Diy electric motorbike

[OldGermanHeaps]

My daughter has a 50cc dirt bike, but where we go the police are up there every day harrassing riders since lockdown, but those on the oset electric bikes and my other daughter on her 48v quad never receive any hassle. The quad is pretty heavy and only 800 watts but the 2 of them still have a lot of fun on it.
Going to convert the aprilia to 1800w electric initially with 4 agm batteries, then overdrive it to around 60v with a lighter lithium pack in the winter, but we have the agm batteries free just now from a recently serviced decommissioned ups so that will get us going just now.

[granada203028]

Interesting.

Here is a project I did in 2008.



Don't forget Volts and Watts are named after great engineers so are always capitalised.

Good luck with your project.

[OldGermanHeaps]

That looks interesting, I take it you built it for range?
Did you ever injure yourself on those sharp edges?

[Flooble]

I saw the subject and body and without seeing the posting name, thought "bet that's OldGermanHeaps". What's the next item going to be on your build list? Hovercraft?

[OldGermanHeaps]

nope, next build is hopefully to buy some land and build a solar and wind array to power the security sytem, access control system and a set of automatic gates to a self storage business. But we will see...
As far as the motorbike goes this arrived yesterday https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/202991667377
just need to sus out how to get it running full speed in reverse, as the motor is the wrong way round for the chassis and when you short the reverse switch it is limited to around 6 km/h
Electric motorbike was inspired by our recent budget electric mountain bike builds

That and the wee guys on the oset electric bikes getting ignored by the police, but fk spending that sort of money on a kids toy.

Hopefully we can make a few quid back selling the engine, carb and exhaust, as it was quite a wee rapid thing before.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Sunday 14th June 00:51

[Flooble]

OldGermanHeaps said:

nope, next build is hopefully to buy some land and build a solar and wind array to power the security sytem, access control system and a set of automatic gates to a self storage business. But we will see...
As far as the motorbike goes this arrived yesterday https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/202991667377
just need to sus out how to get it running full speed in reverse, as the motor is the wrong way round for the chassis and when you short the reverse switch it is limited to around 6 km/h
Electric motorbike was inspired by our recent budget electric mountain bike builds
That and the wee guys on the oset electric bikes getting ignored by the police, but fk spending that sort of money on a kids toy.

Hopefully we can make a few quid back selling the engine, carb and exhaust, as it was quite a wee rapid thing before.

Ah, your next step towards the private island volcano lair? Love all the builds you do, it's amazing.

[granada203028]

OldGermanHeaps said:

That looks interesting, I take it you built it for range?
Did you ever injure yourself on those sharp edges?

Built for both but only achieved the latter. Did a 52 mile journey once which I would estimate took about 2/3 of the 7.5kWh battery.

I used an aircraft generator used as a motor, a machine I already had but it proved not to be the best choice. I had issues with weak fielding necessary for higher speed use so I never saw more then 48 mph, though a friend who had a go said he got 55.

12 years on I'm just about to reverse the conversion. Made little us of it after getting the Leaf 7 years ago.

[Kawasicki]

1800W Peak or constant?

My son rides a Kuberg 36v with 750W constant and 3kw peak. That’s enough for him.

[mgv8]

If you can get all the control modules for looking after the batteries and so safety it should not be that hard. Each step up in power adds complexity and you do not what to short out any power (e.g bike falls over). Controlling the charge and dis-charge of the batteries is a big part of this.

[OldGermanHeaps]

chain and sprockets arrived today, but this project has just been temporarily put on hold.
I was at a jobsite on friday, and I had my daughters at work with me as my wife works full time in a care home, and I am self employed with 2 employees to keep busy so childcare is an issue just now.
I have been very lucky in having great customers who make my girls feel welcome and they either play with the customers kids or get their hands dirty helping, my oldest in particular is getting very good at programming IP cameras, terminating patch panels etc and perhaps learning how some plant machinery works.
The customer on friday spotted the electric quad in the van and said do you want a scrap one for spares? Its round the back, just lift it when you go, its been crashed umpteen times and left out in the rain.
I cant say no to a free thing, and the quad is both girls favourite so having 2 will be great.
the chan was seized, wheel bearings seized, suspension seized, steering seized and wiring dead and corroded.
We love a challenge.

the batteries were dead, and despite getting left on a desulphating charger overnight as soon as they came off an overnight charge they dropped to 5v, so I took another 4 batteries out the big scrap ups, controller didn't conplain at 48v instead of 36v, so the 1000w motor will be overdriven.
set the girls loose with the sandpaper on all the connectors and bypassed the rotten fwd/rev switch.

