Electric drift trikes. Now with decent video

So have a work experience kid who offered to help with some of the electric things. I let him try the electric dune buggy and then my bmx and he is hooked!
So I have been picking him up a couple Sundays a month and have him come help on dyno days etc. Recently we bought the two last huffy kids drift trikes and stretched them yesterday I got the first set of dropouts roughed in and set one of the two brushless hubs I have in place. Last weekend I taught him how to solder and let him assemble a 12 mosfet controller kit I had so we will both be running 12 fet controllers for now. We designed the dropouts to be removable so we can put the original 16" wheel back on the front with peddles, and we may want a more powerful hub for the front one day..... John??
So here is what we have done so far. Oh and just stretching them was fun we set up a track in my shop and had peddle races around all the bikes and equipment I have in there and it was a blast and a great workout!

Here is a little video just driving with one hand holding my cell for a video. I need a good deal on a couple helmet cams....
Edit: Removed because video sucked

act your age!!! hahah thats the first thing i wanted to do after seeing that awesome trike vid == arlo your so schetckyy!!!

GO ARLO!!!! nice shop i know where ill be droppin into if i ever do my cross country ebike trip!!!

one night to ride for anyone that missed it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdM2Mr06HsI

We are building one with friends too, with a 6kw brushed hub motor and a evt4000e scooter chassis seems like a new sport growing thanks to those guys in Aus (d3 drift trikes)

I planed to do this long befor the d3 videos. I first saw the Huffy slider videos when I was building my e-bmx and it got me thinking what I could do. I have been trying to get people in Australia to send me a huffy slider but the shipping is to much. So it just happens Zellers closed their doors 2 weeks ago and I bought the last two kids drift trikes for 48$ ea!

nice work Arlo1. I picked up a huffy off side of road few years ago now with plans to do my what you have done even bought a frock motor from hyena to go in front wheel lol...look forward to more vids

KiM

Arlo1 said:

I planed to do this long befor the d3 videos. I first saw the Huffy slider videos when I was building my e-bmx and it got me thinking what I could do. I have been trying to get people in Australia to send me a huffy slider but the shipping is to much. So it just happens Zellers closed their doors 2 weeks ago and I bought the last two kids drift trikes for 48$ ea!

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nice to see im not the only one who wants one.
Nice work arlo not so good video. i could make aout a few slides though.
have you tried it outside yet and what sort of speed are you getting?
Kmart had these on special here for $58 with a 20 inch front.
The drifters use a gokart rim with a peice of plastic pipe for their rear wheels so easy to replace when worn and have bearings.
I think they hold the pipe in place with just the tube pumped up??
I have bought some thick wall black pipe (8" diam and 20mm wall) and now just need some rims -No money
I have chewed through a couple of the huffy wheels and find it easy to get green machine wheels again from kmart.

winchmeup said:

nice to see im not the only one who wants one.
Nice work arlo not so good video. i could make aout a few slides though.
have you tried it outside yet and what sort of speed are you getting?
Kmart had these on special here for $58 with a 20 inch front.
The drifters use a gokart rim with a peice of plastic pipe for their rear wheels so easy to replace when worn and have bearings.
I think they hold the pipe in place with just the tube pumped up??
I have bought some thick wall black pipe (8" diam and 20mm wall) and now just need some rims -No money
I have chewed through a couple of the huffy wheels and find it easy to get green machine wheels again from kmart.

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I haven't got them finished as electric yet just peddle power and sorry bout the video it will get better
There is a few things they do for tires. the go kart wheels are ~10" od so you need 10" id plastic pipe there is another option with using 2 cheep industry wheels per side the smallest ones I found are 2.5 x 4" and they measure 8.1xx od inflated so your pipe would work for that. I have to go back and read again but there is one type of plastic that lasts longer.

you should try to build a dual controller and run two powered rear wheels

Lebowski said:

you should try to build a dual controller and run two powered rear wheels

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And use a throttle over can feature then I can work on my torque vectoring controller!
Maybe one day. But the rear wheels are plastic you run a front tire which has good traction so you can actually drift better. You can be well past 90 deg in a skid and use the throttle to pull out of it. I used to leave the summer tires on the back of my Srt 4 in Alberta just for fun in the winter!

Got one running today at about 1/4 power and 50v on a 12 fet with 4110s Its a lot of fun and was about 50km top speed its like a funner go kart! So so so fun! No brakes no helmet no battery box and no pegs I just held my feet in the air! Man this is the next version of karting! I will probably set these up with 20s lipo and ~50%-100% more power the phase wires were very slightly warm but motor and controller were cold. If I swap the wires it will be better I alread swaped the phase wires on the other motor which is a 38mm stator It can likely make 5-6hp ! I can't wait the more power the more you can use the front wheel to suck you to the center of the Apex!
PS sorry im out of duct tape!

whoo hoo
i can sense the fun just in your script.
Its getting me pretty keen to put this one at the top of the wish list.
So do you think you will keep it at 50km but more pick up?
I though you would need around 40 to 60kmhr to get a good slide
What do you recon its cost minus the frame.

winchmeup said:

whoo hoo
i can sense the fun just in your script.
Its getting me pretty keen to put this one at the top of the wish list.
So do you think you will keep it at 50km but more pick up?
I though you would need around 40 to 60 km hr to get a good slide
What do you recon its cost minus the frame.

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It all depends on how resourceful you are.

