Hi! I just unexpectedly received a box of parts to start some new project for 2025! Long time reader, 1st time poster!

[salukikev]

I'm Kevin- I've visited this forum on occasion for years for tech info but just registered today now thanks to my wife's uncle handing over an intriguing box of parts.
I'm pretty familiar with everything so far- this box includes 4 mini shocks, two brake disc rotors, a mechanical brake caliper, a double output brake(presumably) lever, adapters, a 1" keyed & threaded axle, square axle keys, bearing blocks, 2 500 watt brushed motors, 2 chinese 500 watt esc's, 2 800 watt brushed motors, 2 chinese 1000 watt ESC's, assorted sprockets, and 5 somewhat mysterious battery modules. Also mysterious is the leftmost component shown- A spring loaded switch the purpose of which I've yet to guess.

These are all a few of my favorite things, so I'm pretty pleased, and haven't decided what to do with it all yet, but I have a curious 7yr old (and already built this 6wheel articulated chassis powerwheels with to give you an idea)... a gocart would probably be too easy, but we'll see. Maybe another battlebot, maybe a hydrofoil? I dunno. Anyway, for now I have two questions in the hopes of kickstarting the effort:
1. I have no idea of the history of all this and I don't think Uncle Tony does either. It's all looks pretty new with the exception of the 500w motors/esc's and they're pretty close. The rest of the parts don't look particularly custom, so I'm thinking at least some of it was a kit. Anyone familiar with an EV conversion kit that loosely matches the above? Just to skip to the research finish line and get specs/diagram of the intended use.

2. The batteries: I'd once tried to pick up a set of leaf cells and these look similar but are oddly devoid of any identification whatsoever. Also unexpected is their lack of telemetry plug or other connector to relay temp or cycles and all that type info. There's just 3 terminals- maybe they encode some data through the power feeds? Is there a wiki for these? These are probably pretty old and maybe unusable but they are reading typically 6.2-6.4v which in my drone batteries I'd consider low enough to be damaged, but for these I dunno. I'd love a guide to evaluate them.

Anyway, mostly I'm just here saying hi. Looking forward to tonight's lost sleep brainstorming projects!

 

[amberwolf]

The cells are just cells. Leaf of one generation or another, recycled out of a car's traction pack. The center terminal is the common between the two cells (normally used only to monitor the cells), the two ends are the +/- for the series pair. So the 5 tins contain 10 cells, so a 10s "36v" pack can be made from them. I don't recall the Ah capacity of the leaf cells.

They have no electronics in there; if you want a BMS you'd have to buy one capable of the current required by your full system, with any features you'd like it to have.

I only see three controllers; normally you'd want a separate controller for every motor. If those are brushed motors (two wires vs 3+) then you can parallel or series multiples on one controller, but they wont' behave the same as if they had their own each.


Before you buy further parts, you should decide what project you want to create, and what it will have to do for you under what conditions. Then that can be used to figure out if what you have can handle that, and if not what you will have to get to do that job.



As for the source of the parts, I've seen trike/pedicab kits and kart kits that have many of the same type of the parts you have there.