my own mobility scooter

[deacon]

From my last experience I learned you have to mount the motors forward of the axle or the momma will flop over backwards and bust your tail bone. Literally. Batteries would be easy to mount with their weight in front of the axle that I managed last time.

Now that I have the wheels upgraded I'm going to go friction drive on this one but the design will be for my hub motor if this one I have outlasts the Miami Sun. I never intend to buy another trike.

 

[deacon]

The mobility scooter reconfigured. 20" rear wheels... a 26" front wheel and a friction drive. I had my son in law test it and he said it does about 20MPH according to his watch computer, Has a 800w 36v friction drive motor.

I may make some further changes before I ride it again but it is safe now,

 

[deacon]

I might have gone completely mad. I am bidding on a used front brushed hub motor on ebay. If I get it I plan to put it on the mobility scooter as well as the friction drive.

How does that work you asked. The answer it simple I have no earthly idea. I think I will hook the hub to the controller I have now and hook the 36v 800 watt motor to another completely different set of batteries with a simple on off switch. then just use it to climb the nasty hills around her or to get a little more speed.

Since I haven't recovered from my last fall yet, It won't be to speed along in town. Was kind of wondering if anyone had done something like it.

 

[fatdaddy]

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d01/vc415.htm
With this law, If you're disabled, You can pretty much build a small 4 wheeled vehicle, (a car,) and ride it in the bicycle lane.

 

[deacon]

very cool. I would make a good pedestrian but not a good driver. I have a brain tumor and i have seizures. I blame my first bike accident a couple of year ago on a seizure. this latest one i have to blame on stupidity.

 

[deacon]

I won the old hub motor on ebay. Now the guy tells me he isn't sure if it is 24 or 36 volts so I am going to run it blind at the 36 volt level, but I'm going to try to give it a hand on the heavy amp draw areas. I left the friction drive attached. My plain right now if there are no more surprises is to:

1. Start the trike rolling with the hub motor and just roll down the road site seeing with the friction drive off the wheel.
2. When I get to a hill, drop the friction motor and run it at 24v with no controller just always on full speed ahead. Since the wheel will already be turning from the hub motor I hope it will pull and not skip. It will all need some fine turning I'm sure. I am curious to see how it works since there are no pedals to help it out. It is a pure scooter design.

Of course is it all going to have to wait since I am going to make an appointment with a bone doc because if the accident I had with this particular design. If he okays me riding again I should have it on the road next week. If not I am going to have a lot of spare parts for sale.

 

[kevyleven007]

You took a chance buying an old brushed hub motor. It might need new brushes. You might know how to fix that though but I don't. As far as volts go you should be able to run it at whatever you want its the amps and overall watts you have to worry about. Good luck with it I hope you got it cheap. I'm still waiting for my new hub kit and battery pack to get here.

 

[deacon]

The guy said he tested it and it runs or I wouldn't have touched it. How long it runs is another issue. Yeah the amps burn those brushes up, that's why I'm leaving the friction drive on to help it up the hills that's where the amps build up. The friction drive is rated 800 watts at 36volts and I'm only running it at 24.

I just finished wiring and building battery packs for it. That one good thing about 3 wheelers you can carry sla pack real easy. I have enough chargers I could put one in the 24volt so I don't get it mixed up with the 36v packs. I have to build pretty bullet proof since I'm such a klutz these days.

 

[fatdaddy]

very cool. I would make a good pedestrian but not a good driver. I have a brain tumor and i have seizures. I blame my first bike accident a couple of year ago on a seizure. this latest one i have to blame on stupidity.

Hope I don't insult, But have you thought about a safety kill switch?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATV-Tether-...ies&hash=item25799f2c8c&vxp=mtr#ht_2067wt_930
fatdaddy.

 

[deacon]

Not an insult.. I had no warning on the first one. I just past out in the saddle so to speak. Second one the trike was balanced wrong. It rared up and flipped backwards on top of me the motor had stopped since the throttle has a spring in it.

Both times it was the end of the fall that gone me. I try to remember to wear my helmet and live with the bone damage from the seizure falls, if there ever are any more the stupidity I'm going to try to overcome lol.

I also went to electric so the fall are going to be at a lower speed and im on a trike so the fall might not happen I might just slump over. That throttle spring will shut the motor down.

 

[fatdaddy]

Just trying to look out for my bro's and keep ya'all as safe as possible.
fatdaddy.

