Scooter / Moped style. Legal?

[OldFart]

Glad you mentioned that. Ive seen the results of overcharging lipo's. Although i would imagine it would need a fairly steep hill to put that much charge into them.

Just spun the pedals as fast as i can and it only reached 12 volts. But the battery plug received that voltage whether the switch was on or off.

Going to be a steep learning curve i think.

Charged one of the batteries to 12.5 last night and its down to 11.8 this morning so i think they are past it.

 

[Geebee]

If they all get to that at least you can at test the electrics are working and test the motor on the stand.

 

[OldFart]

I have some spare 12Ah batteries i bought for my FIL's mobility scooter. The batteries fitted are 10Ah but appear to be the same size.

I want to charge these a few times to see if they recover first though, before i start cutting cables etc.

Going to have a look underneath and crossing my fingers the frames not a rusty mess.

Was just about to look for a decent charger but thought what if i up the voltage to 48v. I will wait.

So far things are looking good. Tyres hold pressure, It appears complete except the keys. I was expecting to find the batteries and controller missing.

£20 well spent?

 

[GloveMakingMan]

Only £20 !!!! Got any photos to show us, i'm trying to imagine it!?

 

[Geebee]

All that enjoyable tinkering and think of all that you will learn, and that is without even riding it definately well spent.
Better off causing sparks (if they occur) on this than an expensive e-bike.

 

[OldFart]

Only £20 !!!! Got any photos to show us, i'm trying to imagine it!?

I will try to upload one in a bit. Just think of something dragged from a canal thats been there for years and you wont be far off.

I got bored waiting for the batteries to charge.. 12 and a bit volts only...


IT WORKS!!! well on the stand anyway. Joined the 3 ignition wires together. One puts the lights on and the other is the main feed.

Connected up and nothing. put the little red switch on and the dash came to life.
Throttle appeared to do nothing. But i spun the pedals with the throttle on and LIFE!!!

Seems you need to pedal to kick the motor in, If you hold the throttle power stays on. If you release the throttle then you need to pedal again for the motor.

I was the only bidder, I presume because he said he didnt know if the battery etc was in there.

 

[OldFart]

Tried it up and down the road. Only a short couple of minutes, Not exactly a ball of fire but moving along OK. Will be fun finding finding out if it will manage a hill or not.

Brakes are awful. Noise!!!

Lets see if pictures work.

 

[GloveMakingMan]

Looks great, i thought it was going to be something a lot older. Nice!

 

[eHomer]

I'm also quite interested in how these moped style bikes are constructed, but the legality issues of using one as everyday transport are still worrying.

On this forum I once very naively stated that one of my ebikes was "fully UK road legal", and was gently reminded that hardly any can claim that total distinction, because they need the correct approval plate, as well as being within the technical parameters.

So, as has been much discussed on this forum, the UK law on them is hopelessly out of date compared with other countries.

As I understand things, we have to rely on the Police's discretion and certain semi-official "directions" about which electric bikes to prosecute, and which ones to ignore. This seems a very poor state of affairs, considering the rapidly increasing interest in ebikes, by people who just want something legal to get from A to B.

I think maybe Police "discretion" is going to be a lot more stretched with moped style bikes, compared to conventional pedal bikes with low"ish" power motors attached.

 

[flecc]

I think maybe Police "discretion" is going to be a lot more stretched with moped style bikes, compared to conventional pedal bikes with low"ish" power motors attached.

I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. The police like clear cut law to prosecute and avoid like the plague all the vague areas which might involve them in difficulties.

A good example is the law against pavement cycling which is full of possible pitfalls. As a result the "offence" is very rarely prosecuted in any way. A batch of the fixed penalty notices were briefly suddenly issued a short while ago following the Met Police crackdown resulting from a spate of cycling deaths, but that brought a swift response from the minister reminding the police of the law regarding the exceptions that they briefly ignored.

Since then the norm has returned, meaning the number of tickets issued per year in the whole of London is usually in single figures, only for the most blatant abuse.
.

 

[Kudoscycles]

The motors in these moped/scooter style are often direct drive. I have ridden a few at Shanghai cycle show,a genuine 250 watts barely moves the weight of the bike plus my 105 KGs. 350 watts and it starts to become useable if you weigh less than 70 KGs,any more and it won't drag up a hill,I managed to get 20 mph out of one but it took for ever to get there.
Most of the cheap Chinese are 800 watt and will move a little chinese person around at 35 mph,you often see them loaded with Mum,Gran and 2 kids,they move ok but only on the flat( most Chinese cities are flat being built on old flood plains).
So to be useable with our European weight you really do need 800 watts,obviously this uses batteries up quick so 20 Ah is really the minimum.
But it is almost impossible for the police to tell the difference between 250 watts and 800 watts so the importers/sellers feel quite comfortable in telling you that their bike is 100 per cent legal.
But the Achilles heel of illegality is weight,most weigh 60-70 kilos (max legal 40 kilos) and it's not classed as a tandem,if you buy one you become adverse to letting anyone weigh one because innocence of the true weight is probably your only defence and the seller told you it was legal.
I have a couple of 250 watt Chinese cheapies at our warehouse,they are sort of bikes and sort of mopeds,fully stripped down they weigh 37 kilos but anyone over 60 kilos would be very disappointed with the performance.
No rubbish,no ulterior selling motives,this is honestly what I know about these bikes. If you want 30 mph plus performance it has to be illegal as a bike and let no one persuade you otherwise,but for some the illegality does not matter.
KudosDave

