What To Know About Electric Car Motors
Electric motors come in two basic flavors. Without going into great detail, there are alternating current (AC) motors and direct current (DC) motors. Electric car motors can be of either variety. Electric cars made by large vehicle manufacturers usually come with AC motors.These usually produce more power for their size and they are generally lighter than DC motors. On the other hand, DC motors are much less expensive and a lot easier for the DIY enthusiast to install than AC motors. This is why most of us prefer the DC motor when tackling a conversion project.
DC motors for any electric car conversion project are pretty simple to findacquire if you know what to look for.
To start with, DC electric car motors are usually described by their diameter.
As one might expect the motor’s ability to produce horsepower increases with its diameter, however, larger motors also require more batteries or more frequent charging because they consume more energy. The best motor to use for an electric vehicle conversion project is one between 9 and thirteen inches.
You can expect that this size motor will have a range of between 150 and 200 miles between charges and will travel at top speeds approaching 55 miles per hour.
A DC motor in this nine to 13 inch size range will also work well with deep cycle batteries which we’ve found to be the best choice for DIY conversions.
Installing an electric car motor is easy to do and pretty much fail safe but you must follow the instructions. You should probably have a helper for this step because the motor weighs around 150 pounds.
I recommend to everyone considering an electric car conversion that you don’t buy a new motor. These cost between $1000 and $5000 on line depending on the size.
A reconditioned used motor, available for a fraction of the new price will usually outlive any car you put it in. It is not unheard of for one of these used motors to even outlive two cars
Since it is no less reliable, and requires the same effort to install, why not save the money? If you look around locally a bit, you’ll find these cheap, reliable motors are available in ample supply.
An experienced guide and a good set of plans starts to become extremely valuable here. You do have to know where to look and what to look for to achieve the greatest cost savings on the project. You can get all your parts very very cheap, if not free, and a well researched and written instruction manual will provide you with the invaluable information you need to do this.
It also takes you step by step through the entire conversion and makes sure that your batteries motor, controller and every other component you use (including the car!) are all suitable for the project and for each other. As mentioned above, including batteries you can usually complete the full conversion for well under $500. Want to learn more about electric car motors? We have much more information and recommendations at our site. Stop by and check it out.
