Sunday, November 21, 2010

EV season done for 2010



November 20, the last ride for 2010. The car rolled up 6630 kms (3770 miles) this year. Total EV kilometers is now 9160 (5730 miles



The only incident I had was coupler came loose, and slided toward the motor, and jammed itself in the motor faceplate. A spacer will now prevent that. I also needed to replace the potentiometer due to erratic acceleration.




Showed the car at some events during the summer: Here at the All British car show



Cruizin-Downtown show



Queuing up for the Flashback Weekend parade.



Just driving around

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Winter updates

An extended fall season has allowed driving my car till November 29, 2009. Driving and charging every day could maintain the batteries at ~15 to 20 Celcius, despite sub-zero outside temperatures. Skipping a day or two of driving, and the batteries got below 10C, and range would be seriously affected. A heat source in the battery boxes is needed.

As a heat source, my plan is to use the heating wires from automotive battery warmers. These consist of filaments looped and glued on an aluminum foil backed with a fibre insulation and packaged in a sealed bag. Here, I am stripping out the heating elements components from the bags.


To help dissipate the heat across the bottom of the box, the foil will be contact with a thin aluminum sheet (roof flashing, actually).


Here, the aluminum sheets are sized to cover the bottom of the boxes, and the batteries go overtop. hopefully, under the weight of the batteries, the foam will give way and not crush the heater wires. This is front battery box.


The rear battery box.


The heating is controled using a terrarium temperature controller, one for each box.


The long wires for the power and thermocouple permit mounting the temperature display just below the dash.




To help have a stable temperature measurement by eliminating drafts, the thermocouple is suspended in the a form doughnut.....


.... which is stuffed in between the middle two batteries.



It takes about 4 hours to get to 20C from 10c


Modifications were made to method of mounting the motor and transmission, to use a cage structure that support points that use the original rubber motor mounts.


The motor-transmission assembly in the car.

Keeping it simple, the spash guard for the motor.....



... installed.