RECORD HITS THIS MONTH

Each year the hits or the Fiero Rebuild site start to peak in late spring and this year the May hits reached 672, a new monthly record. A little strange, as I really have not worked on the car this month.

RECORD MONTHLY WEBSITE HITS

I am currently doing a little paint work on my Cavalier, getting it ready to sell. The body work is done so now the garage needs to be cleaned to lay down a little paint. The plan is to paint the Cavalier, repair the top hydraulic cylinders on the Mercerizes SLK 230 ( just recently repainted) and then pull the Fiero in to install the third battery module. Hopefully by the middle of June, I will have some Fiero rebuild posts to share.

Thanks for viewing and make sure and leave comments, as they help keep me motivated.

Randy 

THIRD MODULE TOP CHARGE

Over the last couple months the Better Place battery module has been drained down to as low as 2.5 volts on the lowest cell and allowed to drift back up to the settle voltage. After the last drain got all of the cells below 2.85 volts, all of the individual half cells were drained down to 2.84 volts. Of course, they wanted to drift back up but after going through all of them 3 times, decided to go ahead and charge the module up to 130 volts to match the other two installed modules.

A new male plug was purchased to put on the Zivan NG3 charger that originally came with the car but after hooking everything up, just had the red light flashing, that says it is not seeing voltage. Voltage was checked where the wires are soldered to the board and pack voltage was present there, so something must have either come unconnected or blown.

ZIVAN NG3

Not to be discouraged, this evening when I got home from work, the module was rolled outside and hooked to the TCCH charger in the Fiero. The charger was started and the voltage started climbing. 

MODULE CHARGING

While the module was charging, some time was taken to survey possible placement in the front of the Fiero. 

SPACE FOR MODULE IN FIERO

Progress has been slow with all the plumbing work and home improvement projects going on this spring but hopefully a little time will come free to continue on the fiero and get it back on the road for summer.

Until next post,

Randy

STARTING THE FINAL BOTTOM BALANCE ON THE BETTER PLACE BATTERY MODULE

Neither of my garden tractors were mowing properly, so I decided to sell both of them and and buy a new one. After listing them on Craigslist, I received an email from a guy who wanted to come and pick it up the Yard Machine on Saturday. Sure enough, he showed up with a trailer and after the usual dickering on price a little, handed over the payment, loaded the 10 year old Yard Machine and drove off a happy camper! Ok, one down and one to go. The other garden tractor is a 1970 John Deere 110 that I restored. It has a new paint job and the motor was completely overhauled. The tractor has a 48 inch blade and is just a little too big for my 1/2 acre yard, as it will not make as sharp of turns as a newer tractor but would be great with someone with a couple acres. The tractor had been sitting all winter and was a little dusty, so I decided to spend Sunday cleaning it up and getting better pictures for the listing but this could be done while starting the final bottom balance on the Better Place module, so felt a little multitasking was inline. While I was washing and waxing the tractor the EPM-5740TVR with a flashlight bulb attached to the aux. contact was draining the voltage to 2.75 volts on all of the 1/2 cells. 

1970 JD 110

EPM-5740TVR

The highest 1/2 cell was 2.98 volts so none of them had gone back up to 3 volts like they usually do, so felt that draining them all down to 2.85 volts would be a good plan. When the leads are first hooked up the light bulb turns on and off kind of like a blinker light on a car but finally settles down and only comes on every 5 or 10 minutes until finally it just stays off. So far, I have balance 5 full cells and when going back to check the ones I started with, was relieved to learn that they were still holding at 2.85. I always take a temperature reading because I believe the voltage tends to come up as the temperature rises. Not sure if this is actually happening but from past experience, have found this to be the case.

This process will be repeated until all of the cells stabilize, then the module will be charged to full voltage and then drained down to match the cell already in the Fiero, so it can be added to the pack.

EVCCON 2015 AL GAJDA VOICE RECOGNITION OR BATTERY CELL LOGGING