Electric motors on a weed whacker ? Usable or not?

[jerbyrd88]

I have hooked up a few gas or 2 stroke weed whacker motors to run my bike but I'm wondering if you can use the electric weed whacker motors to run my bike too. There's the corded ones and the ones that use a battery I'm sure the battery powered ones would make for an easier conversion, but any advice, help, pointers or anything anyone could help me out with would be greatly appreciated thanks in advance.

 

[LeftieBiker]

I have hooked up a few gas or 2 stroke weed whacker motors to run my bike but I'm wondering if you can use the electric weed whacker motors to run my bike too. There's the corded ones and the ones that use a battery I'm sure the battery powered ones would make for an easier conversion, but any advice, help, pointers or anything anyone could help me out with would be greatly appreciated thanks in advance.

Make sure that the combined weight of you and the bike doesn't exceed 25lbs. Those motors are not long on torque.

 

[MadRhino]

Weed whacker’s motors are too small and fast for an interesting ebike build. The simplest solution is a hub motor wheel. They are not expansive and make a decent ebike quick and simple to build.

If you really want to build your own motorization driving sprockets and chain, look for slower electric motors around 1/2 to 1 hp. It will make your build easier.

 

[markz]

Maybe if you have a few electric weed whacker motors to help add power and torque, othewise I'd say over-all the idea is bonkers. Don't waste your time, just go ahead and buy yourself a hub motor, they are so cheap to begin with, $200 for a kit then figure out the battery.

 

[momus3]

Yep, a hub motor kit is your best bet. The first thing you discover when going from gas to electric is sticker shock. It ain't cheap, and w/o a kit it gets pretty complicated for a first time build. The kit will give you everything you need for a simple conversion, and you can work with all sorts of battery possibilities. Might want to read up on the threads here and elsewhere first, and youtube has some great stuff on building an eBike. Compared to gas your range will go way down and the bike weight will go way up, but an electric bike is super quiet and very dependable.

The other route is to just buy an eBike. You can get a decent enough one for $600-$700. Once you have one, you can see if it's going to suit your needs, and it will give you an opportunity to see first hand how things work if you decide to build your own later. They're probably destined to go up in price due to the world virus situation, availability could be tight, and you can always sell it, the demand for anything bike related is sorta off the charts.

 

[spinningmagnets]

Weed-wackers spin at high RPMs, but are typically low-powered.

The EGO line of lawn tools run on 14S. We call that 52V nominal, and EGO calls it 56V. Their lawn mower, chainsaw, and snowblower might be useful if you got a used one for cheap, and could fabricate the adapters to make it a mid-drive.