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Building off a wagon

Ok I have a few questions. First off I am building this out of a wagon I've been using a year that fits my stuff perfect. I'm just tired of lugging it around by hand, so it's time to go motorized. I've been a welder and fabricator for years, so I will be going at this doing what I need to make it work. I'm having trouble finding pics of what parts I will need to make the one wheel a drive wheel. How will they need to attach to a wheel. I prefer not to have to buy a set of wheelez wheels and just fabricate from what I have. I have a all metal wagon from tractor supply. Full and headed to the ball field it had a 50 at cooler filled with ice and drinks, Honda 2000 generator, radio I built out of a big cooler, two canopies, 24" fan, extension cords, and five folding chairs. I have to go up and down some good hills once in a while and it's off and on use from 7am until midnight sometimes. It's the ground works heavy duty 1400 lbs farm wagon. According to their sight it says 16" tires. I'm inside and can verify if need be. So what kit am I looking at and what do I need to attach to the wheel and has it been done before. Thanks in advance.
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Johnathon,


I'm just about finished with my motorizing project - a yard cart with 16" wheels.  The most difficult bit of engineering was coupling the motor to a hollow hub wheel.  I've not seen any detailed descriptions on how to mate the Wheelez wheels to the motor either.  Since you can have access to a welder, then I'd suggest that you simply weld a sprocket to the inside hub of one of the wheels.  If you wanted to get really clever, you could drive BOTH rear wheels of your wagon through a jack-shaft with dual sprockets.

Sometimes the Electric Scooter Team is a bit slow in responding.  Happy to discuss this outside the forum if you like.  Email me at ltcdfancher at woh dot rr dot com.

 To attach a sprocket onto a cart wheel like that there are a few methods that I know about. One method is to use steel pipe as standoffs  to attach the sprocket to the rim. The steel pipe can be welded to the rim, or holes can be drilled in the rim and bolts can go between the rim, standoffs, and sprocket. Of course this will take a slight level of precision to get the sprocket centered on the rim so it is true and does not wobble. I know that many of our customers have successfully attached sprockets onto cart wheels this way though. If I were to do this I would select a pipe size with an ID that is just big enough for the sprocket bolts to fit into, then weld the pipes onto the rim, and then drill out the rim where the pipes are and use a through bolt to hold the sprocket onto the rim with the pipes in between acting as standoffs.


For the rest of the build since the cart will carry a heavy load and has to go up and down hills I would use one of our large 36 Volt 600 Watt gear motors. And to make sure the wagon has enough battery capacity for the evening I would use three 12V 35Ah batteries for the battery pack. We have a kit with these parts in it which is our item # KIT-149. Here is a link to it: 

https://cart.electricscooterparts.com/36-volt-600-watt-electric-beach-wagon-power-kit


And there are many other of our electric wagon kits to see here:

https://cart.electricscooterparts.com/store/Search.aspx?SearchTerms=beach+kit


We can modify this kit in any way that you would like, such as with a different throttle, batteries, charger, etc. Please let us know if you would like any changes made to it.


As far as the gear ratio goes that is one of the most important aspects of the build. I imagine that you want this wagon to go walking speed which is around 3-4 miles per hour. I will work on a gear ratio and sprocket size plan for this speed. 


Here is the gear ratio that I found will work with the 36 Volt 600 Watt gear motor and 16" wheels.



The gear motor has a 10 tooth sprocket already on it for #420 chain. 60 tooth sprockets for #420 chain is a very common size for go karts and mini bikes and available at almost all online go kart parts stores. The 3.82 MPH top speed will be a little lower when the wagon has a load on it so I would expect it to be around 3.5 MPH which is the perfect walking speed.
Thanks so much for the replies. I figured I wouldn't get a answer until Tuesday with it being a holiday weekend. I will look at it more in depth when I have more time, but the quick read makes a lot of since. The only thing I'm thinking about also is the wheels are on the outside and I didn't want to run the sprocket and chain on the outside of the cart as I would like to keep everything underneath. I have all kinds of tools to keep things square so welding will be super simple. And honestly now thinking about it I can still run it on the inside, just use a spacer on the inside and that wheel will be a little bit wider.
What would be the constant run time of the batteries. It would be on and off, but what would the actual run time be if I cut it on and never cut it off.

KIT-149 includes three 12V 35Ah batteries. I would expect the constant run time to be around 3 to 4 hours with this size of battery pack. The more hills that the wagon goes up the less run time it will have, and the more flat ground the wagon is driven on the longer the run time will be.

I  have the exact same wagon, and I was wondering how your project turned out.

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