It’s a wee bit cold in Finland right now. And while dog sledding is always an option (though mostly for tourists), one gentleman who goes by [Jibjorkl] on YouTube decided to try making his own motorized sleigh — and it’s freaking awesome.
Unfortunately our Finnish language skills aren’t exactly up to snuff so we’ll just have to describe the invention; perhaps one of our Finnish readers could add some insight if we miss anything?
It appears that [Jibjorkl] has taken a hub motor with a wheel from a standard e-bike and mounted on what looks like a store-bought sleigh. The wheel has something which looks kind of like duct tape wrapped around it to help give it extra traction in the snow. There are two lead-acid batteries sitting atop the motor assembly, but we can see an e-bike Li-on pack mounted on the side too (likely 48V 20+aH).
Regardless of how it works — it’ll take two passengers pretty damn fast through the snow. We want to build one asap.
Now which would you prefer? A motorized sled like this one (that you can sit on!), or a snow-scooter?
Which would I prefer? Why have OR when you can have AND.
Booleans are the best.
XOR
“What to do with an e-bike conversion kit in the winter? Well, one can mount it on a kicksleigh. This has all the same components as in an e-bike. Here’s the motor, in this case it’s a 14-inch 250W motor. It’s just been covered with a chicken wire so that it grips ice better. Here’s the battery, a pipe battery. A control unit from which one can adjust lots of things. And the speed control is here.”
Thanks for the translation!
The wheel has chicken wire wrapped around.
This isn’t really a hack, it’s a advertisement by a company that sells e-bike conversion kits.
That’s _not_ a dog sleigh! It’s made to run on ice (observe the thin metal runners) powered by a human (observe the weak construction) and is a small construction – or in other words a kick sled just as the video page says. Not that uncommon in Scandinavia, called “spark” in Swedish if someone want to search.
Jet powered variants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UjDQCqAcDE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SC5-A6URoU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awFxbpri0ek
You might recognize the guy who built the jetengine motorcycle, they are tweaking the kickslead and the jetengine motorcycle, it is race weekend this weekend, new records will be made!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxZDR6VjK0k
Kör så det ryk grabbar!
So they’ll be in arctic weather, straddling a homebrewed sled that’s 5% repurposed turbochargers and 95% afterburner hurtling along a frozen lake, likely after a couple of viina … what could go wrong? (From the videos of their previous efforts it should be spectacular.)
Extra points for the video music.
1. Awesome.
2. I would add a fender before sitting up front.
“motorspark” turns up even better results in Google.
This is awesome! I could use one around here as well (New Hampshire, USA) with all the snow that’s on the ground right now.
I see that and raise you THIS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKJIbaEKa3o
I can see ice fishermen going crazy at the thought of pulling a shelter and trailer behind one of these.