Recently, I’ve had a fair number of people asking me about electric scooters.
Not only are scooters fun to ride, but you don’t need a motorcycle license, and they are often cheaper to insure and title.
That’s why I was excited to recently hear from Matt at Flux Mopeds. A while back, they had a few of their scooters available for sale, but WITHOUT battery packs. For anyone who could build their own battery pack, it was a great, inexpensive way to get into an all-electric ride without a lot of money. I got one of the scooters and built a pack for it from some Nissan Leaf cell modules I had. Since the scooters were originally designed for a removable pack, they feature a pair of 50A Anderson quick disconnects and DC circuit breakers, making connecting your own pack very simple.
Here’s a playlist of videos from working on one of those scooters:
So now, Flux again has a few of their scooters available, sans battery, as a DIY special. These are now the Second Generation EM1 mopeds. The second gen features a Sabvoton brushless DC sine wave controller.If you can assemble your own pack, you can get a great deal on an electric ride. They are only charging $730 each. These are BRAND-NEW, with a real VIN, all ready for street-legal riding EXCEPT for the battery. Buy two or more and they are only $680 each!
Visit http://www.fluxmopeds.com/innovators for more information. If you are interested contact Matt at mjbrueggeman@fluxmopeds.com
Get them while you can, and tell them Ben sent ya!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Ben,
I watched your videos and would really by one of these ‘battery-less’ Flux scooters.
The problem – I have never built a battery pack and am looking for some advice, how and where to get the right batteries and how to put everything together.
Thanks and Best Regards,
alex
Hi Alex,
There’s a lot of different ways to build a battery pack, but the first thing you need to do is educate yourself! I highly recommend Micah Toll’s DIY LITHIUM BATTERY BOOK. https://youtu.be/0Tm0smj4-to
Battery technology (and Battery Management Systems to go with them) have changed very quickly. The various electric bike forums tend to be some of the most useful for learning about batteries. Check out the Endless Sphere forum. https://endless-sphere.com/forums/
Lastly, see who you can meet up with in the real world who knows more than you about batteries. Try finding a Makerspace or Hackerspace or any kind of related club that has members with interest in electronics, batteries, EVs, etc!
Good Luck!
-Ben
Any chance one of these flux mopeds sans battery will go on sale again? I’d love to build an electric car, but I think it is way to big of a project for me to handle. I think a good way to get into EV’s and conversions is by adding a battery pack to an existing vehicle.
Just give them a call and ask!
http://www.fluxmopeds.com
Hey Ben,
Long time listener first time caller. This is might be a long shot, but I have one of these diy specials from good old Flux-Matt and was able to get a premade battery that fits nicely under the seat after removing the oem metal box. Problem is the battery gauge on the Flux is less than assuring and I’ve drained the battery twice while being out on it. Thankfully we only use it for around town and carry the charger with just in case. Do you have any thoughts on building or any leads on an existing inline battery meter that I could leave hooked up to get a real time view of how much juice is left?
There are a number of different gauges or meters available out there. It sounds like what you want is a Watt-Hour Meter. Just a device that measures how much total power has gone through it since you last charged.
On my Vectrix, I have a Cycle Analyst. That’s a very popular, higher-end meter typically used on fancy DIY E-Bikes. It will track energy use and do so much more. https://ebikes.ca/product-info/grin-products/cycle-analyst-3.html
There are a lot of power meters that are sort of designed for high end remote control cars, drones, and things along those lines. One of those would probably work for you. Just make sure it’s high enough voltage for your scooter. Here’s an example of the type of meter I’m talking about: https://amzn.to/38RR1hl
Lastly, I use a simple meter in my garage for just displaying my solar energy production. There are DC versions of those, and they work ok for tracking energy use. The one I have is good for up to 100V. Just make sure it can handle your maximum current. Something like this: https://amzn.to/3KO5ecp
Hope that helps!
-Ben
Just adding a little something for clarity…
On lead-acid batteries, state of charge is pretty simple as it directly correlates with the battery’s voltage. A lead battery State-of-Charge meter basically IS just a volt-meter.
With lithium batteries, voltage tends to stay stable for a long time, and then drops fast at the bottom of the charge. We usually know the capacity of the battery pack (or measure it, to find out what the real-world capacity is). By tracking how much energy has left the battery, you have an accurate state of charge.