HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year and hope you enjoyed reading about the 1985 Fiero EV re-build last year!

Срећна Нова година и надам се да сте уживали читајући о 1985 Фиеро ЕВ поново изграде прошле године!

Gott nytt år och hoppas du gillade att läsa om 1985 Fiero EV re-build förra året!

Frohes Neues Jahr und hoffen, Sie hatten das Lesen über 1985 Fiero EV re-build im letzten Jahr!

Feliz año nuevo y espero que haya disfrutado de la lectura sobre el Fiero 1985 EV re-construir el año pasado!

新年快乐，希望你喜欢阅读有关1985年费尔罗EV重新构建去年！

An Nou fericit și că va plăcut citit despre 1985 Fiero EV re-construi, anul trecut!

С Новым годом и надеюсь, вам понравилось читать о 1985 Fiero EV ремонтом в прошлом году!

Godt Nyttår og håper du likte å lese om 1985 Fiero EV ombygging i fjor!

Happy New Year dan berharap Anda menikmati membaca tentang 1985 Fiero EV re-build tahun lalu!

LAST WEEKS VISITOR STATISTICS

Thanks to all of you from around the world who visited the blog in 2013 and I hope you have been able to find something useful for your  conversion. I have joined many blogs and Youtube sites since starting this conversion and would love to hear about and follow your build. 

THIRD TEST DRIVE

If you have been following, the controller has been tripping out under hard acceleration. Before this test drive, the low pack voltage setting was set at 80 volts and the battery pack fault voltage was set to 60 volts. The car did better and would squeal the tires a little when the throttle was depressed quickly. After I turned around at the Motel, and headed back for the garage, the controller still tripped when shifting from third to fourth, but when I turned the key off and back on, did reset and allow me to power the car back into the garage. The battery is bad in the laptop I am using in the car and when the controller tripped, the laptop shut down, so I believe the DC-DC converter output voltage is dropping low enough to drop out the contactors. This is not logged properly because the laptop is shutting down. It must be a pretty instantaneous because I am not seeing it on controller user interface but it must be happening because the laptop is shutting down.

More in 2014,

Randy 

ODDS AND ENDS - BOTTOM BALANCING AGAIN

This week I continued working on getting ignition power for the vacuum pump and main contactor. The cooling fan was removed during the original conversion but the relay is still in the left front corner of the car, so that looks like the best place to get power.

MODIFIED COOLING FAN RELAY CIRCUIT

The left headlamp assembly was removed and the wiring to the cooling fan relay was exposed. It would be nice to run fan wires back through the division into the the area where the vacuum pump and contactor are but the lighting wires need to stay in the front, so separating them could be a little tricky. I may just use one of the extra Bosh relays I have since the circuit is going to need to be rewired anyway.

COOLING FAN RELAY WIRING

 As the batteries are all in the front of the car, I decided to move the charger until the rear battery boxes are installed. The connections to the motor were made up and loom was installed over the wiring. Orange shrink tubing was put on all of the high voltage cable, and all that is left to do back there is to anchor the loom and install the battery and DC-DC converter..

CONTROLLER AND MOTOR CONNTECTIONS COMPLETED

 During the original second bottom balance, a couple of the batteries that initially tested bad, seemed to come back to life. During my first two full charges of the pack, I had been spot checking the pack as it approached full discharge and when the pack reached 2.9 volts/cell on the second discharge, took readings on all of the batteries. To my surprise, they were varying mostly from 2.7 to 2.9 volts per cell, with one at 2.0 and one that had reversed polarity. Actually it was the one that had originally tested bad then checked good after I cycled it a couple time and since it was on the end, I just eliminated it from the pack. Because of this, I decided to give the cells another bottom balance with the JLD404 and a small flashlight bulb.

BOTTOM BALANCING WITH JLD404

The bottom balance is going to take awhile, as it would be quicker to put a little charge in a few cells but my Powerlab8 is still back at the factory for repair, so my only option is to discharge all of them until they settle at 2.6 volts. It takes a couple hours for each cell to finally settle out where it does not drift back up to 2.7.

It has been a good week, as I have been able to finish the little odd and ends and find there are fewer and fewer things that need finished before testing the motor and controller. The interior, gauges, and heater still need finished but that can be done after I test the motor and controller. There will also be brake and possibly clutch adjustments after the car is rolling.

Until next week,

Randy