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Anyone building anything cool?

Natureguy27

Natureguy27

Tourist
Building an Affordable Electric Commuter Vehicle – Looking for Feedback,

I’m working on designing a low-cost electric commuter vehicle aimed at urban use and markets that need practical, affordable transportation. My target price is around $5,000 retail, with all manufacturing handled in-house to keep costs down.

Here are the main specs and ideas:

Purpose:
Short-range commuter vehicle for daily transportation.

Top Speed:
35–40 mph (potential to upgrade to ~75 mph in future versions).

Range:
40–60 miles per charge.

Chassis:

Steel tubing frame.
  • Inner chassis mounted to the outer chassis on springs to help absorb impacts.
  • Simple, rugged construction for ease of repair and low production costs.

Powertrain:
  • 2–4 brushless hub motors or direct-drive motors.
  • Modular battery pack (around 5–8 kWh).
  • Option for a small onboard generator to extend range.
  • Potential for basic solar charging later.

Controls:
  • Race car–style steering wheel.
  • Right side twist throttle (with an optional lock so you don’t have to hold it).
  • Left side twist or pull brake (mechanical or hydraulic).

Safety:
  • Foam fill inside the cabin in case of severe collisions.
  • Spring-mounted inner frame to reduce crash forces.

Other Features:
  • Small air conditioning system.
  • Modular trailers to carry extra passengers or cargo.
  • Intercom to communicate with trailer passengers.
I’m interested in any feedback on:
  • Best motors and controllers in this power range.
  • Affordable battery options with decent cycle life.
  • Ideas for implementing the foam safety system.
  • Input on the chassis design or examples to study.
  • Thoughts on integrating basic solar charging.
  • General opinions on feasibility and cost.
 
Last edited:
I was working on putting together a semi auto vz61 machine pistol, but I fucked myself by not spending a bit more on a barrel and overlooking some flaws. I mostly scrutinized the parts kit, but not the modern manufacture barrel. Serves me right. This is my first parts kit though, I'd only built AR's and 10/22's to this point.

First my barrel was slightly UNDERSIZED, and all of my worrying was about it being OVERSIZED. I had access to pretty wild equipment to shrink/friction fit an oversized barrel, but I hadn't even considered the opposite. I ended up doing poor man's knurling around the barrel with an automatic center punch and got it to press fit tightly again, and the channel cut in the barrel for the cross pin was undersized and rough so I just obliterated the pin in there. It's never coming apart unless I use a press, which is awesome even though it looks mildly jank.

Then I got it together enough to cycle rounds by hand, and as I feared, the barrel is rough as fuck. The feed ramp angles are too sharp which I think is hanging rounds up as they feed, but the major thing is the barrel chamber mouth has wild burrs on it that are literally grabbing and gouging cartridge cases as they go in. I think I can fix it if I can get a rotary tool in there with enough room to work, but it's pretty tight and I'd really prefer not to take it apart again. Luckily this is 32 acp and the barrel has excellent cartridge support so I think I could go so far as to actually scoop out a small bit of the chamber mouth and not have to worry about case head separation. It does feed sometimes which tells me I'm not far off, because if it manages to feed sometimes with as visibly bad as it is, I strongly suspect if I can smooth it it will be fine. And then the receiver is rough in spots. I knew that was a risk going in, but the one I bought has specific features on it I wanted so I took the risk. I think the receiver issues will be overcome pretty easily honestly, I'm least worried about those.

It's both fun and not fun, if that makes sense. Some part of me wants to be shooting it, and some part of me wants to just fuck with it.

Can't speak to your specific thing, that's out of my wheelhouse. Sounds fun to mess with though.
 
I'm currently building myself two musical instruments, but I unfortunately can't say what they are or post them because of how unique they are. It'd be very easy to trace back to me lol TwT.
But it is something cool I'm making!
 
Not sure what you consider cool, but I am fabricating a waste oil boiler, but atm I am tuning up an Old Onan BFA power plant and putting it in a dog house I made from old pallets.

down the road I'll be doing the same as you, making a 20km range EV to get from new farm property to the nearest road n back
 
BrotatoChip said:
I was working on putting together a semi auto vz61 machine pistol, but I fucked myself by not spending a bit more on a barrel and overlooking some flaws. I mostly scrutinized the parts kit, but not the modern manufacture barrel. Serves me right. This is my first parts kit though, I'd only built AR's and 10/22's to this point.

First my barrel was slightly UNDERSIZED, and all of my worrying was about it being OVERSIZED. I had access to pretty wild equipment to shrink/friction fit an oversized barrel, but I hadn't even considered the opposite. I ended up doing poor man's knurling around the barrel with an automatic center punch and got it to press fit tightly again, and the channel cut in the barrel for the cross pin was undersized and rough so I just obliterated the pin in there. It's never coming apart unless I use a press, which is awesome even though it looks mildly jank.

