my first electric vehicle

[mud2005]

I've been building various electric vehicles for years. It all started with the obsession to build an electric skateboard. this is somewhere around 1996. I had no clue what I was doing so I ordered a 12V 1 HP scott motor from kansas wind power.
well when it arrived I realized a 25 pound motor might be too big for a skateboard, but what the hell I paid for it. here's a pic so you can see how big it was.

so then I decide I need some batteries. I go to sears and buy 2 6V golf cart batteries that must have weighed about 50-60 pounds each.
I'm not sure what I was thinking.
so obviously I can't put these things on my little skateboard, so I decide to make a skateboard pusher trailer. I get a wheel with a #35 sprocket attached from a hardware store that I think was made for small lawn tractors and I build a cart from wood.
I don't know anything about speed controlling a motor so I buy a big automotive relay switch.
I then take it to a mall parking lot and put the batteries in the cart and get on the skateboard and hit the switch
well the cart had 2 wheels, but only 1 was driven and with that much instant torque just spun the cart around and whipped the skateboard right out from under me.

anyway, it's been a good learning experience. after that fiasco I bought an astro 40 brushed motor and a pile of D cell nicads and a taig lathe and made a couple decent electric skateboards.
I remember riding one past this guy and he just yelled out "what the hell was that?!?"
good times

anybody else got a story of your first ridiculous e-vehicle?

edit: i put this in the wrong category

 

[Rassy]

Sure, I converted a 1971 Subaru car (if you can call it that, it had a 360cc 2 stroke motorcycle motor) to electric in the early 80's. Read some stuff, got a catalogue, ordered a surplus motor/generator from an airplane, two of the biggest die hard batteries I could find, and some other misc. parts. Took the engine apart, which was partially disassembled when I got the car, and had a shop cut the rods off the crank. Mounted the motor where the head had been bolted on and got a cogged belt and pullies so the motor drove the crank from the front of the engine. Then the rest of the drive train was intact.

So for speed control there was already an overdrive switch under the gas pedal that I wired to a relay that directly connected the batteries to the motor. I added another toggle on the dash so the batteries were either in series or parallel via relays so it would be running on either 12V or 24V. So with the 4 speed trany I would have 8 different speeds.

It actually worked pretty good, but even though I had it licensed and insured, I never used it on the road. They stopped importing these little cars in 1970, this one apparently slipped in at the end of the year, and I couldn't obtain any service manual for it. Unlike the 1970 model that had a conventional clutch and 4 speed transmission, this car had an electro/magnetic clutch that I was unable to repair. I ended up bolting it up so there was no clutch. Instead of a fourth gear, it had some sort of electric overdrive that I never was able to make work.

Anyway, I gave it to a co-workers teenaged son, and the kids played with it for several years on their uncles farm.

It sure would have helped to have the internet, forums, etc. I didn't know anything about controllers, but I did get a large rheostat that I never installed, so I might have been able to finese the speed a bit.

 

[amberwolf]

There are several ridiculous creations (or starts at them) on my Electricle blog, but I think the first one I actually got to work at all was in this post:
http://electricle.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-cant-believe-it-actually-worked.html
But I don't seem to have any pictures of it. I *think* it is the same as the one in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6nwrd0MRBI
except using a scooter motor instead of the radiator fan motor. In the video, though, I've got the sprocket bolted thru the spokes on both sides of the hub, and that actually worked ok compared to just JBwelding it on. :lol: I'm surprised the JBWeld lasted even the less-than-a-mile that it did.

I had NO CLUE what I was doing mechanically or really even electrically back then (and probably not all that much even now :lol: ) but it was (and is) fun.

I'd had lots of ideas before that, some quite carefully worked out mechanically, but unfortunately I knew nothing of motor capabilities at that time, and had my very first plan for using a car window motor dashed pretty badly. :lol:
http://electricle.blogspot.com/2007/09/first-design.html
http://electricle.blogspot.com/2007/09/found-motor.html

 

[recumpence]

Well, my first electric vehicle was my generation 1 recumbent (which I still ride). It is nearly perfectly refined, though a bit complicated. However, I did have a few false starts building gas go-karts and minibikes in the past. The most memorable was a go-kart I built using a small tractor chassis as a base. I had no centrifugal clutch. So, I used a sprocket directly pinned to the crank. Also, the stock rear sprocket was far too small. So, the ratio was too high. Also, the CG was a bit too high and it was too narrow. To top it all off, there was no throttle, just a kill switch and the throttle on the carb was just wired full on. Oh, this tiny go-kart had a fresh 5hp engine. Lots of power, very light weight!

So, with those details in place, I took it out. ----------- Hmm, how do you start this thing while on the seat? Oh, my best friend (enemy?) will be the test pilot and I will push start him. So, my buddy Jason climbed on-board and I gave him a push. BAM, the kart started and launched with a ferocity I had only seen, at that point in my life, at the drag strip! The little kart just disappeared while Jason screamed! All I heared was AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH as he went out of sight around the block. Then, in just a few seconds, he reappeared from the other direction (he appareantly made it around the block). He screamed at the top of his lunges as he passed me, another AAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! He must have been going somewhere over 40 or 45mph, terrifying for someone 10 years old who has never gone over 15mph on his bike before.

Good times!

That kart caught on fire numerous times and just finally wore out. At one point it had to be cornered only left because the left front wheel was broken off.

I guess this explains my love of the venerable KMX kart!

Matt

 

[Solcar]

My first one used a 12v marine-type deep cycle battery, a rear hub from a 20" coaster brake bike, the front gearhead portion from a Black and Decker drill, and a Pittman servo motor. One axle end of the hub was tightened into the drill chuck, with a chain running from the hub sprocket down to the outer chain ring of the ten speed bike. The end of the drill motor armature was fastened to the shaft of the Pittman motor by means of a short piece of rubber automotive fuel line. The motor was controlled by a home wall switch. This drive assembly was mounted behind the seat.

With two modifications, it might not have been too bad. It needed higher gearing in the "gearbox," with less lossy gears. And then it would also need a PWM controller.