Currie Kick Scooter conversion

[ElectricGod]

I picked up this little ride today for $80 on craigslist. The SLA batteries were dead and the motor controller was burnt out. I didn't really care since it was so cheap and I was just going to upgrade it anyway. The motor controller was inside the motor case which was a royal pain to get at and then it was buried in epoxy. I took the motor apart and discovered it was a decent outrunner in there. So I pulled the stator out, removed the controller board and all that epoxy and then rewired the motor fields and halls for an external controller. It's over kill I know, but the smallest motor wire I had was 10 awg. Well it definitely wont starve for current! I have a couple of 1500 watt Chinese controllers so, one of them went on this outrunner. It's wired delta. I was tempted to bring all the field ends out of the motor so I could switch from wye to delta, but truthfully it has plenty of torque from a stop so there's no point. There's a sticker on the motor that says it is a 500 watt motor and I would have to agree that the controller might have been good for 500 watts, but the motor was wound with 14 awg wire so clearly it had more in it that 500 watts. Originally it ran off of 24 volts, but since the 1500 watt controller is for 48 volts, well...you know I had to run this thing off of 48 volts. I have a couple of old 6S LIPO packs so that's what's in the scooter now. I'll likely buy a couple of new LIPO packs since one of the two packs I have is bulged pretty badly.

The motor since it is smallish wattage wise got pretty warm under load and needed a fan on it. I cut the top off the heat sink can and then glued a PC fan to the motor bell to pull air into the motor. There's a small gap around the motor bell and the heat sink that allows air to blow back out of the motor. It works quite well. Running, the air blowing around the edge of the motor bell is pretty significant. Tonight, I took it for a ride and rode full out for several minutes. It goes about 30mph now which is impressive considering how these things did maybe 20 MPH originally. It' doesn't accelerate as well as my blue scooter, but hop on and it takes off on it's own...unlike the moped.

I know this is kind of ugly looking with the deck lifted up on strips of wood, but this is just proof of concept right now. I'll build a better battery box later. This one is completely open from the front and back which allows whatever dirt, grass and water into the battery bay. This is a cludge for the moment.

I have several 12S BMS's. I'll put one in here after a while too. The scooter has no lights on it or horn. It has a rocker switch for turning off the power. I'll have to rewire things after a while so the switch enables the controller, not turn on the power. The thumb throttle is pretty bad. It works, but it has dead spots and sometimes skips. I'll have to replace it too.

 

[ElectricGod]

Ugg! crappy picture...I'll post a better one later of the scooter.

 

[speed_hunter]

Nice! I've had a few of the Currie scooters when I was younger. The frames are absolutely bulletproof and can take some serious abuse.

 

[ElectricGod]

I intend on putting a 3220 or turnigy 80-160 on it. I have both motors already. The chain is way too light weight for the power I'll be delivering so I will be upgrading to at least t8f if not 219. For the 3220, I am all set for 219 and for the 80-160, I have t8f sprockets adapted to it. I prefer 219...KART sprockets are uber cheap and easily found all over the place and it's really strong chain. T8f...not so much. There are only a few driver sprocket and wheel sprocket sizes and anything over about 2500 watts and it breaks.

 

[Ianhill]

Wow three projects now, you must be mining lithium, this thing with an astro #fun

 

[ElectricGod]

Wow three projects now, you must be mining lithium, this thing with an astro #fun

I know right? LOL! Well the big kick scooter is essentially done so a new project has to come out sometime. coming across this scooter was not what I was expecting, but here it is.This little scooter is already pretty much complete and ridable now. Doing upgrades can happen at a low/casual speed. In between time I'll ride it as is and do upgrades as there is time and resources. The moped is going to take lots more work to get it useful. This little ride can totally pull it's own weight and mine with that little outrunner on it right now. I'll buy a couple of LIPO bricks for it and I'm good to go.

 

[LockH]

Hehe... Hiya "ElectricGod". (Parents can be so strange naming their kids eh?)

My first experienced riding electrics was on a similar Currie "Phat Flyer":

Many thousands of urban roads and pathways etc traveled in the years before Canada legalized the "power-assisted bicycle". Folded up once (in a sports equipment shoulder bag) flew with me to visit in Victoria, BC. No charge, as the airline thought it "too small" to charge me for a bicycle.

