Robs Stupid Electric Buggy Page

 

This is Robs Stupid Electric Buggy Page. It is Stupid.

Jun 09, 2025
I Upgraded a bicycle for my father to add a 2000w brushless electric motor.
Got me thinking that I could build a miniature car with brushless motor, only more powerful.
Started playing around designing it on the computer.
After awhile, I came up with a design pretty similar to a Peel_P50

Start of design

It ended up being a couple inches longer, and about an inch narrower than the Peel. Not sure how much taller or shorter, and 60lbs or so heavier.
It will be powered by a 3000w brushless motor to drive both back wheels.

It will have 4 wheels instead of 3, much larger wheels, real suspension, reverse, better seating position, wont have to be a gymnast to get in or out, space to store 2 shopping bags instead of just 1, and a top speed of about 35mph.

Main difference from the bicycle that I upgraded is that this one will have a much better controller, which I can control and customize, and most importantly, prevent accidental parameter changes by the user.
My dad keeps `breaking` the controller in his bike by making inadvertent setting changes. This is mostly because there are very simliar button press sequences to to change `gears` and changing settings.

Feb 05, 2026 Started building frame
It had been a few months, but finally decided it was time to build the thing.
Used the exact measurements from the drawing. Amazingly, it was coming together well.

Started building frame

A couple days later, the main part of frame was complete.

Main part of frame

Took several days to get alot of the parts together, then there was a bunch of crappy days.
Got tired of waiting and started assembling stuff anyway.

Motor, controller and stuff installed

The board it is sitting on will eventually be the floor.
You can kinda see the motor, jackshaft, and one of the wheels.
Most of the stuff went together with no problem, until I got to the front wheels.
The forks were spaced too far apart to fit the wheel. Arrgghhh.

Stupid forks wont fit the wheel

If I just cranked down the axle, it would bend the forks to be facing each other and the suspension wouldnt work.
Had to cut the mounts off and weld them closer together.

Forks fit the wheel now

Forks mounted up

Sitting on its wheels!

A few days later, after many adjustments to the rear wheel shock mounts, part of the steering, and a seat support.

Lots of progress

Mar 12, 2026 More progress
Lots of wiring done. Headlights installed. Power switcher installed.

Headlights installed

That isnt the final place for the headlights. I havent made the final place yet. Put them there for now

Power controller installed

I found the power controller when I was looking for normal switch panels.
It is a Mictuning P1C RGB 12 gang switch panel I had no idea that something like this existed.

It is an interesting thing. It can switch 12 different things, and has backlit buttons.
A couple button presses can change single buttons mode from toggle to momentary, blink, and strobe modes!

Even more interesting, the buttons are on a 10ft or longer wire, separated from the box that all the wiring goes to.
Makes for a really clean install.

Stuff under seat nice and cozy

Black box in top left is the switch part of the switcher thing.
Light green thing is motor speed controller.
Little black box between speed controller and batteries is the 72v to 12v converter.

Ignition switch

Throttle Pedal

Never thought to mention that I put Herculiner on the floor and seat supports.
Made too many wooden things that got destroyed in a short time after getting wet a few times.

Reconfigured Panel

The up and down arrows are to change `gears`, with the solid black button in the bottom right is for shifting into reverse.
The way the buttons were laid out on the far right column, made wiring too silly. Placing them this way allows all shifting things to be together on switch box.

Dad bought a huge, but really comfy seat that stuck up way too high.
Had to lower the seat support board 2 1/2 inches.
Luckily it fit just fine.

Crazy comfy seat

Power controller turns voltage off and on.
Some things I want to control with it, such as reverse, shifting gears, etc. require shorting a wire to ground.
Wired up a chip to switch 4 things to ground. When each of the 4 gray wires are supplied with a voltage, the corresponding yellow wire is grounded.
Only need to switch 3 things for now, but good to have extra.

Silly groundenator

The original design had 22 tooth sprockets on the jackshaft that have the chain to the wheels.
Accelerating from a stop, especially uphill through thick grass while turning, made the whole thing shake and jump like a chain was hopping teeth on the sprocket and sometimes wouldnt acceleratte at all.
Decided it was geared too high, and experimented with smaller and smaller sprockets until finally using 14 tooth ones.
Of course it lowers the top speed by 33%, from about 35mph to about 23mph, which may not be a problem in real life. It still seems to go plenty fast, at least driving around in the yard with now brakes.
While trying out different sprockets, most often 1 wheel at a time, it would make the front end get light, and violently veer off from the direction the front wheels were pointed.
Way too much work to try to keep pointed straight!
Tried to solve this a bit by moving the batteries to the way front. That helped a bit.

Batteries in front

When finally got 2 sprockets the same size, and could drive both wheels, ended up with the opposite problem, where it really didnt like to turn corners. Arrrggghh!
I kinda expected this would be a problem and had found a tiny differential that would be a direct swap with the jackshaft.

Cute little differential

Had to modify sprocket that drove the jackshaft so it could bolt to the differential.
Pretty ugly, and did clean it up quite a bit after it cooled off.
Kinda strange to see a sprocket with 4 bolt holes spaced so weird.

Modified sprocket

Got the sides of the under seat compartment covered with sheet metal and bed liner!

Seat area partly enclosed

Seat area partly enclosed

Cut a few radius pieces out of 1/2in conduit to support the body skin.
The drawing I made didnt show any radius on the body corners, but gonna try to make them.
Started with the panel behind the seat.

bumperish thing