Joined
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109 Posts
Zapino Zap - rebuild
41 - 49 of 49 Posts
Hello I just bought two zapinos for 50$(including shipping to my door.
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One is exactly like yours with the blue motor, I was able to get it spinning with one controller, and figure out which hall is which, it runs good on the stand.
Sadly it doesn't have much torque currently with only one controller on 84v, although going downhill i found it promising. looking forward to getting second controller in. The rear tubeless tire was left sitting flat and doesnt hold air nowr, do you have any recommendations for tires for the stock rim?
The second zap scooter has horizontal dropouts, I have motor coming in soon, a qs motor 12in.
I dont have any of the plastics for the bikes, and no seats, and only one seat bucket.
Waiting on moped plates from the mvd, cool little scooters!
Will upload pics once i get more progress
)One is exactly like yours with the blue motor, I was able to get it spinning with one controller, and figure out which hall is which, it runs good on the stand.
Sadly it doesn't have much torque currently with only one controller on 84v, although going downhill i found it promising. looking forward to getting second controller in. The rear tubeless tire was left sitting flat and doesnt hold air nowr, do you have any recommendations for tires for the stock rim?
The second zap scooter has horizontal dropouts, I have motor coming in soon, a qs motor 12in.
I dont have any of the plastics for the bikes, and no seats, and only one seat bucket.
Waiting on moped plates from the mvd, cool little scooters!
Will upload pics once i get more progress
Joined
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109 Posts
The Zap is back together again.
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The wheel jack was not long enough after upgrading the rear shocks and torque arms. I added a section of steel to each one to extend them. Now that the solid steel section is done, I'll tap out a hole in the bottom of each one so that I can thread in an industrial rubber foot so that they don't mar the wood floor. There was oil up inside one of the tubes and after I painted, it started coming out and botched up the paint on the one foot extension. Oh well, they need to come back off anyway. These extensions are solid HRS. The narrow end is an interference fit with the ID of the steel tubing the wheel jacks are made from. There's a single 10-32 screw in each one just in case the interference fit doesn't hold...unlikely since they were driven on!
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I still need to replace these with beefier torque arms made from 4140 steel. I've been riding around a lot and not using regen so that these arms will hold.
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The wheel jack was not long enough after upgrading the rear shocks and torque arms. I added a section of steel to each one to extend them. Now that the solid steel section is done, I'll tap out a hole in the bottom of each one so that I can thread in an industrial rubber foot so that they don't mar the wood floor. There was oil up inside one of the tubes and after I painted, it started coming out and botched up the paint on the one foot extension. Oh well, they need to come back off anyway. These extensions are solid HRS. The narrow end is an interference fit with the ID of the steel tubing the wheel jacks are made from. There's a single 10-32 screw in each one just in case the interference fit doesn't hold...unlikely since they were driven on!
I still need to replace these with beefier torque arms made from 4140 steel. I've been riding around a lot and not using regen so that these arms will hold.
Joined
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109 Posts
A few finishing details...
1. I got bar end mirrors so I could delete the ugly factory mirrors. I think this is the final state for the console and handlebars.
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The end cap mirrors have a shoulder on them that is supposed to fit inside your grips and is the same diameter as the handlebar pipe. A detail about these throttles that I have never liked is that they don't fit very well on the handle bars and wobble at the ends. It just feels clunky and poorly sorted. I had to cut off the rubber ends of the grips to install the mirrors. I was able to use that shoulder on the mirrors inside the ends of the 2 throttles to support them. This got rid of 90% of that wobbling issue. They twist freely, but no longer flop around.
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I've been wanting to add audio to it for a while. With all the side covers off, there was no way to figure out the right place for the speakers. This isn't great, but at least they point at me and no where else would get them oriented any better than this. I found a small BT amplifier on Amazon for $20 and I was surprised at how well it works. The speakers are from a Logitech 5.1 speaker set. They are compact, sound great and handle a good bit of wattage. My phone on the handle bars is the music source.
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1. I got bar end mirrors so I could delete the ugly factory mirrors. I think this is the final state for the console and handlebars.
