homemade delta trike

This is my first homemade delta trike. It is based on an Atomic Zombie plan and has 3 20" wheels. The front wheel is a 48 spoke BMX wheel, no brake and the the rear's are 20" with the rims laced onto steel disc's each welded to a 5/8" steel axle. Each rear wheel has disc brakes and the rear sub section has a single shock. The frame is 1 1/2" steel tubing, the supplier only had 1/8" wall, somewhat heavy but since the roads here are less than stellar I thought the durability would be a benefit.
I am into e bikes and the trike has a Bafang BBS02 mid drive motor mounted on it. It has underseat steering and the seat is also homemade using mesh to allow it to breathe. The battery for the motor is what's called a Dorado style, it's 48 volt 14.5 amp hours. The longest ride taken was 100 km's or about 60 miles and there was still a bit left in the battery. I always pedal the trike to increase range and for the exercise. It's been running for 3 summers now and at a guess has somewhere north of 4,000 km's. Mileage is a bit low but I do have a couple other bikes/trikes to ride as well. The picture was taken 2 years ago at a location called the forks in Winnipeg in front of a Japanese bicycle sculpture. The sculpture was supposed to be moved to another city but covid has delayed that.

 

It's pretty flat here, only small hills. And yes it's very stable. Here's a picture of a fat tire delta built as an experiment. I had some cheap fat bike parts and wanted to try an enclosed delta. It was fun, also had a Bafang BBS02 and I pedaled it for about a year. Turned out even though it did not have a floor it was way to hot even though it got most of it's use in cold weather. One thing it did excel in though was outstanding rain protection plus it had fairly good storage room behind the seat.

 

The fat tire blue one was stripped and went through a major conversion to test a different concept I wanted to try. It had the rear fat bike triangles removed and regular bike tires and rims installed. The BBS02 was removed and instead it was turned into a 2wd delta. Not in the usual sense with some type of differential, this version has the pedal power routed to the left rear via a jackshaft. The right rear was a geared hub motor only operated by a 12 magnet PAS attached to the crank. The first style got a blue coro roof and a windscreen. The drivetrain worked well, no jerkiness at all and good traction. The motor provided lot's of pep. One problem surprisingly was the amount of wind buffeting coming around the sides of the windshield. It was mainly to prove the 2wd concept to myself though. The geared hub has been removed for yet another project and a direct drive Magic Pie motor is now in it's place. The roof in the next picture was removeable with 4 bolts and the whole trike is now on a stand in my garage getting some 1/2" EMT's welded to the frame to act as mounts for another coro body. This one will be yellow and will be someone remanisen of a Mochet pedal car. No pictures of it till it goes a little further along in the rebuild. It's taking some time, this winter has been very cold and snowy, I've got 4' snowbanks in my yard. The garage has heat but I weld with a Flux core machine, it's smoky so I limit the welding time and open the man door often to flush out the fumes.

 

A.D. your comment about seat height and being tippy was right on the money. I did tip the last version, the one with the roof and open sides over once. On a paved trail along a river. It was a bit off camber to start with and when I rounded a corner there were a group of older guys standing around chatting so I just turned onto the grass downslope to go around. Next thing the trike and I are lying on our side. They helped me get back on my wheels and I call it a lesson learned. The takeaway from that was when i finish the latest and I hope final version it will be a casual cruiser not meant for fast cornering. The picture today shows the progress so far with the EMT frame for the coro panels.

 

Thanks for sharing your builds. Very interesting.

 

I would call the first picture a limo...

 

Well I,ve more or less finished my latest delta trike. This one puts pedal power to the left rear wheel via a jackshaft and runs a direct drive hub motor on the right rear. No chain to the hub motor, it runs off a PAS on the cranks also has a throttle.It's a cruiser, not made for fast corners but it is very comfortable and I've been testing it around home to locate and fix any issues before longer rides. So far after 100km's or 60 miles roughly no problems.

It has an expanded metal mesh front and rear because I want ventilation and it works.

 

It's a beauty!

 

That windscreen is supercute
How heavy is whole thing? How's ride? Feed me with details, I have no XP with delta...

 

Tri seeker I have not weighed it but a good guess with both 17.5 AH batteries in the rear would be somewhere in the 70 lb range. It rides very well, it's extremely stable requiring only one hand on the steering needed. Delta's usually can do a tighter turn than a Tadpole trike. So far I have built one tadpole and 3 delta trikes. One delta has 20" wheels all around and is just as stable as any tadpole. The delta with the yellow body is designed for a different use, more of a relaxed trike for cruising around town. It has a slightly higher seating position and ample ground clearance. The ground clearance means it can be ridden over a curb without anything scraping. Curbs here are 7 inches high. No fast corners and avoiding off camber sidehills prevents tip overs. At the current time it is having a partial roof being designed for it. Thats because we are having the rainiest month in over 100 years and I want to be able to ride it in the rain without putting on extra rain clothes. When that's done another picture will be posted.

 

Keep up the good work; cool projects!