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electric bike

blackrecon117

Hi all,

 

I have recently started a placement year in industry which means MONEY!! and my dream for the last two years at uni has been to make an electric motor bike , I don't mean like a full on hit the motor way 70 mph (100km ph) kind of thing and nor do i mean an electric bicycle i mean a pocket bike style thing that has maybe a max range of 10 miles or more and a make speed of like 10mph being a robotics student I have a good idea on electronics but i am never good at researching parts or any kind of mechanical engineering and am struggling with calculations and values for different lipo cells i.e what difference will voltage make to the controller and so the motor ? or what does the mAh of a battery tell me and how long will it last ?

I have come to these forums asking for help from the engineering community , anything that would help or any resources , i know there is a DIY thing bit i didnt find it super helpful at explaining in details aspects of the pocket bike. thank you very much to this great community. 

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  • well the first question that i have that is probably a good starting point is what voltage should i use , I know that i am going to have to arrange some lithium cells to make a 32v or 48v and so on battery but i don't really know what the ideal voltage would be as from there i could start looking at motors and how meany cells in what arrangement i would need , thank you.

  • in reply to blackrecon117

    Hi Andrew,

     

    For some initial battery information, check out batteryuniversity website, it has some useful information. You'll need to intimately get familiar with how cells behave, because there could be consequences to arranging them in a battery, and charging/discharging them. So basically a lot of theory/reading up, but it is important.

    Also, another suggestion is that it might be better to make a scaled down, or slightly lower-power model first, to get used to the challenges that you will experience when you scale up. A lot of the radio controlled car hobbyists have been down the path of motor and battery selection, so you'll learn a lot just from observing what they did, and their design decisions*. You'll start noticing things like battery safety, choice of wires, motor performance, etc. The RC hobbyists have some very high performance models that might approach the level of performance you might be looking for anyway. Since RC model hobby has been around for many years, you'll also find good books I think, and for practical information even magazines dedicated to it, or perhaps back-issues at your uni library.

     

    * My first (joint - I'm not taking all the blame : ) RC project as a teen caught fire over a weekend! So even at this smaller scale one can learn a lot...

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  • in reply to blackrecon117

    Hi Andrew,

     

    For some initial battery information, check out batteryuniversity website, it has some useful information. You'll need to intimately get familiar with how cells behave, because there could be consequences to arranging them in a battery, and charging/discharging them. So basically a lot of theory/reading up, but it is important.

    Also, another suggestion is that it might be better to make a scaled down, or slightly lower-power model first, to get used to the challenges that you will experience when you scale up. A lot of the radio controlled car hobbyists have been down the path of motor and battery selection, so you'll learn a lot just from observing what they did, and their design decisions*. You'll start noticing things like battery safety, choice of wires, motor performance, etc. The RC hobbyists have some very high performance models that might approach the level of performance you might be looking for anyway. Since RC model hobby has been around for many years, you'll also find good books I think, and for practical information even magazines dedicated to it, or perhaps back-issues at your uni library.

     

    * My first (joint - I'm not taking all the blame : ) RC project as a teen caught fire over a weekend! So even at this smaller scale one can learn a lot...

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