BUT... Based on my experiences with that Currie, I set about to redesign my ride. For example, got a lot of cargo space on that thing? And, it occurred to me that with any "extra kick" to that back wheel the front might lift up? (Not good.) So I thought front wheel drive might be better?

So anyway. The "Dray" was my concept vehicle as the Currie redesigned:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=19001

Hope you find amusing.
Cheers
L

 

[ElectricGod]

Where did you find that hub motor? What's the wattage and KV? I have a hub motor with a 16" tire on it that I am considering putting on this scooter, but it will raise the back end up a fair bit and it's only 1000 watts. The existing outrunner is almost that powerful so the hub wont really add anything to the kick scooter.

 

[LockH]

Where did you find that hub motor? What's the wattage and KV? I have a hub motor with a 16" tire on it that I am considering putting on this scooter, but it will raise the back end up a fair bit and it's only 1000 watts. The existing outrunner is almost that powerful so the hub wont really add anything to the kick scooter.

Re that "Dray" design? I said in that Dray thread "The front hub ain't exactly as pictured (that's a Nine Continent) but actually a cast 16" made by Crystalyte years ago." And cast wheel vs spokes? No idea who might sell such a thing these days.

Hehe... "Only" 1000 watts. Zat continuous or peak power outputs? All day long 1000W? Or just temp... Running the Currie at 400W (I think it was) could handle me (weight) plus one passenger.

L

 

[ElectricGod]

Where did you find that hub motor? What's the wattage and KV? I have a hub motor with a 16" tire on it that I am considering putting on this scooter, but it will raise the back end up a fair bit and it's only 1000 watts. The existing outrunner is almost that powerful so the hub wont really add anything to the kick scooter.

Re that "Dray" design? I said in that Dray thread "The front hub ain't exactly as pictured (that's a Nine Continent) but actually a cast 16" made by Crystalyte years ago." And cast wheel vs spokes? No idea who might sell such a thing these days.

Hehe... "Only" 1000 watts. Zat continuous or peak power outputs? All day long 1000W? Or just temp... Running the Currie at 400W (I think it was) could handle me (weight) plus one passenger.

L

Once I took apart the motor and removed the built in controller which had only had 6 IRF3205 mosfets in it. I think that's the real reason it's good for 500 watts. The motor I got is wound with 18 awg wire and It ran with the blower on it doing 1000+ watts. The outrunner is definitely more capable than the controller. I didn't ride for an hour full out, but in my experience, motors heat up pretty fast if they are going to and it never got over 100F in the 15 or 20 minutes of hard riding I gave it. I'm definitely running it much harder than it ever was intended by Currie. I have no idea what this motor was capable of before I got it since the controller was burned out. I doubt the controller would have pulled my 240 pounds very quickly. I have a Schwinn kick scooter and it's motor is uber wimpy. The Currie is much stronger now than the Schwinn.

I worked on the Currie scooter some today. The bearings in the back wheel were really dry, so I took the back axle apart, cleaned it up and regreased the bearings. It spins much better now. The rear brake cable was also damaged since it got crunched from the way it was mounted. I straightened out the cable and added a small piece of aluminum to move the cable up and away from the ground so it can't get bashed anymore. In the first picture you can see the jinked end on the cable.

 

[LockH]

Cool. So... "stronger" = higher wattage rating = drains batteries faster? :wink:

Also, you realize the riders body position (standing up on the Currie) equates to the proverbial "broad side of a barn door"?

Although "not that fast" at about 20+km/h... with a strong headwind added... I could actually sit down on the deck while underway (still able to reach the handlebars) and the speed increase was noticeable! Sit down, speed up. Stand up, slow down.

More about aerodynamics here:
http://www.part20.eu/en/

So, the shape of the Dray design wasn't just to add cargo capacity... it was also to help provide some "windscreen" shape to the scoot! Thought about adding any sort of a windscreen to your Currie? (It's all about getting more range per charge/lowering watt-hours consumed per mile/making the batteries last longer before final recycling/replacement!)

L

 

[ElectricGod]

Cool. So... "stronger" = higher wattage rating = drains batteries faster? :wink:

Also, you realize the riders body position (standing up on the Currie) equates to the proverbial "broad side of a barn door"?

