Hmmm... A lot of hydrogen building up in my garage is not what I want. Guess I'll just have to be patient while the batteries recharge. I pulled the plug out to see where the wires go, only the two outside prongs are used, a positive and a negative. The middle prong is unused. I was just wondering why those connectors were used. Probably because they are foolproof and can't be connected the wrong way. Thanks JERRY.

Most of the time, when a device uses a 3-prong plug on a 120v circuit, it is because the device has a metal casing; the ground connection is tied to the ground plug so that if the "hot" wire were to internally come loose and touch the case, the case would float hot which would trip the breaker. Incidentally, the white "neutral" wire on house wiring is electrically the same point as the ground wire - they both go to their respective bus bars at the panel, which are tied to ground.

Some devices are more flexible and can run on an input voltage from 120v to 240v. If on 240v the two main prongs are both "hot" while the ground is the only ground and still tied to the case for protection. There might be even more to it, but it's been a while since I've even looked at an NEC book.

Mistercrash; I would say that if you want faster charge times, invest in a LiFe setup that has close to the same voltage along with a BMS circuit to make sure the cells stay in balance. Then, you can charge MUCH higher, but you'll likely need a real 240v feed in your garage to keep input current manageable. Charging a ~50v 40Ah pack @ even 2C will require ~4700w (with charger efficiency figured in), which is almost 40A at 120V, but "only" 20A @ 240v.

I use a Hyperion EOS0615i duo3+ to charge my nine 6s 5ah Turnigy lipos in a little over 2 hours. It's powered by two server power supplies in a series. The charger puts out 600W charging at 15A.

A big Hyperion charger might be a good choice for you because you could use it for both your scooter and RC needs.

If anyone's interested, here's link to my thread with some kill-a-watt & Hyperion charger data/pics - http://endless-sphere.com/forums/vie...26364&start=30

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_DSCN0654.jpg

Going to the dealer to get my second battery today, I talked a bit with the girls about future battery chemistry that could be used in the scooter. (I like talking to these two girls running the shop, they're hot) They told me that Motorino has been doing a lot of R&D with LiFe cells and that it looks promising for a near future. If they are satisfied with their results, all their scooter will be using LiFe batteries in the future. It is already an upgrade available on their electric motorcycles. They have been getting 75+ km range on their testing compared to the present 40 km with the lead acid. Unfortunately, it looks like the price of the scooters using LiFe batteries will go up significantly. And it would be an expensive upgrade for people like me who already have a scooter using lead acid batteries.

Presently, with 34 amps available in my scooter, I can expect 70+ km range. The lead acids are heavy but they are placed quite low in the frame which sets the scooter's CG quite low and helps very much with handling. The scooter is just a blast to ride on. If the LiFe batteries are much lighter, it would mess with that low CG and the scooter might not handle as well. Time will tell if it will be a viable upgrade or not.

lol, just add some lead ballast to get the same weight as with the SLAs. :smile:

Maybe I could gain 30 pounds. No that wouldn't be good, the CG would be too high. Anyway, I get your point, I'm thinking too much again lol

once you get the second battery, do you think you will need more than one charge a day?

Just plug her in at night and don't worry about charge time. I assume the charger shuts itself off when complete?

What the heck is a kilometer?:na:

I will not need to recharge more than once a day if I just go to work with it. I go to work (2 km) than come back home for lunch (2 km) then after lunch I go downtown for the second part of my shift (6 km) and when I'm all done I go home from downtown (6 km). I probably could go three days before recharging. But I don't just go to work, I work evenings which gives me time in the morning to run errands or just ride around for fun. If I do that, I'll just have to keep in mind that I need to keep enough charge in the batteries for the 22 km needed for my work. One kilometer is 0.6213712 mile. :smile:

Don't. SLA's develop sulfate if below a full charge. You want to keep them 100% charged as much as possible. If you forget a night it's not the end of the world, but definitely charge it the next night. I've been maintaining SLA's for 9 years in my wheelchairs:intello:

Is it an onboard charger? Can you plug in while at work?

It's not an onboard charger. And yes I prefer to recharge every day once I'm done with the scooter. Actually, as soon as I get it back in the garage, I always recharge it even if I just went out for 5 minutes.

I was just wondering if it's a good idea to convert a human-powered bike to a hybrid electric vehicle by putting one of those hub motors on the front wheel. That would avoid any problems with the width of gears... but maybe there are some downsides with front wheel drive?

Front wheel drive is fine but you can run into traction problems, especially when it's wet out or you have a lot of power. And you can't do wheelies. :smile:

Also, mounting is sometimes a slight issue in the front too because the metal the fork is made of is often weaker than in the rear, requiring a stronger torque arm.

all that was needed:yes:

A little update on my experience with the Motorino scooter. I like it even more than I thought I would. I use it everyday to go to work or run errands, rain or shine. I have a ''Wike'' trailer to sit the kids in and pull behind a bicycle that I used before when my son was smaller. Pretty much like this one but it's an older model that is all yellow. I fits on the scooter so now I have something that can haul bigger and heavier stuff like if I need to get some groceries. I still don't know what the range is, I think I could ride the thing until my butt hurts before the batteries go dead. I have over 260 klicks done up to now trekking around town, top speed is mostly at 45/47 kph (for Harold that's 28/29 mph). Going up a steep hill, the speed goes down to 30/32 kph and going down that same hill I hit 60 :yipi:

I was told that the scooter is built using a Yamaha frame. I searched a little and I'm pretty sure they use a Yamaha Vino 125 and convert it to electric.

1350 km now on my scooter and the only thing that gave me problems was the speedometer cable broke. They changed it immediately with no charge. I re-positioned the second battery in front of the main one under the seat compartment so I have plenty of storage under the seat now. I tested the range one day and I barely got 45 km from the 48V 34ah SLAs I'm running now. I was disappointed in that, I was hoping for at least 60 km.
I joined Endless Sphere to get ideas on what I could do to improve the performance. There's not much that can be done with what's on the scooter now but I did build up the shunts with plenty of tin which gave a bit more grunt going uphill but no change on top speed. Next step would be to rewire the batteries with 8 gauge wires and the phase wires with 10 gauge. No small task and I will wait to do this when I won't be using the scooter on a daily basis which will be when there's snow in the streets.
Other then that, not much I can do unless I invest a couple grand to change the motor, the controller and the batteries. The batteries being the most expensive of the upgrades. This is what I'm thinking of.

Controller
http://kellycontroller.com/kbl481012...egen-p-54.html

Motor (high torque model)
http://kellycontroller.com/hub-motor...ake-p-162.html

Batteries (two of them to have 60 amps)
http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/t...LiFePO4/Detail

I plan on getting a first LiFePO4 battery at the end of October when the weather gets colder. SLAs don't do well in the cold. Right there this battery should give much better performance then the SLAs, longer range and it weighs 50 pounds less.

If I get the funds to upgrade with a second LiFePO4, a new controller and a 1500 watts high torque motor, I should be getting top speeds of close to 55 km/h which is enough to keep up with the traffic but not enough to get speeding tickets. The main advantage will be in torque. Faster starts off the line and sustained speeds going uphill. The system could run on just one LiFePO4 I linked above but I learned on Endless Sphere that having more battery capacity than you have motor as it relates to KW puts less strain on the battery.