FABRICATING THE MOUNTING FOR THE VOLT/AMP METERS

Saturday my wife and I met my family in Coshocton to go on the Fall Foliage tour. We skipped the last two farms on the tour and went to the Roscoe Village Apple Butter Stirring Festival. That pretty much took up Saturday so no work was done on the Fiero.

ROSCOE APPLE BUTTER STIRRIN'

Sunday morning was chilly but started warming up around 9am, so it was time to start on reworking the instrument cluster to incorporate the Volt/Amp digital meters. Right off the bat, I could not find a socket or nut driver that fit the small screws holding the face plate on, so drove over to Ace Hardware in Baltimore, OH to pick up some tools. Before EVCCON I picked up a 1/4 inch drive metric socket set so after finding out the socket I needed was 7/32 picked up a 1/4 inch drive, inch socket set and some inch nut drivers. 

Templates were made for the face plate to mount the meters and the terminal spacing to plug into the existing contact clips that were removed from the instrument cluster that origanally came with the car. The hole locations were transferred to a piece of aluminum sheet metal and were drilled out, then a template was made for the meter and was cut out on the plate with a Dremel cutoff wheel. The plate edges were cleaned up and the meters were tested for fit.

METER MOUNTING PLATE

Then focus turned to making a contact plate so the original contact clips can be used to connect the meters. The holes from the template were transferred to a piece of plexiglas and were drilled out. After another trip to Ace Hardware, brass screws were located in the holes and screwed into place. The contact plate fit like a glove and should work out great.

OLD CLUSTER WITH CONTACTS REMOVED

NEW CLUSTER WITH CONTACTS

STUDS ON BACK OF TEMP AND FUEL GAUGES

CONTACT PLATE

CONTACT PLATE MOUNTED

FACE TEST FITTED

The dual Volt Amp meters are not isolated, so I have to use a 12 volt dc-dc converter to power one of them up to make sure the pack negative is not tied to the 12 volt negative. The leads on the dc-dc converter are very small and require soldering the wires onto them. This can be done but twice not I have had a solder joint fail and the wire come loose, causing the meter not to work, so found a connector that the dc-dc converter will plug into that has connections that you push the wire on to connect them. I believe this will be a much more reliable way to connect the wires to the DC-DC converter and will make the operation of the Volt/Amp meters much more reliable.

DC-DC CONVERTER CONNTCTOR

Next weekend the wiring will be started so I am digging up the instrument cluster schematics and diagrams to find the wires that will need to be spliced to be able to use the original connectors.

More next week,

Randy

ALL DONE BUT FINISHING

This morning stated with another trip to Ace Hardware at 8 am but when I arrived, the store did not open until 9 on Sundays. No problem, as I just drove back to Flying J, by the interstate to get the car gassed up and to pick up a breakfast sandwich and coffee before driving back to the hardware store to wait for it to open. After finally getting in the store I picked up some 3/4 inch conduit clamps and looked around to try and find some kind of bushing to run the conduit through the front plate. After going through the electrical section, I finally went back to the pipe section and found an 1-1/4 inch pipe bushing that the conduit fit through, then back to the electrical section to get a couple of nipple nuts. 

1-1/4 INCH PIPE BUSHING

After arriving back home it was time to climb back under the Fiero to finish running the conduit.

FIERO IN THE AIR

The conduit clamps were changed out from 1 inch to 3/4 inch first then the first hole was drilled in the front plate. The only 1-1/4 inch hole saw I had was actually for wood and not metal, so by the time I was finished, sparks were flying and there were no teeth left on the hole saw but I was far enough through to take a hammer and get the metal disk to pop out. The conduit was run through the new bushing and a final fit cut was made. The cable was pushed through the conduit, fed up into the front compartment of the car, and the gland nut was tightened around the conduit. Great, one side done and only one to go, so another trip was made to ACE Hardware to pick up another 1-1/4 inch hole saw. Upon returning, the other hole was drilled and the positive cable was run up into the front compartment to finish the job.

CONDUIT RUNNING INTO FRONT COMPARTMENT

1-1/4 INCH PVC PIPE BUSHINGS

ALL DONE !

Just taking a short break and having a cold PBR, then back to work!

More this evening,

Randy

BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!

This has been a busy weekend, as I am getting ready to paint the bathroom and re-grout the tiles, so I needed to make as much progress as possible on getting the second module connected. July is almost history and EVCCON is only 8 weeks away. It seems like there is so much to do and so little time.

The module connections were installed, then the next project was to drill holes in the deck plate for the cables to be run through. There wasn't much room in front of the module but I was finally able to get into a position to center punch the locations and drill the holes with a hole saw.

