toylander type thing

[pablopancake]

hello!

My wife gave birth to an amazing (but noisy and hungry!) baby boy on the 27th april, we didn't know what flavour we were having, so i was extra delighted when we discovered it was a boy who might share my love of the outdoors and all things rusty and oily when he grows up a bit 8)

i figure i have about 2 years to build him a ride on landrover, but i want to make it switchable 4 wheel drive with hi/lo ratios, and suspension. I don't really fancy getting the toylander plans, i'd rather try to make something special from scratch that does a little more if i can.

the most compact/direct route i could think of was to butcher 4 of your run of the mill 2 speed battery drills, remove the motor and gearbox from the plastic body, remove the chuck and mount one at each corner on an axle, meaning the front can be driven and steered due to the compact set up.

each corner has it own battery pack, retaining the drills quick change clip system, 2 in the front, 2 in the back

fwd / rev would be switchable from the dash, power could be cut to frnt or rear via the dash, hi/lo could be switched manually on each wheel or possible done via cables from the cab if there was enough material on the gearbox switch to facilitate (unlikely)

the motors should brake themselves, otherwise a push bike cable operated disc and caliper could be rigged on the back.

It’ll have to be a box section metal chassis to accommodate axles and suspension etc, and keeping the body weight down will be a challenge, so more alloy panels and less MDF!

i need some help with the maths part of it please folks, as in working out speeds from drill rpms and wheel sizes / battery life etc, they certainly feel like they have the grunt to propel something, especially if one drill can shift these cgi.ebay.co.uk/PLANS-BUILD-AMAZING-SWING-BIN-RACER-SEE-VIDEO-/110672022916

I need to rig up a test bed using my own 18v drills, some ply and lots of zip ties to see what kind of weight they can pull, i was looking at using 24v drills from argos at 30 quid each
24V
Variable speed 0-350rpm / 0-1100rpm.
13mm keyless chuck.
1hr charging time.
Can’t find the mah on the battery but looking at others, it’s probably 1200mah

Wheels - tyre size 2.50-4. Welded flange hubs with 2 x 16mm ball races. Hub width 38mm. Tyre diameter 208mm/ 8 inch, width 54mm

what do you think? Barking up the wrong tree?

cheers

pabs

[AtomicRooster]

Sounds great! i know he'll love it.

Could you not get a scrap mobility scooter?

could utilise the motor, brakes, electrics chassis etc then.

[mike32]

I'd go with the mobility scooter, the one in my garage will go 12 miles @ 4mph carrying a 20 stone bloke - well it would with new batteries. increase the wheel size and there should be plenty of power to do 10mph.

if my rusty maths is good then the drill motor gearbox would drive the wheels directly at about 8.5mph on low speed and 25ish on high speed, which would be awesome but I doubt they've got the torque to turn them so you'd have to gear them down, making each corner bulkier and more complicated.

Electric wheelchair motors might do the job, or if you can find a scrap quad or garden tractor to rob bits from?

[lewist123]

Sounds like an epic plan of fantastic ambition. I think that you might need to be able to make the front drills go into neutral (if possible) to that you are not having to turn over the motors and gear boxes.

The drills should be well able to provide a brake function. This is typically done by shorting the +ve and -ve of the drill motor (not batteries obviously). The back EMF from the motors makes an electro magnetic braking system.

If you keep the weight down I think four 18volt drills should be able to get it moving along at a reasonable speed (for a 2 - 4 year old kid anyway). Then you can go petrol power with 4x strimmers

[pablopancake]

cheers for the replies. I've been looking at toylanders and they are a bit big, hopefully i can produce a smaller 4wd version, then try and fathom a muuch more powerful 4x4 of larger proportions.

checking out the toylanders, some people pay incredible attention to detail, so much so that the kids must be scared to sctratch them (there's one for sale on ebay at the moment for 2800 quids).

I'd like to go down the rough and ready route, and make something that is capable of a little bit more.

cheers for the heads up on the 2wd issue, you're right, full time 4x4 it is 8))

can anyone help on the math regarding drill rpms to speed?

peace

p

[tarmacadam]

chap i work with built a toy lander its ace lol keep us updated and plenty pics good luck

[quadra]

I built a toylander 4 years ago for my two boys, and they love it.





First thing to consider is safety. At 3 years they have no road sense and very little spatial reasoning (just like the wife ). 4mph is the legal limit for driving on the pavement, so you need to think very closely about final gearing. The torque of the motor is most important, too little torque will result in a machine that won't go up hills very well.

