EDIT - Bike details on this forum now
http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2431.0Hello folks,
I've been working on building an EV for a while, collecting large motors and batteries for a car project which just went nowhere due to a lack funds. I'm a biker and my old 32 year old Kawasaki KZ550Ltd (imported fom the US 20 years ago by previous owner) was looking in a sorry state so I was thinking of making it an EV, but, it still had inherent value as a collector's bike and that was sold last week.
On my driveway, waiting for me to find the time to work on it for over a year, is a Yamaha FZ600 (engine and carbs already removed and sold by me last year to turn a profit ( Yeah !)
Bateries, not very conventional, are li-poly cells, from a utility product. 2500mAh cells stacked 4 together in parallel to give 3.7V 10Ah packs, each with a small charger board. I've tested them to 1C discharge without a problem. I think in total I've got enough to make a 2.4kWh pack. (60V-80V probably). Hoping to charge it from 5Vdc because I've got a 150Amp 5V supply doing noting at all, but i am keeping that decision open for now, i'm flexible on that solution. I also have my own BMS (monitoring) design i draughted up a couple of years ago, and hopefully the minichargers fitted to each 4 cells will help keep the pack top-balanced
Thinking of buddying up some lead acid or NiMH cells, or supercaps in parallel to the mainpack to protect the lipoly's from harm caused by really big discharge spikes. ideally i'ld like to use lipoly's capable of 40C discharges but, I haven't won the lottery yet !
The motor is an old series DC golfcart motor,36V, with a suitable 200Amp controller.
I reckon I can get into the ballpark, somewhere, enough to give me my weekend runaround bike, perhaos a solar panel on the garage roof to charge it during the week to make it free to run. All being well I would probably look to going down the AC route and possibly Thundersky (or whoever they're called now) Lithium cells.
I'll get around to taking some pics and documenting as I go. Need to clean the garage up first but then I'm good to go !
Cheers
Chris
(located about 20 miles west of Edinburgh)
Author
Topic: Hello from a new Scottish member (Read 544 times)