Electric fifth wheel (DIY through the road parallel hybrid)
 

Well, it's a bit ambitious for a second post, but I thought I'd get down to what got me here in the first place - an electric pusher for my Yaris - not to drive as an EV but to get it moving and beat enertia. What I'm thinking is that a very simple pusher could be made that would connect to a hidden hitch with square tube, come to a hinge, and an extension of square tube would extend from the hinge to a wheel (motorcycle, mountain bike, not sure yet). A spring in some configuration would hold the wheel down. The next part depends on the force needed to get the yaris moving - either a permanent magnet motor (perhaps a power steering motor), or a truck starter would directly drive the wheel. A battery will be kept in the trunk and completely separated from the car electrical system. If a permanent magnet motor is used, I hope it to regen the battery will the car is running. If a starter is used, I'll depend on it's solenoid to keep it from being turned while not engaged. I'm not sure about the recharging in that scenario. It might just require a deep cycle battery and a charger.

Problems up front:

Stir in the numbers - I'm going to have to determine what forces are involved and how fast the car is to get moving before shifting into gear and using gas.

The Yaris is under warranty - the whole works comes right off and leaves no trace excpt for the hitch. Problem is, Toyota "doesn't recommend" towing with the Yaris in the US. They even "don't recommend" using a hitch-mounted bike carrier. The exact same car in Canada can tow with Toyota's blessing, and they even sell a hitch for it.:mad: So, I'd check with my dealership and see if they'll hold me not being able to use a hitch-mounted bike rack (or something).

If your doing a lot of city driving I can see this possibly being useful. However, if you do mostly highway I don't see anywhere near the gains.

Do you do your own fabrication?

Also, your going to need a lot more than one 12v battery to make any sort of dent in your mileage.

Yeah, the more I look at it, I'd lurch forward and still have to accelerate almost as much. Plus, it wouldn't be PennDOT legal. Back to lurking for now.

This is an idea I keep dreaming about as well. Realistically, I have enough on my plate that I probably won't ever do it, but it's fun exercising the synapses...

Have you seen Mike D's e-5th wheel on his Insight? (I'm assuming so).

He started out with a child's bike frame/wheel and an old wheelchair motor, if I recall correctly. Though he's since upgraded to an Etek PM motor and a beefier scooter type wheel/tire.

I missed out on a used 24/36v 400A golf cart controller on eBay today that would have been ideal for testing something like this. It went for 30 bucks. (DRAT!)

I should have added: whether or not this will be practical or useful all depends on how you define your goals. :)

It probably won't ever pay for itself in fuel savings, since you'll be wearing out batteries while saving a very small amount of fuel.

I initially was thinking of using the 5th wheel to do gas off acceleration, but even the e-tek motor, with a 4:1 reduction,and 200A draw, the acceleration was slower than I was comfortable with. In normal traffic I tend to accelerate with the gas, then turn off the engine and cruise with the 5th wheel, if the traffic speed is less than mu 30 mph EV max. My record is 42 miles on a full charge with an average speed of 26 MPH, on a deserted secondary highway.

Also check out Hybrid adapter:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Hybrid_Adapter

This concept could turn any car into a hybrid.

Welcome to the forum, Mike!

I can't tell you how many people I've shown your e-5th wheel.

I'd be curious to know if you measured your acceleration time, say 0-30. I imagine it's a bit better than what we ended up with in the ForkenSwift, which has similar specs: 2100 lbs, 48v, 225A Curtis controller. I'll have to go look it up...

Here it is: 0-50 km/h (31 mph) took 36 seconds, fresh off the charger, in warm weather (happy batteries).

It's significantly slower in winter temps. Having said that, I try to choose my route to avoid holding people up, and I'll pull over and wait for traffic to clear if I think a line is going to form behind me (e.g. heading up a grade from a standstill).

In over 750+ km of use, nobody's ever honked at me, and only once has someone "roared" around me in a no-passing area (which says as much about where I live as my efforts not to hold people up.)

The issue is available torque, and traction.
The scooter tire is basically a slick (it was free).I have about 140 lbs of down force on the wheel. If I am on sand or gravel, the e-wheel is like a great pitching machine for stones,:eek: so I tend not to use it if someone is behind me.