 

[Kudoscycles]

Tried it up and down the road. Only a short couple of minutes, Not exactly a ball of fire but moving along OK. Will be fun finding finding out if it will manage a hill or not.

Brakes are awful. Noise!!!

Lets see if pictures work.

View attachment 9725 View attachment 9726

Old Fart,don't want to be a killjoy...but what does it weigh?
KudosDave

 

[OldFart]

Its currently in pieces. So i will try to weigh all the bits tomorrow.

The rear swing frame? Whatever its called looked rusty, Luckily its still solid, But thought i would give it a coat of rust killer and a good paint before putting it to use.

The frame is very basic and not that heavy. I weigh less than 85kg. Unless ive been to the All you can eat Buffet..

When i mentioned 30mph it was just a dream, 15mph is plenty. But it would be good if it could do a hill at something a bit faster than walking pace without pedalling though. I think thats going to be the issue from reading the comments so far.

For the money i will spend on fixing this up though i cannot complain.

Keep the comments coming.

 

[Geebee]

Mine was ok on the flats and slow up hill as long as not too steep with me (80 kg at that time), with my daughter who weighed 40 kg riding it was like a motor bike it barely slowed on hills.
Toward the end of its life I stripped all the covers and anything else I could off it, which dropped its weighed significantly and improved hill climbing.
In the end its rear wheel/motor ended up in my chopper bike and works a lot better as you can pedal properly and it's lighter.

 

[OldFart]

Is there anything in the motor i can service or improve whilst its off the bike?

 

[Geebee]

Not unless there is a problem, I popped my cover off after a few thousand K's and the brushes were like new still, if the bearings are quiet and its running ok I would leave it alone.

 

[eHomer]

Five years ago, before I discovered lithium batteries and true pedelecs, I tried a Chinese genuine 30mph electric scooter, an "EVT4000E".

It was UK registered, with a V5C, number plates, tax disc (free), MOT, and insurance.

This talk about weight reminded me of it !

Minus the batteries, it was quite respectable, and could even be lifted up steps etc.., but when the four 12v 50ah SLA batteries went in under the seat, it was heavier than my 125cc motorbike.

The build quality wasn't actually too bad, with disc brakes etc.., but electrically it was frightening, there were no fuses at all in the main 48v power feed....

 

[Deleted member 4366]

When you do the rear swinging arm, don't worry too much about rust killer. Give it a good wire brushing, and then a coat of Hammerite or Smoothrite. which will protect it for years. The only other paints that will protect it are two-pack paints or proper powder coating.

I had a Suzuki from 1979, which was my only transport, so got used in the winter. After the first winter, all the paint was peeling off the swinging arm. I took it off, stripped the remaining paint and applied the phosphate rust killer. I then sprayed it with zinc-rich primer, then normal zinc primer, followed with about 6 coats of black and 2 of clear. It looked beautiful. By the following January, it was all pealing back off, so, in disgust, I wire brushed and Hammerited it. Three years later, all the paint was still intact.

 

[OldFart]

I have some zinc rich primer, I bought 2 tins after reading a review in one of the car mags. They tested a whole batch of stuff and this primer came out best.

Damn you have me wondering now. Which one should i choose?

 

[JohnCade]

Nothing will cure rust. I've used all the Rust Busters stuff including the expensive two part epoxy that is used on oil rigs in the North Sea with every rust inhibitor you can name, and it will still work its way back under the paint after a year or so. This mainly with modern classic old cars which I wanted to keep going.

Hammerite is the same but just not as good. The surface will look fine but a good tap with a peening hammer will soon knock it off and show the rust underneath. Even if it was taken back to almost bare metal as long as a small pitted bit of rust was missed it will come back and spread under the paint. The only advantage of Hammerite over the two part ones is that it's cheap and easy to knock off the bad bits to resurface every year. It does work a lot better in an environment where it's open to the elements strangely. I painted a rusty wheelbarrow which was left outside with the stuff with very little preparation, and it's still good after years. It's the underneath of cars which it won't really work on.

You do have more chance with bike frames though and a wire brushing with a good electric drill preferably down to bare metal then rust inhibitor and top coat will work for a while.