Hi
A little background - 2 years ago I build a (not so) little electric roadster for my (then) 1.5 and 3.5 year old kids. It looks super cool, drives reasonable fast, handling pretty well, and it was a huge success with my kids and object of envy for other kids. It all started as fun little project to avoid buying ugly plastic car from walmart... and I always wanted to build a car
Ended up much more expensive then walmart, but much closer to real go-cart in handling and speed.
I called it Spyder 250. And put on a real Ferrari badge just for fun. It has 250w 24v motor, mechanical disk brake, rack and pinion steering, and sport steering wheel with functioning horn buttons. It can take my two kids to 10 mph, and that's after I modified throttle output. I suspect it can do 15mph without limiter. And even faster with smaller gearing (1:7 now). Which is really more speed than I wanted for my two toddlers driving driving around neighborhood
the whole project pics can be found here
https://picasaweb.google.com/105243...authkey=Gv1sRgCMHwqJ-Tw6jOiQE&feat=directlink
Now two years later, my daughter barely fits, so I want to build a new kart, and address some problems with my first project.
1) Spyder can't be adjusted for size. With F1 style seating, there is not much you can do when kid grows up.
2) it's very heavy. Due to plywood construction it's well over 100 lbs, and probably close to 150, don't know for sure. But with two kids in it - I'm seriously worrying about them running over our neighbors.
3) It's one wheels drive. I went with big rear wheels for looks and it's impossible to steer the car with live axle.
4) It's not portable. Kids are limited to our street. Without owning a truck - I can't take this car anywhere.
Next post is on the new project itself
A little background - 2 years ago I build a (not so) little electric roadster for my (then) 1.5 and 3.5 year old kids. It looks super cool, drives reasonable fast, handling pretty well, and it was a huge success with my kids and object of envy for other kids. It all started as fun little project to avoid buying ugly plastic car from walmart... and I always wanted to build a car
Ended up much more expensive then walmart, but much closer to real go-cart in handling and speed. I called it Spyder 250. And put on a real Ferrari badge just for fun. It has 250w 24v motor, mechanical disk brake, rack and pinion steering, and sport steering wheel with functioning horn buttons. It can take my two kids to 10 mph, and that's after I modified throttle output. I suspect it can do 15mph without limiter. And even faster with smaller gearing (1:7 now). Which is really more speed than I wanted for my two toddlers driving driving around neighborhood
the whole project pics can be found here
https://picasaweb.google.com/105243...authkey=Gv1sRgCMHwqJ-Tw6jOiQE&feat=directlink
Now two years later, my daughter barely fits, so I want to build a new kart, and address some problems with my first project.
1) Spyder can't be adjusted for size. With F1 style seating, there is not much you can do when kid grows up.
2) it's very heavy. Due to plywood construction it's well over 100 lbs, and probably close to 150, don't know for sure. But with two kids in it - I'm seriously worrying about them running over our neighbors.
3) It's one wheels drive. I went with big rear wheels for looks and it's impossible to steer the car with live axle.
4) It's not portable. Kids are limited to our street. Without owning a truck - I can't take this car anywhere.
Next post is on the new project itself
Pat
