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Electrifying a Monster Kickboard

Hi All,


I have owned and kicked my Monster Kickboard for several years now, and as a person with severe balancing issues I was so delighted to ride this 3 wheeled scooter/skateboard hybrid. It has a great steering mechanism that allows you to lean left and right using the joystick, and adopt a one hand surfing position rather than the traditional two hand T-bar position.

To top that it has humongous Polyurethane wheels that grips the surface and lets you fly on smooth areas like gliding on ice.

While that's all good an dandy on flat smooth concrete roads or high end bicycle lanes, the real problem begins when the road becomes bumpy, tiled or heavily steeped. It has no suspension and the flat wide wheel makes you feel like a pebble going down a staircase.


Here are some tech specs from Micro's website :


Weight capacity 220 lbs

Storage and Travel Folds to 30" x 12.5" x 7.5"

Handle Height 25.5" to 38" from deck, 41" from ground

Wheel size/material Front and back: 120 mm Fatties. Polyurethane

Length/width of scooter 30" x 12.5"

Steering T-Bar and Joystick

Length/width of standing deck 18" x 5.5"


This is what I have in mind for it, to make it a perfect urban transport solution:


1. Electric motor (350w-500w) - cause I'm sick of kicking uphill.
2. Regen capabilities - it goes very fast downhill, I believe it could gain a decent amount of energy while aiding the brakes.
3. Tires - as much as love the fatty wheels, they are only great on concrete or marble surfaces, and in a standard urban environment I need it to be able to cruise over paver blocks, Asphalt or any other harsh surface without rattling like the Lord of Bones.
4. Extra light batteries - I intend to continue carrying it with me on trains and into office buildings in its folded state, and would like to minimize the weight gain as much as possible. That being said, the price of the batteries alone shouldn't exceed the price of a brand new electric scooter.
5. Throttle - since the joystick has limited space for a throttle I was thinking of skipping it all together and have the motor engage when I kick-shove it.

As I'm a noob in the electrifying business I welcome any advice/criticism/ideas the fine gentlemen of this forum has to offer, and will be posting regular updates on this build. My goal is to assemble a full upgrade kit for it, and I would greatly appreciate any help given.

Thank you, Dave.

P.S.
I'm an electrical engineering student and will be assisted by a friend who is a welder and metal worker so I can build custom parts like battery housing and
wider / longer axle support if needed.

 

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Hi Dave, sorry for the late reply I had to think about this for a while. That scooter is a tough one to recommend parts for to electrify since it started out as a push scooter. I can't really think of anything we have that would work off the shelf to add a sprocket to the existing rear wheel, that might take a little but of inventing to figure out, however I see that you want to replace the existing wheels anyways. We definitely have a motor, controller, and throttle to help electrify it though.

Any of our 350-500 Watt standard motors (not gear motors) would work for the project.

We do not have any controllers that regenerate power back into the battery pack during deceleration because that is not a common feature for electric scooter and bike controllers to have.

We may or may not have wheels that could replace the existing ones. I would expect to have to weld or attach a different size axle on if modifying the scooter to use any of our wheels.

For batteries you might want to think about making a battery pack out of 13120S or similar LiFePO4 batteries because they are narrow and will probably fit under the foot deck.

We do not have anything on the shelf that would work as a kick-to-engage motor controller so that might require some custom electrical engineering to figure out.

Just because we do not have all of the parts necessary to complete the project does not mean that they are not available, or the project could not be done. I have seen many photos online of small kick scooters that were modified into electric scooters. Some I have seen have hub motors inside the wheels and other have external motors to the wheels and are driven with chain.

I can definitely take measurements of any of our parts, such as wheels, to help you decide if they will work on your project or not. Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with or if you have any questions.

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