Scooter motor

2 Articles

3-Wheeled Electric Skateboard Does Things Differently

February 9, 2022 by 6 Comments

Typically, electric skateboards drive one or more wheels with brushless motors, while keeping everything mounted on otherwise fairly-standard trucks to maintain maneuverability. However, [swedishFeetballs] decided to go a different route, building a 3-wheeled design using some interesting parts.

The build relies on a large combined hub motor and wheel, similar to those you would find on a hoverboard or some electric scooters; this one is a Xiaomi part sourced from eBay. It’s controlled via an off-the-shelf electric skateboard speed controller that comes complete with its own remote.

The hardware is all bolted up to a custom skateboard deck built from scratch to accept the large single rear wheel. Up front, a regular skateboard truck is used. Batteries are mounted under the deck. Reportedly, the board has a top speed of 15 mph, which unsurprisingly matches that of the Xiaomi M365 the hub motor is sourced from.

It’s a neat way to build an electric skateboard, and to be honest we couldn’t be more curious as to how it rides. Unfortunately, only a few seconds of footage is available, but we’ve embedded it below for your watching pleasure!

Meanwhile, you might also be curious as to the benefits of a half-track skateboard. Video after the break.

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The Electric Vehicles Of Electromagnetic Field: The Dustbin 7

August 12, 2018 by 4 Comments

We’re producing an occasional series following some of the miniature electric vehicle builds currently underway at a feverish pace to be ready for the upcoming Electromagnetic Field hacker camp in the UK. Today we’re going down to Somerset, where [Rory] has produced a very serviceable machine he calls the Dustbin 7.

The Hacky Racers series stipulates a £500 budget along with a few rules covering vehicle safety and dimensions, so he had to pick his components carefully to allow enough cash for the pile of LiPo batteries he’d have to buy new in the absence of a convenient surplus source. The motor he picked was a 2kW brushless scooter motor, and that he mated to a 48V e-bike controller

Running gear came from a surplus school project race car but looks suspiciously similar to the wheels you’d see on a typical electric wheelchair. His chassis is welded box section steel, and the bodywork has a classic car feel to it as he comes from a family of Triumph owners. The name “Dustbin 7” comes from the affectionate nickname for the popular pre-war British Austin 7 people’s car.

In use, as you can see below it appears to have a fair turn of speed without displaying too alarming a handling characteristic. If this is the standard of vehicles in the competition then we can imagine that racing will be an exciting spectacle!

For more EMF electric vehicle tomfoolery, take a look at this modified Sinclair C5.

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