Signs of Life

By the way, Here's a video of my first test of the control wiring.

Here's what's going on:

• Turn the Key (~11sec): This powers on the control board, drive cooling fan, and vacuum pump for brake vacuum. The click you hear is the first contactor closing. In fact, if you look hard at the contactor (small black box just above the hanging power connector on the right) you can see the contacts closing.
• Turn the Heater On (19-22sec): I have a ceramic heater element inserted where the heater core was. I can turn on the heat only if the fan is on 4, and a separate heater switch is on. In the video, you hear the blower come on, and the click on and off of the smaller heater contactor. This is switching the 144VDC to the heater element.
• Give it the Gas (~32sec): The accelerator cable is not connected yet, so I get out of the car and come around to the PotBox that will trigger acceleration. You hear and see the second contactor close (black box at the front of the board to the left) and in theory, now the power is flowing to and through the drive and you're on your way.

Closer, but still not there

I've made a lot of progress over the last week or so. I got two or three good days of work in during the holidays. Last week I was able to take care of both power cables and control wiring on the control board.

I also placed all the batteries and finished the battery cables.

I fired up the vacuum pump today to see whether or not the switch was wired correctly. Apparently I've got some leaks; it wouldn't pull more than 5-Inches, and when shut off, didn't even hold that much. So I'll have to chase that down. I'm pretty sure I heard some hissing coming from my vacuum tank. Not surprising given that it's three pieces of PVC all glued together plus the fitting.

Here's the requisite shot of the charger cord in the fuel door. Nice work by the Vision Steel guys

on the tread-plate backer. You can see the Elcon charger on the rack in the rear-battery box pic above.

...and here's the first picture of the fully loaded car. Well, all the batteries and major components. The seats are still out, and I'm not sitting in there with my 200+ libbies. According to my original calculations, it should still come in under the GVWR. Just pushing on the four corners, it's not down on the stops yet, but it's pretty soft. I had originally budgeted for sport springs for this and it looks like I'll need them. The good news is that I shouldn't have to look too far to find someone with stiffer springs for a BMW right?

Flurries in August?

Big flurry of activity over the last week. The guys at VisionSteel have been busy with their day jobs, but put together the rest of the "bracketry" and the front battery box.

The picture on the left is the big picture. There are four batteries up front. My contribution to manufacturing so far has been to cut the plywood for the control board. It will reside over the motor. Clearance for contactors, fuses, and the controller should be a lot easier in this rear position. For the first pass, I'm using plywood. once the layout is proven out, I'll probably go with a plastic board, similar to a chopping block.

It's tricky to get the batteries in here, but we came up with a combo layout:

• two upright on the bottom, tall & narrow


• two sideways on top, flat and wide.

This picture shows how the front box fits in, just behind the AC evaporator. There's still good clearance between the batteries and the ODE shaft where the belt driving the AC Compressor will spin.

Here's where we put the aux pumps. The 12V vacuum pump (replacing manifold vacuum) for the brakes is on the left toward the rear. The Power Steering pump, also 12V, on the right, just over the steering box. It was salvaged off a 2002ish Toyota MR2 and has the reservoir built right onto the pump unit. Additionally, this unit has a speed input so that the boost varies inversely to the speed.

I've finally ordered the cabling/lugs & connectors. I did pick up some 3/4" flex conduit to run from the rear battery box to the front. That was interesting. I stopped by the electrical section of the local Lowe's, priced the fancy purpose built UL conduit, and went on thinking that I'd wind up with normal clear vinyl tubing. On to the plumbing section to price the normal household tubing, and it was twice as much! So, I'll have the robust, UL listed stuff like I wanted. Schweet.

It's been great working with James, Dave, (and now William) at VisionSteel. They've really tried to make sure that the structural parts are robust, but haven't lost sight of the craftsmanship. Go back to the May 10th post, and check out the picture of the rear battery box. Even though these batteries aren't wet, I still wanted to minimize the chance of battery stuff coming forward in the event of a rear-ender. After all, that's where the cuties ride. We'd discussed putting a plate across the front of the box, just behind the rear seatbacks. Check out the picture below of the flashy cover they came up with to address the issue:

So, Progress Continues, if slowly.

PCrip