On my 42 mile test run, I did not run the gas engine except for an occasional 10-30 seconds to replenish the power brake vacuum. (need a small vac pump).

Acceleration on flat or down sloping starts was reasonable, and probably a bit faster than your 36 seconds, but it was painfully slow, and waste lots of amps to try and accelerate up a grade from a stop. If the drive had a 2-3 speed tranny it would probably have no problems, but my fixed 4:1 and my heavy Insight (extra 400 lbs of batteries and e-wheel), are just a bit much for the little e-tek.
Once moving, with the low rolling resistance tires, pumped up to 45 PSI, I was very impressed with the e-wheels ability to climb hills. A hill that I would have had to downshift to climb with the gas engine only dropped my speed from 30MPH to 24MPH.

If they come up with a higher power Nuvinc drive:
http://www.fallbrooktech.com/NuVinci.asp
I would consider using one in the e-wheel.
I just acquired a Honda Insight IMA motor, which may find it self replacing the e-tek sometime later this year.
http://www.99mpg.com/workshops/mikessaturdayhybri/

Too many projects not enough time or money.

I've thought about building a complete stand-alone EV propulsion system (batteries, controller, and motor) onto a small flatbed trailer that I could hitch up behind my car and whose electric motor would power the trailer's wheels. It could be charged up at home (or on the road by regenerative braking) and would propel my car in low to moderate speed city and suburban driving. I would control it wirelessly via an R/C controller and actuator, so there would be no dedicated EV wiring in the car and I could hook it up to any of my cars that had a trailer hitch (the trailer would just have the usual tail/brake lights connector on it). It'd be a way to get EV capacity without having to build a dedicated EV vehicle.

I had originally planned to use a starter motor on my existing elctrical system and just swap the battery to some thing larger. My only purpose was to get the car moving and beat inertia. I firgured the initial push would be similar to the normal duty cycle of a large starter, and thus run on a normal 12v system. I toyed with theidea of a flywheel type gear/sprocket on one of the four wheels, and ultimately considered the fifth wheel idea. I guess it all depends on how much accelerating from a stop affects gas milage for someone who already hypermiles.

I know of a number of different Internal Combustion Engine car pushers for electric cars.

The idea is that you zip locally around in your electric car. When you need to go out of town, or long distance, you hitch up your gas or diesel car pusher to get you there. Sort of the other way around from the thread starter.

Here is one of many different car pushers people have built.

My motorcycle runs off the same motor that Mike's 5th wheel on his Insight uses.

The first time I pulled away from a stop sign, I also experienced the "baseball pitching machine" effect. I have a new (non-bald) rear tire that I will put on once weather gets nicer.

I've started thinking about this subject lately too, especially after seeing MD2000's set-up. I recently aquired an x-360 e-scooter and the rear end looks about right to go under my metro. Probably need a motor upgrade since it is only 350w :D. I would intend on using it for ICE-off low speed (<40mph) cruising and use the ICE for accelerating and hwy use. Seems like the ICE is in a pretty efficient mode under 75% throttle accel anyway and not so much at light throttle cruising. I'd like to talk my boss into letting me try one of the brushless E-tek motors and drives for this :thumbup:.

Batteries will be a problem though. Don't want too add much mass to the little car.

was thinking about this last night - the idea of building a pusher ( either electric or ICE) seems like a great way to get the flexability. but what about building your OWN hybrid.

I was thinking aboiut the old 4wd Subaru Justy.
it already has a rear axes / suspension. I wonder what it would take to seporate the rear from the front engine and put an electric back there?

you would have plenty of modes of operation - EV only - Hybrid - ICE. only could do Regen and even chrage the batteries while driving ICE.

Weight would be a big issue - as you have 2 entire engine systems - but if you are really advanced - you could swap out the motor for a Motorcycle 4-cyl.

Hmmm.. if i only had space - time - money - and the skills to do it.
LOL

I still think a trike would make a great DIY hybrid vehicle.

Get a motorcycle with a working engine and transmission, mate it to a front wheel drive car front end - put an electric motor and batteries on the front.

