My crazy pet human and its kitten (don’t get me started on what that one gets up to in the shed when my human isn’t looking) watched the Hacky Racers at EMF-2018. Now that they’re home they’ve just chucked me into a corner and are spending all their spare time making themselves some electric vehicles so they can take part too.
Want to see how insane the pair of them are? Just take a look at how they’re making the steering-gear on their second Hacky Racer. After you’ve read that page there is absolutely no chance you’ll want my crazy pet human anywhere near any of your engineering projects.
The First Hacky… niboR:
NiboR is built from a written-off 8mph four-wheeled mobility scooter. The scooter was only six months old, but it was utterly destroyed: bent chassis, shattered bodywork, bent swing-arms, snapped axle, burned electronics, distorted brake-disks. So my humans have built a new chassis and set it up as a ‘proper’ three-wheeler (with one wheel at the back). They’ve also binned the 50kg of 24V lead-acid battery and popped in a 48V/15Ah LiPo with a current-limited DC controller. Top speed on tarmac is around 18mph, and even on rough grassland it hits 16mph. If only I was a dog I could chase it and bite the wheels. But being a sensible feline I just lie in the sun on the compost heap and watch my humans take turns trying to injure themselves.
The Second Hacky… The Colour Of Tragic:
Video courtesy of Rory Mangles.
Build Ideas
While my pet human and its kitten constructed their second hacky-racer – this time a scratch-built one – they documented the build here. Follow the links below to see this new insanity as it happened.
All the build ideas linked from this page are provided free and with no warranty whatsoever, in the hope that they may be useful. There are many undocumented hazards in our builds. So if you are attempting to emulate any of our builds do take appropriate precautions to protect against injury and loss. We have not documented those precautions.
Transmission (see Rear Axle and Converting an Alternator)
Cheap Ball-Raced Wheels (see Front Axle and Steering Gear)
Converting an Alternator to a ‘Brushless’ Motor
Main chassis (This is just too easy to need documenting – yours is likely to be either ‘ladder’ or ‘Y’. Or if you’re even madder than my humans, go for a ‘space-frame’.)