Sunday, July 29, 2012

EV Fiero's First Movie Appearance

The EV Fiero was used in a movie last night for a 48 Hour Movie Project team, Posthouse Productions. Early Saturday Morning my doorbell rang and a gentleman filled me in on the 48 Hour Movie Project entry they were shooting at a motel near my house. The movie was going to have a 1980's theme and they asked if they could use the Fiero to park in the lot to lend some period flavor to the shoot. They also had a 1980's Cadillac and Chevy truck to use for period props. I took the Fiero to the hotel and they were supposed to call me to move it into position around 3 pm, but at 8 pm, still no call. Around 8:30 I received a call and was asked if the actors could actually be in the car used in shots of them arriving and leaving the motel, so I drove to the motel and got a real lesson on movie making. I got to watch the camera set-up and how the lighting is used to make a stationary car appear to be moving. When the dialog part was finished, I was asked to drive the car for the arrival and departure scenes. It was pretty cool driving the car for the shoot and had to make sure to hit certain spots in the parking lot and stop in the same place each time optimize the camera angle for the shot. I met a lot of great people, learned a lot about how movies are created, and got to show case the EV Fiero. Even though the car was just portrayed as a regular car, there was a lot of interest in it being electric and I had to open up the hood and trunk several times to show everyone the electric components. 48 Hour Filmmaker: Columbus 2012

Thursday, July 5, 2012

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

The JLD404 Intelligent DC Power Meter and AM1-AP-3A Inductive Proximity Switch arrived last week but my power was out at the house and I had to spend all of my time feeding gas to the generator. It was also really hot in Ohio so I didn't feel like spending much time in a black Fiero. Hopefully I can get the tach working and some kind of indication of amps and volts on the lead acid batteries. One cell is pretty much toast and I am taking odometer readings to try and figure the range. Currently I have traveled around 12 miles but the car is starting to get sluggish and I fear that probably 15 miles or so is going to be about the max for now. Hopefully by sometime this fall I will be able to put the LiPo4 cells in and correct the range problem but for now my focus will be to work on the interior and getting some instrumentation hooked up.

www.automationdirect.com

http://www.lightobject.com

Until Next Time, Randy