With a solid background in DIY electronics and an entire day to spare, I decided to challenge myself to make yet another electric vehicle.

In DIY, when the budget is tight, sourcing the parts is crucial to the project’s success. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. Shopping Cart, definitely not from a supermarket.
2. Hoverboard: found near a trash bin, fully functional except for the dead battery
3. Battery: a 12S2P Lithium-ion pack, reused from the Crazy Cart
4. Controls: A Logitech Wingman Attack 2 Joystick , bought at a flea store for about 5€

With all this on hands I started restlessly measuring, cutting and testing. The first thing was to unscrew the cart’s wheels and test fit the hoverboard.

Then it was time to do some woodworking with a drill and a jigsaw:

I decided to use 19mm plywood as the connecting element between the motors and the shopping cart. The wheels were placed as close as possible to the cart’s mounting points.

Then I got to the electronics. I wired up the joystick’s potentiometers directly to the main board’s ADC inputs.

I was relentlessly tuning the parameters to get the right control response. While also trying not to die from dehydration in the summer heat 😉

Then I decided it was time for a proper test

I was still nervous about going top speed back when I recorded the video.

Then, things had to get practical for a moment.

I helped my neighbor with the gardening errands 🙂

I have to admit that it is somewhat easy to tip over if you’re not careful with the throttle. Also, the battery lasts around 10km of moderate speed riding. I don’t really mind the danger – as long as nobody else gets harmed it is okay. The only safety feature I would consider is a kill switch. This is in case my “drive-by-wire” contraption starts having a mind of its own.