In the spate of email correspondence with Steve clarifying what remains to be done I mentioned the fact that I have just been accepted for exhibiting at the Brighton Mini Maker Fair at the corn exchange on the 7th of September and they have asked me to exhibit the EV, MENTAL!
On the other hand this imposes a deadline for completion of the EV of the 7th of September, Steve recons that when he is back it should not take more than 4 days to complete the battery build (the copper buss-bars take most of that time) and another week to complete the car! A WEEK!
I am stunned, I thought there was a lot more to do I terms of electrical/electronic wiring but Steve recons as he put it “The worst parts are done really, from now on it’s like making an electric drill with a big battery”
However as I remember here are the remaining bits to do:-
Fit batteries into boxes & wire them up.
Fit wired boxes into car.
Fit Soliton Jr into car.
Fit (hopefully complete) charger into car.
Wire them all together and to the motor, with some big ass welders cable.
Wire up all the low voltage stuff, Soliton Jr to BMS to charger, etc.
Fit Vacuum pump for brakes.
Fit a small 12V “leisure” battery to support all the in car electronics, windows radio, vacuum pump for brakes, etc.
Get the EV MOT’ed.
Wish/Dream list
Get the whole outside of the car re-sprayed probably in gloss black or metallic black.
Get a funky wrap livery slapped on the side something like “Electro Beat” in fat electric blue lightning font.
Pimp, Pimp,Pimp that car, lighter alloys, hard top, gull wings Dream Dream Dreeeaam!
Get it to a race track and burn some (lots of) rubber ;-)
Thursday, 11 July 2013
Batt boxes marked and locking brackets fitted
Brent gave the battery boxes back to my partner today (Friday 28th) with markings for where he wanted the brackets (90 degree angle Iron Ali) TIG welded in place and in the same day she had them delivered back to David @ Sussex Iron works for welding.
By Wednesday 3rd July we had the boxes back to Brent with brackets fitted, unfortunately not in time to see that Brent had jumped on a plane for his summer holiday! Bummer.
So once again I take stock and carry on with the charger build.
Sent several emails to Steve updating him on progress and found out that Steve also goes on his holiday the week Brent comes back! And he won’t be back until the beginning of August typical, Oh well I suppose it will give me more time to complete the charger build, Just wiring, bolting everything to the massive heat sink, fitting it all in the Ali box & testing (which I can’t do without the batteries fitted) sounds like a lot of work when I write it down, better get busy as I have been enjoying the rare sunshine/heat wave we are currently experiencing here in the UK and the charger build has slipped slightly, I have however been ordering/sourcing bits to finish it off with.
By Wednesday 3rd July we had the boxes back to Brent with brackets fitted, unfortunately not in time to see that Brent had jumped on a plane for his summer holiday! Bummer.
So once again I take stock and carry on with the charger build.
Sent several emails to Steve updating him on progress and found out that Steve also goes on his holiday the week Brent comes back! And he won’t be back until the beginning of August typical, Oh well I suppose it will give me more time to complete the charger build, Just wiring, bolting everything to the massive heat sink, fitting it all in the Ali box & testing (which I can’t do without the batteries fitted) sounds like a lot of work when I write it down, better get busy as I have been enjoying the rare sunshine/heat wave we are currently experiencing here in the UK and the charger build has slipped slightly, I have however been ordering/sourcing bits to finish it off with.
Batt box steel frame complete
On Thursday 27th Brent completed the battery box steel frame in the car and my partner took loads of photos (coming soon)
He has also cleaned the car (I think this bit was done on Monday 1st July), in fact that is a major understatement, I have never seen a car so shiny other than one’s in showrooms!
They even dropped out the sub frame assemblies so they could clean properly in between them, this was all so that they could paint everything properly in undercoat and then under seal the whole underside of the car, man it looks good ;-) the EV grin returns!
They even dropped out the sub frame assemblies so they could clean properly in between them, this was all so that they could paint everything properly in undercoat and then under seal the whole underside of the car, man it looks good ;-) the EV grin returns!
Second EV donor car bought! Are we MAD!
Yep I must really be losing it now after discussing the options for replacing our only “Working” car this weekend (16th June 2013 for my own reference).
We don't really have a choice as it is a fantastic twin turbo 2.5 liter (gas guzzling) VR4 Legnum (road eating monster!) estate and it is costing us a fortune to run now that the price of petrol has reached the ridiculous levels it’s at in the UK, but man it’s fun to drive ;-)
£1.33 Pence per liter! 4.56 liters to the gallon 1.33 x 4.56 = £6.06 per gallon or $9.52 per gallon for you US folks!
Legalized Extortion! Still at least it is seriously pushing the alternatives here in the UK.
