Amish_Fighter_Pilot
New member
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2019
- Messages
- 14
My son has a Power Wheels Yamaha Raptor ATV that doesn't hold a charge anywhere near as well as it used to. We've been saving our change to buy a new battery for it, but I'm wondering if the 80 dollars they want for it is a sensible expenditure when I could built a Li-Ion pack that outperforms it by a great deal. This battery, when new, had a 12AH rating with a 12V output and a pair of 40amp fuses(unsure how they are wired on there, but I will find out as soon as I can).
What I am wondering first of all is should I build a pack that is higher than 12V. I've seen a couple of projects with these where people add a second lead-acid battery to bump the motor up to 24V, but I have no data on what actual motor is in it and how long it would survive the increased voltage. So I was thinking maybe 16V might be a reasonable middle ground. Perhaps do 4 sets of parallel cells in series and kept charged to no more than 4.0-4.1V? I've seen 8AH 18650 cells on eBay and even doing 6 of these per set could supply 48AH capacity(though obviously I never want to discharge them completely...). Realistic run time on this thing could be hours without the power loss that this lead-acid battery experiences as it drains. If I can salvage a better motor(brushless perhaps?), I would consider upgrading it even more, and maybe even putting proper tires on it. Maybe once we have our ideas all figured out, we could even consider just putting together a totally custom electric ATV.
Have any of you done a project like this? Any recommendations on how to proceed? Is there an existing DIY template I could follow that would suit my needs? I'm looking in to doing DIY home power storage and I think this would be a really good learning project for me that would also make my son really happy.
What I am wondering first of all is should I build a pack that is higher than 12V. I've seen a couple of projects with these where people add a second lead-acid battery to bump the motor up to 24V, but I have no data on what actual motor is in it and how long it would survive the increased voltage. So I was thinking maybe 16V might be a reasonable middle ground. Perhaps do 4 sets of parallel cells in series and kept charged to no more than 4.0-4.1V? I've seen 8AH 18650 cells on eBay and even doing 6 of these per set could supply 48AH capacity(though obviously I never want to discharge them completely...). Realistic run time on this thing could be hours without the power loss that this lead-acid battery experiences as it drains. If I can salvage a better motor(brushless perhaps?), I would consider upgrading it even more, and maybe even putting proper tires on it. Maybe once we have our ideas all figured out, we could even consider just putting together a totally custom electric ATV.
Have any of you done a project like this? Any recommendations on how to proceed? Is there an existing DIY template I could follow that would suit my needs? I'm looking in to doing DIY home power storage and I think this would be a really good learning project for me that would also make my son really happy.