mobility scooter axles

[multisync]

Hi Mark
Its not the length of runway thats critical, it's the power of the steam catapult as used on aircraft carriers, see     Toylander Owners Club forum > Build blogs > Forum members blogs > Chit Chat and all that, for boiler and other steam advice!
W

[brian]

Er, it was Brian asked for the runway info Fred:D

Another senior moment Walter.

Regards,

Brian

[brian]

Will I have to turn our road into the whind for greater effect Walter?

Brian.

[multisync]

Sorry George,
 it's the hour's sleep I lost on Sat night, getting the better of me
must get to bed earlier
Sweet dreams
Walter

[markh15]

Hi Guys,

It looks like that's another job on the T2 then, shortening the wire and moving the aeriel!

Will it work if the aeriel is added to the end of the wire (14"), or do I have to trim this length off the wire too??

Thanks to Colin and Walter for the info, and Brian (Captain Birds-eye) for the chuckles!

Keep Smiling,
Best Regards,
Mark.
(resident 'Numpty')

[brian]

The Ariel wire is a tuned a wire that has a specific length, and should not be shortened or lengthend from the manufacturers setting.

It does not necessarily have to be out in the open, or a great length to be better Mark.

Leave your pretend Ariel where it is if you want and just remove the co-ax from the curly bit of wire attached to the printed circuit board.

Regards,

Cap'n Birdseye.

[Tombraider]

Ok, here's a question for the 'hero' members (Brian, Mark, Walter). I've just bought a Pride Hurricane scooter. It's 8mph on 13" tyres; I had little go on it and it felt really fast so I'm going to have to gear it down and put a speed pot to make it safe for a 3 year old, especially on 16" wheels . The motor has 6 wires; + and - for the motor, two brown and two yellow. I guess 2 are for the electromagentic brake but what are the other 2 for? It says in the manual that when you operate the motor disconnect lever, it disconnects the motor electrically as well. Could it be for this? I'm surprised that the motor is so small for such a fast scooter - I thought it was all about ampere turns = larger diameter motor. The spec says it is 2HP!! I think that's about 1500W which I can;'t quite believe. It has 40amp hr batteries which is good.

Q2 - it has a small built in charger (which sounds attractive - I think it will fit under the front wheel arch of the T2; space getting full under the bonnet, should've made a Defender). It is connected to the speed controller - can I just seperate it and connect it straight to the battery ? I was planning to use the VTX-75 controller, only because it's easier to wire up; ie the reverse switch and the throttle pot (instead of the wig wag) and half speed reverse etc. adjustable accel ramp useful too.

Q3 - can I put 21W bulbs in the Rubbolite marker lights? Spec on the net says they are 5W as markers. I've wired up the indicators to work with a 2 pin flasher unit and it will only work with 2 x 21W bulbs, not 5W as they are designed for a specific electrical load (hence don't flash if a bulb has blown) Ideally I would prefer a flasher unit for 5W bulbs to consume less power (maybe a motor cycle one?) I bought a short illuminated switch from SVC and made it into an indicator stalk with an mdf box around the steering column.

Other mods - I've made a new dashboard with an inward sloping lower shelf (just like the real LR). Means you can use it to put things in.

Will def be going to Stoneleigh as I only live about 20 miles away so hope to see you there.
Mike
     

 

[brian]

Hello Mike, you really need little and large on this case as they have the experience with scooter motor installations, I used a wheelchair motor similar to the one's supplied by Richard at Toylander so I can only make a guess at the wiring configuration.

The two wires that you have not yet identified, could they be a clutch between the motor and the gearbox so that in the event of a battery failure, the clutch is disengaged to allow the vehicle to be pushed rather than being a regenerative brake.

The battery charger, you should be able to remove it from the existing circuit to reuse as a separate charger, suitably enclosed and protected from the elements, so under a wheelarch is not a good position.  Under the seat or make a bigger dash panel to lose it would be a better option.  When you have separated the charger circuitry from the rest of the wiring and before installing into it's new home, I would test it with power and check that it's output is DC and the output voltage is sufficient to charge a battery, just to make sure that the unit has all the components to act as a charger, and is not piggy backing some of the components from the rest of the disconnected circuitry to save costs.

You can get an electronic flasher unit that is not dependent on bulb wattage to operate a bi metal strip which will work with two five watt bulbs.  I believe that a motorcycle type will do the job, it does on mine.

Regards,

Brian.

[quadra]

Q2 -I was planning to use the VTX-75 controller, only because it's easier to wire up; ie the reverse switch and the throttle pot (instead of the wig wag) and half speed reverse etc. adjustable accel ramp useful too.

