balancing scooter

4 Articles

3D Printed Scooter Zips Around

September 15, 2021 by 8 Comments

Tooling around downtown on a personal electric vehicle is a lot of fun, but it is even better when you do like [James Dietz] and ride on your own 3D-printed electric scooter. As one of the entries for the Hackaday Prize, RepRaTS (Replicable Rapid prototyper Transportation System) has a goal of doing for scooters what the original RepRap project did for 3D printing: provide a user-friendly design base that you can extend, modify, and maintain. It doesn’t even require power tools to build, other than, of course, your 3D printer.

The design uses threaded rods and special plastic spacers made to hold a large load. The prototype is deliberately oversized with large hub motors, with the understanding that most builds will probably be smaller. As you can see in the video below, the scooter seems to go pretty fast and handles well.

Continue reading “3D Printed Scooter Zips Around” →

[Nick Thatcher]’s Plan-B Is A Commuter Electric Unicycle

July 29, 2016 by 19 Comments

[Nick Thatcher] is a serial builder of self-balancing rides. His various Segway clones and unicycles have until now suffered from one significant problem, that of portability when not being ridden. Taking one on a train was a significant undertaking, hardly convenient in a personal transport machine.

His latest design, the Plan-B, is an electric unicycle designed to address this problem to create a truly portable piece of commuter transport. It has been designed to be as compact as possible with the ability to fold to fit in a confined space, and the weight has been reduced to a minimum.

Power comes from a 24V 350W geared motor kept on a leash through a Dimension Engineering motor controller by an Arduino with a gyro to maintain the unit’s stability The battery is an ULTRAMAX LiFePO4 , and the single wheel is an inexpensive plastic wheelbarrow part with chain drive from the motor.

The result is both rideable and portable, though with a 10mph top speed not the fastest of personal transport. He’s posted a video which you can see below the break, showing him taking it on a train journey and traversing the British urban landscape.

Continue reading “[Nick Thatcher]’s Plan-B Is A Commuter Electric Unicycle” →

Cheap Balancing Skateboard

March 10, 2007 by 11 Comments


[Tony] submitted his site showing his recent projects. Besides his balancing scooter, and light creations, I thought his take on the balancing skateboard was interesting. The drive components came from a pair of $10 cordless drills, and the motor controller consists of a pair of relays and mosfets.(There’s a pic controller, gyro and accelerometer behind them) It’s not elegant, but these sorts of hacks are great for inspiring those on a budget.

Don’t forget, the new revised US daylight savings time is coming.

Balancing One Wheel Scooter

March 8, 2007 by 53 Comments


Fresh off the tip line, [Ben] sent in his one wheeled balancing scooter. It’s a nice simple design – I just might have to build one myself. The steel frame surrounds a pair of 12V 12Ah SLA batteries, a 400w 24v DC motor, one of the ever handy OSMC motor controllers, rate gyro, accelerometer and a PIC 16F876A. I love the entire concept! (For some reason, I’m thinking it needs a brake light on the rear…

Check out the video after the cut. He walks through the hardware at the end.

By the way, Eliot and I’ll be at Shmoocon in a couple of weeks. We won’t have boards from the Design Challenge yet, but we should have something to give away to people who find us there.

Continue reading “Balancing One Wheel Scooter” →