Project Aims

  • <$10,000 conversion
  • Top speed of +100kph
  • Range of +100km
  • Make a bike that is able to be registered
  • Make the bike look like the standard petrol version

Design Specification

  • Regenerative braking
  • 1990 Suzuki Across
  • 216VDC @ 15A (~3.2kw) VRLA battery pack (~90kg) for proof of concept
  • 3.3kw 3 phase induction motor

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A slight distraction

I have an interest in alternative vehicles and power, and lately have been working with someone (Steve) who works for a company that I contract too. He introduced me to recumbent bikes. As a result of talking with him and research on the internet I have built my own HPV.

It's a recumbent trike which has been made from 2 donor kids mountain bikes reclaimed from the local waste transfer station. The wheel size is 24".

It is mostly finished now, I need to get new road tyres for it as the existing nobbly off-road tires are severely deteriorated. I also want to fit some lights and other stuff to make it a bit more visible. I am hoping to use it for local trips in the area and work my fitness up to the point where I can ride it to town (it's a 30 minute drive through forest and farmland).

I have not done a lot on the electric bike lately (I did have a sit on it the other day). We are looking at starting to build a house on our property and need to get started on building it before the end of the year, so unfortunately this will stop me from working on the electric bike for the most part, but I am hoping to build the inverter and start writing the software for it before the end of the year. I have purchased a few sample ATxmega processors from Farnell for the inverter.

4 comments:

Colt said...

Hello there. I managed to track down your blog after seeing an image of the recumbent tadpole you built up on Wikipedia. I tried to find an email address but with no luck. I was just wondering if you had any more information about your build, pictures, or anything. I'm very interested in building my own recumbent tadpole but I'm on a limited budget. Thanks! - Colt, acerbichumor (a) gmail.com

BenediktDK said...

Dear Bradley

I too need to know how you assembled your recumbent tadpole trike.

Please let us know :)

BenediktDK said...

Dear Bradley

I too wish to know more about your recumbent tadpole project.

Please reply ;)

Bradley Jarvis said...

Ok, I will look at putting together post on how I built the trike and the important parts to the build