E-Roadster Update

I also had more work done to my E-Roadster from my friend evmetro. I had him put in seat belt mounts for 3 point belts and a custom roll bar and to lower my seat rails. The roll bar that was in the vehicle was only for looks and not function. It would not have saved your head in any sort of roll over. The one in the beastie now will. It looks different than I  had expected but it is now safe and will protect the head as the head is below the top of the roll bar. The bar is mounted on some solid bases and mounted in a 3 point format. So now I will put in the controller and electronics and get it all working properly and when that is done I will remove all the components and take it down to a bare body with the body off the pan and restore the body to its former glory and repair any rust and crinkled metal with new metal and then repaint it Ferrari Red like the original. I will also restore the pan unless of course someone decides they want to buy the resurrected beastie. It is for sale for the right price. Always has been.

Might do the Ghia but more than likely I will also sell that at the next Bug-O-Rama this Sept in Sacramento.

The Roadster will be taken there to show its progress. Ghia will be driven there so it can be sold.

The Roll bar makes the car look funny compared to without one. I may build one for show and keep this one for race. But its those seats I have in the car. The head rest is not truly a head rest. Its more like a shoulder rest. So with that little dinky thing against that roll bar it looks rather odd. However  I can assure you that my head is not far below the roll bars so looks fine when sitting in the vehicle.

Poor beastie is so dirty and dusty.

I also need to work on the brakes up front and I may have a leak in the rear drivers side brake. Time to dig in.

Pete

HPEVS AC-35

I had sent my AC-35 down to HPEVS and they put on the proper face plate for mounting to an adapter and also put in the proper encoder needed for street use vs industrial cart use. They also upgraded my 96 volt 650 amp controller with the newest software. I now have loads of things that will make tuning better. This setup will be going into my VW Bus and I will be using this with a 120 volt system. 16 Leaf Modules in series and 5 sets in parallel for a 30kWh pack. That should give me a decent distance. A good amount of these modules will fit where the old fuel tank resides totally out of the way. That will be cool.

When they sent my motor/controller back they boxed up the motor and controller separate. The motor is in a decent box and fitted with large poly type foam that will last for ever. The ends support the motor in the box and if that box did fall the motor would be quite safe. Im keeping my box just in case I ever need to ship or transport it for repair or what ever. I suggest you do the same if you happen to purchase one of these fine motors. Im pleased that it is back. Not to get the adapter plate and clutch and pressure plate installed. I am keeping the stock transmission but using a nicely done lightened flywheel. No need for more than stock on this puppy. If however I find I need a better pressure plate I can get one easily.


Now to move forward with my Bus project.


Pete :)

1970 Ghia

Ghia is home. These are pretty cool little cars but you know they still require you to climb into them. So with that I may just use this one to make money to get more for the Bus project. I can turn this around quickly and make some good cash. It is solid and rust free and accident free. Mostly original and 98,624 original miles. Yes, thats right, less than 100,000 miles. Runs great and will be a good collector item. I'll drive it as a gas vehicle for awhile then sell. I should be able to get at least a 3k profit. From what I have been seeing I may even get more. All I need to do is clean it up. A good bath and polish and a good vacuum and air this sucker out. Smells like an old VW. I still have a few more items to pickup for this fine little vehicle.

Im sending out the AC-35 to HPEVS for an upgraded end plate so I can mount the motor to the standard adapter. This motor has the wrong front end plate so they said they will put on the proper one and check out the motor. They are also going to upgrade the software on the controller for me. I'll need to get a computer dongle and software so I can program the controller properly. I'll pay it.

I had thought about converting the Ghia but I'm having second thoughts on that. The Bus has lots of room and that is what I need. Im a big guy and being 6'2" with long legs makes it harder to do the tiny car. Like that 914 I recently had I realized it was a tiny cramped car for big/tall people. Nice vehicles but still small. I do like that the 914 and the Ghia are both wide so there is plenty of width room. If I could move the seat back a bit more like two notches I'd be good to keep it for a conversion.

So now, I head off to the DMV to get it registered and insured. Then I can start driving right away.

Pete :)

1970 Ghia

Found a nice solid all original 1970 Ghia with no rust. Its original white but has had some spots over the years repainted. But over all the vehicle never had a full body paint over. It needs a replacement dash and rubber all around and new seat covers but the car is original and solid. Has the original running engine too. Not a replacement engine. Looks like a solid project for an upcoming replacement for my Nissan Leaf. I may just have to put a DC setup in my Bus and put the AC-35 into the Ghia.

