Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The DIY drive works but not well. Too much drag I think. Why that is I'm not sure but I have a scooter wheel on the way so I will turn it into a Rhyno bike instead. It the wheel ever gets here. I need to start looking at where the darn thing is before I bid on it.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I finished the drive

I finished the diy drive but it rained all day so I didn't get much of a chance to test it. Tomorrow I should know more about whether it is worth the extra effort or not.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Today I began thinking about building my own drive instead of using the scooter wheel as a drive. I ordered a small sprocket. It should give me a good gear ratio for the drive of a 6inch wheel rather than the eight inch one I am using now. Also the wheel I picked up is much smaller. I hope it works okay. It will be a couple of days before all the parts come in.

I will see what I see. At the moment it is more about acceptable performance than it is about cost. I would like to get decent performance with the inexpensive 350 watt motor and then improve it by using bigger motors. I think I want to go friction and discard the pusher drive even though so far it is the best home built I have done ebikewise.

I did get a good trailer built using scooter tires. That is always a good thing.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

I built a friction drive


Yesterday I built a friction drive on a 26inch mountain bike I had laying around. I decided the bike was too tall and I couldn't make the rear brakes work with the drive on it.

I ran out and bought a 20 inch kids bike and turned it into a friction drive. It was a mixed day. I got some things done then the rear tire blew. To much dry rot.

I was hauling the batteries on a trailer I threw together from some ten inch lawnmover wheels. It pulled like a cinder block dragging behind so I am building one from the scooter wheels. They make the best ones.

It is slow for sure. I'm not sure yet how it compares to the ordinary pusher before I soup it up. It certainly isn't any better probably a little worse. I am going to start "improving" this. I bought a larger sprocket for the motor I think. I am going to use it if I can weld it to the one on the motor now. Then I might start looking for something better than a scooter wheel to use as a drive wheel.

Its a little weird looking I'm sure