|
Dude I have kettlebells weighing more than 56lbs for one handed exercise and the power steering on my 2.5 ton farm truck was broken for years. >_> If I could do a 50 mile range under the conditions I described for a 56lb battery pack i'd be happy. I probably need to lose about 56lbs so after I finish that it will still perform better than an ultrabattery tech bike with a 7lb battery doing the same. :- P What I don't understand is how physically large they are or whether special handling conditions apply, like no mounting at a slant on a bike frame, obviously easier on a trike since I should be able to stick them flat and low around the axle better. I don't even know if i'm looking at something needing like half a car battery, one car battery equivalent or four basically. No idea what the math requires for older tech batteries.
I'm told golf cart gel cels is what some people seem to like for electric cars, if it saves substantial weight or has some other benefits (better safety/no acid to leak, can mount at angles, less bulk even if similar weight) i'd look at that. Are there any handy dandy rules of thumb for the different battery technologies compared side by side? Ie - what a given amp/hours weighs, it's size, it's approximate cost, it's number of charges, and unique extra info like whether you can quickcharge and such.
My biggest thing is "lowest battery pack cost for desired range/power" right now unless it's just plain unfeasible to do or takes away so much cargo from the trike to defeat the purpose. After two years of driving the cheapest battery pack I can get I might have enough money saved from not spending it on fuel to buy newer tech batteries which maybe are more affordable by then, but i'm just designing around worst case poorest person scenario right now and still hoping it to work.
Speaking of the public brainstorming bit one thing I was considering was possibly using something like a truck starter for the main assist motor on the trike rear axle (I don't know whether these can run a constant on duty cycle? but I thought I heard of someone modifying one with different bearings so that the main issue is preventing overheating, and I dont mind "pulse and glide" since in town driving is probably like that anyway), and something like an electric cordless drill motor on the front tire. The reason for the latter would be different gearing - i'd only need 3-5mph out of the front tire under power, enough to not get stuck in snow and similar at low speeds. Whereas the main motor would be expected to run me 20mph with any load I have so geared differently. Possibly even two such starters if I needed hillclimb torque, or an easy way to have 3 levels of power. (have one smaller and one big, so that I use starter 1, starter 2, or both - again since controllers seem so darn expensive)
Another plus of lead acid or gel cells would be able to use common car battery chargers for simplicity, some of the ones for big packs of laptop style batteries have sounded expensive..
Thanks for the idea of forklift quick disconnects, that seems like a good idea. I don't really want to screw and unscrew every day but even if I do sling car batteries of weight around every time that doesn't bother me at all.
|