It's ALIVE

Not much time this evening to document everything, but I did want to at least post that we had the first test drive(s) this afternoon. I've definitely got the "EV Grin" that I've read so much about on the web forums.

It was a beautiful day, and I just couldn't think of any reason not to go ahead with the drive. Last night I hooked up the all the batteries and re-did the original BMW battery connectors to fit my smaller 12V house battery. I applied the heat sink goo to the controller and tightened all the electrical connections. There wasn't much else to use as an excuse for putting off the first tests. So, this afternoon after work, I went down to the workshop and we rolled it out.



There's a few issues to be cleared up. The power steering pump never came on. I'd guess that one or more of the flimsy pins in my fancy radio-shack connector pushed out instead of making contact. I'll check that out over the next couple of days. Additionally, we've got to do a better job of bleeding the hydraulic clutch; today it didn't really ever seem to release.



The driving was great though. Great pick-up, very smooth, no mechanical noises indicating misalignment of the motor shaft with the transmission. The brakes worked fine. I could hear the vacuum pump coming on and shutting off periodically as expected.


We drew quite a crowd at the shop this afternoon. The registration on the car has expired and the insurance suspended (on purpose....) so we couldn't head out on the roads. However, the parking lot between warehouses allowed for plenty of zipping back and forth. Several of the guys who've been watching were very surprised by the pickup. Several of them took turns getting behind the wheel, and everyone came out grinning. It's definitely an odd feeling.



On my first drive I noticed that the ride was very rough, almost wobbly. On my second pass, someone posed the question "Did anyone tigthen the lug nuts since we had the wheels off?" Sure enough, two wheels were very loose. See, some problems do have simple solutions.

Here's a link to the vide of the very first drive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ35INlX_Os
and another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfum0k7xur8

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.

One more thought this evening. This whole thing has taken longer than I'd hoped it would. I guess that's okay; at least I am moving forward. But now I REALLY need to get this thing done:

• We closed on a new house last week and will spend the spring working on an addition and rehab projects.
• My Dad bought a mid 90's Ranger for me to convert when I'm finished with the EMW.
• Too many people have a vague fuzzy recollection that I was doing this project and are asking me "whatever happened to that car project?" And when I say that I'm still working on it, they assume that's code for "I gave up".

The good news on the new place is that it's got a nice 40x40 workshop where I can work on the Ranger and a three car garage so the EMW can stay inside where it's warm.

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

Reunited

Big progress today. The driveline is back in the car. James whipped up the "beam" to attach the motor clamp to the motor mounts. Badda bing badda boom and it's back in.

Now we can find homes for all the other pumps (vacuum, power steering), get the AC compressor back on a belt off the ODE and locate a couple more batteries. There's a lot of room left over up here since we crammed 8 batteries in the back, and will put two more under the rear seat. We only need to squeeze two under the "bonnet". Since they're AGMs, I can mount them sideways or on end. I suspect that the control board will now wind up above the motor. This will make for a layout curiously similar to EVAmerica's S10 examples. It will also make "Show and Tell" easier. We'll put the control board on a hinge so that it can swing up to show the motor while the batteries stay put between the AC Condenser and the motor.

Here you can see the two arches bridging between the clamp around the motor and sleeves around the existing motor mount bolts. The next shot shows the mount...mounting.

Now I'll have to remember how the Google SketchUp works so that I can adjust my 3D model.
Before too long, I'll have to get serious about my wiring diagrams. I'll also have to clean out the third bay of the garage again so that I can set up my electric shop.



Very exciting!

Fab Fab Work

Making headway on the fabrication of adapter, mounts etc. I spent some time down at the shop yesterday and took some pics of the progress. James has finished the adapter and has the motor & trans hooked up. We'll get it back into the car in the next few days and figure out what the motor mounts need to look like.

James has also fixed up the rear battery box. Here's a picture of it, loaded with four of the odysseys and a dummy Trojan AGM we were using before the odysseys arrived. My battery supplier loaned that Trojan case to us. The guys at the shop have had tons of fun tossing it back and forth in front of visitors...pretty impressive to be playing catch with something that looks like it ought to weigh 80lbs.

The real laugh comes when they toss it to the guest. Anyway, the battery box looks great. He got four down low, then four more right on top of the axle at trunk level. We were poking around yesterday, and there will be enough room under the rear seat, where the gas tank lobes were, for two more, so we'll have two in the front, with lots of leftover room for pumps and switchgear.

While I was at the shop, we...well, James, whipped up the clamp for the motor. I actually got to try my hand at MIG welding. Of course, I could only do a couple of lines on the bottom of the clamp; he didn't want my dribbly bead left visible after the whole thing's assembled.