2 wheel: July 2008 Archives

Today I visited my local flea market and picked up a real find. A used Razor e300 (or maybe e200, not sure) electric scooter with charger for the unbelievable price of $25.

The hitch was that the scooter didn't work when I tested it out. The seller originally wanted $30 but I bargained down to $25 because of its condition. The LED power lights came on, but it didn't move. The battery read full but no motor motion. I decided that for $25, I could part it out and still get my money back and so I bought it.

I came back home and the batteries were indeed dead. A little massaging from my higher-end Soneil 2408 charger and the batteries came back to life. They don't seem as though they have their full capacity, I'm doing an amp-hour test on them with my Watts-Up tonight.

I put in the SLA batteries from my Pocket Rocket and took it for a zip around the neighborhood. Lots of fun -- until a car pulls out in front of you. Still, you can only go 10-15 mph so there's limited trouble that you can get into. And even with the newer SLAs from the Pocket Rocket, my range was only around 3 miles.

I'm going to see what I can do to hop it up, perhaps use some NiMH batteries instead of SLAs.

I spent a few hours this afternoon installing the HXT outrunner motor. It was a bit larger than the MY1016 that I had previously had as a prototype. And as it is an outrunner, this necessitated a different type of engine mounting.

Here you can see the base end of the outrunner motor with the power leads on the left. The X shaped bracket came with the outrunner and is what I used to attach it firmly to my Boxer's left engine support bracket.

This is the view from the top. The main body of an outrunner motor rotates, so you can't attach the motor by the side. It has to be face mounted.

Here is the left side spindle with the V-belt pulley installed. The nice thing about retaining the CVT back end on the moped is that I don't have to adjust the pulley tension, it's done automatically.

This is the right side of the motor / moped. In order to have the pedals clear, I had to shorten the right hand (prop side) spindle. I left a small nub so that I later attach a flange bracket to lessen some of the side loading on the main bearings.

I had to cut away some of the sheet metal on the right hand motor bracket to fit the motor and its spindle in. This considerably weakened the right side bracket, which is a structural part of the suspension system.

This is the right side of the motor again, from the top. The green, black, and red wires visible are the mopeds low-voltage (6V) power leads to the headlight and taillight.

When I cut part of the right side motor bracket to fit the spindle in, this weakened the right side as it was a structural component. In order to make sure nothing Bad happened, I reinforced the bottom part of the mount with a piece of L aluminium bracket.

Once the ESC arrives, I can wire everything up and take her for a spin. I'm hoping that current pulley gearing will give me around a 30 mph top speed. I'll be running her off a 24V SLA system at first, then when my NiMHs arrive, at 28.8 volts.

Higher than 30V and I need a new ESC, darn I knew I should've just bit the bullet and gotten the Phoenix HV100A.