The end cap mirrors have a shoulder on them that is supposed to fit inside your grips and is the same diameter as the handlebar pipe. A detail about these throttles that I have never liked is that they don't fit very well on the handle bars and wobble at the ends. It just feels clunky and poorly sorted. I had to cut off the rubber ends of the grips to install the mirrors. I was able to use that shoulder on the mirrors inside the ends of the 2 throttles to support them. This got rid of 90% of that wobbling issue. They twist freely, but no longer flop around.
I've been wanting to add audio to it for a while. With all the side covers off, there was no way to figure out the right place for the speakers. This isn't great, but at least they point at me and no where else would get them oriented any better than this. I found a small BT amplifier on Amazon for $20 and I was surprised at how well it works. The speakers are from a Logitech 5.1 speaker set. They are compact, sound great and handle a good bit of wattage. My phone on the handle bars is the music source.
Joined
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109 Posts
$50 for both?! The motors are worth like $600 each. There's a guy in Costa Rica trying to sell them for $1400.Hello I just bought two zapinos for 50$(including shipping to my door.
One is exactly like yours with the blue motor, I was able to get it spinning with one controller, and figure out which hall is which, it runs good on the stand.
Sadly it doesn't have much torque currently with only one controller on 84v, although going downhill i found it promising. looking forward to getting second controller in. The rear tubeless tire was left sitting flat and doesnt hold air nowr, do you have any recommendations for tires for the stock rim?
The second zap scooter has horizontal dropouts, I have motor coming in soon, a qs motor 12in.
I dont have any of the plastics for the bikes, and no seats, and only one seat bucket.
Waiting on moped plates from the mvd, cool little scooters!
Will upload pics once i get more progress
My motor is blue because I painted it. I have never seen them any other color than silver.
The factory controllers are not very strong...3000 watts. On a scooter this large, that's pretty weak. Inside the controller box is 2 little 12 fet controllers. They are quite basic. No programming, just brake and throttle inputs. To get it rolling, they are marginally "good enough". I'm glad to see you running them at 82v. The mosfets and caps are 100v parts. There is no reason why the controllers can't run at this voltage. If you ever need more of those controllers or parts for them, I have 10 or 12 of them. Just PM me. However, you will do sooooo much better on FOC controllers. I'd recommend something VESC based. There are options at 100v max that are pretty good. I've got a line on a soon to be released 150v VESC controller good for 22kw. My next build will hopefully use 2 of them.
Tires...if you are going to stay at 60mph or less the Kenda 3.50-10 or 3.00-10 K413 will serve you well. I've used them on 3 EV's so far. The only reason I now use Dunlop D604 is because my Zap is much faster than 60 mph and much more powerful. I started with K413's on it and the back tire was wearing rapidly at peaks of 20kw. I needed a tire that could hold the speed, power and loading they get on my scooter. If you are staying close to factory power and not much more than 60mph the K413 will do fine.
QS260 12" 70H v3 or v4? If that's what you are getting, it's a good motor. Same for the slightly smaller 50H version. I've wanted to get one jsut to mess with. Not as good as the 6 phase hub motors on the Zap, but still pretty good. As good as the QS260 series is, I have 7 of the the 6 phase motors found on Zaps. I'll be using them for a while! I just found a guy in California that had 5 and he sold them to me for $275 each. I bought ALL he had!
No plastics...that's how you got them so cheap! All the cowlings got sold on ebay or whatever since they get broken. I have had 3 Zaps. The first one was a wreck! Not much was not broken in many places. I stripped it down, kept lights, brakes, suspension, electrical stuff and tossed the rest. You have a decent frame. This Zap build is my second one. I recently found another for $400 and it's mostly wrecked too. LOL...plastic cowlings!
Start your own build thread. If you want help or suggestions, hit me up. In this thread, you'll find most things I'd tell you to do for yours.
Joined
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109 Posts
I've mostly been riding around on the Zap, but the torque arms are not getting better on their own so that needs addressing ASAP! These new v4 torque arms are made from 4140 steel instead of hot rolled like the v3 arms. The steel is definitely tougher to machine and I'm making the v4 arms larger to beef up where the v3 arms were weakest. I did this work over the weekend and is about 30% of the work to finish them. Both new arms are super glued together and all the work done so far needed 100% duplication in both. In the process of setting up for the new torque arms, I improved my XY table and got a milling vice that can hold the new arms. Machining these new arms ought to turn out better. The bolt hole pattern is identical between the v3 and v4 arms. In the v4 arms, the location of the axle clamp has moved down 1/2" and there is an extra 1/2" of steel behind the clamping section. I think if these fail, I can cut off the back section and use some HSS in its place.
