Chris LowI have been a bit distracted lately because my wife and I just had are first child. I am busy teaching him the finer details of hardware hacking, but I am worried he may not be picking things up as quick as I would like. ;) We have gone back to Australia for the delivery, and will be out of South Sudan until April. I have decided on a total redesign of the vehicle. The last version took some serious damage when it broke loose in the back of the truck it was being transported in. It gives me the perfect excuse to make some much needed improvements. My aims are to maximize efficiency and robustness. I have taken a number of ideas from the Luka EV project which can be found here on Hackaday. The guys behind that project have been hugely supportive and helpful. Their project is ambitious, and I think will really push forward EVs, and small builder manufacturing.
I have switched to using hub moters, Lifepo4 batteries, a more traditional rack and pinion steering system, and long travel a-arm suspension. Hopefully over the next few weeks I will be able to post new updates on the progress. Just wanted to let people know this project lives on.
Chris
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Hi Chris,
Glad to see you back again. It is a good idea to switch to hub motors & LifePo4 (or better) batteries. We have developed a new bat pack. It should be complete mid march & lots of testing to follow. We are also in the middle of designing a big (12.5kW) hub motor with gears inside it. This is not mentioned on the LUKA EV blog yet. If by chance it works, I think it is a game changer. It solves all the torque issues hub motors can suffer from. It is also dirt cheap but there there is a fair chance it will not work. It is another one of those ''why has no one done this already'' things. If we get it half working there is a good chance that someone somewhere can perfect the idea.
We finally got the
https://hackaday.io/project/6088-advanced-stirling-radioisotope-generator
working. I swear this thing has been harder than building the LUKA EV. When working properly, I will send you one. It is perfect for South Sudan as it can generate electricity from solar during the day & at night can be run from any heat source (a candle, a fire, gas or a little piece of plutonium if you happen to have one lying around !)
Look after your boy & enjoy the few months in Australia.
When you get around to sourcing parts for the new design, let me know. We should be able to get stuff fairly cheap for you...
Best regards.
Maurice
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