Mike
      

Mike

You need to work out what the current draw would be for the vehicle for a given load. I have two 370w 24v motors running via a VTX75 speed controller and it all works ok, but you appear to have a much larger motor than that  which depending on how you gear it, might draw some big currents. The VTX75 has got a protection cutout circuit to protect the main board if it is overloaded the VTX40 does not have this.

Cheers Mike

[multisync]

Hi Mike
6 wires on the motor............I've not seen one like that, but a common  arrangement is to have a microswitch that operates when the motor disconnect lever is operated.
The microswitch is wired into the brake circuit and disconnects the brake circuit. The controller sees this as a "fault", the controller then goes into it's failsafe mode, hence, the motor is disconnected.
I would guess that on your model the microswitch and the brake are wired separately.



In the sketch, you can see that there are 2 motor wires, 2 brake wires and 2 microswitch wires, but as the one switch wire and one brake wire are joined, there are only four wires out from the unit.
I assume thta in your case all six are taken away to the controller.
Hope this all makes sense
Walter

[multisync]

Hi
On the charger subject, there should be no reason why you cannot mount the charger anywhere you please, but as Brian says, take care with the position you choose.
It must not be too tightly controlled as it will get hot, and needs cooling air, and it should be in the dry!
Most of these scooters have some sort of inhibit built in, so that they cannot be started when the battery is on charge, so take care when altering the wiring. I don't know how it's setup up on the models with on board chargers, but I don't see why you can't just use it as a separate batterry charger, either on or off the car.
Walter

[Tombraider]

Hi All, Many thanks for your valuable tips. I had a look around the forum and it seems my scooter is similar to Mark's (see 10 Aug 09 posting re Pride wiring problem). The head unit certainly looks indentical but not the charger or control unit. The control unit has a reset button on it so maybe as Quada says, this motor can draw a lot of power. It would be nice to use the scooter controller and wig wag - some on here (NeilL) says you can just reverse the pot, others say you need to switch the ignition off before swapping the pot over, otherwise the controller goes into shutdown mode (I wonder if the reset button fixes this or if it is a dealer repair job?) In any event, it would mean full speed in reverse (unless I used a clever relay circuit with a resistance in the reverse line instead of a simple 6 pole switch). If I decide to use the 4QD controller maybe I'll try this before ordering one as I'll have nothing to lose by then. Mike

[multisync]

Hi Again
Happy Easter to All ,
Bright and sunny in Wales today
I think it's the start of the Toylander Season!!

Hi Mike
When we say the controller goes into a shutdown mode, its only as a safety precaution. Turning the power off and back on resets it, so no permanent harm is done.

There are 3 wires on the wigwag, don't alter the centre wire. The outer two can be swapped over to get the motor to reverse. This must be done with the controller power turned off,

so the sequence is
with machine moving forward
stop the machine with the throttle
turn off power to controller
reverse wiring
turn on power to controller
start machine
which will now be in reverse
Give it a try before you do any major alterations to the wiring, you can then decide for yourself how you achieve this sequence.
Best Wishes
Walter

[Tombraider]

Hi Walter, thanks for that. I think I read somewhere that someone put a microswitch under the throttle pedal to automatically switch the control unit off to save having to turn the ignition off each time you want to select reverse which sounds a good idea. I may consider this.
Well this afternoon was spent with a blowtorch and hammer to get the brake drum off the offside axle (the other unbraked wheel came off straight away). In case someone else needs to do this, note that the brake backplate is held onto the axle with a circlip so this morning's hammering just resulted in a slightly bent circlip! Hence the blowtorch on the drum (I've read this before on here). Anyway, the width of the axle looks about right, the ends have keyways to drive the sprockets so I may get away without any machining. The other option as suggested by Richard was to drill the axles and use rolled spring pins to drive the sprockets. The bad news is that unlike Mark's axle which has an outer tube and can be attached anywhere by exhaust clamps, the mountings are just wider that the battens of the rear tub so I'll have to add more material outboard of the rear tub. I guess slotted mountings would be good to tension the chains? I was hpoing to mount the motor/axle as far forward as possible like Mark's to provide more legroom in the rear seats. It looks like it would clear the Toylander handbrake but I'm not sure if this is a good idea as longer chains will stretch more and hence need more adjustment? Looks like there would be enough room behind it for the scooter control box and built in charger. Have got the hang of picture re-sizing now so hopefully I can get some pictures uploaded. Mike

[Tombraider]

Ok so the motor picture didn't attach to the previous message Mike