Super Cheap DIY Motor Mount (Car Battery Clamps)

Just found an easy and affordable way to quickly make a pretty good motor mount.

car battery terminal clamps!

these fit very well onto trucks up to 16,5mm and clamp super hard. with two of these you can make a very strong and adaptable mount to fix a metal plate to that holds the motor. because they are round clamps you can easily alter the tilt before clamping them together.

I don’t have metal plate on hand, so I made rough test fitting with some scrapwood.

I’m making a mounting plate for the motor atm but even with the wood it looked very promising.

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that’s super clever!

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Aren’t those battery clamps soft? They have to deform around battery terminals to get increase surface area connection to the battery posts.

I think they are aluminum… they are not particularly soft. I think its more the terminals themself that are a softer material and can deform. the part where the wire is supposed to go is obviously a week spot. I would recommend to screw the second plate that clamps the cable on there too, for added support (my screws weren’t long enough). but its pretty sturdy as is.

Pretty ingenious.

A concern though - If that motor mount is also made of wood (hard to tell, but looks it) - i would be really really careful about speed… Having it fail at 5-10mph - no biggie, but failing over 10-15mph and you could really get hurt. If it fails it’s likely going to be catastrophic - with metal links and possibly lock up or hit the truck to change your direction - all bad things.

Kudos for the mount, but i’d at least upgrade the motor mount to something more sturdy if you plan to ride at any speed. Good gear and ride speeds within your skill level.

GL!

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the wood is just a mockup to check the dimensions :slight_smile: I’ll test ride it with mounting plate made from 3d printed PETG, which should be plenty strong, and upgrade to aluminum or steel if the mount proves to be working.

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Best Macgyver Award :1st_place_medal:

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This thread might be of help if you’re looking for tips on what you can/can’t 3D print, and with what materials :wink:

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I’ll give you an A+ for resourcefulness

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By now I have replaced the wood with aluminum and used some epoxy as “loctite” to make sure the clamps don’t move. Did a 7km test drive and everything seems very sturdy. The only downside I see is that 2 clamps next to each other take up a lot of space on the truck. Its a very tight fit with the chain atm.

and here is the half assembled board I built with it (its actually finished now)

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It looks like there might be battery terminals of different sizes.

I have some trucks with cylindrical hangers but they are about 20mm in diameter. Maybe clamps for the “large” size terminal would work for me.

Is your mount still holding up well?

maybe… for mine, the 17mm of my trucks were pretty much the maximum they could fit on. but I didn’t realize the negative and positive clamps are different sizes. I had several pairs and just used the ones that fit.

its still holding up fine. I tried to braze mine onto the wheels for extra support but that didn’t work… they kind of melted before the braze would stick (I had several pairs so I just replaced them). I would guess that means mine were some kind of zinc alloy. I bought the cheapest ones from china. I know that some are made from aluminum, which should be even stronger, butso far even my cheapo ones still hold.

Guys do not try this! I did used all aluminum battery clamp and it failed, luckily with no consequences for components ! If you want a cheap clamp do it yourself with 3€ of aluminum and a drill press like the one i show you here :slight_smile:

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