Bumblebee
LVL1 Hackerspace, in Louisville KY, Raced a 'new' kart for the 2017 season.
The SOP for PPPRS at LVL1 is cannibalizing the previous year's build to provide cheap materials for the next year's kart. The frame from the RoomBAMF from 2016 became the frame for the Firetruck reboot in Detroit 2017, which became the frame for Bumblebee, which debuted at Milwaukee 2017.
Build Info
Batteries
6x Sealed Lead-Acid batteries salvaged used from a UPS battery backup for a commercial server warehouse.
Only 3 batteries were used in the vehicle at one time, the other three were on the charger
Nominal 36VDC
Brakes
mechanical drum brakes.
Home-made break pedal, tensioning and tension distribution apparatus.
Basically the brake line runs from the pedal to the block of a pulley, and the two drum brakes (on on each rear wheel) are tied together on a separate brake line that is fed through that pulley, so the pulley automatically distributes the force from the pedal equally to both drums.
lines and electronic trigger for brake lights salvaged from electric Razor scooter.
Frame
Bumpers
2×4 pounded onto two iron pipe posts in the front
curved metal welded to the frame, with pool noodle around it in the back.
Gears & Chain
Kill Switch
Motors
Motor Controllers
2X 800 Watt Scooter Motor Controllers
Motor and Motor Controller sold as a set on amazon; 2X the set was purchased.
Adafruit 5v Trinket AnalogReads the potientiometer connected to the 'gas' pedal
'gas' pedal salvaged from “video game controller” like for a driving game with a gas and brake pedal.
Trinket 'Analog Writes' PWM shifted output voltage to both of the
Wheels
The rear wheels are quite a bit bigger than the front wheels.
Front wheels were the cheap harbor freight ones that always break. they broke multiple times and are now re-enforced through some sort of means.
Wiring and Connectors
Scrap extension cords, were used for signal-level connections
“Noodle Cable” and some sort of recommended connector was used for the power-level connections. (name?)