 

[kevyleven007]

Never say die! Hey remember that crazy back tire friction drive? At least with a front hub the weight should keep it from flipping. Or you could ad a wheel mount thing to the back and a smaller tire to keep it from flipping over. Maybe use some spare forks?

 

[deacon]

I think the heavy friction drive on the front and the hub motor up there should be okay. My fat butt is what I have to worry about now. to make sure I dont have a weight shift.

 

[deacon]

Went to an orthopedist today had some xrays of my butt made. I didn't break it after all just a deep tissue bruise. That's a good thing since I'm building a moped three wheeler rather than a motility scooter. So anyway I'm glad I just need to take it easyl but I can still, work and soon I can ride again hooray. I wanted copies of the xray so I could make christmas cards but no such luck.

 

[kevyleven007]

You'll be good as new in a couple of weeks. Give you time to work the bugs out.

 

[deacon]

Ah today that hub motor came in the mail. I worked on it this afternoon right through the pain lol. I hardly noticed it when I do something I love. A lot different than walking a mile through Walmart.

I had to patch the wires the previous owner had almost wrung off, but a lot of soldier and some careful reconstruction and it seems to work. I didn't dare test it, or my wife's patience. So at the moment it sits in the shop, along with my real three wheeler, waiting for a few more days to pass. Life is better everyday.

 

[deacon]

The rain came in today and with it the pain. God will this never end. Okay enough of that. I decided to rename this thread the evolution of a dual drive scooter.

Since I had nothing better to do I sat on my front porch drinking coffee as I moaned, and rethought the drive for the scooter. Since I bought the hub motor and I know it works after I soldiered the wires back together, I decided that I should run the 900 watt friction drive through the 36volt controller instead of the hub motor. I'm sure the friction drive is 36v 900 watt and matches the controller but I'm not too sure about the hub.

So I went onto ebay to order a 24volt 250 watt controller. I also got an inline fuse holder to limit the danger, since I have no idea what the real wheel motor is. I know that a brushed motor will run on a lower voltage without harm, but a higher voltage has damaged my friction drive motors before when they had unlimited amps available. So I'm just going to wait till the controller comes in, before I test the scooter.

I need to run some tests on the big red trike in my avatar. I bought three 12v 7ah batteries last month after the accident. I haven't had a chance to do a range test on them. I have been using 12v 12ah to make battery packs but I'm thinking the 7ah is lighter and less expensive. Since I would have to recharge the 12ah before heading back from the fishin' hole, I might as well build the lighter and easier to carry into the office battery pack. But I need to test it to see what it will do. So I am waiting to heal up and waiting to get back to building and testing. And I'm also going to try to stop boring you guys to tears.

Truth is I think that there is something to this build that might be worth repeating but I'll see later. Ghetto trike scooters are us. lol

 

[comfortableshoes]

I love reading your build threads. Even though this is electric I'm following it.

 

[deacon]

You should, half of it is about when we built those beautiful friction drives. Those lessons are what I use now even when I fail lol.

I have decided I need to get rid of the outside support on the rear wheels so I have been experimenting with making a rear axle that goes all the way from side to side. Things I have learned.

One is that the axle in the front wheel of a 20" bike is usually less than 3/8" but the hole in the hub is slightly over so a 3/8". A crown bolt will fit through it fine. I'm going to use a 24" x3/8 crown bolt. A crown bolt used by a royal Dolt quite a combinatioin.

So the caged bearings in the wheel will work fine just have to turn them around so they face inward. Then I take the full size axle bolt (not the small one) and drill out the threads' It looks as though the bolt with its little built in washer is just the right size to hold the bearing cage inside the wheel cup. So now, when I feel a little better tomorrow, I am going to bolt the axle to a piece of wood and attach the wheels to the crown bolt and VERY CAREFULLY test it out.

Shoes you should be here to pick my butt up when I roll it over on myself again. My wife wants me to quit building so I will live longer. She tells me I might not get any better from this fall. And I tell her I will get better or learn how to deal with it and still build bikes and right them. then she said, "well maybe you will get better." LOL wives...

 

[comfortableshoes]

I still have that weedwacker bike, sitting in my garage. It's waiting for some love. I should put the new tire on it and see if I can get it started. I'm willing to bet that little ryobi would start right up.

Those home brewed builds taught us a lot didn't they. How to think outside of the box and work with the stuff we have. Good stuff those builds were.

You'll get better, you're a tough old bird.