Been sold a cheap 10kW setup - what to do with it?

G

guyd

1 mW
Joined
Jun 19, 2013
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19
Been sold a brand spanking new goldenmotor HPM5000B watercooled motor and HPC500H controller, and a veritible pile of 48V LiFePo batteries with built in charge controllers, each 10Ah. Well under half price - Im not going to make you sick. ;)

I live on a rural small farm in the UK with waterwheel and solar PV generation - so 'free' electric during the day in summer and all the time in winter.

My Mrs is a wheelchair user, but fit and active.

My local shops are 1.5 miles away up a long gentle hill, all on public highway with no non highway route allowable for vehicles

My nearest town is 5 miles, along a 60mph road, again, a 1 mile long hill.

My thought was buy a quality honda quadbike, sell engine etc, lob in motor, ride said vehicle as my 'short distance' road transport. It needs to achieve at least 40 if not 50mph on a flat road - is this enough power? It would need to retain the off road knobblies I think, which isnt good for power I know. Or if the difference is that great, I will need to budget for a set of second wheels with road tyres.

what would you do?
 
guyd said:
Been sold a brand spanking new goldenmotor HPM5000B watercooled motor and HPC500H controller, and a veritible pile of 48V LiFePo batteries with built in charge controllers, each 10Ah. Well under half price - Im not going to make you sick. ;)

I live on a rural small farm in the UK with waterwheel and solar PV generation - so 'free' electric during the day in summer and all the time in winter.

My Mrs is a wheelchair user, but fit and active.

My local shops are 1.5 miles away up a long gentle hill, all on public highway with no non highway route allowable for vehicles

My nearest town is 5 miles, along a 60mph road, again, a 1 mile long hill.

My thought was buy a quality honda quadbike, sell engine etc, lob in motor, ride said vehicle as my 'short distance' road transport. It needs to achieve at least 40 if not 50mph on a flat road - is this enough power? It would need to retain the off road knobblies I think, which isnt good for power I know. Or if the difference is that great, I will need to budget for a set of second wheels with road tyres.

what would you do?
Click to expand...

10kW sounds like it will do that speed on a bike. Not sure about the quad. They weigh about 1000 lbs. right? Quads that have ~15hp will do about 20mph... So I don't think you'll get up to that speed.
 
will they allow you to drive an ATV on a public highway? no way to know how much power you have available since you did not say how many cells of 10Ah each. but sounds like you will need to do some kinda elmoto to get up to that speed. i don't think it would be safe to push an ATV to 50mph because they have such short wheelbase but it may work.
 
I could be wrong, but I think most quads are fairly light. I know the huge canam my dad has is only 600#. Most are a little less I think.
 
From other posts we know UK has a 250 watt motor limit. So what you're building, I believe, will require making it road worthy. And to reiterate, weight is be avoided if possible. You should explore what it will take to achieve your goals with the best possible information and design. You would do well to invoke the design before you build principal. For instance, here in America, four wheel means you're driving a car, not a bike, trike, ebike, moped or motorcycle. And nothing makes it to the road in this class without crash tests. The build-it-yourselver doesn't stand a chance! Those succeeding often buy a road worthy vehicle and convert it to electric using various off-the-shelf components.
 
Yes - in the UK you can ride an ATV on the road - no helmet or seat belt. Its also going to be 'agricultural registered' - the same as a tractor, so it requires no annual roadworthiness test (MOT in the UK TUV in germany etc) or annual road fund duty (aka road tax). also requires some lights, but its mostly optional round here <remembers a massive shabby looking 20+ ton trailer with graffiti style scrawl across the back 'no lights' above the very obviously broken-for-a-long-time shells of lights> But it is limited to short distances on the road for ag purposes only - round here its pretty lax unless you are taking the micky - one bloke goes to 'wall-mart' (Tesco) in his 1970's tractor, no licence, no MOT, no insurance, with an old fish box strapped to the lift arms on the back filled with his shopping. never been stopped.

