Kickbike Electric Scooter Build

I have been obsessing lately about making an electric bike for my wife. She does not like bicycle seats I want her to join the family for short bicycle rides. I had a great idea about making an electric scooter so she doesn't have to sit on a wedgie seat and since it is electric she could keep up with everyone. Also a scooter is easy to get on and with electric power she does not need to get sweaty or change into athletic clothing. I decided on a Kickbike because it is stable and strong enough to even go over dirt paths. I wanted this scooter to not just be electric throttle but I also wanted it to be electric kick assist so it would get good range with a small light battery while encouraging exercise. But since a scooter naturally doesn't have pedals, a pedal assist sensor does no good. I ended up coming up with a way to mimic the pedal sensor so that it would be kick assisted.

To mimic the pedal assist sensor, I used an infrared proximity switch mounted low to the ground with a short range to detect the kick. The infrared switch triggers a timer circuit to power a square wave pulse generator for a few seconds which mimics the pedal sensor. As a safety, this is all activate upon standing on a momentary switch mounted in the deck and cuts power to the motor if stepped off the deck. This set up allows the scooter to be truly kick assisted requiring frequent kicking to power the scooter. The power of the motor drives the scooter faster and farther than kicking alone so she can keep up with the family while still getting some exercise and without sitting on an uncomfortable seat.

Powering the scooter is a Q100H 36 volt front hub motor and S06S sine wave motor controller with LCD screen from BMSbattery. The batteries are two Turnigy nano-tech 5000mah 5S 25~50C Lipo Packs from HobbyKing connected in series for a 10s pack and managed by a BMS from BMSbattery. The batteries are stored in a handlebar bag from Banjo Brothers and the controller is mounted to outside of the bag.

This thing is a lot of fun to ride and I have a feeling my daughter and I will be using it the most. I like that the S06S with the LCD has several power settings so I can gradually work up to a faster speed. This helps the scooter blend with whatever speed the family is traveling at combined with how frequently the rider is kicking.









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The infrared switch was bought from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AMC1V2C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


The timer circuit purchased on eBay:


The square wave pulse generator purchased on eBay:

Neat build! I love that you've incorporated the pedal assist via infrared sensor... that is baller. This is quite well thought-out!

Awesome creation, have been thinking about a custom kickbike type ride myself. This certainly is inspiration!
What was the reason you went for a front hub and not a direct drive rear hub with a more favorable torque situation in the smaller wheel?

I love the infrared sensor, great job

The front of the bike is pretty heavy. I originally wanted to go with rear drive and weld a custom rear rack to go over the wheel but the rear dropout spacing is only 65mm with an 18" tire. It would have been more work than I wanted to convert it to a wider dropout spacing for the motor. I know some of the Kickbike models have a 20" wheel so they might have wider dropouts but I don't know. If they are wider then I might have to make another Kickbike for myself with a rear drive and rack.

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