My partner decided that she was not willing to drive a “Noddy” car (that's an underpowered “sensible” car to most people, Noddy is a children’s character who drives a plastic "toy" car) and that looks and power were still top of the agenda (did I mention we are reforming petrol heads!) however not willing to hang the ECO issue out to dry the only option as far as we can see is full blown electric, hybrids are a false economy as towing a petrol engine for extra power when required and for range extension does not make sense, and when you are running on petrol you are towing a large set of depleted batteries and motor/controller etc. Bonkers!
Hydrogen Powered cars just don't make sense either as the cost of producing the hydrogen outweighs the savings in both energy and money, LPG is a limited resource just like Petrol and Diesel, and although I realize that lithium is not great for the environment the future of battery technology is looking bright what with the graphene battery technology that is being developed currently amongst others, there is definitely a race on to find the next 21st century energy storage technology and I am looking forward to it landing sooner rather than later.
So being a sensible (MAD!) girl like she is and seeing as my 1st EV build is going so well she decided to drop a bombshell on me this weekend by buying an Mazda RX8 incredibly cheap of eBay we won the auction for £560! And the current owner has already stripped the dead engine out as he was intending to fit another gas guzzler in there, I was going to do an RX8 as my next conversion if the Honda worked out nicely, but as always the missus likes to stir it up and put the pressure on ;-)
Still she could be sensible. "Boring!"
We don't really have a choice as it is a fantastic twin turbo 2.5 liter (gas guzzling) VR4 Legnum (road eating monster!) estate and it is costing us a fortune to run now that the price of petrol has reached the ridiculous levels it’s at in the UK, but man it’s fun to drive ;-)
£1.33 Pence per liter! 4.56 liters to the gallon 1.33 x 4.56 = £6.06 per gallon or $9.52 per gallon for you US folks!
Legalized Extortion! Still at least it is seriously pushing the alternatives here in the UK.
My partner decided that she was not willing to drive a “Noddy” car (that's an underpowered “sensible” car to most people, Noddy is a children’s character who drives a plastic "toy" car) and that looks and power were still top of the agenda (did I mention we are reforming petrol heads!) however not willing to hang the ECO issue out to dry the only option as far as we can see is full blown electric, hybrids are a false economy as towing a petrol engine for extra power when required and for range extension does not make sense, and when you are running on petrol you are towing a large set of depleted batteries and motor/controller etc. Bonkers!
Hydrogen Powered cars just don't make sense either as the cost of producing the hydrogen outweighs the savings in both energy and money, LPG is a limited resource just like Petrol and Diesel, and although I realize that lithium is not great for the environment the future of battery technology is looking bright what with the graphene battery technology that is being developed currently amongst others, there is definitely a race on to find the next 21st century energy storage technology and I am looking forward to it landing sooner rather than later.
So being a sensible (MAD!) girl like she is and seeing as my 1st EV build is going so well she decided to drop a bombshell on me this weekend by buying an Mazda RX8 incredibly cheap of eBay we won the auction for £560! And the current owner has already stripped the dead engine out as he was intending to fit another gas guzzler in there, I was going to do an RX8 as my next conversion if the Honda worked out nicely, but as always the missus likes to stir it up and put the pressure on ;-)
Still she could be sensible. "Boring!"
Monday, 17 June 2013
Charger panic over
Ok so my worries over missing parts were unfounded, as it turns out the voltage doubler board is for countries that have 110V AC mains supply, obvious really but as I am a novice at HV electronics these sorts of issues are bound to trip me up.
Thankfully Valery of Emotorwerks clarified the confusion as soon as I sent him a photo of my kit unpacked, there was 1 part missing however an output diode, Valery sent me a link to the part so I could confirm that the part was definitely missing (which it was)
In fact the service I have received so far from Valery of Emotorwerks is second to none, Thanks Valery, We shall probably be doing more business in the future (when I start my second EV build, whoa there slow down boy one at a time!)
Will get more photos uploaded soon as soon as I can find the micro usb lead for my other camera.
I am really starting to enjoy this build now.
Thankfully Valery of Emotorwerks clarified the confusion as soon as I sent him a photo of my kit unpacked, there was 1 part missing however an output diode, Valery sent me a link to the part so I could confirm that the part was definitely missing (which it was)
In fact the service I have received so far from Valery of Emotorwerks is second to none, Thanks Valery, We shall probably be doing more business in the future (when I start my second EV build, whoa there slow down boy one at a time!)
Will get more photos uploaded soon as soon as I can find the micro usb lead for my other camera.
I am really starting to enjoy this build now.
