Geepstar from Belgium

[electric4fun]

Hi All, yes, after building a tank , a jeep and while in the process of designing some other builds, I started up the Geepstar, initially to be build by our oldest son but he never got further then cutting the floor panel , so i took over .

the result so far is that all is cut and 'pre' assembled as i might need to tweak a bit to fit the motors (which i did not have till today)


(yes thats a self made scissor lift, 90Kg lift cap. to much time at hand or just eager to build whatever... LOL )

a selection of electric parts

the black box is a remote off receiver (safety first) , the large black roll is actually cables they use in lifts (elevators) very handy to embed under floor , I used this cable in all my builds, no hassle and a lot of wires (some over 24wide) and handy because every wire is numbered.



steel mesh, plexi, high amp wiring ..

and as from today , and invacare storm subframe with controller, only need to figure out the control wiring (5 pins ) if anybody has a shematic please PM



 

cheers,
Luc

[electric4fun]

just found out that this controllers uses a DXbus (almost all new equipment is using a kind of digital loop to hook things up., boats, cars.. .sad.. as you cannot swap elements like e.g. 10years ago) , i'm going to keep the motors ant trash the rest as i don't have the joystick etc, the motors are aslo axial and do not fit in the back of the geepstar so they will be kept to remake the drivertrain of our tank.

I did found out that i had a spare transaxle with no motor, i might go for that as drivertrain for the geepstar.


keep u posted.

best regards,
Luc

[electric4fun]

I've changed the idea of using two motors, i'm going to use a transaxle i had in spare from our ohter build (truck) , saddly enough without motor , hence that's the least of my problems and easly to fix with a donor ,a belt and some pulleys.
the transaxle is already (mok-up- style) mounted ,I welded the steering axle and pivot points,. it turned out so well that i'm going to duplicate it for our other jeep as the very fat tyres there are making steering tough.

additionally , i preffer to gear down the steering as i did with my other jeep, hence instead of using sprockets, gears or axial 90 transmissions i'm testing to use a planetary gear(input,3 satelites, outer ring and output shaft) input is 3 turns vs out 1 , fixing the outertring to the frame would make inline reduction very easy , i'll shoot some pictures later.

i have two of those set , so that would make a good deal for both jeeps 


best regards,
Luc

[electric4fun]

some pictures

the transaxle


with on the left the 20A controller and on the right the donor motor, the black belt like roll is elevator cable i'm using (easaly found on junk-yards) 24wires wide, beneath a set of batteries , same as in my other jeep, deep cycle emergency light batteries, the other jeep runs 4hours on it , in 7months i only had 1 time a 'drainage' and had to push it ,

regs,
Luc

[electric4fun]

Steering axle



Steering reduction (comes inline with the steering shaft )



Shift lever (first attempt/idea)





it is made from an old printer axle , a 5 euro replacement knop, some nylon blocks i drilled out with a large drill, then smashed an old ball bearing (for the balls) , drilled a whole from where the bolt is straight towards the center, added the ball, a spring and a bolt for tensioning.

the center part has 3 'carve' holes, just barely touched the surface with a large drill making a small 'knop' , this holds the lever in position

hope it's to use for someone, hence its an idea , needs to be reworked more nicely .

best regards ,
Luc

[Ron-tje]

Luc,

If I understand right you made like a "rattle/socket wrench connection" type on the shift lever, so the ball pops in a hole on fixed positions? Nice!

Some other question, you said you can run approx. 4 hours on the 24V set-up, what type of Ah are you using then? Still looking what to use myself.