Poof! A hybrid that can be pushed with the motorcycle engine and rear wheel or pulled by electric power with the front tires.

Here's something similar:

http://www.rqriley.com/imagespln/whiting.jpg

Look close at the black and white photo in the upper right. You can see it's just a motorcycle and front wheels put on there.

I thought that it was interesting that the Aptera uses an electric drive similar to a motorcycle rear or my E-Wheel, timing belt and all.
http://www.aptera.com/details.php
Notice the bridgestone Potenza, the same LRR tire as the Insights use.

Many front wheel drive cars have a simple trailing arm suspension.
If the electric motor could be mounted so the rear suspension hinge point was where the motor output shaft was located, the suspension could move through the full range of motion and the timing belt tension would be maintained. The motor would be mounted to the chassis so it would be sprung weight, and the wheel would only be a bit heavier. Using a brushless motor would be best to eliminate the brush friction when the motor was not powered up.
I will be playing with that concept later this year.
The pusher trailer concept should work fine in principal, but I don't like the added length, and the added difficulty in backing up and parking.
;)
A light weight 3 wheel trike like the Aptera, looks like a great configuration. The only thing I would do different is to have the front wheels also lean into turns, and maybe have some pedals so the passenger can contribute to the ride.:p

I've been thinking of the same thing to use as a replacement for 1st and maybe 2nd gear. Been seeing 24/36/48V motors for sale for cheap, thinking to hook that up to a 5th wheel.

I spent a fair pct of my driving in 25/35 mph zones with many lights/stop signs I EOC quite a bit (esp now that I'm pumped up to 40psi :)) and try to time the lights. I also come across a bit of stop and go, which wreaks havoc on my mileage.

It sounds like it'll only really be good as a 1st gear replacement, and big weight addition.

Mike, I didn't see on your website, do you have an estimate on weight for the wheel assembly? And were those 300# worth of batteries just for the booster 48V system? :eek:

Check out www.99mpg.com
He has an electric driven wheel built in to his modded Insight.
Very cool sight
S>

edit: & by sight I mean site, or i suppose In-sight...

I wonder if it would be possible to mount a pusher on a 1-wheel trailer using an in-hub motor. 1-wheel trailers have less length and don't have the problems with backing up and parking that a conventional articulated trailer does. The single wheel on these trailers is a caster, so you would have to move forward enough to straighten the wheel out before applying power to the in-hub motor.

Look up three posts and there's your man...:p

I like the creativity of all these ideas, but with their complexity you might as well build a conventional hybrid system.

The belted starter/generator seems most promising. A motor is essentially attached to the serpentine belt. Power is sent through the engine into the transmission and out the wheels. Obviously it is not ideal due to the added loss of the engine, but it can't be beat for simplicity.

MD2000, how did you come across those Prius subpacks? Did you buy a whole battery pack and split it apart, go in with other people, or come across them individually? If you don't mind, what do you estimate the price of each subpack to be worth?

If modularity is desired, why not create a unit that attaches solely to the hitch? A single drive wheel attached to a linear actuator could lower vertically to the ground. When it is no longer needed, it can be unhitched. The whole idea is that it is rigidly attached and extremely shallow.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i...tchedMotor.jpg

- LostCause

I got used Prius battery packs whenever they were available. A gen one pack has more subpacks, but the size and interlocking feature is different between the first gen packs and the second gen packs. The used packs go for between $600 to $1200 on e-bay. There are 40 subpacks in the first gen, and only 29 in the second gen. The second gen subpacks have higher current internal connections and of course they should be in better shape with less cycles on the newer packs. $600/29 subpacks would put the price per subpack at ~$20.
Of course the shipping is not considered.
$1200/ 29 brings the price to $41 each.

While the e-wheel was a lot of work, I chose that route so that I could easily return the car to stock if it did not work as planned. Now that I see that an small e-wheel can give me a 40+ mile EV range, I would do it all differently.

The trailer concept has a few other issues.
1. side scrub on turns
The caster concept does not lend it self to a simple drive system, while it does work well for passive support.