Then I got it together enough to cycle rounds by hand, and as I feared, the barrel is rough as fuck. The feed ramp angles are too sharp which I think is hanging rounds up as they feed, but the major thing is the barrel chamber mouth has wild burrs on it that are literally grabbing and gouging cartridge cases as they go in. I think I can fix it if I can get a rotary tool in there with enough room to work, but it's pretty tight and I'd really prefer not to take it apart again. Luckily this is 32 acp and the barrel has excellent cartridge support so I think I could go so far as to actually scoop out a small bit of the chamber mouth and not have to worry about case head separation. It does feed sometimes which tells me I'm not far off, because if it manages to feed sometimes with as visibly bad as it is, I strongly suspect if I can smooth it it will be fine. And then the receiver is rough in spots. I knew that was a risk going in, but the one I bought has specific features on it I wanted so I took the risk. I think the receiver issues will be overcome pretty easily honestly, I'm least worried about those.

It's both fun and not fun, if that makes sense. Some part of me wants to be shooting it, and some part of me wants to just fuck with it.

Can't speak to your specific thing, that's out of my wheelhouse. Sounds fun to mess with though.
Click to expand...
Polish with fine valve grinding compound using a cotton sting braided to match the size of the round, works great for smoothing rounded parts. Tedious but very effective.
 
offgridk9lover2 said:
Polish with fine valve grinding compound using a cotton sting braided to match the size of the round, works great for smoothing rounded parts. Tedious but very effective.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I'm roughly going down this path. One thing that's tough is the chamber face has a bunch of like, geometry clustered all around the area I need to focus on. That is going to make it hard to work without fucking with all of that. I honestly don't think it's going to matter because they won't be negatively impacted by material removal anyways, but yeah. Lucky for me this is straight blowback so I didn't have to worry about fucking up lockup or anything.

I think I know how to do it, it's mostly that I'm going to be too impatient and I'm going to grind everything into oblivion lol. In stuff I work on for myself I tend to keep downgrading precision of tools until I end up at like, a chainsaw or hammer lol. 😂
 
Natureguy27 said:
Building an Affordable Electric Commuter Vehicle – Looking for Feedback,

I’m working on designing a low-cost electric commuter vehicle aimed at urban use and markets that need practical, affordable transportation. My target price is around $5,000 retail, with all manufacturing handled in-house to keep costs down.

Here are the main specs and ideas:

Purpose:
Short-range commuter vehicle for daily transportation.

Top Speed:
35–40 mph (potential to upgrade to ~75 mph in future versions).

Range:
40–60 miles per charge.

Chassis:

Steel tubing frame.
  • Inner chassis mounted to the outer chassis on springs to help absorb impacts.
  • Simple, rugged construction for ease of repair and low production costs.

Powertrain:
  • 2–4 brushless hub motors or direct-drive motors.
  • Modular battery pack (around 5–8 kWh).
  • Option for a small onboard generator to extend range.
  • Potential for basic solar charging later.

Controls:
  • Race car–style steering wheel.
  • Right side twist throttle (with an optional lock so you don’t have to hold it).
  • Left side twist or pull brake (mechanical or hydraulic).

Safety:
  • Foam fill inside the cabin in case of severe collisions.
  • Spring-mounted inner frame to reduce crash forces.

Other Features:
  • Small air conditioning system.
  • Modular trailers to carry extra passengers or cargo.
  • Intercom to communicate with trailer passengers.
I’m interested in any feedback on:
  • Best motors and controllers in this power range.
  • Affordable battery options with decent cycle life.
  • Ideas for implementing the foam safety system.
  • Input on the chassis design or examples to study.
  • Thoughts on integrating basic solar charging.
  • General opinions on feasibility and cost.
Click to expand...
Sounds awesome I love this kind of stuff. Depending on the space you have, lifepo4 batteries might work they have a long life expectancy and pretty stable voltage. However they are a little expensive and big. The 18650s or 21700 batteries would be the next option. You could source some old ev packs or build your own.

I really like the QS motors, they have some good mid drive and hub motors and they are usually pretty reasonable.

Ive heard a lot of good things about Kelly controllers but I also like fardrivers. I have an atv I converted to electric with a qs165 motor, a fardriver ND72680 controller and currently a 60v 20ah battery. Its a lot of fun.

Im definitely not an expert but I have done a little bit of playing around with stuff.
 
Also, man, I just listened to both the OG and cover of Pistol Grip Pump for a long while and I want to take a hacksaw to one of my shotguns ASAP. The songs made an excellent case for having a sawed off shotgun on my lap, at all times. I am convinced.

That should be a project I can "build" in the span of a few minutes which should satisfy my need for instant gratification, as well as my need for firearm adornment of the lap.
 
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