BETTER PLACE BATTERIES

This week one of the modules from the Better Place battery pack was removed.

FIRST MODULE THAT WAS REMOVED

Yesterday, the other two modules were removed and placed in the garage. The shipping crate is now filled with all of the parts that were left over. As I reported earlier, the pack looked in new unused condition but the bolts holding the base to the crate were all missing, meaning the pack had been out of the crate in the past. The dates on the tags on the modules were dated 06/26/10, so the modules are almost 4 years old. The voltages ranged from 124.6 volts to 125 volt and are the lowest of any I have seen so far. That is still in an acceptable range, so we will see how they look after some testing.

REMAINING TWO MODULES REMOVED

I received a new 200 volt digital volt meter today and it is quite a bit smaller than the meter the origninal builder had in the instrument panel, but I believe I can make it work. To be able to install the same size ammeter, I may have to order a 100 amp 75 mv meter and hook it to a 1000 amp 75 mv shunt. It should read the correct amps but you would just need to know to add a zero to the meter reading. Since the face plate has a larger hole cut in it than is necessary for the new meter, I ordered a new face plate. All of the instruments need to be hooked up and tested before I can put the instrument panel back in the car.

My son and one of his high school class mates have a video game website and asked me to do a pod cast with them on the EV Fiero conversion. We had a great time and I will include a link in a future post if anyone is interested. In the future I want to have them help me host a webcast to answer any questions about the build. 

My son's fiance is very good with needle and thread, so tonight she was recruited to help with the interior. The head liner needs replace and I have material, it just needs sown together to have enough.

Some pictures will be added later.

Randy

THE HOLE IN WINTER

Last week the weather turned with temperatures in the 40 - 60 degree range and Saturday is supposed to get up to 50 degrees; So I am going to use this opportunity to get some more cleaning done on the garage and work done on the car.

My garage had become cluttered with components boxes and parts removed from the Fiero, so it was past due to clean it up before  starting to remove the interior. The main reason for cleaning though, was because I couldn't find the hood bolts and the hood was taking up quite a bit of room, so wanted to put it back on the car. After about an hour, sure enough, they turned up in a screw package sitting on the back of the work bench.

FRONT BATTERY PACK

HOOD INSTALLED IN CLEANED UP GARAGE

So on to moving the car out into the driveway but when I turned the key to activate the controller, the fan would ramp up, go off then ramp up again. I had unhooked the computer and it seems the controller lost the pot calibration but as soon as I re-calibrated, everything was back to normal. I pulled the car out into the driveway and proceeded to put the hood back on. When I was testing the pop-up lights, the JLD404 suddenly started blinking and finally shut off. I had plugged the DC-DC converter into the battery pack but forgot, the key has to be turned on to operate the contactor, or the converter does not get any pack voltage. Operating the pop-lights a couple of times had run the battery down enough that there was not enough power now to operate the contactor, so I had to plug it back into 120 ac to charge it back up.

It was good to sort and inventory all of the part I have collected that will be needed down the road and after a trash can full of clutter and and disposing of all the empty boxes in the fire pit out back, was finally able to pull the car back into the garage feeling ready to tackle the interior dis-assembly.

The amp meter for the 12 volt system arrived Saturday, so today I started to clean up the pod and mount the meters. I wanted to get it completely done before posting but didn't quite make it. It was done enough to put it together and get a picture though.

INSTRUMENT POD WITH DIGITAL GAUGES

Winter returns tomorrow but it felt good to get some work done on the Fiero the last couple days.

Until next time,

Randy

RELOADING

The LED lights that were ordered from Ebay arrived this week and I am gearing up to start on the interior and instrumentation. Did some garage rearranging to make some room for the panels and dash when they are removed and cleaned out the clutter on the passenger seat and floor of the car.

All of the battery connections were checked and I was surprised to find loose connections on about 1/3 of them. After all of the connections were checked and tightened, the pack was topped off again. I had the charger pretty close but it is drifting up to 137 volts which is close to 3.7 per cell, so I am going to need to lower the voltage a little the next time I charge. The cells are settling at 3.36 volts after setting overnight after the charge.