When I mounted my e-wheel, I got it as close to the rear wheels as possible to allow the wheel to be mounted on a pivot that would only need to move up and down. I determined that at my mounting position, only 1/4 " of side scrub would occur on the sharpest turn that the car would do.This is acceptable, and is what allowed me to mount the thing in such tight quarters. I have only 1/4 " on either side of the assembly. As soon as you move the drive to the rear hitch area, the side scrub on a rigidly mounted wheel starts becoming a big factor, and a simple up down action will not work when you try to turn a corner. This means that you would have to allow a side to side motion of nearly a foot. If the thing also wants to lift off the road, you have a pretty complex attachment system.
2. The down force
Substantial down force is required to get sufficient friction to push the car.
We normally don't give this much thought, since the cars weight is supported by the 4 wheels, so there is plenty of down force. The insight has low rolling resistance tires, and even with all the batteries it is still lighter than most cars. I have 130lbs of down force, which works quite well on dry clean roads,
But If I try to take off from a stop and I am on sand/grave/, wet/ or snowy roads, it just kicks out sand and stones at the poor guy behind me, so I constantly have to be mindful about where and when to use it. Once moving, that issue goes away.
A trailer with 2 wheels, and all of the batteries should make a nice pusher, as it puts a the battery and motor weight on the trailer drive wheels, and with a regular ball hitch also takes care of the side to side motion required.

On the wheel motor concept, I would expect that any reasonably priced wheel motor (is there such a motor?) would have trouble generating the required torque to push a full size car.
This is why most prototype wheel motor cars use 4 motors.

I like the concept of a two wheel trailer with dual motor drive one for each wheel, with some amount of gear reduction to increase the torque to a level that would provide adiquate acceleration.
Lots of things to consider.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/PowerPedia:Hybrid_Adapter
This guy put up a peswiki after reading about my car.

The whole e-wheel assembly weighs about 80 lbs, the batteries are 300 lbs.

I am leaning towards what seems to me to be a better solution.
Say you start with a FWD car, with a trailing arm rear suspension. This would include most modern cars.
You make a custom aluminum timing belt pulley that is made to exactly fit the id of the cars standard wheel rim. It could be tig welded to the rim, and would protrude 1/2 to 3/4" towards the spring. The drive motor would want to be a Brushless motor to reduce the drag when un-powered to a minimum. The body of the car in the rear trailing arm attachment area would be where you would mount the motor, with the drive shaft exactly in line with the rear suspension pivot point. This puts the motor weight on the chassis so it is sprung weight, and only adds a bit of unsprung weight to the existing wheel. The timing belt tension would not change through the full suspension travel, and you can size the motor drive pulley to whatever final drive ratio you like. This concept could be the simplest to do, and it seems to eliminate all of the issues that the e-wheel or trailer have, while also solving the unsprung weight issues that any wheel motor designs would have.
I have the Blue Insight rear end to play with, so I may give this a try if I can find the time, energy and $$ to pursue it.
I have acquired an Insight motor, which may be a nice drive motor for this concept.
http://www.99mpg.com/workshops/mikessaturdayhybri/

I can envision a switchover system to hot swap the Insight drive electronics from the stock IMA motor to the modified IMA rear drive motor.
I did not get the Insight power electronics with the motor, so if anyone has the power electronics from an Insight that they are willing to part with, let me know as I may be interested.

So a year and half passed since last post any new ideas? I was wondering if MD2000 finished his project with the brushless motor?

A lot has happened since my last post. I have built up another 100 MIMA control systems, (Manual Integrated Motor Assist), developed a simple to install plug and play harness for the MIMA systems to make it much easier to install.
Buy MIMA - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist

In Nov of 2008, I was ready to ship the systems but the 75 people that were on the waiting list for systems dropped to 35 after the price of gas dropped, and the economy tanked. I invested a lot of time and money to build the systems, with the idea that the sales of the 100 systems would help with the cost of the many projects I have on my list, the E-wheel being one of them.

My workshop was filled with surplus pneumatic, servo, and hydraulic machinery that a friend was able to acquire for me, as the company he worked for began to contract due to the poor economy. I had no place to work, coulden't even find a bench to work on. I finally had a semi trailer given to me that I set up in my back yard to put the stuff in so I could get my shop back, which is where I am now.