Bench Testing Batteries

Today I picked up from work a set of batteries from our Portable Xray machine. It had its batteries replaced and the boss let me take the old ones home. They are sealed lead acid but small format cells stacked to give 96 volts per block or a total of 192 volts in series. They are made with pure lead and of medical quality. They are not large yet they will give me the ability to do bench testing for charging and for driving my AC motor on the bench with a load and a good amount of power. The only down side is that they are of low AH rating. Meant to be charged and discharged multiple times daily. But for the bench they will be perfect. Power and light weight. I can do some charge testing with my Synkromotive and set up the AC wall charging setup and see how well they will charge up using a demo board on the bench and be able to do a talk and video of the setup and process. I can also use the AC forklift motor/inverter setup to test under high power and under load on the bench and I can also test the charging ability of the AC motor.


I have the batteries on the charger right now since I have a lead acid charger that will do 96 volts. One pack was 101 volts and the other was at 98 volts. They won't give me full AH rating but they will do for what I need. AH rating is 2.5Ah. Not much, but enough for my testing needs.

Pete :)


Sold 3 Synkromotive Controllers and I will have two left to sell. Then all the current stock will be in the hands of the people who like them. Im working to see if there is a possibility to revive Synkromotive and keep the controller from going away completely. Its a great little powerhouse controller and will be sorely missed if it goes away. It is a unique controller in that its not a overly bloated version of a golf cart controller. Its not large, nor heavy and is just a dream to use.

Anyway, back to the batteries. These will be a boon for me but they would not be good to buy a bunch of them to use for your vehicle. They are lead. Heavy if you need lots of AH's for your beastie. New they are $849 bucks discounted. Ouch. For me, Free. No leaking.

Product ID:	MED0012
Milliamp Hours:	2.5Ah
Voltage:	192
Termination:	Plug
Chemistry:	Pure Sealed Lead Acid
Weight (lbs):	45
Width (in):	4.5000
Length (in):	14.00
Height (in):	11.20

AC-35

Not sure how many know that I was able to purchase an AC-35 last year with all the goodies that go with it. It was from a guy that was going to build an EV but abandoned the project. I think I figured out why. I had purchased a motor adapter from ThunderStruck Motors for the AC-35 and up motors and those that might be using the Warp9 and similar with the same bolt pattern. Comes to find out that the face plate of the motor is not a B-Face plate. It is a flat C-Face style used in industrial carts and mining equipment. But not for use with the modern adapters for mounting to your car. I talked with them yesterday and they are going to put on the proper end plates and change the encoder for use in an automobile for a very reasonable price. Still leaves me at a much lower cost than if I had purchased this brand new. They are also going to upgrade the 120 volt controller to the most current software if needed. That is a bit more expensive than I had hoped but it will again be much cheaper overall for this package than buying new by a long shot. I do know the motor runs because I connected it to my DIY inverter. However I was unable to utilize the encoder. Im guessing it is not compatible with the inverters requirements or its just not working. Which it could be. I think the guy I got it from purchased it used as well. But anyway this VW Bus project is now moving forward once again.

Today I am going to setup my Synkromotive Controller Demo Board so I can charge a bank of batteries utilizing my DC old transformer style DC Battery Charger. It is a step-down transformer from 120 volts to 24 volts. I won't be charging at a high rate but it will serve the purpose of showing the charging abilities of the controller utilizing any DC source. So far I have used a large 48 volt bank of batteries and my old 240 DC welding machine to charge my batteries. Im doing this for a few folks who wish to utilize the Synkromotive as a charger. Once I have my beastie back I will be setting that up to charge my pack from wall AC then doing another video for that.

My DIY inverter project will continue and I will be trying to setup a way to connect the motor and Diesel engine together via belt drive to make this work. It really is just a matter of connecting the two and giving it a go. I was going to connect a DC motor to the AC motor and do a test that way. Might be an easier task. Maybe. I guess I'll need to bust out the welder and hack saw and weld up some brackets.


As you can see the face plate is flat and doesn't have the 4" step for centering an adapter plate and the bolt holes are too large and not far enough out to the edge. The B-Face end plate will be my ticket.

The motor tag clearly states that this is a true AC-35 motor and not one of those old AC-30 motors being touted as an AC-36 motor.

In my searching for some new old stock of Synkromotive controllers I had found someones build. It was a build of a 240Z and he used what looks to be a Warp9 motor and the Synkromotive Controller. It is a very clean build and I love the way this guy took his time in making the wiring look very very clean and tidy. This level of care is what we should all aspire to do for our own conversions. 

My little Custom VW is back at the shop. My Son was able to do some work but his shop work was priority. So he was unable to get very much done this past 6 months. But I now have the car over at Rusher Electric and they are putting in aluminum door panels and back firewall aluminum panel. That panel will be set off and removable an the controller and components will be mounted for a clean look. Again, It will be 192 volts and 850 amps worth of CALB SE 100ah cells. The Leaf Module cells will go in the Bus. My trailer charger generator is still going to move forward but I took a winter off. Plenty of things to update for my inverter and I may even put an inverter in the Bus to power the AC motor Im putting in the Bus. I will be building another inverter but with better IGBT modules.