How We Made a Laser Cut Electric Motorcycle Capable of 70mph+
My name is Matt and today I’m going to show you how I designed and built an electric motorcycle using laser cut steel. [Music] [Applause] Over the past 2 or 3 years, we’ve been experimenting with a method that uses tap and slot to build an entire frame. The only tube on the entire bike is the head tube. And to do this, we had to face a lot of challenges. [Music] This is one of the full laser cut pieces. As you can see, there are a bunch of slots that are cut out of it and a bunch of holes that we’re going to use to put the bolts through. So, I’m going to lay this on the table and we’re going to begin building. All right. So, I have a whole series of bolts that are an exact length. These bolts are pretty expensive. Um, I mean they’re not crazy, but they’re about $3 each. And when you have a whole bike, you know, that adds up to 20, 30 bucks. And when we are doing multiple frames at a time, you’re talking a few hundred in bolts just to put these together. So, when we spec these out, we made sure that they were reusable. These are not coated. They’re just kind of like raw steel bolts. And so, when we go through the welding process, we don’t have to worry about gases and stuff like that. Um, you know, we just use them, take them out, reuse them, and we probably get, I don’t know, maybe 10 uses out of them before they just get totally killed. And every bike is going to be a little different to do this for. Um, but, you know, it is not exactly the easiest thing to do because everything is kind of moving on you. Um, so you kind of have to find a rhythm. One interesting trick that we use is we put a really thick piece of cardboard down and that allows the heads of the bolts to stick through and not make it so that the frame is like moving all over the place. Okay, now I have all of my unique pieces. In total, there’s probably like eight different pieces. Um, and some of them are used for multiple different things. Um, and on those multiple different things, not every hole is used. So this particular panel, this is one of the larger cutffs. On a couple pieces on the frame, I will put rib nuts in all the holes. And in other places on the frame, I don’t fill any of those holes. But it was more economical for us to just put the holes in every panel rather than making like two or three different versions of this. Also, what you’ll notice is I have designed these panels in a way so that I can get my riv nut gun through here and it’s easy to do because on this one, for example, the riv nuts don’t go this way, they go that way. And so, because these are organized in this staggered pattern, I can get my rivnut gun through here and and get to that piece. So, these are all things that we have had to learn after, you know, trying seven or eight different prototypes over the past couple years. This lower section here is where the uh the swing arm mounts and it is/4in steel. So, this whole lower section is like super reinforced. [Music] So, you can see a closeup of how all of these bolts go through the frame and the slots are filled by the tabs of those crossmembers. It’s a really, really simple and it ensures that everything is going to line up perfectly and you don’t need a jig. Okay, I have a full frame ready to go. So, all my bolts are in place. I’ve checked all my tabs. I’ve made sure that they are sticking through the frame evenly. There’s no gaps. And all I got to do is weld on these lines. [Music] Once that’s all done, it’s brought over to powder coating, finished up, and then brought back to the facility where we begin processing. Our next steps are going to be reaming the head tubes. Uh, this just cleans up the paint and the welds on the inside for the bearings. Um, and then we’ll follow that up by putting in the riv nuts. [Music] The rib nuts are used to install all the body panels. From there, it’s just going to follow the normal assembly. So, we’re going to install all the bearings, all the electrical work, and all the panels. [Music] By the way, one thing you’ll notice is there’s a few different bikes in this video, and it’s just because I took videos during the production of different bikes. [Music] [Applause] [Music] By the way, while all this is going on, the team is on the other side doing all of the soldering. [Music] And once all that’s done, let’s take a look at a completed bike. [Music] All right. So, let’s take a look at this one. This is one of the first ones that we have done since the uh the new generation of the Javelin. It has been a lot of work to get the bike uh to get to this cosmetic standard. You know, we’re dealing with laser cut parts. We’re not dealing with, you know, hydroform things and plastic pieces that we mold. So, we got to figure out how can we make these things cosmetically interesting and still be able to be made out of laser cut pieces. One thing I want to just encourage you to see are the number of lines going in this kind of direction that all line up. This was something really fun that we tried to do. And you can see it when you look at the shock, when you look at the rear part of the swing arm, all these cosmetic panels, the intakes, everything. It all lines up and gives us really forward facing motion on the bike. This is a um an illusion red series from Prismatic. Um it looks awesome. And one thing that’s kind of cool is that black panel is not vinyl coated. That panel is powdercoated, right? So um we’re able to powder coat these panels now. And that’s going to be part of that classic series, that stock version of the Javelin where you’re going to be able to pick out different cosmetic panels and put them on after the uh time of purchase, but that is powder coated, not vinyl. Um, all the aluminum pieces also are treated, so they may look like just, you know, raw aluminum, but they are not. They all have clear coating over the top of them, and that’s going to help prevent uh corrosion and all sorts of wear on there. Um, so even though it looks like raw metal. Yep. A little bit of an improvement there. Kind of cool. Looking at the control center in here, you’re going to see those intakes, right? So on the right and left of the head tube, when I look straight down, this this is kind of your view as you’re on the bike. I think it’s so cool, guys. We really, really studied anime series, you know, things like Gundam and, you know, studied airplanes. I was looking at a lot of different fighter jets and things like that to try to get inspiration. But what’s cool about this is if you take off those two screws that hold on the new badge, which yes, by the way, you’re going to notice the font is different on Spark now and that badge is a little different. You take those two screws off, all the cabling is flowing in through the front and it goes in through a series of holes that you can’t even see. Um, and it’s all protected by those things. Turn that to the side and try to do this onehanded. It’s a little difficult. pops open. Our stainless steel battery is in there running a 120 amp BMS. Uh, and new cover plate right here. Looks really super clean. All the electronics are under here. So, this is where your controller is. Um, your horn, all the lighting, everything. So, you just take those screws out, that comes off, and you can get whole access to it. I think we’re getting there. We’re a little fivep person team and for us to be able to achieve something like this, I couldn’t be more proud of how the how the team is doing this. You know, we’re not a 500 person operation. We don’t have a, you know, $20 million budget here. We’re doing this on a razor thin budget and uh trying to make this dream happen. So, that’s that. Let’s uh take a quick ride and see what it’s like. I’m not going to go too crazy, right? Cuz I’m always riding one-handed. I’m filming all this stuff on my phone, guys. It’s crazy. But let’s see how smooth this is. Amazing. All right. So, I hope you liked it. If you’re interested in a Javelin, you can buy one. It’s just a base bike. Is about $4,500. Uh it’s using a 10,000 watt peak loader, 5,000 watt nominal. It’s an absolute beast of a bike and uh you know we think it’s a great option for somebody that is interested in getting into motorcycles um and just wants to take that first step. So that’s just a little overview of how we build these bikes. Um you’ll notice that we are now offering a mini version of the bike that’s going to be coming, you know, the winner. And uh if you have any questions on how we do this stuff, you can leave us a comment. You can also send us an email which is [email protected]. But, uh, we’re super grateful to be able to have the chance to build these things in the United States and, uh, anxious to see where we send these around the country. [Music]
The Javelin is made out of laser cut steel using a tab and slot system. Learn how Spark makes these bike and why they are so special.
We’ve been working on this system since about 2020. After countless prototypes, we feel like we have figured it out. Maybe you can use these lessons in your builds.
Want to buy a Javelin? Check out https://www.sparkcycleworks.com
