Last week, in response to Jack Rickard's comment on the EVTV Blog that, 1 watt hour per mile per each 10 pounds of weigh was a rough estimate of how large of a pack you will need, I posted that my car was using 288 watt hours per mile, so the car must weigh 2880 pounds. I went on to post that I would really like to weigh the car, to see how heavy it actually is. A few days later, Brian Couchene emailed and offered to let me use his scales. This Friday we made arrangements and I drove out to Brian's house to pick up the scales.
As always, I had a very informative visit, with a demonstration of the Lear Charger and the software that was operating it. Brian has a UI set up to change the voltages and turn off the charger. He is now working on trying to get the charger's 12 volt capabilities to work. The Coda, which these particular chargers were used on, did not use the 12 volt system in the charger but the EVTV team working on reverse engineering the CAN programming, is hoping it can be enabled. Brian has the engine and transmission out of the S10 he is converting and we went outside where it was parked, to talk about how he was going to install the E-Drive transmission and Siemens Motor. As always, it is quite enjoyable getting to spend an evening with a fellow EV converter, talking about electric cars and in the case of Brian, hybrid and battery powered switch locomotives.
Late Saturday morning, the scales were hooked up and zeroed, then the car jacked up, and the scales placed under each wheel.
SCALES UNDER WHEELS
Weight measurements were taken with the HighPower cells still in the front of the car, with them removed, and with them removed and me in the dirver's seat.
WEIGHT OF CAR
With the HighPower cells still in the front of the car and adding 199 pounds for my weight, the car would have been at 2825 pounds, so pretty close to the 1 watt hour per 10 pounds per mile.I will do some test drives with 274 pounds less than before and it will be interesting to see if I drop down close to 260 watt hours per mile.
By now, I was on a roll, so started taking the belly pan off the front underneath of the car. I was actually able to get all of the screws out without jacking up the car as the front of the car had come up several inches when the HiPower cells were removed. With the belly pan now out of the way, I started removing the heavy angle iron battery racks that were designed to hold lead acid batteries. I didn't have the car on jacks, so had to cut off one of the brackets to finally get the rack to drop out of the bottom of the car but finally it was out!
BATTERIES AND RACKS REMOVED
I was finished by 5 PM but was totally wiped out from crawling around on the driveway all day, so it was time for a little rest to get ready for the Buckeye game against Penn State tonight.
Thanks again to Brian Couchene for the use of the scales!
Until Next Time,
Randy
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