My wife finally got to take a ride and was impressed with the LED headlights. The car ran pretty smooth but is going to need more batteries to fix the voltage sag problem. There are some lithium packs coming on the market that are going to be offered at a good price, so I may just try to pick up one of them to fix the battery sag problem.

EVTV did a live webcast test on YouTube tonight and I was lucky enough to tune into the last couple hours of it. It looks like Jack may try to do live webcasts on Sunday afternoons to discuss the Friday show each week.

Randy

METER

This week I have been working on getting current and amp meters for the 12 volt system. Awhile back, I got a 3-1/2 inch voltage/current meter so dug it out of hiding to test. The instructions are a little vague but I was able to get the voltage hooked up.

TESTING VOLT PANEL METER

I also purchased a separate current meter on EBAY, so there will be one for voltage and one for current.

100A 3 ½ BLUE CURRENT METER

The pod that goes above the dash will be a good location to mount the 12 volt system meters and will allow me to look at both the current and voltage simultaneously without having to select between views with only one meter.

GT BATTERY VOLTAGE AND OIL PRESURE POD

The interior is next, so I spent some time this weekend reading instructions on the best way to remove the instrument panel and dash. I want to mount a micro switch on the heater controls to operate the solid state relay that will be used to turn on the heater and will need to get to the wires under the dash to do so. Hopefully I will be able to do this with out disabling the car just in case I need to move it.

Until next time,

Randy

COMPONENT WARRANTIES

 The Ballistic 12 volt LiFePo4 battery I purchased last spring does not want to hold a charge. When the battery arrived, it was around 11.5 volts. When measuring the individual cells through the balancing port, three of the cells were in the 3.2 volt range and one cell was around 2.5 volts. Using a JLD404 and a small light bulb as a load, all of the cells were taken down to 2.7 volt, then the battery was charged to 13.6 volts. Everything seem to work fine all summer but when fall arrived and I was not working on the car every weekend, the battery seemed to start loosing capacity. When the DC-DC converter was turned on, the battery would go to the 13.2 volts but as soon as it would turn off, would start dropping until finally leveling off at 11.5 volts. After the initial charge the battery would light all of the interior lights and operate the traction pack contactor after setting for a week or so but now it would not.

BALASTIC LIFEPO4 12 V BATTERY

I tried to contact the ebay seller who sold me the battery but it appeared they were no longer an EBAY member, so wrote Ballistic Battery to initiate a warranty claim. After several months and many emails, they finally replied to inform me that their warranty only covered the battery being used as a starter battery in an ATV and that using it to power up the interior lights and operating the traction pack contactor, was not covered. Seems like my application would put a lot less stress on the battery. I did try to use it a couple times to start a 10 hp John Deere garden tractor but it did not do a very good job at that.

Several month ago I sent my Powerlab 8 back to REVO after it quit working only to be told that the damage was from misuse and was not only covered under warranty but was not repairable under their repair program. Their only offer was a 10% Black Friday discount that they were giving everyone anyway, so really, no warranty and not help in replacing the broken unit.

POWERLAB 8

When looking at controllers, I almost eliminated the Synkromotive because they only offered a 30 day warranty. The controller has been trouble free and what I consider one of my better component purchases. Had I bought a more expensive controller with a lower amp rating and 1 year warranty, I would have ended up with a more expensive controller with less features and if something had gone wrong, would probably not have been covered under warranty any way because of something I did wrong.

I guess the bottom line is, don't put too much hope into getting any warranty claim honored when purchasing your components, and you won't get disappointed, put more time in researching the product and find out if other users have bee having any problems.

Randy

FINALLY,,,, A GOOD TEST DRIVE!

Yesterday, my son and I were able to get a good video of the car going down the road and after plugging in the jumper that raises the voltage to 14.2 volts, I can not get the Synkromotive controller to trip. I was on very narrow country roads, so have still not been able to get the car up to 60 mph but the controller is limiting the battery pack voltage to 90 volts, so is not putting out the power it is capable of.

