Wednesday, June 19, 2013

is it poss to run a bicycle or small motorcycle on 12 volts dc?

Q. i am trying to make an electric bike for my granddaughter. can anyone give me some suggestions on how to accomplish this? what size motor would i use? can the battery be recharged while in use? any info would be appreciated.

A. To answer your question, 24 to 36V would be more realistic. 12V will be a very slow e-bike (maybe that's what you want?)

That said, this is a classic make-vs-buy proposition. Let me hazard a guess that you want this by Christmas, and it needs to work, right?

I suggest buy.

The reason is, motors for e-bikes are much more robust than those you might find in a hand tool, kid's ride-on toy or a starter. A typical e-bike motor will be 500W or more sustained duty, and so will have the extra mass and cooling to handle it. A tool or starter motor just isn't built for that kind of duty and will fail in short order.

Plus, the kit will come with a speed control - and if done right the controller will do regenerative charging too.

Lucky for you, there's lots of e-bike kits, both the in-hub style and chain drive. Looks like they run about $400, with the bulk of the cost being the motor and battery.

First link below is to a site that sells both parts and complete kits. (Lots more if you google "electric bike kit" - second link is just an example).

BONUS: sub-8 second electric drag bike (last link.) Just because.


What is the cheapest electric motor I could use for an electric boat?
Q. I want to equip some small boat with an electric motor, which I want to run on a car battery or several.

I really wonder what I could use as a motor. Maybe truck starters? How long would the boat run on that though? I'd need something that can run four or five hours.

A. First of all, I don't know anything about electric motors for boats, but I have seen a lot of motorcycle conversions. The motors used for these bikes usually seem to be used for golf-karts so that they are specifically designed for DC power sources.
Here's an interesting site with conversion kits for all kinds of vehicles including boats:
http://www.electricmotorsport.com/store/ems_ev_parts.php
A conversion of a stock 50ccm motorcycle:
http://www.maxdon.com/gpr.html
Conversion of a used old Kawasaki at home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzi4tL3QMWk

From what I can see the main problem in all these conversions is still the battery-space and capacity, and of cause, the price.
A boat might provide enough space for the batteries but I couldn't find reliable info on the range an electric powered boat might have.
Unfortunately, I lost all my bookmarks related to electric engines. These few links here are all I can remember, sorry.





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