Last week I removed my e-wheel after nearly 3 years on the car, as well as the batteries and boost charger system, so now my car is back to stock with MIMA, and is ready for more experiments.
Some photos of the e-wheel after 3 hard years under the car and maybe 500 miles of use.
E-wheel for any vehicle - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist

Except for a dry hinge bearing, and a bit of pitting on the aluminum covers it is still in fair shape.

I reduced the price of the MIMA systems by $400 just before Christmas, to try and get the things in cars saving gas rather than sitting on my pool table, and the interest in MIMA seems to be ramping back up.


The key projects I am considering in the order of priority.
1. Develop a prius battery pack based PHEV system for honda Insights with MIMA. This will more than double the PHEV boost range for the cars which has been proven to yield over 100 MPG while the PHEV pack is providing charge to the stock pack. This will make the MIMA systems more attractive from the payback standpoint, and should help me sell the rest of the systems.
1a. Finish development of a grid charger for the Insight and the Prius battery packs so the stock pack can be charged and rebalanced.
MIMA Pack Whack and rebalancing the battery - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist

2. Get my Prius modified synergy drive operational by developing the dual 3 phase driver for the stock Prius inverter. This powerful AC brushless drive with regen will give me an EV power plant that will first be installed in an Insight chassis.
EV Insight with a Prius heart - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist

3. E-trailer or Hybrad trailer.
Use another of the modified Prius synergy drives to build an electric pusher trailer for my van. I have a design in mind that would allow the trailer to steer, so backing up will not be an issue, and the trailer will be mounted close to the rear of the van, so it will still allow parking and tight maneuvering in reverse.

4. Further electrify my yard maintenance machines.
Replacing gasoline with solar electric lawn equipment - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist

5. Get more solar panels and an off grid wind/solar system developed that will use the 48V powered electric telephone truck and Yard buggy batteries as multy use mobile energy storage devices as well as further developing my solar concentrator utility for domestic hot water and space heating as well as for cooking and canning food.
Plugging into the SUN - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist

Thats just the short list ;)

Some of the owners of the New 2010 Insight, have asked me to work with them to develop a CAN bus based MIMA control for the car, so that will soon be somewhere on this list.

The bottom line, I have too many projects and not enough time and money to pursue all of them.
It has been a busy year, and 2010 looks like another. I don't feel retired.:)

How about modifying an older 4WD car, say a Subaru Impreza with electric motors on the rear wheels only or maybe even a standard FWD car with a rear drive axle incorporated in from something small, like an old Toyota or Datsun or small traction motors directly at the wheels themselves. This way, the electric motor/generator could be tied into the rear wheels while keeping the gasoline motor for the front? One could either manually control the power split or devise a simple controller, perhaps via laptop that could read various parameters and issue the appropriate commands or some combination of the two.

Its too bad the simple approach doesn't work, if there were a reliable simple way of driving dummy wheels I would be all over that for my insight, even the lowly 3-4 miles range the stock pack could provide edge to edge would be a great ev advantage.

I'm thinking take something like a Subaru Impreza and eliminate the 4wd mechanism except for the rear axles then attach electric motors to them. Basically treat it like an EV with IC backup/charging ability. Yes, there might be smaller lighter vehicles to start with, but you would have to fabricate a rear-drive mechanism although that might not be too bad if you can graft in a rear driveline from a small IRS car like a BMW 3-series or VW bug....or even a Subaru.

Maybe a small electric FWD car with a motorcycle rear end?

Is it possible to retrofit a spare CV axle to the rear wheels, then mount an electric motor in the back?

if you replace the whole kit and kabootle

Which is why I was thinking of using a 4wd car to start with..it already has a rear driveline and suspension

Yes but few 4wd cars are efficient designs, not like an insight for example.

I was thinking maybe 1wd off the halfshafts might work on a fwd hybred conversion, mmm suspended mass.

that was one thing that brought the Impreza to mind..it is considered the most fuel-efficient of the 4wd vehicles. Still, if you can swap into something lighter, that would be the way to go.

