Just thought I’d share my build here. As far as I know, I don’t think anyone has built anything like this before.
I bought an skate cycle, spent a few hours learning how to ride it, and then decided to strap an electric motor onto it. It’s a direct drive set up with a Tacon Big Foot 160, Hobby King 150A ESC, and Two Zippy 3S batteries in series.
I’ve been testing it and all seems to work well. Took it for a 5KM ride without issue. Now that I’m satisified with design, I’m going to work on packaging it up to make it cleaner.
Yeah, definitely will post a ride video soon. Just need to find someone to record it. I only work on it when my wife is busy with other stuff which is why I don’t have any videos so far.
Was thinking about adding some “Tron” style lights or something to make it look crazy at night. If you guys have any ideas or links for this please share.
Haven’t researched adding lights, but I assume they just run off of the balance plugs right?
Nice ride. Like the mcguyver-ish mounting solution
About the lights, better to get a sbec and run it from the discharge leads.
Running it from the balance taps will cause the cells to become unbalanced since you only discharge one or two, though not sure how big of a difference it’s gonna make if it’s only a few LEDs.
I need one of these for when the zombie apocalypse happens!! Yes!! That is cool as hell. You just need a chainsaw with a shotgun welded to it to complete the package. LOL
Going to work on it tomorrow hopefully. Will find a better way to mount the batteries and then need to build some sort of case/cover to go over the ESC and motor.
I’ll get some better pics at different angles for you guys to check out then too!
Is it possible to mount the batteries and ESC on the hanger-tube-thingy in the middle? That would be cool!
How fast is this thing? Is must be pretty unstable at high speed! I imagine it must be fun!
It’s super fun! Had so many people looking wondering what it was when I was testing it.
I am planning on building a custom bar in the middle to house the batteries and removing one of the pivot points. I initially didn’t do it in the middle because either end can pivot quite a bit and I didn’t want to deal with the wires accidentally getting caught on something etc.
Only having one pivot instead of two does change the dynamic of riding it quite a bit actually, so it’s something to get used to, but it does make it more stable at speed, and also not quite as maneuverable.
Because my riding is still sketch, I’ve limited the throttle at 40% and only gone about 15km/h. Once I get better, I will let you know! Riding a skate cycle is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever learned how to ride. I would compare the learning curve to a unicycle haha.
Would be nice to have a 3D printed housing, but I’m too poor and don’t have enough time to do something like that.
I have a left over large plastic sheet from making these bad boys for my rear wheels (see attached). Your eyes do not deceive you, you are in fact seeing the only hyper-miling Kia Sorento in probably the whole word.
If you want lights, get the 1/5 1/8th off road lighting system. It’s 4 big square head lights and 2 brake lights. It plugs right into your reciever and if you wore it to your throttle channel along with the cable from your esc, you can get actual brake lights which are pretty cool,
Nice. That’s definitely the look I’m going for. The off road lighting system looks interesting as well. If only hobby king actually had stuff in stock…
Had about 2 hours to work on the skate cycle yesterday. Unfortunately, no videos yet, but worked on changing the design a little as I had mentioned in previous posts.
About the lights, better to get a sbec and run it from the discharge leads.
Running it from the balance taps will cause the cells to become unbalanced since you only discharge one or two, though not sure how big of a difference it’s gonna make if it’s only a few LEDs.
