Category Archives: transportation hacks

Hoverboard Reborn For Electric Rollerblading

Posted on by

Rollerblading is fun, but who needs all that pesky exercise? Wouldn’t strapping on the blades be so much more tempting if you had an electric pusher motor to propel you along your way?

We have to admit that we raised a wary eyebrow as we first watched [MakerMan]’s video below. We thought it was going to be just another hoverboard hack at first, but as we watched, there were some pretty impressive fabrication skills on display. Yes, the project does start with tearing into a defunct hoverboard for parts, primarily one wheel motor and the battery pack. But after that, …read more

Continue reading Hoverboard Reborn For Electric Rollerblading→

Instrument Packed Pedal Keeps Track of Cyclist’s Power

Posted on by

Exactly how much work is required to pedal a bike? There are plenty of ways to measure the power generated by a cyclist, but a lot of them such as heavily instrumented bottom brackets and crank arms, can be far too expensive for casual use. But for $30 in parts you can build this power-measuring bike pedal. and find out just how hard you’re stoking.

Of course it’s not just the parts but knowing what to do with them, and [rabbitcreek] has put a lot of thought and engineering into this power pedal. The main business of measuring the force …read more

Continue reading Instrument Packed Pedal Keeps Track of Cyclist’s Power→

Hackaday Prize Entry: Bellcycles are Open-Source, Compact, and Unique

Posted on by

What do we want in a bicycle? It should be able to be constructed at home, even if your home is a New York apartment. It should be Open Source so our friends can make their own. It should be compact so it won’t clutter up our little apartments. It should be unique instead of another me-too. [Alex Bell], of Bellcycles, is showing off his bicycle on hackaday.io and it fills all the requirements.

The unusual shape drastically reduces the size, turning radius, and storage footprint from a traditional bicycle. It shares the large front wheel design of the penny …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Bellcycles are Open-Source, Compact, and Unique→

Trike with Water-Rocket Engine

Posted on by

Many of us made soda bottle rockets for science class. Some of us didn’t have that opportunity, and made them in the backyard because that’s what cool kids do. Water rockets work on the premise that if water is evacuated from one side of a container, the container will accelerate away from the evacuation point. Usually, this takes the form of a 2-liter bottle, a tire pump and some cardboard fins. [François Gissy] modified the design but not the principle for his water trike which reached 261 kph or 162mph.

Parts for the trike won’t be found in the average …read more

Continue reading Trike with Water-Rocket Engine→

Salvaging Your Way to a Working Tesla Model S for $6500

Posted on by

If you possess modest technical abilities and the patience of a few dozen monks, with some skillful haggling you can land yourself some terrific bargains by salvaging and repairing. This is already a well-known ideology when it comes to sourcing things like electronic test gear, where for example a non working unit might be purchased from eBay and fixed for the price of a few passive components.

[Rich] from Car Guru has taken this to a whole new level by successfully salvaging a roadworthy Tesla Model S for $6500!

Sourcing and rebuilding a car is always a daunting project, in …read more

Continue reading Salvaging Your Way to a Working Tesla Model S for $6500→

A Jet Engine On A Bike. What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

Posted on by

On today’s edition of ‘don’t try this at home,’ we’re transported to Russia to see [Igor Negoda]’s working jet bicycle.

This standard mountain bike comes equipped with a jet engine capable of 18kg of thrust, fixed to the frame under the seat with an adjustable bracket to change it’s angle as needed. A cell phone is zip-tied to the frame and acts as a speedometer — if it works, it’s not stupid — and an engine controller displays thrust, rpm and temperature.  A LiPo battery is the engine’s power source with a separate, smaller battery for the electronics. The bike …read more

Continue reading A Jet Engine On A Bike. What’s The Worst That Could Happen?→

Open Source High Power EV Motor Controller

Posted on by

For anyone with interest in electric vehicles, especially drives and control systems for EV’s, the Endless-Sphere forum is the place to frequent. It’s full of some amazing projects covering electric skateboards to cars and everything in between. [Marcos Chaparro] recently posted details of his controller project — the VESC-controller, an open source controller capable of driving motors up to 200 hp.

[Marcos]’s controller is a fork of the VESC by [Benjamin Vedder] who has an almost cult following among the forum for “creating something that all DIY electric skateboard builders have been longing for, an open source, highly programmable, high …read more

Continue reading Open Source High Power EV Motor Controller→

Hackaday Prize Entry: Smart Electric Bike Controller

Posted on by

One of the more interesting yet underrated technological advances of the last decade or so is big brushless motors and high-capacity batteries. This has brought us everything from quadcopters to good electric cars, usable cordless power tools, and of course electric bicycles. For his Hackaday Prize project, [marcus] is working on a very powerful electric bicycle controller. It can deliver 1000 Watts, it’s got Bluetooth, and there’s even an Android app for some neat diagnostics.

The specs for this eBike controller are pretty much what you would expect. It’s able to deliver a whole Kilowatt, can use 48 V batteries, …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Smart Electric Bike Controller→

This Electric Longboard Collapses for Air Travel

Posted on by

How do you manage to get an electric off-road longboard past TSA and onto an international flight? Simple — make it a collapsible longboard that fits into a carry-on bag.

The mechanical and electrical feats accomplished by [transistor-man] may not be the most impressive parts of this hack. We’re pretty impressed by the build, starting as it did with the big knobby tires and front truck from an unused mountain board and the hub motor from a hoverboard, turning this into a trike. The incredible shrinking chassis comes courtesy of a couple of stout drawer slides and cam locks to …read more

Continue reading This Electric Longboard Collapses for Air Travel→

Re-Engineering The Ford Model A Engine

Posted on by

Over the nearly a quarter century since the Web has been in existence, there have been various websites and projects in the field covered by Hackaday that have done the rounds and captured our attention for a while. Some have turned into major projects and products, others have collapsed spectacularly, while many have faded away and been forgotten.

It was one of those “I wonder what happened to… ” moments that prompted a search for just such a project that did the rounds a little at the start of this decade. Re-Engineering the Model A Engine is [Terry Burtz]’s project …read more

Continue reading Re-Engineering The Ford Model A Engine→