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No gas, no oil and almost silent. 72 Volts, 70mph of pure fun. This is how I built an electric motorcycle.
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Signing UpStep 1Why and how
I only work 3 miles from home but with gas prices getting out of control, I thought it would be great to have an electric vehicle. I've always wanted a motorcycle and decided that making an electric motorcycle would be a good EV project, keeping costs down, and be fun to ride.
This project took about 3 months of research and development (not counting waiting for parts to come in or help from a friend with the welding). All in all, it cost about $3000 to buy and build. This may take a long time to pay off in gas savings, but if you add the fun of building and all of the environmental benefits, it was well worth the effort. With a top speed of over 70 mph and 10 miles per charge, this vehicle is perfect for me. The following instructable will not give you exact step by step instructions, but if you have some mechanical skills and welding ability you should be okay. A little knowledge of motorcycle maintenance wouldn't hurt, too. However, I just read the user's manual and learned as I went.
This project took about 3 months of research and development (not counting waiting for parts to come in or help from a friend with the welding). All in all, it cost about $3000 to buy and build. This may take a long time to pay off in gas savings, but if you add the fun of building and all of the environmental benefits, it was well worth the effort. With a top speed of over 70 mph and 10 miles per charge, this vehicle is perfect for me. The following instructable will not give you exact step by step instructions, but if you have some mechanical skills and welding ability you should be okay. A little knowledge of motorcycle maintenance wouldn't hurt, too. However, I just read the user's manual and learned as I went.
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How many HP is the motor?
Top speed?
The Second Law of thermodynamics essentially says that energy exhibits entropy. It moves away form its source. In machine terms, you have to add energy to get more work, and the ratio of energy to work will never equal 100% due to energy expanding away from its source.
Solar pannels are a good source of energy used to get work but all other forms of "self recharging" through a mechanical means would require work and energy of a greater amount that it would produce.
Is there any possible of regenerating in E-bike.
but still, we both agree it's not going to create perpetual motion.
magnetos work so well with 'those old dirt bikes' because a gas engine creates tons of energy, much more than needed to get you down the road.
off course, you could always peddal :) lol
If you want to increase range a little more, additional methods include:
- use a brushless motor
- get the best batteries you can. Absorbed glass mat (AGM) aren't quite the pinnacle, but they can't leak and some have good capacities
- consider small, flexible solar panels that can conform to top-facing surfaces like top of fuel tank, ducktail etc. Trickle-charge a little while parked!
- consider these little buggers: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/wind-powered-led-light-for-vehicles-2-pack-5172
Might seem silly, but my idea was to place these tiny wind generators in fairing gaps (where airflow to voltage controller etc would not be affected).
So maybe 6 or 8 of these little guys, (of course you removed the leds) to divert the energy produced into an auxiliary channel of the charging circuit.
It could work!
...but click the link provided ^
These are tiny, lightweight plastic items that represent NO parasitic loss. They're designed for bicycle or car exterior and as they spin, generate something like 1V (if that) to illuminate one LED.
If the air is passing through a vent anyway, why not use it?
By themselves, the little wind powered LEDs *do* have a degree of inefficiency, as they don't use high quality bearings etc. Yes, there is some friction.
In the context of the overall project though, you're getting a bit of electricity for what? Negligible wind resistance.
Using your argument, you'd also oppose the use of a capacitor to store static electricity from the riders body. Well, the cap *weighs* something doesn't it? lol
Solar cells small enough to not effect the shape of the vehicle are not powerful enough to drive it.
Because of losses in each step of transformation, of wind energy to electric energy to chemical energy (battery) to electric energy to moving energy again, and losses in storage. It is clear that no equipment attached to moving vehicle, and driven by it´s movement, will ever cause it to go faster or further. If it could, we'd have solved humankind's energy problems.
Trickle-charge - anybody heard of that concept?
@zack247: Yes, ancillaries circuit or trickle back into the speed controller, maybe take 1-2% load off the main batteries. Or how about a super-capacitor? Why not charge that for an extra speed burst?
About 5 years ago, a South African solar company launched a new type of solar film. Supposedly, it could conform to almost any shape. Why not use something like that on a vehicle? Some electric/hybrid concept cars have solar panels on the roof.
Those little solar powered window-mount ventilator fans have been around 10+ years and they seem to work.
Personally, I'd be happy to park my vehicle outside during the day to help *offset* the discharge from my morning commute. Even if it means 1 hour less recharging at home, that's money saved, is it not?
Anyways, about the wind turbines, these types of "troll physics" drives my ocd crazy. Not to sound like an attack, but honestly the net result will be negative installing that product.
Even if your goal is to ease the use of your batteries, that will be impossible to achieve. The total drag and added weight (however minuscule) will never be more efficient then direct wiring to the battery (solar setup in a 0 drag manner and performing a weight reduction of the bike would though!). The batteries will have to work harder to get you to where you want to go (even a tiny bit harder still counts as work)
Conservation of energy will always cause on board wind systems to fail.
After all, the human form needs a fairing help reduce drag. The fairing weighs something. So do away with both.
Win-win.
As my first comment alluded, I grew out of motorcycles over 20 years ago. I have no desire to reprise that chapter of my life.
What I offered are suggestions. They need not be taken literally. They might get some people thinking "outside the box" and I reckon that can only be a good thing.
After all, it's through experimentation, and often quite by accident, that new things are discovered or invented.
The thing is, as I pointed out in the last paragraph, that because of losses in energy conversions wind turbines will cause more drag than the power they create to "assist in driving the motorcycle" so the net effect would be that they'd slow the motorcycle down.
Solar cells need to be about 10 cm on each side to make 1 watt each hour. (like these super solar cells at amazon http://www.amazon.com/Super-Solar-Cells-0-5V-2-pk/dp/B002MAYDZ4). Each battery can store almost 500 watt-hours (when new), and there are six of them making the total almost 3000 watt-hours. The motorcycle goes 10 miles per charge, 300 watt-hours per mile (which is low if you ask me, because 1 horsepower is calculated as over 700 watts and you certainly need more than 1 horsepower to reach 70 mph). If you have very sunny days and daylight for 16 hours each day it would take almost 190 days to fully charge the batteries using 4 of the cells from amazon. Or for 8 hour charge (a working day) you could drive the motorcycle for 130 feet, about the length of a 1 and a half basketball courts.
As to your comprehension of the English written word? Sorry.
Perhaps you should look up definitions of the words "offset" and "recovery" because in part, that's what my original post suggested.
please click link, you will love it. i did
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcn8ZkvKKc&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL5F22FE96F32E4208