600W Electric Trike

This is a school project in which I'm making a dual motor electric trike to carry one person. I've used many different metal working tools such as a lathe, milling machine, MIG welder, and plenty of hand tools.

Step 1 Main Frame Construction

Materials need for the main frame

- 35mm box section steel or similar (roughly 3 meters of the stuff)
- old BMX headtube

Tools

- steel rule
- tape measure
- scribe
- hacksaw or electric auto one!
- engineer's square
- 200 amp MIG welder
- hand file (rounded and flat)
- electric grinder (speeds up filing and cleans up welds)
- various clamps and vices

1. Cut the box section steel to lengths of 1000mm (1 metre) for each piece
2. Front piece of steel is shape around radius of BMX headtube at a 10 degree angle of rake
3. Cut off headtube from BMX and file or grinder
4. File small 45 degree chamfers and the ends of the box section steel around the edges for better welds
5. Weld all these parts together as pictured
6. Grind on top of frame at the "t" join for a nice finish
7. BEFORE YOU WELD MAKE METAL SHINY BY FILING SO YOU HAVE A GOOD SURFACE

p.s you don't to follow the exact dimension, just my design has those

Comments

[freeza36]

wheres the cup holder? lol nice job man

[book54321]

How much I have a trike

[gurustein]

Where can I get Motors for Cheap cost.Iam in shortage of money.

[Vinsu]

Neat:)

[goeon]

 Thats pretty freaking awesome ! keep up the good work man

[m5industriesinc]

every thing about it is to  complex

[m5industriesinc]

make it easier

[smegger]

 Hi there, what part of it are you talking about? Or is it just in general? I've stripped this trike down and should hopefully be starting afresh with either a simplified version of this or an entirely new concept with the view to make the construction easier.

Sam

[psymansays]

 That looks like a lot of fun, especially in the video. It actually looks fast, too, for its size and wattage.

[ibuildcoolstuff]

 How long do the batteries last?

[smegger]

 Hey, thanks for your interest, if you scroll down you'll see a short description of how it ran and rough battery discharge times ---->

Cheers

[shadowkiller]

 What kind of wheels are you using? and were did you get them?

[smegger]

 The wheels are fully pneumatic and are 10" in diameter. The have a pressed steel hub made of two halves in which 4 bolts hold them together. Hole for axle is 5/8" dia.

I actually got them from the same place as the batteries- a local hardware farm store. They had a selection and once I saw them they looked perfect!

You can also get them here: www.technobots.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000002.pl

Hope that helps!

[smegger]

Oh, these are just the rear wheels

The front is from a kids bike- alloy rim etc etc

[ElvenChild]

 whats the top speed of it

[smegger]

 I would guess around 20mph on level tarmac. Thats just my comparison to what it feels like on a bicycle.

[geeklord]

Not trying to rip on your design or anything, but couldn't a speed control easily be made with a MOSFET (or four MOSFET's for forward and reverse), a microcontroller, and a potentiometer attached to a trigger? I see all these speed controls and imagine that they're pretty simple on the inside...

[smegger]

Yeah pretty much! Your right, I'm not amazing with electronics and I wouldn't really know how to build one. The one I have here is controlled with four MOSFETS, the 40 amp version only has 2. If I made one I would want to know how it worked properly, not just build it from some kit or something. Plus, due to my time constraints I couldn't build one. It was tight enough as it is- I had to build it through the last night to get it into school on time! Anyway, it would definitely be interesting to design your own, I might look into it and see what people have done, i just need the theory first! Sam

[geeklord]

Once I get my AVR's up and running I might be able to build one. I could use a 555 timer too. Whatever, cool instructable!

[matt]

where did you get the batteries from?

[smegger]

Well I got them from a local farm/hardware store (in my village funnily enough called Browns) that happen to sell different types of batteries.

The batteries are (about £40 each) :

Numax 'Ev Power', Deep Cycling Battery, 32ah, TYPE 896cxt

You could probably find an alternative to this as there are plenty of other manufacturers.

Here is a great site to also look at for information on building electric vehicles:

http://buggies.builtforfun.co.uk

Cheers

Sam

[cheordinario]

very cool

[altomic]

cool project. how fast does this thing go? how far? how long? thanks

[smegger]

I didnt exactly design it with a very specific speed and I guess it goes around 15-20 mph and obviously it depends on the terrain/ topography to how far or long it runs. When running it on tarmac up and down my street (fairly flat) it lasted about 20mins and this was running it full speed apart from turning. Thanks for you interest though, you thinking of building something like this? Also at the moment the trike is just sitting in my garage, I need to get it going again! Charge up the ol batteries! Cheers Sam

[stephenniall]

Dude i love this hopefully i will be making one of these as me & my dad have just bought a mig welder

[smegger]

brilliant! I wish I had a MIG welder at home at the time cause it would of made the project a lot quicker!

[noahw]

(removed by author or community request)

[Scotlandman27]

give the guy a break. so what if he used a picture from the web that accurately shows how he did the wiring. loads of people use pics from the web because it saves time. it is smarter to use that photo of the wiring then drawing up the same thing on his own

[smegger]

Hi there, thanks for 'sticking up for me', but I accidentally published the instructable when there was only one step completed! Thats why they said the above comment. Thanks any way though dude!

[finnster]

looks to me like an instructable

[nireves1]

maybe you could tell us witch motors you used?

[smegger]

The motors I used are originally for electric scooters and only used as a single motor. But I thought I might as well double the wattage by having two 24v 300W motors. They used 4 bolts to mount and they can be found here:

Ebay 350W 24V Scooter Motor

[PKM]

Now why didn't I get to build stuff like that at school? **unfair** It looks like it turned out pretty well- have you found out the usual electric vehicle performance measures, ie top speed/range/hill-climbing ability?

Also, I second noah's question- is this a GCSE/A-level tech project? And kudos for actually going into detail about the shop work part, not just "throw the sprockets in your lathe and turn them down so they fit the wheels" :)

+

[smegger]

Hi there, the project was for A- level and the brief was simply to promote the engineering department at our school and electric powered vehicles. I haven't found any accurate measures yet but I think it can go about 18mph tops on a flat and it runs for about 25 mins on tarmac at varying speeds. Thanks for your positive comment PKM, will hopefully test it properly sometime and post up the results!

[mushfiqc]

instead of a 24v motors can i use a bigger one like a 48v cuz it looks really slow aand also what bout 24v battery?

[smegger]

Well of course you can but everything will have to be designed in moderation of the higher power components. For instance you would need a 48V speed controller and a total of 48V from the batteries too, higher guage wires, stronger motor mounts, etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[noahw]

Hey, This project looks like it's going to be awesome and we would love to have it on the site, but you might want to wait until you finish a bit more of it before posting your instructable. Really though, I think that this project is going to rock! What school are you building it in? How much longer will you be working on it?