EV Parade Float

[bennelson]

Hi EVeryone,

While this isn't a full-speed street-legal vehicle, I thought you would all find this little project interesting.

Last night, a group of us got together to build a small, electric cart to use as a platform for a parade float.

It was lots of fun, and we actually had a driveable machine by the end of the evening.

Here's the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z64vsmdSVEk

[gone-ot]

...the fore-&-aft "casters" need to be spring (or, shock) mounted so as to take-up the slack.

[MetroMPG]

Oh man, that looks like fun.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...the fore-&-aft "casters" need to be spring mounted..

Yep, we had some spring-mounted ones - but they were rated for 2 tons!

The fact is that the ones we were using were just a little short. It's what we had handy. We'll probably replace them with something else next time.

Here's the blog entry from one of the other Milwaukee Makers:

Last night the gang all pulled together and got a prototype Pot 'o' Gold electric parade float up and running! TomG, as usual had all the scrap pieces we needed to put together a sweet little ride...



The green steel used in the frame apparently used to support a conveyor belt system in a factory someplace. TomG has bunches of it. The wheels and motors are from an old electric wheelchair that was scrapped. The batteries are old motorcycle batteries and the R/C motor controller was from an old battlebot.

We plan to replace the R/C motor controller with some sort of button or joystick driven motor controller. R/C was simply all that we had ready-to-go that evening.

The hope is to create a series of small vehicles like this, bolt some themed fiber-glass shells on top of the frame and enter the vehicles in parades to showcase the awesome pool of talent we have in the Milwaukee Makerspace and hopefully attract some more members. Our initial target is the Milwaukee St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 13th. We're hopeful the organizers will enjoy pots of gold driven by leprechauns who hand out gold foil wrapped chocolates to spectators."

Or see it in person at www.MilwaukeeMakerSpace.org

[bennelson]

Here's the latest on what we have been up to for the St. Pat's Day electric parade float.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJDNh95vixU

This is what it looks like with the pot mounted on the EV float base, with the gold filled in.

[ianisok4u]

that's awesome please get some video of it in the parade.