Friday, 14 June 2013
Charger build woes
Ok so I finally got serious
with the charger build last night and discovered that I am definitely missing
some considerable bits, even more worrying is that the Ali box I have just had
made to accommodate the charger might now be too small for the missing bits! I
emailed Valery of Emotorwerks yesterday and his reply suggests that I should
have had a Voltage Doubler board as I am using single phase and it appears that
I have been sent the 3 Phase kit by mistake.
The missing Doubler
board is large to say the least and has a lot of large Caps on it looks like I
may have to rethink the chargers internals completely once I have this board
& bits, even then it may not fit and I might have to scrap the box and
start again with a new Ali box for the charger (I hope not as the missus will
not be pleased!) also the box was made as large as I could fit in the mini boot
on the Honda so a larger box is not really an option.
However there is a space to the left of the charger in front of the Soliton that would probably take the extra board/s (there may be two) if I can make an extra box to accommodate the Voltage Doubler and connect the two via some cabling this might just work, it is sort of a bodge but with the very limited boot space I don't have a lot of options.
There were also a number of smaller components missing but none of these are size limiting and Valery was happy to send whatever was missing along with some wire as well as some compensation for the extra duty I am bound to get charged.All in all I am not too worried about any of this but as we approach the 10K self-imposed limit on this project my partner is starting to twitch ;-) I have around £1200 left before I break the 10K barrierTo be honest I can’t believe she ever let me start this project but I am sure I will be paying for it in kind for years to come :-)
However there is a space to the left of the charger in front of the Soliton that would probably take the extra board/s (there may be two) if I can make an extra box to accommodate the Voltage Doubler and connect the two via some cabling this might just work, it is sort of a bodge but with the very limited boot space I don't have a lot of options.
There were also a number of smaller components missing but none of these are size limiting and Valery was happy to send whatever was missing along with some wire as well as some compensation for the extra duty I am bound to get charged.All in all I am not too worried about any of this but as we approach the 10K self-imposed limit on this project my partner is starting to twitch ;-) I have around £1200 left before I break the 10K barrierTo be honest I can’t believe she ever let me start this project but I am sure I will be paying for it in kind for years to come :-)
EMotorWerks 10KW Charger Non-PFC Kit fresh out the box
Aluminum battery boxes finally built
At last I found a local sheet metal fabricator that was happy to use my old sheets of aluminum (well my partner did anyhow as she is definitely in control of the finances on this project), David from Sussex Iron Works, literally just down the road from me.
After supplying him with the hand drawn technical drawing that Mikki (My Partner) had kindly produced from Brents rough sketch, he got straight to work on them the next day, the day after that they were done and for less than half the price I was originally quoted (£200 to be exact) this is great as not only did I save money but got to use some very old sheet Ali I have had kicking around for years.
I will post photos of these soon as well.
I took the boxes straight back to Brent for sizing up against the car so we can work out exactly where the Ali angle needs fitting to give us a mounting solution.
Brent was on holiday that week so I caught up with him the following week and talked at length on the next stage in the build.
Brent advised me of the need to make up a steel support frame to hold the battery boxes securely in place, I had originally thought that we could just mount the angle Ali straight onto the car but as Brent explained this would be very insecure and in the event of a crash would definitely not be good enough to prevent the battery’s flying out everywhere ( I am learning more every day on this project).
He has ordered the Steel and it should be here on Friday (Today in fact) his next free slot for the EV project was next Wednesday and he reckoned that it should not take more than a day to make up the steel support and size up the boxes ready for TIG welding of the Ali Brackets, so they should be ready for battery stuffing the week after that (hopefully)
After supplying him with the hand drawn technical drawing that Mikki (My Partner) had kindly produced from Brents rough sketch, he got straight to work on them the next day, the day after that they were done and for less than half the price I was originally quoted (£200 to be exact) this is great as not only did I save money but got to use some very old sheet Ali I have had kicking around for years.
I will post photos of these soon as well.
I took the boxes straight back to Brent for sizing up against the car so we can work out exactly where the Ali angle needs fitting to give us a mounting solution.
Brent was on holiday that week so I caught up with him the following week and talked at length on the next stage in the build.
Brent advised me of the need to make up a steel support frame to hold the battery boxes securely in place, I had originally thought that we could just mount the angle Ali straight onto the car but as Brent explained this would be very insecure and in the event of a crash would definitely not be good enough to prevent the battery’s flying out everywhere ( I am learning more every day on this project).
He has ordered the Steel and it should be here on Friday (Today in fact) his next free slot for the EV project was next Wednesday and he reckoned that it should not take more than a day to make up the steel support and size up the boxes ready for TIG welding of the Ali Brackets, so they should be ready for battery stuffing the week after that (hopefully)
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