Although "not that fast" at about 20+km/h... with a strong headwind added... I could actually sit down on the deck while underway (still able to reach the handlebars) and the speed increase was noticeable! Sit down, speed up. Stand up, slow down.

More about aerodynamics here:
http://www.part20.eu/en/

So, the shape of the Dray design wasn't just to add cargo capacity... it was also to help provide some "windscreen" shape to the scoot! Thought about adding any sort of a windscreen to your Currie? (It's all about getting more range per charge/lowering watt-hours consumed per mile/making the batteries last longer before final recycling/replacement!)

L

I'm not too worried about wind resistance. I have been riding a larger kick scooter for the last year. I just add more torque and batteries to overcome wind resistance. The Currie will eventually get a couple of 20,000mah LIPOs. The 12,000mah packs I have right now would be plenty if they were not damaged. The 20K packs will get me several days of riding before then need to be charged. Of course I have a zillion 18650's that I could put together into a pack for the Currie. Occasionally I do squat down on my rides for less wind resistance. I have seen people putting wind splitters on the fronts of their rides before, but they generally look pretty dorky. I'll pass.

 

[ElectricGod]

Chain noise on this thing was quite significant. There's a delrin block that the chain rides against to maintain tension. I removed the block and replaced it with a bearing. Now the chain has something to roll on rather than slide on. It made a huge difference. Noise from the chain dropped by 70% at least.

 

[LockH]

Hehe... I'd forgotten about that delrin block... Yeah. Any "noise" bad ie resistance ie higher energy consumption per mile. Other than extending the rear fender w/a piece of plastic, really did zero to fix/improve. (Was having too much fun.) So for me it was mostly just an education in how to conserve energy over distances. Coast to stops, kick to start, etc. Cost of replacement batteries (2x 12V 10Ah batts) was too cheap (versus savings eg pubic transit). Again. Just having too much fun.

 

[ElectricGod]

Hehe... I'd forgotten about that delrin block... Yeah. Any "noise" bad ie resistance ie higher energy consumption per mile. Other than extending the rear fender w/a piece of plastic, really did zero to fix/improve. (Was having too much fun.) So for me it was mostly just an education in how to conserve energy over distances. Coast to stops, kick to start, etc. Cost of replacement batteries (2x 12V 10Ah batts) was too cheap (versus savings eg pubic transit). Again. Just having too much fun.

This is a fairly small scooter. I have 10,000mah LIPOs coming for it and then I'll ride it to work which is 10 miles round trip. I have no idea how much range I will get out of 12S at 10,000mah on this little thing. My nearly worn out 16,000mah turnigy packs got me 5 miles of hard riding before they were drained. I kind of have a half baked idea of selling the Currie to a co-worker. He keeps talking to me about building a scooter, well this little ride would be a great platform for him. But then I look at it and how solid the frame is and all kinds of ideas start swimming around in my head. Things like...adding a turnigy 80-160 to it, converting over to disk brakes, adding lights and a few other things.

 

[ElectricGod]

My other point of curiosity is how long will that outrunner last. It was on a controller that was uber weak, designed around 24 volts and maybe 10 amps now I have it on a 48 volt, 30 amp controller. I can't wait to see this motor go up in flames...if its going to because that means it's 80-160 time!. So far with the fan on it, it runs pretty cool...something like 100F.

More love, more power, more wattage in my life!

 

[ElectricGod]

I'd swear that Currie intended that the 10,000mah 4S LIPOs I just bought were supposed to be a perfect fit in their battery bay. What can't I do with 6 of them in there?! And I have 7 of these packs.

 

[ElectricGod]

I have 7 10,000mah packs right now and another 6 coming soon. I think I'll be dropping 6 packs in here. I have no idea how far that will get me, but I am guessing that I should get 3 or 4 days of ride time between charges. For now I'll run at 48 volts or 12S, since I'll have 6 packs in there, I'll possibly change over to 24S later. I don't know what the Kv of the factory outrunner is, but hopefully the 80-160 I intend to add on later will be a little faster so I can remain at 48 volts, but still get a little more top speed. It will obviously be much more powerful. The Currie outrunner doesn't use neo magnets so it's not as strong as it could be. And that brings me to another thought I have. The windings are pretty beefy, but the bell has a ceramic ring magnet in it. I need to take apart the motor again and figure out how many north/south domains are actually in that ring so I can get neo's that can replace the ring. I'm pretty sure I have the magnets already to make this work, but in case I don't, they will be pretty inexpensive for something that will fit and will probably double the torque of the motor.

