Destruction Derby Car Build

S

Stevengineer

1 µW
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Feb 22, 2020
Messages
4
Hey guys,

A friend and I want to smash cars together in the desert of Vegas, we've built with the M1003 on an older dune VW buggy was fun about 10 years ago, but I wanna make something more like a real-life battle bots - using our FPV quad racing gear and the numerous "FREE" cars on facebook that don't run.

Is there an ideal QS hubmotor for random car conversions? We don't need efficiency or top speed, just fun! :lol:

Also, anyone wanna join us? We're going to need more FPV cars, and I wanna get a 6ft horizontal spinner on one... :twisted:
 
I want to make them last longer than traditional ICE Destruction derby's, so I'm trying to do AWD hub motors, it's not as cheap but it'll be more like battlebots on TV.

I'm thinking removing everything from inside of a car, using a 10mile range battery for a battle, and having a super light car after that - no people, just 360 FPV camera and servo controlled steering/motor controller inputs by radio
 
I think the idea is cool but wouldn't have any leads on car hub motors. I know they exist but never entertained them because the high unspring weight would make a car ride terribly.

But ride quality isn't important here. :)
 
Yeah i'd watch that shit. You could probably get away with using cheap recycled electric car batteries too. Lots of Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt batteries being sold in modules for nearly nothing out there on eBay.
 
Just get the whole power train from a Leaf or other available EV. Maybe find one that was rear-ended. The batteries on those are the first thing to get recycled, so I'm sure you'd have to find a battery separately. If you only need 10 miles range, a much smaller battery will work.

No matter what, it's going to be a fair amount of work to convert a gas car to electric. It will be pretty disappointing if the car dies after the first hit.
 
neptronix said:
QS motors' offerings are going to be way too small for what you're after.
Click to expand...
I dunno about that. They have some 12kw hubmotors for cars, and that's 12kw *continous*, so you could probably do several times that peak. (they state double peak on their page; I'd bet it will do more based on what others have done with bike-style hubmotors)
https://www.qsmotor.com/product/12kw-car-motor/
Put four of those on there for AWD and.... ;)

More
https://www.qsmotor.com/car-motor/

Controllers will be expensive....


You will need to protect the wiring, so ti won't get pinched / crushed and shorted in collisions. Routing it under the car along the frame will probably help; you may need to deliberately route battery positive and negative as far apart as practical for as much of the runs as possible, to ensure they cant' be shorted out. (fuses, breakers, etc will help but only by cutting power--if you don't have to cut power it's better cuz it'll run longer ;) ).

Protecting the battery itself...put it in with the driver, in the roll/anticrush cage? Center of mass of vehicle for better performance? But "firewall" it so if something does go wrong the driver has a half a chance of getting out alive if not completely undamaged.
 
amberwolf said:
neptronix said:
QS motors' offerings are going to be way too small for what you're after.
Click to expand...
I dunno about that. They have some 12kw hubmotors for cars, and that's 12kw *continous*, so you could probably do several times that peak. (they state double peak on their page; I'd bet it will do more based on what others have done with bike-style hubmotors)
https://www.qsmotor.com/product/12kw-car-motor/
Put four of those on there for AWD and.... ;)

More
https://www.qsmotor.com/car-motor/

Controllers will be expensive....


You will need to protect the wiring, so ti won't get pinched / crushed and shorted in collisions. Routing it under the car along the frame will probably help; you may need to deliberately route battery positive and negative as far apart as practical for as much of the runs as possible, to ensure they cant' be shorted out. (fuses, breakers, etc will help but only by cutting power--if you don't have to cut power it's better cuz it'll run longer ;) ).

Protecting the battery itself...put it in with the driver, in the roll/anticrush cage? Center of mass of vehicle for better performance? But "firewall" it so if something does go wrong the driver has a half a chance of getting out alive if not completely undamaged.
Click to expand...

Great tips! Thanks!

I wonder if there's a way to deal with losing a wheel without shorting and stopping the rest of the car from working... I could always use multiple batteries and keep each hub motor separate like some BattleBots guys do, and then more easily protect the control circuitry that tells motors when and where.

There won't be a driver, we're going to do VR with RC. This is Battlebots-Cars, I hope anyhow, it'll be slow to start, and then to get my other friends around the world to join in... but I know at least 3 groups that will hopefully join the fun once we start it.

It won't be cheap, no, I should start a Patreon page :mrgreen: Anyone wanna spare some dogecoin?

The goal is to have fun! I'm tired of things that move normally, lets do a barrel roll! :flame:
 
what would be better guys?

4 motorcycle sets (so the wheels can be chewed and the motor survives sometimes) : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001212030238.html

or

4 normal hub motors and just add protection to wheels like some battlebots: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001278399625.html
 
Those wheel motors don't look too bad. 8kW each should at least move a car. A very stripped down, lightened car would go a lot faster. For sure those would be the most flexible for mounting and could work on almost anything.
 
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