Piaggio

At the current moment, I have the ICE engine out and the Razor motor in and wired up. Using a small hub on the 500 watt motor, I'm getting about 5-8mph and not nearly enough power to make it up hills. Fortunately, this was designed as a moped and I can pedal assist whenever I need to. Also, the centrifigual clutch means I can't stall out the motor.

The problem is that I don't have enough power, the motor is running very hot (70 C after 10 minutes runtime), and the rinky dink batteries I have now won't give me enough distance.

As mentioned above, I've ordered an HXT outrunner motor from Hong Kong (per Scott @ Endless-Sphere's experience) and will wire it in once it arrives. I'm hoping to be able to go 30 mph on straightaways if I can with larger SLA batteries on it.

This is my very high-tech throttle control. The Rocket controller is not speed adjustable, you just have to short two wires. I short one pair and turn on the bike using the mini-headphone jack on the left (aka: "the key") and then turn on the motor using the switch on the right. I avoided doing anything nicer as the HXT outrunner + ESC that I'm using in Phase 2 will be an entirely different control system.

(Dated: July 6, 2008)

My partner had bought an old Piaggio Boxer mo-ped a couple of years ago but sitting in our garage had rusted out the engine. I decided to make it an EV conversion.

So far, I've removed the old ICE cleanly. It looks like the ICE was connected to the rear wheel through a belt-driven CVT / clutch.

My replacement motor is a small 24V / 250 watt one taken from a RAZOR electric (toy) motorbike. It's about the only thing I can find that would fit in the small area of the former engine compartment (about 4-5" wide). If the 24V works and doesn't have enough power, I'll have to see if I can find a more powerful pancake unit or mount the motor in a separate place.

I'm driving of to my nearest (? 1 hour+) tractor supply center today to see if I can find a v-belt pulley that will attach to the motor. The old front CVT pulley from the ICE won't fit on the DC motor because the spindle isn't long enough.

IF I can find a new pulley today and find some kind of engine mount, I think I can finish up the conversion this week. But I'm just guessing at the pulley gear ratio and I don't think that the 250 watt motor will be powerful enough.

The controller is rated for 24V / 30A so I could put in a bigger motor if I could find it..... Or I could hop up the voltage to 36V by adding another L-A battery.

Any suggestions from forum members?