Electric karts by Rob Smedley

[izzy]

k1 speed carts have variation, just went there, but 95% felt like ego preserving butt dyno results. Meaning I was definitely in a slow cart on my slow laps, and my friends were certain I was in a fast one during my fast laps.

Also shunt based current limiting controllers are pretty par for the course in any brushless controller setup with modern batteries. The ebike community(and many ev conversion projects from karts to cars), use something called a cycle analyst to act as throttle manipulator based upon shunt reading and what current you want(and dont want). Dialing back the throttle despite you asking for more(closed loop?). Sure there are phase currents and all sorts of other fun stuff, but I could just as easily tie my throttle to m/s of acceleration and recalibrate each cart as they leave the pits, got a low battery, well everyones acceleration is fixed at x m/s or whatever the fastest cart was benchmarked as it left the pits?

yes once you have an electric motor to manage you can do pretty much anything, this is Rob's point, unlike an ICE. Would it be AC? not sure why but F1 and FE are and then there's an inverter and so much control electronics that a bit more for a feedback loop and whatever management won't make much difference to the cost really. So they can make the powertrains much more equal, just have to stop them being hacked

[theblackangus]

yes once you have an electric motor to manage you can do pretty much anything, this is Rob's point, unlike an ICE. Would it be AC? not sure why but F1 and FE are and then there's an inverter and so much control electronics that a bit more for a feedback loop and whatever management won't make much difference to the cost really. So they can make the powertrains much more equal, just have to stop them being hacked

You know you just made me think of this.....
I would imagine there would be no outdoor wet weather kart racing with electric karts.....

I wonder if that could be made safe?

[izzy]

You know you just made me think of this.....
I would imagine there would be no outdoor wet weather kart racing with electric karts.....

I wonder if that could be made safe?

safety will be a thing won't it, i mean they crash ALL the time, but I bet they're all sealed up

[PhillipM]

You know you just made me think of this.....
I would imagine there would be no outdoor wet weather kart racing with electric karts.....

I wonder if that could be made safe?

Not an issue, there's electric hire karts been doing outdoor wet weather events for years.

[theblackangus]

You know you just made me think of this.....
I would imagine there would be no outdoor wet weather kart racing with electric karts.....

I wonder if that could be made safe?

Not an issue, there's electric hire karts been doing outdoor wet weather events for years.

Cool, the wet weather karting I have done has been some of the most fun. =)

[Andres125sx]

The karts at my local electric place can run for about 10 minutes max.
But it really depends on how fast they are allowed to go and the track layout.
For instance the local karts (indoor) can hit 70 mph if turned all the way up, but they would last about 4-5 min.
At a speed limit of about 40 they last around 7-8 minutes and change be fully charged again in 7-8 minutes. (Not sure on headroom here).
On different track layouts you see longer possible run times because you are doing less start/stop and more high speed running.
There are two groups of karts that alternate running while the other group charges.
Not really sure the battery tech or if there are better batteries at a reasonable cost.

Interesting thanks. Then they´re using pretty good batteries if they can be charged and discharged in 5-7 minutes

[theblackangus]

The karts at my local electric place can run for about 10 minutes max.
But it really depends on how fast they are allowed to go and the track layout.
For instance the local karts (indoor) can hit 70 mph if turned all the way up, but they would last about 4-5 min.
At a speed limit of about 40 they last around 7-8 minutes and change be fully charged again in 7-8 minutes. (Not sure on headroom here).
On different track layouts you see longer possible run times because you are doing less start/stop and more high speed running.
There are two groups of karts that alternate running while the other group charges.
Not really sure the battery tech or if there are better batteries at a reasonable cost.

Interesting thanks. Then they´re using pretty good batteries if they can be charged and discharged in 5-7 minutes

To be clear - The above is just really what I gleaned from their standard usage. I dont know how low and full the battery gets in one cycle. For all I know they could start at 80% run for 7 min and go down to 40%, then charge back to 80%.