Thanks, but its always easier with a big chunk of metal and the welder cranked right up. Much harder to produce nice welds on thin sheet and low power (to prevent blowing through)
Luckily most of the engineering on this project is quite heavy, I've only had the welder off max a couple of times !
Not like trying to stitch two halves of a lengthened front door back together ???
HeHeHe !!, just fitted some new brushes to the motor, and dropped it on the lowest gearing 4:1 and did another "run behind with the car battery", now it really moves !!, < 20 yards it just blew me off I couldn't keep up ( my excuse is I was carrying the battery ! ), he recorded a peak speed of 15.2mph it was still accelerating but he bottled it and I ran out of puff, I recon with enough road and slightly taller ratios it'll easily pull 30mph
Time to buy him those leathers and crash helmet... Oh and I supose I had better fit some brakes
Hmmmm, I'm getting the feeling this things is going to be a bit dangerous for use in the street.
I've been working on a variable speed controller for it, which I will be able to adjust to limit the speed, might be a "in the carpark at work" only toy ! Luckily his friend round the corner has a mini-moto which he rides at his aunty's house because she's got a field to play in, maybe best to make him take it over there for a play !
Well I finished the speed controller today, and installed it on the trike, PWM controller with enough Mosfets for to handle 240 Amps continuous load. I wired the battery through one of those cut off switches like on a race car (took it from the old convertible), so I could disconnect the power quickly if it all went wrong.
For now I have a small pot to turn for the "throttle".
I set it all up and tested the controller with the trike off the ground, worked perfectly, nice smooth fully variable speed. So I took it outside to test.
I sat on it and gave it a go, nicely started to pull away, very smooth, so I gave it full throttle.
Thats when the flames started ! !, two of the Mosfets burst into flames, it was quite impressive !
Back to the drawing board on the speed controller, I suspect the current requirements for the starter are a lot higher than I thought.
Anyway, I couldn't resist giving it a proper go, so I removed the speed controller and wired it so the power-kill switch acted as a on-off throttle. I rolled it out onto the street, sat on it (it bent considerably under my 17 stone) and turned the key..... Off I went down the street, got up to 15mph before I had to brake (thats remove the power and put my feet down to slow it) and turn round for the return trip.
Its ace ! I was impressed with the torque it had, and it should be a lot more lively with my son on it, he only weighs 1/3 of my weight.
I'll get Joanne to video me riding up and down on it tomorrow, see if I can post it up.
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