The AEVA branch Scooter - available for any member to borrow - needs a little TLC. It's still working well, it just has a few cosmetic issues. Like the turn signal switch breaking off, the speedo cable failing about 10,000 km ago, and some rust around the gills.
All of this can be fixed with another fun day of tinkering. However, this is a great chance to try something a little more advanced. The bike needs a speedo and some kind of Coulomb counter. It's also a bit, well, slow
Perth is pretty good with scooters, as the 70 km/h zones tend to be dual carriageway, so faster vehicles can pass you. But lumbering up hills isn't so fun. So how's about we pimp this ride?Some time back I put a LiPo booster pack in parallel with the main EV-Power LiFePO4 pack and it hummed along very smartly. The main thing was to limit the sag, so perhaps a battery-controller upgrade is on the cards? There are some pretty schmick e-bike controllers out there capable of delivering 3 kW continuous, which would certainly make this thing move.
I'm happy to build a LiPo battery pack for it - it would be 16s8p using the 5 Ah cells. At these dimensions, the 2.3 kWh pack would never sag. Ever
Alternatively we could build a lower capacity pack but just go silly with the controller voltage. Some E-bikes can do 90 km/h on a hub motor, so there's no reason we can't overvolt this little 1.5 kW hub with a new controller. Perhaps 72V? I can offer my time and experience, as well as some battery box fabrication. We have a few left over LiPo cells from the race bike battery build - perhaps not enough to build a whole battery but certainly a booster. We also need a working dash, so perhaps NevilleH can devise that new Ah meter?
Keen to hear your thoughts!
Chris