$150 for controller 18 packs of lipo gives you over 1kw of power for about $550. The hub motors I got for free but you can spend from 100-~600 depending.
I got the second one running2 days ago but I need to try programming the hall timing it was on AUTO but might need to be set at 60 or 120 deg spacing. Otherwise it will need a hall flipped over. I found when I pulled the yellow wire out of the connector it worked better. I just scored 8 10" od pneumatic tires and they are doing a new subdivision at the end of my street so I will get some pipe from there they said I can have all the scraps I want.

I would say the working components throttle, ebrake, controller, motor could be done on a budget from 150-300 and for performance off the shelf 500-1000 pluss a battery. The motor I put in my trike has a 38mm stator its going to be a beast. I put thicker phase wires out the one side and run the halls out the other side of the stator so I could fit the thickest phase wires possible. I can't wait!

Yes I have uber low power settings. I will up the power settings a bit but 50km top speed is lots I will up that to though 84v is going to be where I run these at. So 80km top speed will be had and ~3-5hp at the front wheel! Right now when I road It was all drifting at ~20km/h I went up to about 50km with nothing and scared my self because I was heading into traffic in the dark with no brakes/helmet/foot-pegs or lights and 2" off the ground! I managed to do a couple drifts then a 180 to slow down. Soon they will be all done! Very soon.

We did our first tests on our trike tonight, there's nothing like going 50Kph this close to the ground!
However we have a problem, the front whel is drifting a lot on hard acceleration, the tire is fat but I'm not too sure it will last long like that!
Those rear wheels are just for testing and they dont skid at all, I highsided the trike when trying to put it sideways :lol:

Already two minor crashes, the thing won't skid really with rubber wheels.
We cleaned the wiring and made a better seat. Those things need lateral butt support othewise you just get thrown out of the seat!
[youtube]8t6qlWNvQRY[/youtube]
It's a blast to ride so fast so low to the ground!

Don't mean to hijack...

Haha cool IM going to sort out my hall sensor issue today. Not sure whats going on I tested them already but maybe one is intermitient. It has a board with resistors and caps atached to them so maybe the 47 ohm resistors on the out put at not letting the signal go to the controller properly. But soon all I have to do is wait for the guys at the end of my road to get me a peice or a few small pieces of 10inch pipe for the bigger rear wheels.

How did those pedal trikes work out in the turns, Arlo ? No freewheels, correct ? The video didn't show any of that action. I got ideas. :lol:

Harold in CR said:

How did those pedal trikes work out in the turns, Arlo ? No freewheels, correct ? The video didn't show any of that action. I got ideas. :lol:

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They do have free wheels we never bothered to take them to a hill just raced in the shop. I made change able dropouts to alow us to pull the electric motors out and put the peddle power front wheels back in.
They were lots of fun/excersize but top speed when peddling is uberlame!

SO my stator is 38mm wide and 198mm in dia. Should be awesome. BUT.... It is 51 slots {teath} and 46 magnets. I tried the powerco winding calc to see if the halls are in the right place and its a funny winding schematic. I think there might only be 1 hall/phase wire combo and I never wrote all the combos down as I tried them so I might not have hit the KEY combo.

As you can see from the winding calculator there is an odd ball for each phase. With 4 teath for A then 3 for B then 4 for C Then 3 for A then 3 for B then 4 for C then 3 for A then 4 for B then 3 for C etc.

Here is a pic of the stator and the hall positions. I think it might be a very spesific hall phase combo I have had a few run but some wer rough and some wont start at low RPM.

I think this one is WYE connected but I scoped the halls and it looks ok. I did find one hall with a slight pinch on the wire I fed out the brake cover so that must be my problem. It sure does freewheel nice. To bad Justins motor calculator doesn't have a custom motor option I have a feeling this motor will be pretty good might give the X5 a run for its money. Hell I might switch them because its a smalled dia with the 12inch tire (16 inch ebike/bicycle)!

HELL YAH! This is now the most fun thing I have built! SO SO SO Fun This is with very low power settings and only 50v my plan is about 2x the power settings and 84v (20s)!

[youtube]5xBqC453YNA[/youtube]

Kept going untill I wore the rear wheels out!
[youtube]Qe3ZFrTqMyI[/youtube]

Great video Arlo.
i agree these things will go gang busters once the word gets out.

bzhwindtalker said:

We did our first tests on our trike tonight, there's nothing like going 50Kph this close to the ground!
However we have a problem, the front whel is drifting a lot on hard acceleration, the tire is fat but I'm not too sure it will last long like that!
Those rear wheels are just for testing and they dont skid at all, I highsided the trike when trying to put it sideways

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Im pretty sure once you change the back wheels it will steer heaps better. ie stop the front spinning.
Also lengthen the frame will help it handle better

Awesome! Why didn't you try drifting under the big rig truck trailer?

Rear wheel wear is going to be an issue. The plastic pipe idea seems pretty good. You can make disposable wheel inserts. For sure rubber will have too much traction to be fun. You might be able to find something like a go-kart tire that fits a common pipe size. Deflate the tire and fit the plastic ring over it. Re-inflate the tire and the ring will be stuck on there. When the ring wears out and falls off, you're back to rubber so you can maintain control (and make it back to your supply of plastic rings).

Or... how about just put casters on the rear? That would let you drift like crazy and last more than one ride. It might be like driving a hovercraft though. Got any old shopping cart wheels?
You could get fancy and make a single caster under the seat operated by a foot pedal that lifts the weight off the rear wheels (assuming normal rear wheels). This way you could control the amount of drift and pull some really tight U turns.