Re: Fan motors for Electric scooter?

["Peter VanDerWal" <peter_vanderwal@msn.com>]

>I am working on a very simple electric scooter (similar to the scooters
>that used to be powered by lawn mower engines), and I have read
>somewhere in this list about the suitability of using an electric fan
>motor to power an e-bike. Can anyone confirm if this is in fact a good
>idea? What kind of a controller is best for this type of motor?
>


Depends on what size scooter you're talking about and how fast you want to
go.  If you are talking about a full size sit-down scooter that can go 30-40
mph, then no a fan motor won't work.

If, however, you are talking about a little 2 wheel thing that you stand on
like the child's toy and you only want to go 10 mph or so then yeah a fan
motor will work fine.  In fact there are a couple companies building these.

Simplest controller for this would be a binary controller (on/off, i.e. a
big switch).
Next would be a set of switches and two six volt batteries.   Set it up to
run the batteries in parallel (6V out) for low speed and batteries in series
(12V out) for high speed.

Best controller would be a PWM controller, a suitable one might be the
controller I mentioned last week.  12V 35Amp continuous for $25 US.  I
haven't tried one yet but the specs look good.  Check out the website at:
http://members.tripod.com/~divelec/hbridge.html