This has been my summer burning man project. I've been wanting some kind of electric bicycle for many years but could never really justify the time and cost because I don't live where using one regularly is practical. In the past year both the GF and myself have sustained injuries to our legs that have me concerned about our mobility at the burn this year. Finally... a good excuse for an electric motor project!
Trike I found on craigslist. It needed a number of bicycle mechanical fixes. The motor, controller, and ebike kit I sourced from a wonderful gentleman in hong kong. He's been enthusiastic and awesome about answering questions and the price was great. This is going to the playa and while I intend to keep it running for years to come I did not want to take a nice expensive setup out there to get covered in dust and start in with the rust. All mounting was done with angle iron perf steel from the local hardware store. No welding. It all bolted together. There are 4 12v 35AH AGM SLA (U1 size) Batteries. Motor is designed for 48v. That's about 110 lbs of batteries. The trike was heavy to start with. It's really damn heavy now with the batts onboard. I figure with 2 riders, motor, batteries, and frame it'll weigh in around ~500 lbs total and be carrying about 80% of that weight on the back two tires.
With the two of us on it it will climb small inclines OK, but any kind of significant grade means we need to pedal. We were however able to get up a very steep hill by pedaling in combination with the motor. Bruning man will be flat... but we'll see how it handles soft spots. One of the rear wheels had been damaged in a crash so I opted to have both rear wheels rebuilt. 20" Rims made for intermediate jumping with 2,35" tires.
Really hoping these google plus image links work... if they don't I'll find another way to post them.
--Chris
Trike I found on craigslist. It needed a number of bicycle mechanical fixes. The motor, controller, and ebike kit I sourced from a wonderful gentleman in hong kong. He's been enthusiastic and awesome about answering questions and the price was great. This is going to the playa and while I intend to keep it running for years to come I did not want to take a nice expensive setup out there to get covered in dust and start in with the rust. All mounting was done with angle iron perf steel from the local hardware store. No welding. It all bolted together. There are 4 12v 35AH AGM SLA (U1 size) Batteries. Motor is designed for 48v. That's about 110 lbs of batteries. The trike was heavy to start with. It's really damn heavy now with the batts onboard. I figure with 2 riders, motor, batteries, and frame it'll weigh in around ~500 lbs total and be carrying about 80% of that weight on the back two tires.
With the two of us on it it will climb small inclines OK, but any kind of significant grade means we need to pedal. We were however able to get up a very steep hill by pedaling in combination with the motor. Bruning man will be flat... but we'll see how it handles soft spots. One of the rear wheels had been damaged in a crash so I opted to have both rear wheels rebuilt. 20" Rims made for intermediate jumping with 2,35" tires.
Really hoping these google plus image links work... if they don't I'll find another way to post them.
--Chris
