my own mobility scooter

GoldenMotor.com

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
My computer screwed up and I couldn't do an edit so I had to do a reply.

I rode the big red trike today for the first time in three weeks. I loved it. I am going to wait a couple of days and take a crack at the yellow three wheeled scooter. That should be interesting.
 

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
The beauty of building your own bike is you can experiment with a bike then one day maybe build one with all you learn along the way. So today I had an idea about my trike. I thought way not turn it into a side car configuration to make the battery chance out easier. So i slid the whole back end over. One wheel is about five inches from the bike frame and the other about ten inches. It's raining so I can test it but it seems stable enough with thirty pounds of batteries holding the wide side down.

I should be interesting when I finally get to ride it.
 

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
The rain finally stopped long enough to give the three wheel scooter a try. It worked as expected. The friction drive pulled it up the hills at a pretty good clip. I wasn't comfortable enough to run it wide open yet. On a build that threw me on my butt, I am a lot more careful the next few times I ride that bike.

The one thing I can say is that the side car style rear wheels works pretty good, I think. Like I said I need to ride it more to be sure but it seems to work fine. The width of the rear wheel set is only about 24" total. I think a little wider might have been better but it does seem pretty stable.

I kind of have to do a weight shift now and then to keep all the wheels on the ground but that is to be expected.

I guess I'm going to park it in the shop after a couple of more test rides. I don't think I'm interested in buying a hub motor for that bike at this time. It will be sitting there in case my Miami Sun trike gets damaged. The rear wheels seem to be a bit wonky on all the trikes I have tried. Not a lot they just don't seem as stable as wheels that are supported on both sides like those on a bicycle. I

I might do a build where I use the two new wheels with the 1/2 inch axles supported on both sides like I had the first one. That would be far be the most stable.
 

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
well they scooter does just fine. It has a heck of a lot of torque even with that friction drive. So I removed the batteries and parked it out of the way. If the trike I ride give up on me for some reason. I will move the 36v 720watt motor to it. It was a fun build to be honest.

That has to be the end of this thread so bye yall...

ps I forgot to mention one thing I learned that might be useful to someone is that the two rear wheels do not have to be centered to operate. If you set them with one wheel almost against the frame it should give you a lot more storage room for your batteries. Should anyone else be interested in building a three wheel scooter.
 
Last edited:

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
I have gone back to the scooter. I plan to put a hub motor on it this time. So here is my question for you ebike hub motor guys.

It makes sence that the same hub motor with a bigger wheel would run faster, but that isn't necessary for me this time. I will have no pedals to assist it, so I'm thinking 48volt. I feel comfortable with either a 20" or 24" wheel. so tell me would a 20"er give me more torque for the hills here.
 

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
As part of the great scooter build, (which is still on hold thanks to the post office incompetence in delivering my hub motor.} I have been building odds and ends for the scooter. I made a rear view mirror that took and hour so I decided to convert a bed frame into a one wheel come along trailer for my emergency battery pack.

So I hooked this monster up to my trike and took it around the block. I didn't hook the trailer hitch down tight, so it came loose a little. I really didn't want to get my tools out a block or two from home, so I looked back and found that it was listing to the right.

So when I got back to the shop, I welded a bar on the bottom of the tongue so the trailer can twist on the hitch, I hope. I never used a one wheel trailer to carry things. I had a one wheeled bike trailer with a motor to push the bike.

Of course then I got to thinking wonder what a high watt pusher trailer would do on a three wheel scooter, I think I just might have to build one next, It would definitely be the talk of the town.

My wife had dinner with the people who own the bike shop. She doesn't ride but they go to her church. The son said two days ago a customer came in and said I want to buy one of the bikes like that old man rides around town on, He was talking about me according to my wife.;
 

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
I have been continuing to experiment with the scooter. I finally screwed up the hub motor I was using so it's back to the drawing board. I have decided to go back to the what I really know and enjoy building. I bought a new motor for the friction drive setup.

I found out what old age and a muddle brain can do to a motor. I built a motor mount and was welding the mount with the electric motor attached. It seems that an electric motor will fuse from the high heat of a welder lol. Something I should known since I have fused a bunch of them.

The motor coming is a 24v 28amp motor. I am going to be running a 36v 800 amp controller on it. Just have to wait till it arrives to see if I can avoid fusing it. This one has a bolt up mount but it's only 24volts so it is going to require a little redneck engineering.
 

cannonball2

Well-Known Member
Oct 28, 2010
3,682
223
63
Colonial Coast USA.
Hey Deacon. Check the bearings in the hub motor, you may have "welded" them depending on how the ground was placed. They should be fairly cheap and easy to replace. No sense chunking the motor if its only bearings. Worth a check.
 

deacon

minor bike philosopher
Jan 15, 2008
8,114
9
0
north carolina
Now I'm going to have to admit how stupid I am with my fuzzy logic brain tumor.

I reinstalled the halls type motor wrong and it broke the sensor wires they are paper thin. Then I took the case off to make a patch but the wires went through the bearing. So like an idiot I beat the bearing off with a hammer and then of course I couldn't replace it so I got really upset. ("the real word starts with a P) and tried to beat it back on. The motor froze up and I just threw the damn thing out. There is no one in this town who will fix something like that, and I never liked hub motor anyway.

You have to remember I would rather build them than ride them.

Now you have the whole sad story. The motor is now in the landfill I'm quite sure. My new motor arrives fedex on Monday and I have the scooter all ready for it. I'm going to save the scooter for experimenting with exotic stuff. That way I can save the Trike to ride to the store should I ever want to.

The scooter needs the hall's sensor but the trike can use the pedal first hub motor I still have. I need something to occupy my time. One of the stranger things is I built the friction drive motor and platform this time from a material I used back when I stated and had only a few metal working tools.

I used the angle steel pieces which are pre-drilled with a hole about every inch or so. I reinforced the holes for the axles with giant washer so we shall see.
 
Last edited: