FINAL PREP FOR EVTV OPEN HOUSE (EVCCON)

After work Friday the final prep work for the trip to Cape Girardeau began. As a side note, I hate the spell check in Blogger, as it marks words as misspelled that really are not, such as Girardeau. It was spelled correctly but has a red line under it, so I have to take the time to look it up on Google just to make sure. 

Ok, back to the prep work; The solid state relay for the heater did not seem to be working correctly so was taken out and replaced with a Giga-Vac contactor. A little over kill but at least I know the defroster will work on a cold September morning in Missouri.

GIGA-VAC CONTACTOR FOR HEATER

When the car was detailed, it came home with the rear view mirror laying on  the passenger side floor, so a trip was made to Autozone to get some rear view mirror adhesive. After pealing off the old adhesive with a razor blade and roughing up the glass and steel attachment with some emery cloth, both were cleaned with the supplied cleaner and a drop of the adhesive was applied to the steel attachment. After holding it in place for a couple minutes, then letting it dry for a half hour or so, the mirror was clipped back in place and seems to be holding just fine. The car was detailed last month and after the local farmer harvested his soy bean crop, in back and to the side of my hours, the car was covered with dust. On the way to get the wind shield adhesive, the Fiero was run through a car wash and looks pretty good again. (From 10 feet)

REAR VIEW MIRROR REATTACHED

As I am not sure if blinker and brake lights are required on a car when being towed on a dolly, sheet metal was screwed to the original slotted motor bay covers. This will allow a place for the magnetic base on the portable tail lights to clamp to on the otherwise fiberglass body. The original slotted motor bay covers were replaced with solid ones to help keep water out. Brian Couchene is towing the Fiero to Missouri and his dolly does have tail and blinker lights on the fenders, so not sure the portable ones will be necessary but wanted to be prepared, just in case.

MOUNTING PLATE FOR TAIL LIGHTS

The hose clamps I used on the brake vacuum lines just stick out like a sore thumb so I picked up different clamps that should blend in a little better. If time permits, they will be installed tomorrow.

BRAKE VACUUM LINE CLAMPS

The trunk is packed with tools, adapter cables, and everything that may be needed to make sure I can keep the Fiero running. Probably won't need any of it as I have never had any problems with the car breaking down but don't  want to get caught off guard out of town.

The batteries are being topped off again as I am trying to have as much charge when we leave as possible. Not sure what the charging situation is at the Cape but want to make sure there is enough in the car to make it from the hotel to the EVTV Garage.

See you at the EVTV Open House!

Randy

FINAL BOTTOM BALANCE PASS AND FIRST CHARGE

Sunday started early, continuing to bottom balance the remaining 18 cells to 2.9 volts. They were actually charged to 2.935 but settled to around 2.909 volts after they sat for awhile. 

FINAL BOTTOM BALANCE

All of the cells were checked again with a voltmeter and the highest cell was 2.9 volts. My 220 Volt AC cable was too short, so I had to run over to the hardware store and get another 10 ft of 12/3 cable to hook up the charger. Then the negative lead from the charger to the module had to have a shunt installed and a little length added to te cable. Finally all of the connections were made, the volt meter hooked up to the highest cell, the JLD404 connected to the shunt and Pack positive and negative, and the 220 breaker was turned on.

BETTER PLACE MODULE FIRST CHARGE

The charger had been set to charge the 37 HiPower cells but the voltage will need turned up for the Better Place Module, as at 4 volts/cell, were still taking a charge with the voltage rising slowly and not yet on the vertical curve.

TABLE AND  GRAPH OF FIRST CHARGE

Not sure why the amps on the graph above fall off at 28 minutes but you can see from the charge curve that it did not reduce to 10.2 amps until after 60 minutes.

While the module was charging, I did some research to find a wiring diagram to hook up two relays so when the key is turned to start, it will open the contactors and put 12 volt power to the controller, that stays energized until the key is turned from the run to off position. Finally I found a schematic for the same Bosch relays I am going to use.

START SWITCH RELAY WIRING DIAGRAM

Work was a little slow today so I took a half day off so possibly I will start wiring up the relays and making up the battery pack leads to the controller.

More later,

Randy