
As some of you know – but most don’t – I’m motorizing a Grand Piano. Building a sturdy chassis is no problem, but the type of power is still to be determined.
I’ve read enough here to know that a gasoline engine will serve much better than electric batteries. So I should be looking for a motorcycle engine.
But I happen to have an electric golf cart motor-and-axle assembly. And I have two Honda EU-series generators to choose from – a 1000 and a 3000. So I’m thinking hybrid drivetrain, like a railroad locomotive. After all, I could use an EU on there anyway, for lights, and my fog machine.
The electric motor is a series-type DC motor marked for 36 Volts.
The golf cart was probably designed for a top speed of something like 15 MPH, so I expect to install a 3:1 chain reduction at the wheels.
I have no motor-controller. I’m thinking I can build a crude electro-mechanical one with a bunch of (trusty old multi-purpose!) Ford starter relays.
I do have a charger that will turn 110 V AC into 36 V DC, and I have several 12 V deep cycle batteries. So I could run Honda-charger-batteries-motor – plus a controller arrangement in there somehow.
But what about eliminating the charger and the batteries? I’ve read up a bit on electric motors, and I see that a SERIES DC motor will also run just fine on AC. I even understand how that works. The question is the voltage.
Since I need to come up with some sort of controller anyway… could I simply use a big variable resistance to “throttleâ€