RepRaTS 3D Printable E-Scooter

Through the Hackaday Mentor Session I, was fortunate enough to be able to speak with Kliment Yanev about RepRaTS.  He gave me some really great ideas on how to improve and iterate on the RepRaTS concept.  Many of those ideas were incorporated in the current version of the scooter, and some I am working to include on future updates.  Thank you for all of your help, Kliment.

There are a number of improvements to the scooter that I would still like to make. Most importantly, the steering axis needs to be stiffened. I want to move from the current three bolt design to a larger single bolt with more effective interlocking features. Second, cable management needs to be addressed. I want to build channels into the body and forks to allow for simple and tidy cable management. I also would like to integrate the scooter battery into the deck. This would improve the handling of the scooter and reduce the overall footprint. 

I have now built a third iteration of the 3d printable e-scooter.  My main goals for this design were to: improve torsional rigidity in the printed beams, decrease overall weight, improve on the percentage of printed parts, and improve safety. To improve rigidity, I moved from a “flat bar” beam with two threaded rods as reinforcement to a “hollow triangular” beam with three rods. I also added registration features so the individual spacers that stack together to create the scooter’s beams interlock, stopping the spacers from sliding against each other and improving rigidity.  The hub motors have been reduced in size and power to two 350W 8” airless hub motors. The smaller wheel size allows for smaller forks and the reduced power allows for smaller controllers and battery, contributing to an overall reduction in size and weight.  The total weight of the scooter is now approximately 40 lbs and the top speed is around 17mph.  The battery is a 13Ah 48V removable e-bike battery.