BOTTOM BALANCING THE LAST BETTER PLACE MODULE

We have had a few nice weekends in the last half of February, so decided to start bottom balancing the third Better Place battery module. 

The terminals and connectors were  all cleaned with scotch bright and a thin coat of Noalox anti-oxidant compound was applied to the them. The connectors were positioned on the terminals and a small drop of Loctite was applied to each of them before threading them into the terminal. A socket on a Dewalt drill with the torque setting on 3 was used to tighten all of the terminals.  

Then voltages were taken on each half cell and most of them were in the 3.85 volt range but one cell was only 3.65, so the volt meter was hooked on that half cell to monitor the drain down of the module.

Eye terminal connectors had been previously crimped onto the end of an extension cord and two 1000 watt flood lights are used to draw down the module. When the voltage reading on the lowest cell approached 3 volts, the individual half cell readings will be taken again and a different cell will be monitored if necessary. I will drain the module down to 88 volts or 2.75 volts/half cell and let the module set for awhile, as it will drift back up in voltage in a few hours. Then a 100 watt light bulb is hooked up to allow the voltage to be drawn down slowly. Finally a 5 watt night light is hooked up that allows the voltage to be drawn down even more slowly. This is the only way I have found that will cause the voltage to finally stabilize and not keep drifting back up. Even after that, over a couple of weeks, the cells will drift back up to around 3 volts. 

After the initial draw down and couple of weeks sitting, individual half cell balancing is done with a JLD404 and a 4 volt flashlight bulb. The JLD404 is set so it drains the half cell down to 2.75 volts and does not turn back on until the cell drifts back up to 2.95 or so. These are just hooked up and allowed to cycle until the half cell stabilizes under  2.95 volts.

BOTTOM BALANCING MODULE

With spring just around the corner, I want to get a running start to get the Fiero back on the road with all three modules installed.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

GLOBAL WARMING

As gas prices have been falling, (Currently $1.79 in my area of Ohio) the other reason to own an electric car is to help the environment. It is December 6 and warm enough to work outside on the Fiero in a sweatshirt. Ok, so maybe there are some benefits to a warming climate! You know I am just joking but it was a beautiful December day in Central Ohio! The nights have been cold with frost in the morning but by about 10 am, the temperature is in the high 50s, so I was able to get a little more work done on the Fiero instrument cluster both Saturday and Sunday.

The final 3 wires were spliced on the D-Sub connector and after a little fumbling around trying to remember how it went into the housing, was finally able to get it back in the car and plug in all of the connectors. The duel meters light up but are just reading zeros. These duel volt/amp meters are inexpensive but are produced in China with very poor documentation, so on the pack meter (I checked to make sure there was voltage before I made the connections) the negative and positive must be switched. I did not check the 12 volt lead voltage on the low voltage meter, so I suspect that is the problem on that one. Even though the faces of the meters look the same, the connections on the back are different and I have read in some of the forums that even the same model meters sometimes do not have the same connections from batch to batch. I am getting closer so hopefully someday, the meters will work correctly and actually read volts and amps! The good news is the speedometer lights are working, but on the downside, now my dome lights are not shutting off when the doors are closed and the parking brake light stays on all of the time. Did I ever mention I hate automotive wiring!

INSTRUMENT LIGHTS WORKING!

Every weekend day that is warm enough to work out side is a true blessing but I know this will not happen much longer, so really need to get all of the Fiero lighting and metering working soon. 

My wife had been bugging me to get her SLK 230 headliner recovered and stopped into JoAnn Fabrics to find out if they carry any headliner fabric. To my surprise, they did but I also found some black vinyl that had a really cool pattern in it that I may try. I think it would be easier to clean and would give the car interior a classy look, so may just stop back and pick some up.

Until next time,

Randy

INTERIOR FINISHING TOUCHES

After a 120 mile drove to and from my parents, a little more progress was made on the Fiero. An opening was cut in the laminated face plate that was made and it was painted black. After drying, the face plate was test fit and it is going to work out well.

JLD404 FACE PLATE

Then the fuses were checked to see if that is the cause of the dash lamps not working. All of the fuses were good so I checked the dimmer switch and sure enough, it was all the way on dim. After moving it to full illumination position, the right side lamps lit but not the left side. This means that the connector pulled out of the dash socket when the rear cover was put back on, so it will need to come off again.

RIGHT SIDE DASH LAMPS WORKING

All and all a pretty productive day but I will really be glad to get the interior wrapped up and be able to move on to getting the front batteries and new vacuum pump installed.

Until next time,

Randy

EASTER

Ever since the Fiero was purchased back in 2012, I have been bothered by the noisy vacuum pump, so decided to try a rotary vane pump. After the interior is finished, re-working the vacuum system will be my next project.

VACUUM PUMP

The JLD404 mounted in the dash still needs a face plate, so a template was made and the cutout was laid out on a piece of flat foam. This will be laminated to a piece of Plexiglas for the front and a piece of aluminum or sheet metal on the rear. The idea is to make the face of the JLD404 mount flush with the face plate.

JLD404 MOUNTED IN DASH

CUTOUT IN FOAM

LAMINATED FACE PLATE

Wanted to get this post out before leaving to go to my parents house for Easter and may have another post tonight. The shift calibration is still giving me a head ache but I finally got it to go into forth gear. Work will continue until I get it working. Also, the instrument cluster lights quit working, so that is another project.

Thanks for viewing,

Randy

NEMESIS

As reported in past posts, wiring is my nemesis and in the case of getting the console back together, this is no exception. A recent blog entry had pictures of the tablet, displaying the Synkromotive GUI and the dash meters working, (mostly.)

