On 2014 Smart Electric Scooter

Last month, the German automaker Smart, revealed that their all-new electric scooter would be released in 2014. Despite making the release date public, Smart chose not to clue consumers in on any additional details. That is until now. The company, primarily known for manufacturing microcars, has just specified several characteristics of its upcoming escooter, including its price, range, battery type, construction and tech capabilities.

The 2014 Smart Electric Scooter

Smart’s electric scooter will feature a 48-volt lithium-ion battery pack, which supplies power to a 4-kW electric motor. The scooter’s motor is a wheel-hub unit, located at the rear wheel. As for performance, Smart’s scooter will turn out approximately 5.4-horsepower.

Smart has limited the vehicle’s speed range to 28-mph so individuals without a driver’s license can still operate it. In order to power the vehicle users will have to charge the unit’s lithium-ion battery anywhere from three to five hours. A fully charged Smart electric scooter will be capable of traveling up to 60 miles.

Innovative Features

For those interested in body construction, the new escooter consists of a steel and aluminum frame. The scooter’s solid structure also comes equipped with an airbag, ABS, and Blind Spot Assist. Not commonly found on scooters, Blind Spot Assist features are typically present on luxury automobiles. The vehicle’s breaking is controlled by one lever on the handlebar’s right side, which initiates the front hydraulic disc brake.

e-mobility

As is true with other Smart vehicles, the escooter will be part of the Smart e-mobility program. The e-mobility feature allows owners to integrate their escooter with their smartphone. When engaged, users’ phones can serve as a speedometer, range indicator, charge-point finder and navigation system.

The escooter’s impressive list of standard features and unique construction will set consumers back about $5,000, based on early estimates. For sake of comparison, Vespa’s 2012 line of motor scooters costs anywhere from $3,299 for the 2012 Vespa S 50 4V to $6,999 for the upscale 2012 Vespa GTV 300.

Car2Go

According to Smart, its forthcoming scooter will be part of the Car2go program, which presently operates in numerous North American and European cities. A subsidiary of Daimler AG, Car2go is a pioneering program designed to allow drivers to receive all the benefits of owning a car, without the high costs and annoyances. Car2go members can access a number of different vehicles by simply swiping their membership card near the car, then drive away. When they’re finished, drivers just return the car to its designated parking space.

Smart Scooter Coming To The U.S.
Smart initially unveiled the escooter at the Paris Motor Show in September 2010. Smart also showcased its all-new electric bike at the same 2010 motor show. Like the escooter, Smart’s electric bike averages around 60 miles of range per charge. Winner of the prestigious Red Dot Design Award, the ebike is currently only available overseas, but an updated U.S. version is due out “soon,” according to Smart.

Stay tuned for additional escooter details, including a specific release date. Also look for further information regarding the U.S. release of Smart’s ebike.

2014 Smart eScooter concept electric scooter

source : http://www.allaboutbikes.com/motorcycle-news/industry-news/6951-update-on-2014-smart-electric-scooter

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Stepper Controller

Stepper is an electromechanical device that works on electrical pulses that periodically flows into the motor, then each pulse is converted into motion, that's why it is called a stepper. Stepper motors are discussed is a unipolar stepper motor which has 4 phases and the length step of 1.8 ° per step (phase). The smaller the step length per step of a stepper motor, it is the better.

Stepper motors have many advantages than DC motors. Some of these are: easier to manage and can result in a slow rotation. Therefore, in certain applications more and more people choose to use stepper motors than DC motors.

In order to move the stepper motor can rotate then the pulse is given as shown below

look a video demonstration

To generate a periodic pulse above, there are several ways:

1. Using IC 555 as a pulse generator, and amplifier circuits (solid state switches) because the stepper motor requires a sufficiently large electric currents between 1 to 2 Amp.
2. Using a IC microcontroller that has been programmed to generate pulses at its ports.

Here will be discussed using IC microcontroller AT89S51.

Port 0 uC is connected to the data of stepper motor as shown in the figure below. Between uC and stepper motors are IC ULN2803, this IC will provide the voltage supply data from the uC to a stepper motor because without this IC, output voltage of the uC will not be able to drive a stepper motor stepper motor, although it has given voltage 12V.