How critical is reducing the unsprung weight for a non-performance vehicle? Other than exposing the electric motors to additional vibration and road shock, is there any real problem with eliminating the half-shafts altogether and mounting the motors directly to the wheels?

double down
 

Search the interwebs for mini cooper hub motors. A UK outfit built a cool looking Mini with motors in all 4 wheels, so there is precedence. Something like that could be put on the back of any front driver with out too much doing I'd imagine.

I've been investigating the pusher trailer idea for my bicycle, using a kid trailer a bike hub motor, and a couple 12 volt lead-acids, or maybe retrofitting a e-scooter deal. One of the reasons I like electrfying the trailer vs. the bike itself is the trailer could be unhitched and then no additional weight is on the bike, save for a couple feet of wire and a throttle. The advantage here on a car pusher would be on a highway trip you may want to leave the trailer home.

For less than what it would take to design and build a 1 wheel trailer with drive train and hitch there exists a thing that lets you tow a motorcycle by holding the front wheel on a thing in the receiver hitch. I like the idea of wiring a throttle to an electric motorcycle in tow to a throttle inside the car. Then you get a pusher trailer, and an independent EV. You could have a gas motorbike pushing an electric car too, if you already had the electric car.

www.tow-ster.com
I awnted one of these, but my Valkyrie is too heavy.

And man did that thing look terribly cobbled!

Too bad real reliable hub motors don't yet exist at a hobbiest level, my cobalt has lots of room for batteries if I remove the spare, use a pair of hub motors and a Ford escape hybrid battery and instant prius. (sort of)

Like this PML unit?

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...p;d=1365734482

Thats how the "hybrid" car va tech had on display at the state fair was setup. It was a ford escape with a biodiesel subaroo drive train up front and an electric motor in the rear on the axles. Then a setup to go between the engine, motor, but required a lot of driver input to make work.

The gen 1 insight really is setting the bar as its easy to break 100 mpg. Why take a 17 mpg car, mod it to get 4 times that when you could just buy a better vehicle to start with and save you time and money?

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...84472621_n.jpg

Yeah, most of the 1000 watt hub wheel motors I see on ebay are limited to 45 mph at full speed, then of course with it mounted hind you it would cause some problems with tight turns in parking lots. 1000 watts may not be enough to help you maitnain speed, but it should help you coast further and if used in combination of pulse n glide get you more fuel economy. An idea I had was to mount a small tire to it, mount it under the hood and use it to help spin the engine.

I think a newer VW diesel would be great for this kind of experiment...especially since they did come with 4wd so the rear suspension should be easily modifiable.

I'm thinking perhaps a VW Jetta diesel wagon with the rear drivetrain from a VW Golf Synchro / Rallye and an electric motor in place of the driveshaft.

just found this thread from the eco mods index. as soon as i started reading in a bit about how the 5th wheel works, i had the idea for rear wheel hub motors on my FWD 1995 Saturn SL1. After reading through, I decided that the info on this thread might be outdated, as far as hub motors go, so i looked around for 15 minutes and found this:
kellycontroller.com/brushless-hub-motors-c-21_62.html
any thoughts on the applicability of one of these?
I was looking at this one(kellycontroller.com/hub-motor-48v3kw-high-torquedisc-brake-p-158.html) specifically, as it mentions high torque :D

also, can anyone tell me whether or not i'd have to have a 13" rim for this thing, or if it's just telling me that the damned thing is 13" in diameter? my stock tires are 14s that i plan on changing to 15s or 16s. definately dont wanna pick out a motor that puts me a step in the wrong direction.

Sorry about the absence of links... im a newb... T-T

Looks to me like those hub motors are meant for scooters/motorcycles. Nothing there appears to be a "bolt on" automotive type hub.

Read this thread (the whole thing)

Mira-Inboard Hub Motors - DIY Electric Car Forums

You need to install the motor(s) and modify them in exactly the way Ripperton demonstrates and then they will be usuable on a lightweight vehicle

Never mind he is the only person I know of to find an automotive use for these scooter motors.

Good Luck
Ryan