Brandon's 2008 Schwinn S-400

Owner	Brandon Bridges
Owner's Other EVs	1980 Huffy Bay Pointe 3 Speed Cruiser 2004 Razor Ground Force 2005 Razor MX500 1976 Raleigh Grand Prix 1975 Raleigh Twenty 1994 Suzuki GN125
Location	Shelby, North Carolina United States ^map
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Vehicle	2008 Schwinn S-400 Rescued from dumpster. Removed the seat and seat post, this scooter is too small and has too small of tires to be a sit down scooter. The seat was also at a fixed height and was extremely uncomfortable. At the end, it will be a stand up scooter only. A one way bearing will eventually be installed to allow it to be used as a regular kick scooter and to increase top speed.
Motor	Unite Motor 500W 36V Permanent Magnet DC New motor mount, "new" (used) motor. At least twice the size of the old motor...Came out of a Razor MX500. More torque for a bigger guy.
Drivetrain	Chain drive
Controller	Yi Yun YK42-3 1000W @ 36V...yummy. Overkill for this scooter, but at least it won't burn up. The controller will ride in the old battery pan, which is located under the new battery rack.
Batteries	6 Yuasa NP7-12FR, 12.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, AGM Six 7Ah 12V batteries wired for 36V and 14Ah. Purchased out of a retired UPS and confirmed working. Doing a controlled test for capacity and hoping for a decent charge out of them, but any usable capacity is appreciated at $5/battery.
System Voltage	36 Volts
Charger	Soneil 36V Intelligent Charger One of the best. May or may not end up using this charger, depends on how I set it up. Definately room in the belly for it.
Heater	Coat
DC/DC Converter	Xtreme Came out of an XB-500 scooter. Don't know if i'm going to use it yet or not, not really a need for it for what I am going to use the scooter for.
Instrumentation	Butt dyno
Top Speed	15 MPH (24 KPH) 15 mph was the stated top speed for this scooter out of the box. Who knows now, but honestly I wouldn't mind if it went a little bit slower. Torque and range are my biggest concerns.
Range	3 Miles ( 4 Kilometers) Hopefully. These little scooters don't have much of a range anyhow, so I'm not really worried. They are more of a neighborhood toy than an actual means of transportation.
Seating Capacity	One, two in a pinch on flat ground. No seat or seat post at the moment but there is one planned.
Curb Weight	60 Pounds (27 Kilograms) Guesstimated
Tires	9"?
Conversion Time	2 months
Conversion Cost	Under $120
Additional Features	Disk brake up front from the factory. Custom adjustable motor mount made by one of my friends, Winston McKee. The battery rack was previously made for a different project and was also welded by Winston. The wiring will be done by me, as will everything else.
Lead acid batteries are usually looked down upon as a necessity in the EV world: Most people use them, not out of choice, but because of the major price difference between lead acid and better types of batteries. Lead acid batteries are plagued with many problems, such as short cycle life under high loads, and the peukert effect, which reduces the avaliable capacity under high loads. The high power requirements of most EV's compared to the amount of space for batteries usually results in the batteries being overtaxed and having a very short life. I, however, hope to somewhat circumvent this problem. By using a physically larger motor with a similar wattage and more batteries, I hope to keep my batteries working at a usable level for at least a year of casual riding. I have been toying with the idea of tapping each battery and making a very large plug with twelve connectors using Anderson Powerpoles. Wiring will be complex on the charging and controller ends, but this would allow me to charge all of the batteries in parallel and discharge them in a parallel/series configuration. Charging the batteries in parallel and not discharging the batteries completely will tremendously help the pack from dying prematurely due to the failure of one battery that brought the whole pack down over time.

code by jerry

2008 Schwinn S-400“S500MX”

2008 Schwinn S-400
“S500MX”