NO BODY TOLD ME

Yesterday evening the instrument panel was tested and true to form, the dual panel meters did not light up. Monday after taking my wife to the doctor, I started trouble shooting the wiring and found that the bottom four wires on the female connector were backwards. No problem, just unsolder and put them back in correctly. A couple of the extra male prongs from the crimp d-sub connector were used on a 9 volt dc adapter to plug into the d-sub female connector on the new wiring harness but the panel meters still would not power up. Voltage readings were taken on the exposed metal on the top of the IDC connectors and there was no voltage, so on looking up the IDC  (insulation displacement contact, found that an insertion  tool is required. After looking around the garage I decided to try to use a male spade connector and was able to stand up the IDC connector and after aligning the spade up on the wire, was able to tap it with a hammer until you could actually feel the wire insert into the slot.

2.54 MM to IDC CONNECTOR

Great, time to try again, just wish the guy at Mouser would have told me you needed an insertion tool when he recommended the connector. This time, one meter lit up so the DC-DC converters were switched and sure enough, the other panel meter lit up and must have been damaged when the wires were desoldered. These DC-DC converters seem to be very delicate, so I order them by two so I will always have a spare.

ONE METER LIT

I really wanted to get the instrument panel back in the car this weekend but at least I am getting closer. 

Until next time,

Randy

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

LIGHTING THE WAY

I have been having problems with the 12 volt system dropping too low during acceleration when the headlights are on, so this week I ordered a pair of  7" x 6" sealed beam rectangular headlight housings with glass lens on EBAY that will allow me to use an H4 LED headlamp.

6054 SEAL BEAM TO H4 HOUSINGS

Then I found a pair of high power white LED H4 headlight low beam 80W Cree XB-D headlamp bulbs that were also ordered from EBAY. They are 1360 lumen, so will be about the same as the stock Fiero low beam output.

H4 LED HEADLAMP

To hook up the LED headlamps, a couple of H4 headlamp socket headlight plug connector extensions were ordered, again from EBAY. I read on some of the LED headlamp listings that a load resister may be required, so if any of you have any experience with LED lighting, I welcome your input.

H4 CONNECTORS

Also, the jumper will be installed on the IOTA DLS-50, DC-DC converter, that will increase the voltage output from 13.6 to 14.2 volts. The IOTA is listed as having a range from 108 volts to 132 volts, so when the pack drops below 90 volts under acceleration, there is a chance the output voltage will drop to the 10.7 volts where the Synkromotive main contactor trips.

IOTA 14.2 VOLT JUMPER

It has become apparent that the HiPower LiFePo4 cells that are being used are not going to be sufficient to power the EV Fiero effectively. I am not out anything, as the plan is to set up the Synkromotive controller as a fast charger and I will need a battery pack for that. A couple of fellow builders are working on this for their builds, so if you want to follow their progress, below are the links to their blogs.

A 240Z becomes an EV

Saturdays & EV's

The temperature in Ohio was in the teens all of last week, so I didn't do anything on the Fiero, except order headlight parts. Over this weekend we got several inches of snow, so no test drives either.

WINTER IN OHIO

Spring is just around the corner and I am ready for it! January has been a productive month, with a couple of test drives, allowing me to work out the bugs in the 12 volt system and the Synkromotive tripping problem. I also got the tachometer and speedometer working.

After hooking up the new headlights, the next project will be the interior, instrumentation, cleaning up the dash wiring, and hooking up the heater control circuit.

Thanks for visiting the EV Fiero Blog,

Randy