Battery Vehicle Society

Been meaning to put up some pics of my motorbike conversion for a while. I'd been looking around for a suitable bike to convert when this vandalised Cagiva Planet 125 came up on ebay. It had a big alloy frame that I reckoned would have plenty of space for batteries, so I bought it then stripped out the engine and other greasy bits and sold them back on ebay.



I didn't want to weld anything to the alloy frame, so after a lot of head scratching I made up a subframe for the motor and batteries that would bolt into the original engine mountings. The motor is an Etek rated at 48V, just under 5kW continuous, and around 10kW max power. I run it at 60V with an Alltrax controller set at 250A max current. A little blower fan blows cooling air straight straight into the brush housing to stop it getting hot and bothered.





I wanted to keep the weight and balance of the bike as close to the original as possible, so went for a fairly small battery pack. Five Enersys lead acid batteries rated at 26Ah.



The batteries are charged using individual 12V onboard chargers to keep them reasonably balanced - you can just see them underneath the seat.



Maximum range is 15 miles. Top speed 55 mph. Acceleration is good and it's a great little runabout for errands around town. Jobs to do include tidying up the wiring, weatherproofing, fitting a DC converter for the lights (currently run off the main pack) and, of course, switching to lithium

Nice one Malc. A work of art!

That is very smart indeed.

That actually looks dam fine

I'm not really a biker but that does look good, what sort of performance do you get from it ??

ChrisB

That's excellent work Malcolm.

I want to ask you about the legal issues, such as MOT and road tax and how easy it is to get around them ?

Ta for the kind words!

Legally, it was surprisingly straightforward. I had to inform DVLA of the change in taxation class, since you pay no tax on electric vehicles (but still need to get a tax disc).

Took a bit of hunting to find an insurer, but Carole Nash were very helpful and insured it for the same as the petrol version. I sent them a pdf of the motor specifications so they could see that the rated output was no higher than that of the original bike. I deliberately avoided making any changes to the chassis of the bike so that hopefully there'd be no need for an inspection.

Took it for an MOT, which was no problem, apart from the fact it was the first time I'd ridden a motorbike in twenty-odd years...

Went to the local DVLA office clutching paperwork, and walked out five minutes later with a free tax disc and a big grin

That's very inspiring, thanks very much for that !

I have a motor which is ideal, apart from being heavy so I was looking towards somethign like an FJ1200/1100 frame or even a scrap Pan Euro with larger batteries and sneaky little generator for emergencies.

My comute is 30 miles around, mostly downhill on the outbound journey and a steady incline all the way back. you seem to be getting about 100Wh/mile consumption which is about what I thought I might get

I was concerned about the legalities but you make a very good point regarding the chassis, so I'll look at this more closeley now.

Thanks
Chris

Excellent now I can see much better what it was we've been doing this logo for

qdos wrote:Excellent now I can see much better what it was we've been doing this logo for

Yeah, well I thought it wasn't suitable because it wasn't symmetrical, so Qdos drivers might get left out

LOL well I'm probably about the only person in the Society that's got a vehicle approximating to the current one in the logo!