BATTERY CONNECTIONS INSTALLED

HOLES DRILLED FOR CABLES

Earlier in the day a trip was made to ACE Hardware to pick up some flexible conduit and Liquid Tight Connectors to run the cable in.

3/4in x 25ft Ultratite Flexible Conduit

3/4 IN LIQUID TIGHT CONNECTOR

So the end to a busy weekend, that started with mowing the lawn on Friday, finishing some touch up painting around the new patio door and purchasing a car on EBAY, then working on the battery module. My work cloths still need dried and hung up but tomorrow back to work, so maybe I can get a little break and rest up a little!

Until next time,

Randy

BATTERY RACK

This morning the Fiero was taken to Gary's Place, a local mechanic in Kirkersville, but not before having to mess with the controller. The laptop had to be hooked up so the pot box could be re-calibrated. Once that was done the car ran flawlessly the 3 miles to the shop. The HiPower cells seem to be sagging less and as soon as I let my foot off the accelerator, the voltage came right back up to 124 volts.

The car was driven up on the lift and once off the ground, we started measuring and figuring where to place the angle. Once under the car, it became apparent we could mount the rack to the cradle without having to weld anything to the firewall or sides of the engine compartment. The front angle was placed completely across from the drivers side to the passenger side.of the cradle and the rear angle was run about 25 inches and terminated just before it came in contact with the motor adapter. The module is 23 inches long, with the existing end plates, so with the new thinner steel end plates I am making, will be less..

BATTERY RACK

CELL PLACEMENT TEST

Angle clips will be made and welded to the bottom of the new steel plates and will bolt to the angles, to hold the pack in place. There will be four, 3/8 inch bolts and fender nuts will be used so the bolts will be able to just be screwed in, without having to put a wrench on the bottom.

HOLD DOWN ATTACHMENTS

HOLD DOWN ATTACHMENT DETAIL

BATTERY RAIL ATTACHMENT

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

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

METERING ALONG

This week the blog picked up another follower; Welcome Jerry! As always, questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome. The blog actually keeps ME motivated, as when it is cold in the garage or when I am just feeling lazy, it is my reason to get to work, so there will be something to write about each week. If you are doing a conversion and have a blog, make sure and let me know, as I spend quite a bit of time learning from other builder's experiences.

Saturday morning was spent finishing the 12 volt system meters and did not go without some setbacks. Holes had to be located and drilled in the face plate where the meters mount so I used masking tape  and a couple of punches to mark the screw holes in the tape. I had put the tape adhesive side up and after the holes were located, placed the face plate on top of it, allowing the tape to stick to it. I drilled the holes on one side and then repeated the process on the other side, this time placing the punches though the holes I just drilled to make sure all four would line up. The other two holes were drilled and the plate was placed back on the instrument pod, then the screws were started. Of course, since the screws were counter sunk, the heads were sticking up quite a bit. In the past, when I have tried to countersink a hole in thin gauge metal, and have made the hole  too big, allowing the bolt head to pull through, so this time I thought I would punch the metal down into the holes on a couple of washers to give me an indent for the counter sunk heads. This worked really well on a couple of the holes but on the other two, it actually punched the metal out, leaving me with a hole larger than the heads of the screws. I believe if I would have ground a point on a large punch it may have worked good. Oh well, on to plan "B".

ACE Hardware has stainless steel, socket head button screws, so off I went to pick up some supplies to finish the project. Along with the screws, I picked up some rubber washers to fill in the gap between the face plate and the top of the screw hole, and some silver textured paint. 

ACE HARDWARE BALTIMORE, OH

It was lunch time, so I stopped at J.Gumbos in Baltimore, OH to have some of their great gumbo and to taste a couple of their large selection of craft beers. As luck would have it, Fred and Heather, the owners were both there and as always, I had a very enjoyable afternoon at their restaurant.

J. GUMBO'S BALTIMORE, OH

Saturday evening the face plate was painted and after drying, the pod was reassembled. Sunday morning the pod was put on top the center console and power was hooked up.

FINISHED 12 VOLT METER POD

Saturday evening,  the Better Place batteries from Israel arrived at EVTV in Cape Girardeau, MO.and you could see Jack and Brian filming the dis assembly of one of them on top of a crate in the middle of the shop.

BETTER PLACE BATTERY PACKS

Sunday was finished out trying to get the CX102 A meter to work and I was able to find the spec sheet on a website. It takes 9 volts but when trying to power it up with a 9 volt battery, nothing happened. I can either order two more of the CX102 A meters, order a couple from Light Object, or pick up a couple more like I used on the 12 volt system from EBAY.

CX102 A LED METER

Thanks for visiting,

Randy