If I was to do it again i would look for a mobility scooter and go from there. The rear axles on some scooters include a small diff, and that would be excellent if trying to drive all four wheels.

Our toylander weighs about 100kgs does 4 mph uphill with me and my two boys on board, it is driven by two 370w golf buggy motors (which were £50 off ebay) it runs a 24v battery system via a 4QD speed controller and some other electronic trickery to keep the speed in check.

The key to building these kiddie cars is planning, and making sure you get the gearing right for the motors and the size of wheels you have.

Congratulations on the baby, and good luck.

[mike32]

OOOF!

That is lovely, where did you get the wheels? I'm looking for something similar for the one I'm building.

I say building but I've had a mobility scooter ready to be stripped down for 6 months now, like Pabs I started planning mine just after the birth of my eldest - she's 4 in a couple of weeks

[AtomicRooster]

That one is brilliant!

I love how it has a sound system, dials, proper pedals and fat wheels.

I approve very much.

[quadra]

Thanks, the sense of achievement once finished is fab. The wheels are off a Suzuki LT50 quad, the stereo was stuff I had in the loft from when I was a boy racer many years ago.

Quick vid

[vitamingrin]

so cool,nice job

[pablopancake]

that is incredible! hat off to you quadra!

after some chats and searches, the drill motors are out, seemed a reletively straightforward starting point at the time!

i think i'll modify some plastic curse word to make it look cool for his first powered transport, the more toylanders i see the more i want one.

I'm currently mulling over how to build a leaf sprung 4 x 4 one, can't find anything online where anyones driven the front.....

i'm thinking about a matched pair of scooter axles, the front being mounted in some kind of axle frame, with some kind of universal joint / hub set up for steering........

[messenjah]

some smaller proper go carts use 30mm axles which are the same diameter as mk2 golf driveshafts so with some machining you could get two cv joints for the front if they were connected together and driven together you could have understeer issues but at these low speeds i cant see it being that much of an issue .. using these diameter axles theres plenty of stuff of the shelf in terms of disc brake mounts sprocket mounts etc

[pablopancake]

right, scored a scoot off the bay of doom for 30 odd quid, should be fetching it next week.

re the 4 x 4 set up, i'm wondering if a scoot rear axle, arranged in ye traditional toylander style, paired with 2 wheelchair motors and gearboxes, would be a good solution.

If the wheelchair motors/boxes were arranged like fwd car front struts, with a pivot on the top and bottom, some some kind of tie bar arrangement, the only tricky bit would be sorting the wheel offset.

...... would just have to match the speed between front and rear using some elektrickery



what do you think?

[mike32]

That could work, bonnet/wings would be a bit high though - -maybe the 1st class 1 toylander
Speed should be easy, the original toylanders only use 1 wheel drive, if using 2 wheelchair motors connecting them in series gives a differential effect. Can't see why if you get a speed controller with the capacity that it wouldn't work for 3 motors.

[pablopancake]

when you look at the motors next to wheels, it doesn't look so bad......toylander use 15" diameter wheels...



....worst case, it has some lift going on. I questioned the need to balance the speed, because at present I have no idea what the gearing is like on the scoot or whatever wheelchair motors I can grab, if they are different, the only way to bring them in line would be to reduce the power to the faster end

as you can see, dc electrics above stereos and bulbs is not my thing

[mike32]

Plenty of sprockets and chain on www.technobotsonline.com so you could gear the back end up or down a bit if needed.

Or, if you end up using a scooter controller for the rear and a wheelchair controller for the front, some sort of balance bar arrangement on the throttle pedal could be used to balance power front to rear - also most scooters have a variable speed pot to limit max speed which could help.

[pablopancake]

scooter should be here by weds for tinkering and thinkering

plans on the way

some awesome wheels on the way, set of quad rims al la quadra's machine, but also some incredibly perfect looking ex mod trailer wheels

[pablopancake]

scooter has arrived, spanking new batts although it is a bit old, as in 1995 according to the sales receipt with it, £1500 back in the day!!

still, propels me up the garden well enough, as long as i don't screw the gearing up, will be ample for a kiddie

[carina]

quadra, your built is amazing
those things are very important for kids. I know I had one, when I was kid. Dad built it. It was for one person only "passenger" car, red of course, independent double A-arms suspension front, fork type rear end, rack and pinion steering and engine from chainsaw. It was very quick, about 30mph. Luckily I´m alive, but that is how flying finns are made ;D I´ll try to find pics...

Thumbs up for a toylander built.