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I needed better USB charging and the Nucular controllers and LCD will be going away. I'm tired of the bullshit I keep getting from them and will NOT be using their products in the future! 10 months of ZERO progress on their controller issues!!! Enough is ENOUGH! I don't recommend using Nucular! If you have issues, good luck getting support! Also the USB charging port that Nucular provides is good for .5 amps. Anyway, QC 3.0 charging is now on board. It won't deliver the 65 watts my phone can handle, but it will do 9v and 3a and that's the basic QC 3.0 spec.
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The old magnetic phone base was too weak and I've had phones come off several times now...so I got larger and stronger magnets. My phone will not pull away without tearing off the back cover. I know because that is exactly what happened and I had to glue it back on! Slide the phone off and even that is not easy.
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I needed better USB charging and the Nucular controllers and LCD will be going away. I'm tired of the bullshit I keep getting from them and will NOT be using their products in the future! 10 months of ZERO progress on their controller issues!!! Enough is ENOUGH! I don't recommend using Nucular! If you have issues, good luck getting support! Also the USB charging port that Nucular provides is good for .5 amps. Anyway, QC 3.0 charging is now on board. It won't deliver the 65 watts my phone can handle, but it will do 9v and 3a and that's the basic QC 3.0 spec.
The old magnetic phone base was too weak and I've had phones come off several times now...so I got larger and stronger magnets. My phone will not pull away without tearing off the back cover. I know because that is exactly what happened and I had to glue it back on! Slide the phone off and even that is not easy.
Joined
·
109 Posts
The new v4 torque arms are made from 4140 steel instead of hot rolled steel (HRS) like the v3 arms. The steel is definitely tougher to machine and I'm making the v4 arms larger to beef up where the v3 arms were weakest.
I did this work last weekend. Both arms are super glued together for these steps since all the work done is duplicated in both. The bolt hole pattern is identical between the v3 and v4 arms. In the v4 arms, the location of the axle clamp has moved down 1/2" and there is an extra 1/2" of steel behind the clamping section. This is a v3 arm next to the rough shape of the new v4 arms.
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A single new arm getting laid out for milling. Breaking apart the super glue is pretty easy with a chizel in the joint between the 2 pieces of steel.
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The shape got refined more to account for the brake caliper and of course thinned down to 1/4" thick where it is needed. They are shaped a little differently than the V3 arms to try and beef up the weaker areas. small woopsie on the right one...started to mill the wrong spot!
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I used M6 screws in the new ones and they are pretty deeply inset into the steel. The holes for the bolt heads have fairly thin walls. I hope I didn't just shoot myself in the foot by taking away steel that I need!
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Looking good so far! I can trim off some weight if needed. There's extra steel here that isn't doing anything to help.
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It's hard to see, but the clamping of the 3 screws has closed up the small gap around the shaft flats. This is the top of the shaft which is the hardest spot to clamp up.
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Right side:
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Left side:
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I did this work last weekend. Both arms are super glued together for these steps since all the work done is duplicated in both. The bolt hole pattern is identical between the v3 and v4 arms. In the v4 arms, the location of the axle clamp has moved down 1/2" and there is an extra 1/2" of steel behind the clamping section. This is a v3 arm next to the rough shape of the new v4 arms.
A single new arm getting laid out for milling. Breaking apart the super glue is pretty easy with a chizel in the joint between the 2 pieces of steel.
The shape got refined more to account for the brake caliper and of course thinned down to 1/4" thick where it is needed. They are shaped a little differently than the V3 arms to try and beef up the weaker areas. small woopsie on the right one...started to mill the wrong spot!
I used M6 screws in the new ones and they are pretty deeply inset into the steel. The holes for the bolt heads have fairly thin walls. I hope I didn't just shoot myself in the foot by taking away steel that I need!
Looking good so far! I can trim off some weight if needed. There's extra steel here that isn't doing anything to help.
It's hard to see, but the clamping of the 3 screws has closed up the small gap around the shaft flats. This is the top of the shaft which is the hardest spot to clamp up.
Right side:
Left side:
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