Programs generate pulses to drive a stepper motor:

start:
mov a, #1                            ; fill the accumulator with the value 00000001
mov r1,#4

main:
mov P0,a                             ; fill P0 with values ​​in the accumulator
rl a                                       ; rotate left  the accumulator value by one bit.
Call delay                             ; call delay, because rotate process need times
djnz r1,main                          ; decrease the value in register 1, if not zero then jump to the main
sjmp start                              ; if the register 1 is zero then a jump to start, re-fill the values of the accumulator and register 1

delay:
mov r2,#255
dly :
mov r3,#20h
djnz r3,$
djnz r2,dly
ret
end

Code rl  a on the above program is a primary function to generate a periodic pulse that will make the stepper motor rotates.

Port 0     P0.0     P0.1    P0.2       P0.3
Rl a          1           0         0           0
Rl a          0           1         0           0
Rl a          0           0         1           0
Rl a          0           0         0           1

look a video demonstration

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DC Motor Controller

In the previous discussion about dc motor driver with L298 explained that, dc motor can be set by the L298 motor driver. To adjust the movement of the motor automatically needed circuit that combines the IC Microcontroller and L298.

Many types of IC microcontrollers that can be used to perform this work. Here are discussed using AT89S51 as the  IC control. This IC can store data for 4Kbyte. Data entered into the microcontroller is made ​​with a program which is then converted to a file. Hex, this file will be flashed into the  IC control.

The following is a simple motor control circuit.

To flash the program from the PC (Personal Computer) to the IC control needed downloader that is connected to the MISO, MOSI, SCK, RESET, VCC and GND of the IC control.

This is a list of programs to control the dc motor automatically using assembly programming :

Start:

motor_right:                      ; dc motor rotates to the right
mov p1,#00000001b          ; p1.0 = 1  and p1.1 = 0
call delay                          ; call times
mov p1,#0ffh                    ; stop
call delay                          ; call times
motor_left:                        ; dc motor rotates to the left                                                 
mov p1,#00000010b          ; p1.0 = 0 and p1.1 = 1
call delay
mov p1,#0ffh                     ; stop
call delay
sjmp start                           ; jump to start

delay :                                ;times
mov r1, #255

dly:
mov r2,#100
djnz r2, $
djnz r1,dly
ret
end

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DC Motor Driver Using L298

This post has more to do about the microcontroller and its programs.

Here I will discuss how to drive the movement of a dc motor with the input of the microcontroller AT89S52 or ATMega? If we directly connect the microcontroller to the DC motor, the DC motor will not be able to move, it caused the output of the microcontroller has a low current rate of about mA. So, we need another component that can strengthen the output of the microcontroller. L298 is a simple DC motor driver is most appropriate to be used as a solution to this problem, because this IC can pass currents up to 4A and the voltage to 46 volts.

L298 is a dual full-bridge driver, said it's because it has two enable inputs, two pairs of input and two output pairs. We can see in the picture below:

Pins 5 and 7 is the first input pair, pins 2 and 3 are mining output pairs. To activate this section, enable at pin 6 must be logic hight (1), we can do this by programming the microcontroller and then connect it to a DC motor driver. For giving the source voltage to operate DC motors found on pin 4, this  pin can be bypassed with a voltage 46 volts and 4 amperes current. When we input logic 1 and 0 at each pins 5 and 7 then the output is also logic 1 and 0 in each of the pins 2 and 3. Well, by changing the logical substitute for diver then entered into a dc motor movement will also change.

see alse DC motor control, light detection with comparator circuit.

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Adjusted The Servo with IC 555

Servo is a device that is widely used to create a project, which is associated with movement, such as tool motion on the robot, each using a servo joints. Servo motor movement is more subtle than the dc or stepper motor movements.
Most servo has a work rate of 50Hz (20ms) at the point where a pulse between 1 and 2ms is used for command output to drive the servo. We can build a simple circuit to adjust the servo movement can be built using IC 555.

We must be very familiar about this IC, because IC is widely used in applications as an oscillation, wave generator, timer, etc..

By adjusting the potentiometer on the circuit above, a 555 timer IC can generate pulses every 20ms with a duty cycle of between 5% and 10% (1-2ms). This circuit operates at 5-6 V as adjusted by a servo which operates between 5 and 6 V. if it exceeds the rate, this voltage will damage the servo.

This is its the PCB layout.



List of Components :

IC1 = IC 555; C1= 1 uF/16V ; C2 & C4 = 100 nF (ceramic); C3 = 390 nF; P1= 5K; R1= 2,7K; R2 = 68K; D1 = 1N4148.

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