New here. I picked up an old '72 Desoto Trail Mate 3 wheeler with a '79 12 volt motor over the front wheel . Its a friction drive and it still works.

[Kdcleave]

New here. Picked up a '72 Desoto 3 wheeler by Trail Mate. Came with a 12v mounted over front wheel motor for " power assist". The motor works fine but it's connected to a 12v lawnmower battery and runs out of power quickly. I'm a dummy when it come to figuring out what I need to replace it with to get further on it. To the grocery store & back. About 2.5 miles. Thanks for any help with this.

 

[Mossy]

This thread has some great information / ideas... Post another thread with your battery goals... It's not my expertise... you just have to get with any number of the electrical gurus...
Welcome to the forum... Post some up close pictures if possible of that really cool odd duck of a trike... Put Trike in the thread description... And good luck

 

[fasteddy]

Start a thread in the electric forum and we will come and answer your questions. It's easier for us to find and the people scrolling through as well. Fantastic piece of vintage equipment but the motors and batteries have move ahead a great deal today.

Keep posting so it's fresh and in front of people. Here's the link.

Electric Bicycles, Trikes and Recumbent Bicycles

Electric bicycles are quiet and efficient form of transportation for general commuting.

motorbicycling.com

12v is pretty light for today's standards. Most of them use 48v and go up from there. Looks like the motor runs a friction roller on the front tire. Today the motor is in the front or rear wheel hub or you run an electric motor called a mid motor that drives the bike bottom bracket sprocket.

Hope this helps and welcome to the forum.

Steve.

 

[curtisfox]

Steve is right, but better is a deep cycle batterie used on marine trolling motors. Or even 2 hooked in parallels, I run 2 gulf cart batteries in my motorhome, I can dry camp for a week, but are costly.

The new modern setup is the best like Steve is talking about.