Post by Liteway on May 7, 2014 13:41:06 GMT -5
Made this for my son Vince , before I owned or operated a mig welder. Mostly 2" PVC, 2, 20" 35$ Walmart bikes and and few bent aluminum bits for hardware. Steering shaft ,steering wheel, steering rods and even the swingarm made of pvc tubing and plumbing fittings. Plastic seat was from a child swing. Motor was Dewalt high torque cordless drill. Variable speed drill switch was adapted to a foot pedal. Would do the 1/2 mile round trip from our house to end of the Cul de Sac in 90sec. 20MPH. At that rate battery was dead in about 3 mins. We would use the second speed in the 3 speed drill for best top end, 3rd too tall, wouldn't pull it. Had only the motor for braking. Using low gave better engine braking, increased the range and dropped speed to 10 or 12. This was used most often.
Putting a 4yr old on the street, no matter how lightly traveled or how carefully we watched made me uneasy, so it didn't happen but a couple of times.
Used the sprockets that came with bike, but reversed with small sprocket on the drill, large one at the wheel.
Gearing was not short enough to cope well with the Burmuda grass and uneven terrain in the yard. Went through batteries in less than 5 mins. Picked up a 9ah jell battery and it tripled the range provided by the drill battery, only weighed 5 lbs and gave slightly better power(still 12volts). It would not revive after a couple of full discharges.
Could have probably cut the 80lb weight in half using conduit, and it would have worked a lot better.
It only worked as well as it did due to my son's sub 30 lb weight.
But it looked good.
Did have reverse, which is more than I can say for my current ride.
Putting a 4yr old on the street, no matter how lightly traveled or how carefully we watched made me uneasy, so it didn't happen but a couple of times.
Used the sprockets that came with bike, but reversed with small sprocket on the drill, large one at the wheel.
Gearing was not short enough to cope well with the Burmuda grass and uneven terrain in the yard. Went through batteries in less than 5 mins. Picked up a 9ah jell battery and it tripled the range provided by the drill battery, only weighed 5 lbs and gave slightly better power(still 12volts). It would not revive after a couple of full discharges.
Could have probably cut the 80lb weight in half using conduit, and it would have worked a lot better.
It only worked as well as it did due to my son's sub 30 lb weight.
But it looked good.
Did have reverse, which is more than I can say for my current ride.