. If I come to a steep hill and the hub motor starts to slow, I bring in the friction drive.

You would think it would do twice the speed and pulling power but it actually adds about 50%. It really was quite a fun ride. Now I'm waiting for cotton carbon fiber batteries to hit the market.
 
**** I'm scared lol. The friction drive is 250 size scooter wheel running on top of the hub. It's kind of a fun ride but my fat butt, eight lead acid batteries, two motors is a lot of weight to push around on a heavy trike. I can hardly wait to wear out the tires so I can add wide cruiser tires.
 
Eight SLAs! Yikes! Gotta be heavy. Im building a bike that will use the four 15ah units I have and they weigh around 40lbs. Im hooked on the 10lb or less Li-Ion packs.
 
I have to admit I haven't read your experience as closely as I should have. I am going to take month and do that lol.

What I did today was ride the trike to the lake and here is what I learned. With the two motors it pulled like a mountain goat up the hills. It never, ever, got slow enough to enable the free wheel. There are several spot with one motor that would have had me pedaling like a demon.

Just so nobody tell my wife, who forced me to electrics because the gas was too fast, I think this trike is as fast as any of the small engine gasoline bikes I ever built. Hit both motors and away she rolls faster up some hills than the china girl ever did. I went Six miles out to the lake and back and it came in with reserve power on both motors.

Yesterday my daughter rode her road bike and I followed her on the trike. We went about ten mile and it was sagging but still climbed the last hill to get home so no complaints.

I have a 12ah 48v sla. a 10ah sla and an 8 ah sla. The eight hour pack is pretty light and easy to load up. But it would never do for a trip to the lake. However I am now considering buying only 8 hour sla packs till the newest battery technology comes on board. I can run 2 8hr packs for the hub and one for the FD. It would be mostly used as a back up when the hub hits the wall.

I predict with this new surge in bicycle use for city commutes, that if they come out with a light weight, quick charge battery, that doesn't come all the way from china, it will make the single speed helper motored bike very profitable and popular.

If the motor puts out a constant 350 to 500 watts of power, so that one could speed up by pedaling or could cruse along at bicycle speeds with the motor alone it would be a huge hit. It would be the perfect engine for commuting. No throttle to confuse those of us who are already confused. A nice steady speed and the motor stops turning when the brake is applied. Someone make a note of my prediction.
 
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Its already pretty much here Deacon. With a throttle and a pedalec it will do what you are wanting. If you really dont want a throttle then just use the pedalec. Would require pedaling all the time but very simple. There are brake levers that cut the motor when applied. The electric age is dawning, and better battery tech is on the way.
 
Then they need to start cranking those little muthers out when the battery weight vs cost go down.
 
Ever tried to figure out how much of your battery packs capacity is devoted to just moving itself? I think you need another go at building a battery.
 
i know a lot of it is. I am waiting for something more stable than the chemistry out there now, I am going to try to not carry more batteries than I need on the bike for the present. After that I will have to give some thought to the experiments with cotton fiber plates and algae electrolyte battery. I think by twenty 30 it will be here and i will only be eight lol.

Really when they make a 12 volt lithium battery that i can use and reuse in different configurations I might take a crack at it again.
 
Build a modular battery like Lungcookie and I did in the battery section. You can add or subtract cells/voltage/AH just by plugging/unplugging wires. I have had good luck with recycled cells.
 
Im going to look at that next.

Yesterday I rode the bike with both engines cooking. I was rolling along in traffic and realized that the car weren't speeding buy like usual, then I looked the side of the road and realized I was going a lot faster than usual. Then I got a little concerned. I have had two bad accidents on stuff I built. The one that put me in the hospital I was doing about thirty down hill when I either passed out or something. I just remember being in the hospital.


So to make a long story short I decided that thirty miles and hour was too much on a tricycle meant for little old ladies to ride on the boardwalk in florida. I knew that if the trike would do thirty, I would try to do forty. So today I dropped the FD to 24Volts. I did order a 500 Watt controller. The FD has more torque than the hub believe it or not, so I have good watts with less speed. I hooked up a 250 watt 24v I had laying around and it does that. I just need a few more watts to get away from a stop sign on a hill.

The trike will kill me cause I will never be finished with it.

When I get the motor thing set up I'm going to take a look at what you guys did with plans to emulate what you have done. The power supply to the FD never drains I use it so little that I will probably run one of my old lead acid battery packs forever on it. I might build a 36v 15ahj pack for the hub motor though.
 
Yikes Deacon 30 on a trike! Be careful! My only experience with one under power(79cc HF engine) scared the heck out of me at anything over 20, and I dont scare too easily. Maybe it was the trike I had or the way I converted it. For now I will stick with two wheels.
Why dont you make the FD switched with one of your light switches for 24v/36v for take off/boost when you need it. The extra battery might also give limp home mode with assist if you have had fun for too long.
 
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