[OldGermanHeaps]

wire brush on a drill, some spray paint and some fresh bolts and stuff starts to look better immediately

soaked all the seized bearings in oil for a few hours and worked them free before packing with grease.
ordered a new chain at a fiver., new fwd/ rev switch at a tenner and a pair of calipers at 13 quid.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Sunday 21st June 00:17

[foggy]

OldGermanHeaps said:

That and the wee guys on the oset electric bikes getting ignored by the police, but fk spending that sort of money on a kids toy.

I treated my son to an Oset and can vouch for the not getting hassled aspect. We’ve had positive comments from walkers and even horse riders riding around the local common. Yes they’re expensive, but there’s a good trials scene with them, great support and a very buoyant second hand market as kids outgrow them. Buying lightly used and selling on afterwards keeps the overall cost of ownership right down to something much more palatable.

Good work on the resto jobs. I’ve got my lad designing his next garden obstacles.

[OldGermanHeaps]

melted in metal reinforcements to the plastic then went over with mitre bond, then fibreglass resin to repair the plastics




Striaghtened out the bent bumper, hammered out the ovality in the shock mounts and sanded the rusty bits.


3 tyres happy to accept air, 1 complained loudly.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Sunday 21st June 00:40

[Andy_stook_2k]

Check out Vortecks on YouTube, he has achieved some very impressive things electrifying bikes.

https://youtu.be/HIhfwjWuj-I

[OldGermanHeaps]

electric is fine for the kids toys, but it seems mental what some people are spending on pushbikes to make them go <50 mph, listen to him shouting on that video like as if he is going 150 mph, all seems a bit pointless when real motorbikes exist, where you can get genuine 150mph for £500

[OldGermanHeaps]

Kawasicki said:

1800W Peak or constant?

My son rides a Kuberg 36v with 750W constant and 3kw peak. That’s enough for him.

Supposed to be 1800w constant, and with a decent lithium pack that wont sag that is acheiveable with this motor, but for the moment I will be using agm lead acid, so the internal resistance of the pack will be the limiting factor, But she is only 8, it should be plenty fast enough to put a smile on her face, she doesn't spend much time in the powerband on the 50cc thats in there at the moment, the instant torque response should make it fun enough.

[OldGermanHeaps]

foggy said:

I treated my son to an Oset and can vouch for the not getting hassled aspect. We’ve had positive comments from walkers and even horse riders riding around the local common. Yes they’re expensive, but there’s a good trials scene with them, great support and a very buoyant second hand market as kids outgrow them. Buying lightly used and selling on afterwards keeps the overall cost of ownership right down to something much more palatable.

Good work on the resto jobs. I’ve got my lad designing his next garden obstacles.

Would love to find an affordable used oset or even an mxpro, but none within 150 miles at the moment, plus the aprilia has the perfect size chassis for my oldest, and the marzocchi forks/sachs shocks suit the area where we ride better than the oset trials biased suspension.
That and we got the aprilia very cheap as a non runner and restored it together, she is very attached to it.
we should get enough selling the engine, exhaust, chain and sprockets to more than cover the cost of the conversion, might even profit slightly.

[OldGermanHeaps]

there is an indescribable pleasure reassembling a previously unloved piece of machinery using fresh shiny new fastners.
I used stainless where there isnt too much load to keep it looking fresh longer.

candy metalflake pink not my first colour choice but she is happy.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Sunday 21st June 15:17

[OldGermanHeaps]

[OldGermanHeaps]

still waiting on parts for both, but my heart melted a bit when my daughter asked if she could spend some of her christmas money on a socket set. I chipped in some to upgrade her to a decent set.

Red calipers make anything faster