Mainstreet pedicab with BMC v2 mid drive

[gestalt]

As some of you may know I've been driving a pedicab in Boston for about five years. But the game has become rather stale of late in addition to the lease rates we pay for the cabs has lead a few of us to searching out undiscovered country. That has taken the form of loading up a couple of our personal pedicabs that we aren't allowed to drive in the city and work at festivals.

Well on the last trip down in dover Delaware this guy shows up by himself with an electric pedicab and makes more money by himself than two of us working one cab could make. So our little group made up our minds on the drive back that we would convert one of ours by the time we do our next festival in September.

So here's the donor trike with the fiberglass passenger body removed.

The plan is to take a rear BMC V2 and replace the mid drive on the pedicab with it. Also, chain line issues with the new mid drive makes the old body in its current state unusable we decided to kill two birds with one stone and increase the seating capacity with a festival-proof booth style body.

The one thing I'm scratching my head about is where to go with the battery. I have a Hyperion 1420i charger and am comfortable using lipo but I don't know if I can get the whole crew up to speed. It is also important to have two packs so one can be charging while the other is being used. And as always cost is an issue. Two 20ah pings would be quite the pretty penny. Not looking to spend more than $1000 on a battery system, but am still open to all suggestions. There is plenty of room so that is not an issue.

 

[gestalt]

Heh, hit submit instead of preview.

Fixed

 

[gestalt]

Just sent the payment for the BMC, can't wait to fab the new mid drive mount so I can start building the new body. Everything is steel, this is my wheelhouse.

 

[ARod1993]

That looks like it's going to be awesome! Are you planning on front-wheel drive, or are you going to use the BMC to drive the rear differential?

 

[emcee]

I think this is one instant where lead would work well. Get the slowest wind Mac you can and 60v of lead.

 

[gestalt]

That looks like it's going to be awesome! Are you planning on front-wheel drive, or are you going to use the BMC to drive the rear differential?

The mid drive on a pedicab is essentially a rear MTB hub with a single speed cog bolted on to the disc brake mounts. So it made sense to just use a rear hub motor as the mid drive instead.

I think this is one instant where lead would work well. Get the slowest wind Mac you can and 60v of lead.

I just can't abide the weight penalty and the cycle life. Me and my partners are probably make a trip up to Toledo to visit some of our other festival pedicab friends and to pick up a couple of the 48v 30ah enerdell packs Major is selling. The Toledo dicks are supposedly working on their own electric super weapon in time for tommorow world in September so it will be a good time to spy on them

The gearing can be adjusted between the mid drive and the differential so it should be able to work fine at 48v with the BMC that gets in on Wednesday.