Porsche 914

Well, I did it again. I purchased a car, fixed it, drove it then sold it. Yup, sold my nice 914. I figured it was just too nice to be turned into an electric car and I also wanted a vehicle that would be easy to work on. So the 914 went to a new home. I did make a good profit on my work. So it was not all for naught. I now have more funds to continue with some other things I want to do with the Electric Bug. The VW is so simple and easy to work on it is just really hard not to use one for a conversion. Now that I am able to do more work around the house I can begin to do more on the Roadster. I am going to try my hand at welding aluminum to build my battery box. Time to cut some practice pieces and get to work.


Pete :)

Leaf Replacement Battery Pack

Finally Nissan has announced the pricing of the new Replacement battery pack. Yes, the new chemistry for hot weather. Pricing is outstanding for a new warranted battery pack. $5,499 is outstanding. It does however require you to turn in yours as a core that is being priced at 1000 bucks. I think I will propose to Nissan as a recycler for those used packs. This could be a boon for private Solar Backup systems. So for those that really need to replace their packs this is a super deal. This also brings down the price for packs out of wrecked Leafs. Those $3600 or so prices are now too high. I'd pay $2000 for a pack from a wrecked Leaf. For new $5400 plus your core is plenty worth the price. With the cells being the newest chemistry it can't be beat.

http://electriccarsreport.com/2014/06/nissan-prices-leaf-battery-replacement-5499/

AC Induction

Well I am now officially into AC induction for my other ride. I now have an AC-35 with the 96 volt 650 amp controller to install into my Bus. I do not intend for the Bus to be a fast vehicle but one that will cruise well and be a great local hauler. I am going to lower the Bus but for now I will just leave it with the stock setup. But before it goes into the Bus I will set it up as a generator. I now have my VW engine connected to my old Dyno but I have a carburetor problem. Not really a problem but I do have to find a part to get it working. I will be using that first to test the ability of the stationary generator for charging. It has two working starter/generators connected and I can set them up in series or parallel. Not sure what I will do first. I will be once again using my little Diesel and Starter/Generator to charge a 24 volt bank of batteries. I have the bank setup and ready to go. Since I now have a new digital multimeter with a clamp for checking amperage I can measure output current.

I will be off for a few weeks for recovery from surgery here in a couple weeks. It is hopeful that I will be pain free and be back to work in short order. I will be getting a new big toe joint (again) and this one should be far better. Within a couple weeks after surgery I should be able to do some work without issue.

So the Bug is doing well and the 60 cells are close to being fully bottom balanced. I had an issue with my Aux battery and they all died and bloated because they all went to zero or near zero. They were connected to a couple JLD meters but nothing else was connected and it drained the cells in three days. On the 4th day this is what they looked like.

DO NOT let your Aux lithium cells go below 2 volts. There is an apparent issue where the copper foil starts to dissolve in the electrolyte below 2 volts and it will cause plating and the process also causes gassing. This will ruin your cell. No longer usable for safe use. A person said maybe clamping them would be in order but if they go below 2 volts the same process still happens and the pressure may become great enough to blow the seal caps. So clamping will not stop the problem. If cells swell there is an issue. Either they over charged or were taken well below 2 volts. I have seen that cells with soft shorts don't swell but will still be unusable because they will keep discharging to empty. 

AC-35 with like 108 volts would be good for a decent power range out to just over 3000 rpm. So cruising it will be more than enough. A stock VW has less power. Im not out for grunt power. Just need as good as stock. This will do a bit better. I am also wanting to create a on the go hybrid trailer that can run an AC induction motor that will output the same as the pack so I can actually run the controller to give me as much range as the hybrid range extender can give. I do want to use a little turbo charged diesel engine using Bio or Veggie Oil as the fuel. Keep carbon neutral. Or if I use a gas engine maybe use alcohol as the fuel. I'd prefer to use diesel and veggie oil. Connect up the trailer and just go. As long as I have fuel I can drive where ever I need. This means I no longer need to buy a Volt. Yippie. I can even drive out to visit Jack. He'd love that. 

Batteries

I had purchased some older but NEW batteries to increase the size of my initial pack. I now have 60 cells to put into my pack for 192 volt nominal system. It had been stated that the new old stock of the CALB SE cells actually had a small degradation of capacity just by sitting on the shelf at half charge. Out of 33 cells I found one that was at 270mv and would be considered by any other type of battery totally DEAD. Well not so with the LiFePO4 cells. I decided to do a slow charge to bring it back up to a level I could charge it with my PowerLab 8 charger. I did at 25 amps up to 3.6 volts and using a cc/cv algorithm which is standard for LiFePO4 cells. I then set it up to my discharge station and discharged the cell at 90 amps until it reached 2.6 volts. At which point it provided me with a total of 107 amp hours out of the cell. That is actually consistent with NEW cells right from the factory. I will test a couple more that were sitting normally at about 1/2 full to see what they give and to see if that makes any difference.

Pete :)

Inverter progress (soldering)

Well, today I finally made an attempt to solder a single driver board. The PCB is a through hole design to make soldering easier. On the back side you will find your solder pads around the holes. Some are large oval in shape and some just tiny round things. Those large oval shaped pads are much easier to solder than the other tiny round thingies. I screwed up and can officially say my soldering techniques just suck. My iron is a 20w iron but heats up to 860F and is a great fit for my hands. I like the tiny size and ease of use. I tried to fix a couple cold solder joints only to have them screw up again. Not one of the oval pad joints went bad. Only those tiny little round types. I re-cleaned the area and shaft of the component to be soldered only to find it ball up on the shaft. I am thinking that there is no more solder on the pad. That would make for a hell of a time getting solder to stick to plastic. It sticks to the shaft just fine. Now how to figure out how to get more solder onto the pad so I can try yet again.

The technique if soldering is simple. I use narrow gauge rosin core solder and a fine point iron and heat the pad and post and then put solder on the opposing side to allow solder to flow into and onto the pad and post.

I keep the tip clean and tidy and tin as needed. I don't have solder removal wire but will be getting some today.

Any ideas and tips would be helpful.


Pete :)

E Roadster

The roadster is up and running. There is still plenty to do on this project but I am now able to enjoy the ride.

  

E-Roadster Driving

Today, May 1st is the day I finally got the E-Roadster operational and driving. Shifting still has some issues that need to be addressed. It does drive. Pics. It got a bath today. Wanted to mount my hubs but can't find my duz fittings. So when I find them they will be mounted. It should look better with them on.


Pete :)