Solar Powered Go Kart
Intro: Solar Powered Go Kart
In this project we took a go kart frame designed to take a gas engine and made it electric and solar powered. It uses a 48V SLA battery pack with a EMC-ME0909 Brushed DC motor, 0-5k Ohm Pot Box throttle, Alltrax 4834 controller and an Astronergy 5612M 190W solar panel to charge the pack. Runs great with a top speed of ~20-25mph, and because of the solar panel a potentially infinite range!
A full description of this project can be seen at www.therenewableyou.com.
A description of all of the parts, the cost of the parts and where we go the parts from is available as a PDF at this link here. The PDF also includes some notes about the electrical design. The entire project cost about $2500, including shipping on the parts. Some welding and machine work was required.
The baseline of the electrical system is from the Alltrax electrical diagram for EVs, at this link here. It has wall chargers but the primary source of energy is the solar panel on the roof of the kart, which is always on and always charging.
I hope this inspires others to realize that there is no need to wait, the time is now to build solar powered EVs that run off the sun!
This project was sponsored by The Brian Robertson Foundation and Quickgit.com.
Engineers Who Built It:
Will Bagienski , Adam Plesniak , Luis Torres
28 Comments
Peterc356 6 years ago
-Peter
jem sands 6 years ago
awesome
fglc0983 7 years ago
I've really enjoyed reading about your project, and kudos to your success! I had a question regarding the 3A battery chargers you used. I'm new to solar, so I am just trying to figure out all the little odds and ends. Are the wall chargers necessary, or could the solar charge controller be left to handle charging the batteries?
DaltonD4 8 years ago
skumu 8 years ago
Hello,I am a student also working on Solar Powered Electric Go-Kart. Is possible to figure out theoretically relation between current
supplied to motor and speed outputted ? Or between power and speed ? Like If I have 350 W and I am going 5mph for how far I can get? ( Theoretically cause I know I speed is not always constant and there is wind, friction, and other)
RenewableYou 8 years ago
DaltonD4 8 years ago
SkS19 8 years ago
Hello Sir, I'm working on this model. Can you please tell me the dimensions of this kart.
Rowster09 8 years ago
awesome! i'm going to try to make that
RajatS16 8 years ago
hello sir...i m working over dis project and i need to know dat which type of brakes will be most suitable for solar go kart with its max speed 30-40mph.
847MicRoss 10 years ago
I don't have much info on this project but here's what I know.
Location : Freedom Field , Rockford Illinois
Its a 250 watt panel , top speed of 30mph
rpradeep1 8 years ago
have u made thi project
flynn.gregory.7 9 years ago
ankita ranjan 10 years ago
we are making a solar powered vehicle as our project.So,we wanted to know about the motor specifications for a vehicle weighing 300 kg, including the persons weight .We wanted to know about the speed controller specifications too. Our vehicle have 2 solar panels giving total of 200 W as output .
RenewableYou 10 years ago
Hi Ankita. 300kg, inclusive of the passenger weight, is about the weight that we had on this project, therefore I recommend a motor and controller similar to what we used. The best reference for our work is this document (http://www.therenewableyou.com/gokart@try.com.pdf). The other great reference is the circuit diagram from Electric Motorsport, which is at this link (http://electricmotorsport.com/ev-parts/controllers/brushed-motor-controllers/alltrax-axe4834-24-48v-300a.html#)
ELLINAJ1023 11 years ago
RenewableYou 11 years ago
oldskoolhead 11 years ago
i was wondering if it was 200-250w had pedals and restricted to 15.5mph could 1 of these be driven on the uk roads under the same legal status as an ebike requireing no licence tax mot insurance etc coz i would so build one lol
czhanacek 11 years ago
RenewableYou 11 years ago