 

[ElectricGod]

Last night I got the Currie all put back together and took it out for a ride. The motor would run strong and then sputter and go back to running strong and then sputter again. Grr! I was hoping to ride it into work today. Anyway, I pulled the stator off and found a place where the windings have been nicked. I think I'm jumping an arc across the place where the wire is exposed and that's causing the sputtering action. Ironically, when I put the motor back together a few weeks ago it was fine. I'm guessing the nick in the insulation must have gotten wider with arcing and now it's bad enough to keep the motor from working. This is a strong little outrunner. It looks like a motor rewind will be happening soon. So much for riding it into work any time soon. My hope was that this scooter would be usable quickly so I have been focusing on it rather than the moped which will take lots more work.

 

[ElectricGod]

I'm waiting on chain and a few other items for the moped so it's just sitting there anyway. I think I'll get out my spool of 14 awg wire and see about rewinding this outrunner tonight. If I'm lucky, my first ever rewind will actually work well. The wire is flat sided so if I'm careful I should be able to rewind the stator pretty nicely. I need to buy some straws tonight so that the wire as it passes down a tooth doesn't scuff the neighboring tooth or its windings.

 

[ElectricGod]

I have 14awg wire. I tried to rewind the motor with it, but taking the old windings off revealed each tooth had 16 turns on them. I attempted to rewind one of the fields with 14 awg, but I could only get 8 turns on each tooth. That's going to raise the KV considerably despite the much higher current handling 14 awg would have over the 16 awg it was wound with. I originally thought it was wound with 14 awg, but once I started pulling off the old wire I realized it was much thinner than my spool of 14 awg. 14 awg is really stiff stuff. The one field I wound has lots of dings in the insulation despite trying to be careful to not scratch it up. I'll pull the wire back off, this isn't going to work because the Kv will be so high. My winding efforts took several tries to get it looking this good and to cram 8 turns onto each tooth. I'll have to buy some 16 or 18 awg wire if I want to go with single strand at 16 turns.

 

[ElectricGod]

I took the 14 awg winding off. It was an experiment and the wire insulation was pretty skinned up anyway since I had tried to wind it on several times. The stator had gotten kind of banged up too removing it from the motor frame. This is the stator with some JB weld on it where the insulation had crumbled off. In case I had lost the insulation on the stator teeth, I wrapped them in a little Kapton too. I have some thinner wire coming so I can rewind it to 16 turns.

The halls were epoxied into the stator so removing them pretty much destroyed them. This is the hall board with a new cable and halls.

 

[Ianhill]

Looks a similar size to the hoverboard motor that xadmx done i think he had that upto 1500watts not heard much on it lately,
Its effectively running as a 6 pole 120° motor with 3 stator teeth per pole, 18 teeth in total so
It could have been configured as a 9 pole 60° motor 2 stator teeth per pole, it would have made more torque that way and felt less coggy but the winding you have chosen is best for your needs its better for spinning up higher rpms and its less erpms per mechanical revolution too.
Whats the final termination going to be delta, wye or switched the gearing will be key to pushing it or not too steep and smoke will pour keep the gearing light and ride it like its pinched.
The power you have shoved under the hood of this thing from the pics is really something for a little scoot, it will be very fast indeed I may revisit the e300 and put a delta terminated boma on there at 72v one day (one can dream
I'm going to be taking my cells out of the pack and placing compression plates either side and building 8 cells thick 2 bricks wide arrangement to keep them cool and stops puffing the heat wrap on lipo packs do a very poor job of keeping compression even across the cell face might be something worth considering with all those new lipos could help keep them tip top for longer specially if they heat sunk too.

 

[Ianhill]

Thinking about it terminate it wye it will already spin faster if its the same turn count as before, a larger gauge wire so less resistance it will handle a bit more current over stock too.

 

[ElectricGod]

Since I'm rewinding anyway, I'll bring all 6 wire ends outside and then I can connect up a relay to switch from WYE to DELTA. It was wired DELTA already. I'm thinking of going with 16 awg wire and then a few less winds per tooth. That will up the KV, but give me more current handling. Then running it wye from stops will give me great take off torque before switching to delta.