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So how does someone with little knowledge of mechanics or electronics learn how to make an electric car? I've been getting more and more excited about doing an electric car conversion the more I learn about them. However i won't be in the position to do one for the next couple of years when i finish my degree and can get a decent job. So, inspired by http://bjblaster.homedns.org/projects/electric_drive/bigredcar_mk2/, I decided that a good place for me to start was on a smaller scale. My first conversion will not be an ICE car it is a kids push car. I bought this little veedub styled push car off ebay for $80 and will be installing electric scooter parts to make the electric drive train
![Land vehicle Vehicle Car Motor vehicle City car]()
I picked up the car yesterday and have found out a lot about the car that I didn't know (the ebay description was pretty basic).
The good:
First of all the car is as cool as it looks, i wish i had one of these when i was a kid. The car has a fiberglass body and metal frame so it should be strong enough to hold the components and will last long enough for the conversion to be worth the effort. The steering works pretty well and has a nice mechanism so that it can be controlled from behind by the pushing parent (i'll probably remove it, but it liked the design). There seems to enough room to fit all the electrical add-ons and it has a plywood floor so the kiddies feet won't drag along (i was worried it would be a flintstones car). Overall i am very happy with it and am pretty excited about doing this project.
The challenging:
I had hoped the back wheels would share a common axel so that i could just pop a sprocket on it and attach the motor by a chain. Unfortunately each wheel has its own bearings and sits indepedantly on its own static axel, like under a skateboard, so getting power to the wheels is going to be a lot harder than i had hoped. Also there are no brakes at the moment so i'll have to put some in as well.
This is meant to be a learning experience rather than an investment, and i live in a community with lots of families so hopefully at the end, one kid will be getting his own electric car this christmas and i'll be one step closer to being able to build an adult-sized one for myself!
I picked up the car yesterday and have found out a lot about the car that I didn't know (the ebay description was pretty basic).
The good:
First of all the car is as cool as it looks, i wish i had one of these when i was a kid. The car has a fiberglass body and metal frame so it should be strong enough to hold the components and will last long enough for the conversion to be worth the effort. The steering works pretty well and has a nice mechanism so that it can be controlled from behind by the pushing parent (i'll probably remove it, but it liked the design). There seems to enough room to fit all the electrical add-ons and it has a plywood floor so the kiddies feet won't drag along (i was worried it would be a flintstones car). Overall i am very happy with it and am pretty excited about doing this project.
The challenging:
I had hoped the back wheels would share a common axel so that i could just pop a sprocket on it and attach the motor by a chain. Unfortunately each wheel has its own bearings and sits indepedantly on its own static axel, like under a skateboard, so getting power to the wheels is going to be a lot harder than i had hoped. Also there are no brakes at the moment so i'll have to put some in as well.
This is meant to be a learning experience rather than an investment, and i live in a community with lots of families so hopefully at the end, one kid will be getting his own electric car this christmas and i'll be one step closer to being able to build an adult-sized one for myself!
