Gary Payton's The Rat Pack

Owner	Gary Payton
Owner's Other EV	2002 Daihatsu Mira
Location	Seattle, Washington United States ^map
Email
Vehicle	2010 The Rat Pack This is an human/electric hybrid trike I've designed and built from scratch. I had lots of help building the frame from my CAD drawings.
Motor	Currie Permanent Magnet DC US Pro Drive electric bike conversion kit with rear wheel used as front.
Drivetrain	Single side powered in the rear by rider. Front electric drive.
Controller	Currie
Batteries	3, 12.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, AGM
System Voltage	36 Volts
Charger	Simple 36V Lead Acid charger.
Heater	Sun, jacket :-)
DC/DC Converter	None
Instrumentation	Trees whizzing past.
Top Speed	30 MPH (48 KPH)
Acceleration	Pretty good. Spins front wheel in wet or gravel.
Range	Traveled over 10 Miles and batteries weren't drained past the 1st of 4 charge indicators. I guess the range is 20-30 with moderate pedaling.
Seating Capacity	1 adult
Curb Weight	0 About 50 or 60 pounds. Very light without batteries or motor though.
Tires	26" city bike tire up front, 20" fat lowrider tires in the back
Conversion Time	Took under a year off and on building it in my apartment.
Conversion Cost	about $500
Additional Features	My electric rat chopper trike. Screaming speed (more than I really need). Very stable due to low center of gravity near the paired wheels. These two factors paired together are the key to trike stability. Less than 36" wide.
Delta trikes have a bad name. It's pretty easy to engineer one that's extremely stable. This is my first stab and it's perfect. Thanks goes to the Trivette/Vigilante designers who clued me in to the potential of deltas. Unless you put the rider's torso/bum between the front wheels, it's tough to design a tadpole trike with a good layout: reasonably high seat with feet behind the leading edge of the font wheel. An electric hybrid with lead acid batteries up front could fix that... This delta gives good visibility of the rider to car drivers yet it's reasonably aerodynamic and efficient. Placement of C/G makes it very stable. Intentionally crazy maneuvers don't make it feel tippy. Very well balanced configuration on all counts. This is my 3rd and most successful light vehicle. Though it's also the least radical, it's still been a design experiment from the start.

code by jerry