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Forum Index : EV's : Electric Quad 2
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Trev Guru  Joined: 15/07/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 639 |
Another quad bike converted to electric. I have wanted to do this experiment a long time ago ...like years ago, but... well anyway it is done now. We had it finished enough to drive it just before the 'Dads Day in the Valley' car show in September 2019.  The bike was given to us many years ago from a friend. He said the motor was on its way out and wasn't worth spending any money fixing the motor. Perfect for my experiment. The rest of the bike was in pretty good shape. Dale had stripped a lot of the bike not long after we got it, so sat in pieces for a long time. He gave up stripping when he couldn't get the motor out. And I didn't have time to put on to it. First thing for me (early July) was to get the rear swing arm off and exhaust off to finish getting the motor out. This was a spare time project.   Then work on the swing arm to hold the hub motors. Lots of ideas were tossed around but end up deciding to just cut and rebuild the back section to suit better. Both swing arm and frame is not symmetrical. So we assembled the swing arm onto frame and sat the plastic mud guards in place as a gauge to get the 2 wheels about even from the 2 sides.    Battery mounting had to happen quick to make it to the show (as mentioned above). The alloy plate was originally made to mount the speed controllers in T-Rev but never used for that purpose. It was perfect size to drop in the batteries, once in the electric zero turn mower, but later used in the electric boat testing. Quickly connected up with some unused wires from other places. Make up a throttle from a joystick once used on the electric mower. Program the controllers. Get all the covers back on, so it looks complete. Dale did really well to remember what came off where. Show time.    The quad was driven around the farm a lot after the show. Used a temporary cable to charge from solar. Dale loved it, and wanted it. He is now, too big for the Quad we built many years ago. https://www.thebackshed.com/forum/ViewTopic.php?FID=15&TID=6186 Late November, I got back to finishing it off. Meanwhile, Dale had another quad driving on electric as well by this stage. I did help Dale a bit but not a real lot. He is really good at a lot of stuff now. I will do a separate page on his Quad conversion. Fit up the battery pack that I wanted, 60Ah x 48v. And the boat gets the 100Ah x 48v back again. I cut the alloy base down to suit the smaller batteries. Fix up some of the temporary wiring. Wire in a reverse switch. Made a vynel cover to keep the batteries and balancer's clean and dry hopefully. Wired in some monitors to see all the single cell voltages, used as a fuel gauge. And fit the Anderson plug to make the solar recharging much easier.       The project has turned out to be very valuable. It is an excellent bike for the farm. Good acceleration, without throwing you off the back. Good torque, able to climb up steep hills. Good for pulling a trailer. Good speed, not excessive speed. Quiet. No need for idling when getting off to do fence repair or something. No need to restart if you switch it off, just thumb on the throttle and away you go. It is brilliant. Anyone interested in buying my Polaris Scrambler, 500cc. This thing has excess in all areas, including the cost to run it. Washed up ready to sell.  Edited 2019-12-23 13:52 by Trev Trev @ drivebynature.com |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1577 |
Very interesting Projects Trev. From the pics they look pretty factory. That said, the parts look mighty exy and would involve some skill to put together beyond normal wiring. You seem to be programming something with a Laptop as well. Looks like a great result but a Mighty exy thing to build as well. Could you give a ballpark cost of the project and any info on components like Controllers, batteries and motors and where one might get them? I can see the benefits of something like this but every time I look into anything electric, the cost just seems completely unjustifiable. I have had thoughts for some time of Building a little 4WD tractor for around the place. I'll base it all on Subaru Running gear and just shorten and narrow things as I have to. Will be plenty rugged enough for what I want. For the engine I was going to use a 6 or 12 Hp Diesel engine I have and Couple that to a Centrifugal clutch with a small 12? tooth sprocket on it and a 72 on the input shaft of the gearbox. 10 Kmh will be fast enough for where I'm going but the grunt is what I really want and that wont be a problem with the gearing. . I'd be interested in replacing the diesel with an electric motor -IF- it were justifiable. Be great to have a silent machine I could use in the cool of summer nights after the sun went down and certainly won't be doing that with a Diesel! Could put a full length canopy on the thing made of panels so it could self charge. Not like I'd be using it every day So if it took a week, no problem and If I needed to charge it quicker, well lets just say I have more solar panels than any sane grid connected man alive! If you could give some indications of cost of your quad conversion and parts source, that would be appreciated. |
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| Trev Guru Joined: 15/07/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 639 |
Happy Christmas everyone.....25 Dec 19 'Pretty Factory'. Thanks for the compliment. I always try to do good work. Always pushed my students too, to do good work. Got in trouble for it too from colleagues. A real classic is Hastings advertised 50 positions one year, 7000 people applied. 5 of my students applied and all 5 got in. I sell them. They are from China. I don't like putting prices in the blog because they change so easy, and I can't go back later to edit. I buy in US dollars, which the US/AU exchange rate fluctuates every minute. Here is a snip of the exchange for today so far  Permanent magnet brushless hub motor $750 Sinewave controller $700 Batteries 16 cells x 60Ah x $1.86/Ah $1785.60 Total, maybe $5000 or so. Yes the speed controllers are programmable, so connect up a computer to adjust the settings. I supplied batteries to Michael for his Electric Tractor http://www.engagingnature.com/ I think you would need bigger hub motors for a tractor than what we have in the quad bikes. I have the 12kW hubs in T-Rev. They go pretty good, but too fast for a tractor. If you are going to use the Suby gearbox and diffs etc then you don't want hub motors anyway. You would use a standard motor and make an adapter. Maybe one of these might work, 20kW. Permanent magnet, brushless, water cooled.  Trev @ drivebynature.com |
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