EVCCON 2015 WRAP UP

Michael Brown, a retired IBM employee, now residing in Thailand, made Cape Girardeau and EVCCON a stop on his world tour this year. Every year I go to EVCCON with the intention of doing daily blog posts about the event but have always found that others have already done write ups and that there is really no need to duplicate their efforts. Below are Mike's daily blog posts covering this year's event:

EVCCON 2015 Day -1

EVCCON 2015 - Day 0

EVCCON 2015 - Day 1

EVCCON 2015 - Day 2

EVCCON 2015 - Day 3

FINAL EVCCON 2015 WHISKEY TOAST

A special thanks to Brian Couchane for the ride to and from EVCCON for me and the Fiero! Brian is always lending a hand to other EVers and even brought his generator all the way from Ohio it the back of his truck, so those drag racing at Dyno Dom's in Siskin, MO would be able to charge between runs. Again many thanks Brian!

Also the help getting the vacuum leak on my brake line fixed by Aaron Lephart and his father was greatly appreciated. They went to the local NAPA and picked up some different clamps while I finished breakfast and would not even accept any payment for them. I appreciate the help guys and look forward to seeing you next year!

The week always goes so fast and I sit here in my hotel room wishing that I was getting up tomorrow and going to another session filled day at the EVTV garage instead of loading up the car and heading home but I guess that will just need to wait until next year!

To another Great EVCCON,

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

GIVE ME A BREAK.....PARKING THAT IS

After the new brake line were run, when I got home, the parking brake would not work. Tonight I finally crawled under the rear of the car and found that when the brakes were being adjusted, the nipple had pulled out of the holding bracket. 

The bracket was removed and the threads were cleaned with a wire brush, then the nut was heated with a propane torch and worked back and forth a few times to free up the threads. Then the threads were sprayed down with some WD40 and the nut was run out almost to the end of the threads. The ends were installed back in the bracket and will be adjusted tomorrow after work.

NIPPLE OUT OF HOLDING BRACKET

BRACKET REMOVED

CLEANING THE THREADS

REASSEMBLED

I don't think Gary, my mechanic over in Kirkersville, OH realized how important a parking brake is on an electric car, as there is no engine compression to hold the car when it is parked. The holding bracket was a little damaged but I am going to try to put some weld on it to bring it back to working condition.

Until next time,

Randy

NO BOOT

Sunday the tablet was configured to go into hibernation mode when power was removed from the micro USB port. The charger was hooked up to switched 12 volts, so when the key switch was turned off, the tablet would hibernate. When I went out tonight to test it, the tablet would not boot up. I brought it inside and plugged it into the charger for about 15 minutes, and  it finally booted up. So back into the battery set-up and in the advanced mode, there were settings for low battery level and critical battery level. I set the low battery level to give a warning at 20% and the critical level to shut down at 15%.  This should reserve enough power to allow the tablet to boot up after shutting it off with the key switch. It will probably be a good practice to shut the tablet down after turning the car off but just in case it is left on, should boot back up now.

BATTERY BASIC SETUP SCREEN

BATTERY ADVANCED MENU 

The radio/heater control center console was still bowed out on the sides a little, causing a gap on the right side when the face plate was installed, so clamps were used to try to pull them back in. Hopefully if it is clamped for a couple of days, it will hold the original shape.

RADIO/HEATER CONTROL COVER CLAMPED

Not a lot done tonight but it was something and I can start seeing some light at the end of the tunnel in getting the interior finished.

Thanks for dropping by,

Randy

RPMs

Had a good week and now the tachometer is working. I am sure there will be some tweaking to get it reading the correct RPM and will probably need to install a pull-down resister to get the movement to react a little quicker but the needle moves! Seems I had the B+ lead going to a blank terminal and once it was moved to the 12 volt positive switched terminal, it worked.

12 VOLT TERMINAL BLOCK

FIERO TACHOMETER WORKING

After messing around with the left blinker light socket, it is now working. I have a new one ordered but at least I was able to re-loom the wiring and attach the head light assembly.

TURN SIGNAL FIXED

The speedometer still is not working and the black with white stripe wire appears to be cut off of the C20 connector. That is the wire that needs ground to make it work. The original builder must have ground it somewhere else and I probably removed the splice when I was re-wiring the car.

WIRE TO LEFT OF CONNECTOR CUT

The 12 volt lead acid battery was able to be mounted in the same location a the smaller LiFePo4 cell.

AUTOCRAFT MOTORCYCLE BATTERY

Two of the cable clamps were also installed on the traction pack cables. I am going to cut the longer cable and match the lengths so the cables will look a little better.

TRACTION PACK CABLE CLAMPS

I wasn't able to work very much on the Fiero but still had a pretty productive week. As soon as all the bugs are worked out, it will be time to start on the interior and instrumentation. I was told by Synkromotive that the controller user interface will work with a Windows 8 RT device, so have been watching for one on ebay. A 10 inch screen probably will not fit in the space I have available but Dell made an 8 inch model the will.

Thanks for dropping by,

Randy