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ElectricScooterParts.com Support Center
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Swap meet trike
ESP Support
That sounds like a fun project. Most standard electric trikes and electric cargo trikes use a gear motor so they can have the low speed and high torque that they need and use a reasonable sized sprocket on the axle. A standard non-gear motor could also be used if there was a transmission or jackshaft between it and the axle.
Here is a photo of a pedal cab trike with a 36 Volt 600 Watt gear motor installed on the back.
We have 36 Volt 600 Watt brushed gear motors that are identical to the one shown above that will provide enough power to propel a trike with a combined trike and load weight of 600 pounds at 6 MPH with power to spare on flat ground, and enough power to go up light grades.
We also have a 48 Volt 1000 Watt brushless gear motor that has around twice the power of the 600 Watt brushed gear motor and is around twice its size also.
The selection of the motor, controller, throttle, batteries, and charger is the easy part of the process, and we can help with choosing compatible parts. We can also make a kit out of all the parts and wire then together, or not, your choice. Either way there is always a price discount when ordering the parts all together as a kit from us.
The more difficult part of the process can sometimes be finding the right size axle sprocket that has the number of teeth required for the desired top speed of the trike, and that will also mount onto the axle. We have a lot of different sources for tricycle axle sprockets though so we can usually find the one that you need.
Unless you already have a transmission and sprockets and know the gear ratio of that setup to calculate the top speed from, then calculating the axle sprocket size using a certain gear motor and chain is usually the first step of the process.
We would be glad to run some gear ratio calculations and determine how many teeth the axle sprocket needs to have when used in conjunction with our gear motors. All we would need to know to run these calculation is the diameter of the trike's rear tires?
ESP Support
Thanks for accepting me. I have a shop and have been building things for decades. I'm building a trike to get around large swap meets, easier for an old guy with a bad back. I'm about 50% built now so it's time to plan the electric drive. Me and the trike are about 240 lb. I need to carry 100 to 200 lb from time to time. Swap meets are generally flat but can be far. I would like to drive at a walking speed at 1/2 throttle and a jog at full throttle. I will gear reduce the drive system to suit. I may even have a transmission for more options. So far it looks like 36 V @ 1000 W and I have room under the seat for 3 yellow top Optima batteries. I would post a photo but I don't know how to. Your thoughts on my electric plan please. Regards Al C
ESP Support
We can help with selecting the right controller and throttle to go with the motor. If you need it to have reverse we have switches for that also. It sounds like you can wire up the parts yourself however if you prefer we can make a kit out of all the parts with matching connectors so all of the parts are plug and play right out of the box.
If you would like recommendations for the speed controller and other parts please let us know.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Al Christopherson