yes - weight is an issue - I appreciate this, thanks

8 batteries - all 10Ah

250 quad weighs about 170kg / 380lbs
http://www.atvrideronline.com/2013/honda/trx/250x/specifications/125157/05/other.html

my last quadbike - similar to the above one - would happily do 45mph on a 250cc engine.
 
guyd said:
Yes - in the UK you can ride an ATV on the road - no helmet or seat belt. Its also going to be 'agricultural registered' - the same as a tractor, so it requires no annual roadworthiness test (MOT in the UK TUV in germany etc) or annual road fund duty (aka road tax). also requires some lights, but its mostly optional round here <remembers a massive shabby looking 20+ ton trailer with graffiti style scrawl across the back 'no lights' above the very obviously broken-for-a-long-time shells of lights> But it is limited to short distances on the road for ag purposes only - round here its pretty lax unless you are taking the micky - one bloke goes to 'wall-mart' (Tesco) in his 1970's tractor, no licence, no MOT, no insurance, with an old fish box strapped to the lift arms on the back filled with his shopping. never been stopped.

yes - weight is an issue - I appreciate this, thanks

8 batteries - all 10Ah

250 quad weighs about 170kg / 380lbs
http://www.atvrideronline.com/2013/honda/trx/250x/specifications/125157/05/other.html

my last quadbike - similar to the above one - would happily do 45mph on a 250cc engine.
Click to expand...

250cc are around 50hp range though. 10kW is roughly 15hp.
 
No 250cc farm quad is anything like 50hp - sorry - my butt dyno tells me its sub 20hp - they are torquey, not powerful like motorcycles (yes, a 250cc bike is 50hp ish)

from some tinternetweb trawling, Ive found figures from 12 to 20hp being stated as 'fact' - with most being 15 or 17hp
 
My vote is for a low slung ultra-light car. I bet you can use components made for large rc aircraft to build something awesome.

British-eco-car3-thumb-450x295.jpg

new+trike+front.JPG

340x_2010-VW-1-Liter.jpg

go_one3.jpg
 
guyd said:
No 250cc farm quad is anything like 50hp - sorry - my butt dyno tells me its sub 20hp - they are torquey, not powerful like motorcycles (yes, a 250cc bike is 50hp ish)

from some tinternetweb trawling, Ive found figures from 12 to 20hp being stated as 'fact' - with most being 15 or 17hp
Click to expand...

If that is truly the case and you were getting about 45mph already, you can expect similar performance.
 
I see no big problems with using that stuff on a quad. There is a huge variation now in what a quad is, what it weighs.
Something in a trail/ utility quad should work ok, but not perhaps a huge one with a cargo deck like a truck. The fact that you can ride it as a "farm vehicle" legal makes the quad the choice.
 
thanks for the input guys - I think im going for a lightweight quad, ag road registered. It would be nice to build an ultralight, but time and projects intervene....



argh - after swmbo is informed of this salient decision, she has suggested this instead

Quadzilla-RL300-RL500-zi.jpg


as it allows her to use it too - selfish cow. ;)
 
Might not be as fast as a lighter quad, but I bet 10,000w will make it go fine.
 
guyd said:
what would you do?
Click to expand...
If you don't know what to do you can give me all this stuff and I will convert my ATV with it :lol:

Mine has a power of 10kW and goes to 65km/h - 40mph but could go faster with a different gearbox reduction. And I don't think it is more powerful, it is a low cost made in china one and I paid 2000€ for it !

And yes, I really want to convert it and think I will use the same motor also watercooled but in 72v version.
 
guy, I've PM'd you a link to an auction ending tomorrow

you have to register to bid on there (you might be already?) and then be pre-proved for each auction before you can bid on anything

I've included my login info, and I'm already approved for the auction engine tomorrow, which is loads of brand new quads etc.. and even an off road buggy (whcih I was tempted to bid on but decided against)

(messaging here so you'll get the email reminder)
 
4.2KW hours of battery is a nice number that will probably give you about 50km of range if you are using an average of 5KW of power. As the others have said try and get a light quad.
 
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