ANOTHER TEST DRIVE 

There are currently 37 100 AH cells in the front of the car and the pack settled to around 123.6 volts after the last charge I gave it, over the weekend. Under heavy acceleration, the pack drops to the 90 volt limit I have the Synkromotive controller set at and the 12 volt system voltage drops sometimes all the way down to 10.9 volts. The Synkromotive controller seems to trip when the 12 volt system gets down to 10.7 volts, so I am going to need add some more cell to the rear of the car so the pack voltage will stay above the 106 volt lower limit of the IOTA DC-DC converter. Above 100 pack voltage, the DC-DC converter seems to hold the 12 volt system in the 13 volt range.

After the drive yesterday, I forgot to plug the IOTA DC-DC (AC-DC) converter into 110 volts but was happy to find that the small 12 volt battery had enough juice to supply the JLD404, Synkromotive controller stand-by mode, a 12 volt dc to 100 volt ac inverter, and a 15 inch laptop that was plugged into it for 24 hours. It's good to know that the car can be parked for several hour without worrying about draining down the 12 volt battery.

It is good to be making some progress on keeping the controller from tripping and to have some ideas to try to make the car perform even better.

Thank for visiting,

Randy

BATTERY CONNECTORS

Finding battery connectors at a reasonable price has proven to be quite a challenge. When I purchased new used batteries from a guy in California, they were supposed to be included but never arrived in any of the shipments, as he promised.

I made a 12V battery using #10 wire and crimp connectors to operate the Powerlab Cellpro 8, while bottom balancing the batteries but then, did not have any way to give the batteries the initial charge.

12 VOLT BATTERY WITH #10 CONNECTORS

 

The flexible connectors range any where from au$2.80 ea for order of 100, from a company in Austraila (freight is $160 to get them to the US,) to $7 , to $9 for the connector with SS bolts and Nordlock washers. In a previous post, one of you commented that the solid copper connectors could be purchased from a battery manufacturer, so I contacted a battery company and indeed,  was quoted a price, including the ss hex head bolt and regular split lock washer for delivery in September. I never heard from them again and do not receive a reply when emailing them, so I guess that was a dead end.

Just so I can go ahead and get an initial charge on the batteries, I contacted a local metal distributor and purchased 1" x 1/8" in bus bar and a bolt distributor to purchase SS M8 x 1.25 socket button head cap screws and wedge lock washers (The button head cap screws will look great and give a nice streamlined look to the battery connection.) Originally, I thought the washers were only made by Nord-Lock but found they are also made by a company named HEICO-LOCK. Heico-Lock would not supply them to me directly but the distributor I contacted could supply either brand.

JIG TO DRILL BUS BAR

CUTTING BUS BAR TO LENGTH

BUS BAR ON BATTERY TERMINALS

As a reality check, I contacted a company in China that makes ground straps and electrical hardware for the electric utility industry and got a quote. The disadvantage with ordering straps from a manufacturer in China is the minimum quantity required to place an order is significant. The advantage is the price per connector is not. As I only need 38, the cost for the minimum order would be way over what I would pay if I bought them for $9 each with bolts and Nord-Locks included.

Back in the late 80's and early 90's, my wife and I collected antique glassware. We would get up early every weekend to get to flea markets before sunrise to be the first to get to the good glassware as the vendors were putting it on their tables. Then we would bring it home to add to our collection, list it on our website, or put it on ebay to sell. So just as selling glassware was part of our collecting hobby, maybe selling EV components could go nicely with an EV building hobby.

The 51mm center to center connectors will work on HiPower 100AH cells possibly others. Would any of you be interested in 51MM center to center flexible connectors with SS M8 socket button head cap screws and wedge-lock washers for say, $5.50 each? You would need to pay shipping from Ohio to your location. I have an EBAY account with a 100% positive feedback rating, dating back 10 years, so you could purchase with confidence and it wouldn't be a group buy, where you would need to put money up front.

BATTERY CONNECTOR DIMENSIONS

BATTERY CONNECTOR

SS M8 SOCKET BUTTON HEAD CAP SCREW

WEDGE LOCK WASHER

So, the quest to do a quality build for under $10,000 continues and maybe if a builder could off set come of the cost by selling surpluses from the project while still giving other converters a better deal that available otherwise, would be a good deal all the way around. Any thoughts?

Until next time,

Randy