|
Electric Minibike
|
|
Motivation
Freshman year of college meant leaving my beloved cars and most of motor-sports behind. I could have picked up a bike to get around campus, but it seemed more fitting to fill the need with a new project.
The Bike
I picked up a broken Razor electric minibike chassis off craigslist for about $50. Ordinarily these are children's toy scooters. They have about a top speed of 8mph and aren't meant to tow around much more than a 100lbs. However the chassis itself is stout enough to support a larger rider and swing arm mounted motor location looked to be able to accommodate a bigger motor without extensive modification.
Parts ListBeing at school without a garage of tools, any serious fab work was out of the question... I would pretty much only be able to assemble an assortment of parts. So I found a motor that looked like it would mount up to the stock bracketry without modification and ordered the following:
BuildThe motor mounted up as expected. Three of the four batteries would have mounted just fine in the stock locations, but trying to cram four into a space meant for three required some "reforming" of the front case behind the front fairing and a couple of large zip ties holding the two upper batteries together. It was a bit kluged for my taste, and if I could do it again (with access to some power tools) I'd fabricate a new cage to hold everything without much trouble. All in all it worked out just fine and I wasn't worried about anything coming loose or undone, simply that water and condensation might find their way in.
ResultsThe bike would hold about 25 mph, was relatively quiet and a single charge lasted just long enough to get me to class and back. It fit the bill perfectly.
|
Reality Check
Unfortunately it only took two weeks before my dorm's residential college director informed me I could not lock up the scooter near an electrical outlet in front of my building. As it turned out, the bike racks were too far away from an outlet and I lived on the 4th story of an elevator-less building. Luckily it only took me a week to sell the bike. I put an ad up on craigslist and heard back from gentleman with an interesting application. He was looking for a gear-less option for his son, who had a bad foot and couldn't shift. He assured me they'd be taking every safety precaution and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I ended up turning a small profit. Seeing how the whole project was really just an excuse to tinker on something new anyways, I'd' call it a success.