Also really like you gear reduction setup for the steering, nice and compact! Do you know where it is is normally used for? Need to find a scrapyard with all those goodies 

[electric4fun]

Hi Ron,

yes indeed, rattle/socket , I'm flemisch (duth speaking) so it's sometimes hard to find the right technical terms  

the other jeep runs on the same batteries , 2x 28Ah batteries but in parallel so that makes 56Ah in total , nominal consumption is 10A , (peak 40A during engage)

I did the 12V since my first controller was 12V,(the motor is 24 V)  hence, i'm thinking on rewiring it to 24V too,to lower the currents going trough the cabling , at the end the playtime should be fairly the same but the lifespan of the batteries wil be much greater
motor =400 W that's what it takes to run.
on 12V = 400/12 = 33A on load  
on 24V =400/24 = 16A on load


the reduction are coming from HUB motors , these motor you typiccally find on wheelchairs with 40CM wheels ,



1 hub holds 2 satelitte gears , so you could make 2 when you find 1  

the ones I have where actually discovered by my son at a friends place in eindhoven(NL) ..

Regards,
Luc

[electric4fun]

Hi fellow builders...

i must admit, I myself had a bit of a setback recently ,
the shop was becoming a mess (to much stuff coming in for future builds causing severe lack of space)
the build of our geepstar was stalling (lack of space, to much other work..)

.. close to a full stop i decided to change things, we where on the look out for another house but almost beeing ripped off twice by the real estate agency we decide to look for a storage place... 1months ago we found 2 adjacent boxes...nice...

today i moved a nr of parts out of the shop into the garage...man , i can see the walls of my shop again ..litterally ..

the garage was a good thing , i can now refocus on the finish of our Geepstart and start planning the next make .





some pictures are missing in the thread because i had to reorganize my website .. will try to fix this asap.
wheels are ready to be mounted, motor , transaxle and steering rig is in place , i only need to machine two transition bushing to fix mount the wheels on the transaxle. center console with meters and gearstick is also ready

best regards,
Luc


paint job has to wait until spring arrives


best regards,
Luc 

[electric4fun]

gear stick assembly





regs,

luc

[Blazerfrazer]

Hi, any updates mate, this is fantastic!

[electric4fun]

Hi Frazer ,

yes there is progress, today i picked up the reduction fitting to pack the wheels on the transaxle , (custom made)
further the guy also milled the reduction for my other build (truck with double powered twin rear axle)
so yes.. a lot more will come in soon ,

funny thing... i also expect and old KART to be delivered from another friend (garage clean up ) complete but in bad shape..

you know what my youngest would like to build from it  ? ..a ferrari 1/2 scale , he's only not yet sure which one (testarossa..FXX .. )

tomorrow i expected some friends from NL (350Km away) , he also build a tank (before me) and plans some other , the rest of the weekend i will be busy getting the shop ready for some heavy work... pictures will follow ..


in this thread i will only post progress on the Geepstar, the other build's can be followed from my website
cheers,
Luc  

[Tombraider]

Hi Luc,
Where did you get your planetary gear system from for steering reduction? Was it the wheelchair motors you mention? I have been trying to find any information on these but no luck so far so can you tell me what make of motors they are?
Regards
Mike

[electric4fun]

Mike,

these are usually to be found in (older) wheelchair motors easy to recognize on the large cylindrical house and the motor inline with the gear ,when the axel sits angled is it usually a worm gear.

the 'technical' term for this type of motor+gear is a "HUB motor",it is a technique taken from large industrial machines like dozers,cranes, I guses , those days you could find them too in powered bicycles where the motor is in the center of the wheel .

i must add to this that a steering reduction is not required for the standard toylander,only when you customize things (fat wheels e.g; )

cheers,

Luc





 

[electric4fun]

some progress

the wheel adaptions where finally delivered , this guys did some very fine machining...

now i was able to mount the wheels and started preparing the finalization of the mechanical part ,thus moving on to the electrics and body work in general.






cheers,

Luc

[electric4fun]

Today i could finally press 'descend' on my mini scissor lift  (YES , finally..)  and let the Geepstar rest on its own wheels .



Currently it is cosy tucked awy under some heavy plastic, waiting for the spring to start the sanding and painting , then finalizing the wiring and hope to enjoy it anytime near april

Regards,
Luc