I had built the trailer first so I had "put
the cart before the horse" so to speak.
(click
here to see the trailer page)
I did an inventory of the stuff that was
laying around and came up with most of the stuff
for the electric bike. You never can tell
when junk becomes treasure!!!
The base bike is an old Huffy mountain bike
that came from the swap meet.
That was some time ago but I think it cost
2 bucks.
I used a piece of aluminum angle for the
motor motor mount
and made a hinged mount that attaches to
the seat stays.
The controller shown mounted to the top
of the angle is a 1505 Curtis
that had been built for the now defunct
EVWARRIOR, electric bike.
It was on ebay and cost 20.00 plus shipping.
The motors came from a wrecking yard and
are fan motors
from some year of General Motors car.
The wrecking yard guys didn't have much
call for them so they were free.
Actually, I didn't know if the motors were
going to have enough torque,
but "free" made it worth trying.
In the upper right of this pic you can see
the Curtis controller
and the little plastic box that came with
it for an enclosure.
Two holes were bored through the angle and
the
motors were bolted in as shown.
Normally, the radiator cooling fan is attached
directly to the output shaft.
I made a couple of hubs out of aluminum
and bolted them in place.
The actual contact rollers are made from
old skateboard wheels.
At first I tried a press fit on the hub
but they flexed enough
that they spun off the hub. Now they're
glued on using polyurethane glue
The tires are cool they're made by
Cheng shin and look like a small
motorcycle road race tire. Got (2) of them
used for 15.00
I moved the cargo box (milk crate) back
on the trailer and
built the battery box out of scrap aluminum.
I know you're not supposed to mix batteries
but
I didn't have (2) group 1 deep cycle batteries
so I mounted
one regular battery and one deep cycle.
It didn't work really well
(only got 2 miles before the battery expired)
while I'm waiting for the battery fairy
to leave another deep cycle,
I'm using a huge group 27 with the group
U1 deep cycle.
Don't laugh, it works for now anyway and
the big battery was laying around.
I just can't haul very much stuff in the
trailer but then again the trailer
doesn't bounce around very much.
Oh yeah, the white thing next to the battery
is a flag staff
that was made out of old CB antenna.
I had a volt meter in my electrical inventory
so it's mounted above the battery.
The mountain bike had flat straight across
handlebars so,
it was back to the junk pile. I pulled the
stem and bars out of an old bmx bike
and transplanted onto the mountain bike.
The throttle assembly came from Diverse
Electronics (20.00).
They are available on EBAY but the shipping
costs were higher.
I wanted a twist grip throttle so the junk
pile yielded a twist grip off of an old Yamaha dirt bike. Interestingly,
the motorcycle had the same diameter handlebars as the bike.
I drilled a hole in the throttle lever and
routed the cable so it activates the lever.
The bike speedometer came from Kmart (9.95)
Results
The fan motors work OK. I get about 17 mph
without pedaling with the current drive setup. That's pulling a trailer
with about 75 pounds of batteries. The motors get a little hot but they
were meant to run at 12 volts and they are running on 24 volts. The controller
also gets warm but not bad. Using the trailer to haul the batteries works
out just fine. The bike isn't as top heavy as when the batteries are mounted
on the bike.
Not bad at all for less than 70.00!!
Questions or comments email
me
Jim
Rudholm
Check out the other bike page
that a friend and I put together
Click
Here
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