This week the whole center console had to come back out because a couple of wires did not exit from the rear of the console cover and could not be accessed without taking everything apart. As it turns out, the reason they did not exit the rear of the cover is because they were never spliced into the wiring run, they needed to feed from, so the wires didn't even exist yet. Also, the voltage reading on the 12 volt system kept disappearing. When the wiring harness they ran in was pushed forward, the display would go to zero, sometimes but sometimes it would not. All of the connections were checked but still, the readings could not be made to go to zero, consistently. The back cover was removed from the instrument cluster and the wires going into the meters were rearranged. After the instrument panel back cover was re-installed, the problem seemed to go away.

Then when the center dash cover was put back on, the wire feeding power from the heater fan, to the heater solid state relay,  had come loose and was not apparent until after the heater control was re-installed, so it all had to come back out again. Of course, the clip that holds the temperature control cable to the actuator broke, so a trip to the hardware store was required.

Messing up a seat or scratching the finish on interior panel parts, is a constant worry when putting it all back in the car and after leaning my elbow on the center hump heard a crack. The radio face plate had been laid there and I had just cracked the thin bottom strip on it. It was glued back together but a replacement will need to be ordered. Another $40 down the drain!

To make matters worse, the temperature in Ohio dropped back into the teens and the garage is cold. By Saturday evening, the center console cover had been re-installed and all of the meters were still working, so far, so good!

After watching EVTV on Sunday morning, it was back out to the garage. The heater controls were reconnected and when tested, the light on the solid state relay came on. Then the outer cover was installed and the tablet was connected. The tablet was charging but would not connect to the Synkromotive GUI. After a reboot, it connected, so the key was switched to the start position to make sure all of the data was being displayed. Thank goodness, I eased the accelerator because the transmission was left in gear and the car started to move forward a little. After putting it back in neutral and revving the motor a few time, battery and motor voltage and current were reading just fine on the GUI and on the instrument panel meters.

It was time to test fit the radio opening cover that was made to mount the JLD404. After getting a couple of bolts in it and putting the face plate on, it ended up being about 1/4 in too short at the top. I had made this from some foam sheet a piece of Plexiglas, and a piece of aluminum, all laminated together with adhesive. The idea was to snap the meter into the inner plate and have the foam and outer Plexiglas opening a little larger, so the face of the meter will be flush. Looks like a new one will need to be made.

After making a new template, the pattern was transferred to a piece of sheet metal and the opening was cut in the center. The JLD404 was inserted in the opening and wired. When powered up, the meter was set and all of the readings came up as expected.

Onto the arm rest, power window controls and gearshift cover. The 12 volt to 5 volt adapter was left near the driver's side ashtray opening and will be mounted there so it can be accessed if needed. This was the first test fit but everything seemed to fit well.

FIERO EV INTERIOR

The interior is coming together quite well and should be completely done in the next couple of weeks. The leads on the 12 volt shunt are going to need to be switched, as the duel voltage/current meter only reads positive values for current. Once this is done, all of the instrumentation will be up and working. The only other items that need done are bolting the fuse box back to the bottom of the dash and putting the bolts in the passenger seat.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

SPRING!!

Work pretty much halted during February, as the weather turned bitterly cold, with temperatures in the low single digits and below zero many day. The garage was just too cold to spend much time in but it did present the opportunity for me to order a new center console radio and heater control cover and a couple of different mounting brackets for the Dell Venue 8.

The weather is  finally breaking and I can see the grass changing from brown to green, every morning when I look out the window. Finally I was able to spend some time out in the garage, working on fabricating a plate to mount the JLD404 and a bracket to mount the Dell Venue 8. My Son's fiance offered me the stereo out of her old Jeep that is fairly thin, so with any luck, there will be enough room in the radio opening, to get both the radio and the JLD404 mounted. Up to this point, I have not worried about a radio but now is a good time to address the issue.

The new Dell Venue 8 mounting looks like it is going to work out well.

DELL VENUE 8 MOUNTING (FRONT)

DELL VENUE 8 MOUNTING (REAR)

The bracket was made from aluminum sheet and may not be stiff enough but if that proves to be the case, a bracket out of sheet steel should fix the problem, so I am close to getting the tablet mounting problem solved and finally have a solution that ends up looking real clean.

It's still early Sunday morning, so hopefully I will be able to continue working today and post an update this evening.

Until Then,

Randy

This afternoon, all of center console gauge wiring was completed and the center dash console was installed. There is still a rat's nest of wires but everything is labeled and should connect back up easily. Once the heater controls are installed and connected, I will put in the new meter in the center dash and hook up all of the instrument wiring. The last piece will be cutting the hole in the panel for the JLD404 and hooking it up. If everything checks out, I will be able to put on the center console cover and finally finish up the interior. That will be a great relief as I actually started the interior last spring. There is a new headliner, recovered sun visors, repainted panels, cleaned carpets, new covering on the panel behind the seats, and new seats. The interior should pretty much look like a showroom Fiero back in 1985.

CENTER PANEL INSTALLED

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

EVTV BUILD DATABASE

Not much going on with the Fiero EV build last week but did decide to post the build on the EVTV Database. The pictures I have are not that great so I went back through my picture archives and finally found a few that will work for now.

1985 FIERO GT EV CONVERSION

This weekend all of my time was spent cleaning carpets and finishing up all of my Christmas shopping, so nothing new on the build. Looking forward to a new year and finally finishing up the conversion.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

IF IT WEREN'T FOR BAD LUCK..........

Last weekend I was picking up a prescription at the drug store and when I pulled out of the parking spot,  heard a scraping sound. I pulled out and drove a little way and the sound continued, so got out of the car to find one of my tires was completely flat. I was able to limp the car across the street, where there was an air pump but after about 5 minutes, came to the realization that the tire was not going to pump up. The lugs take a key socket to remove, so I got it out and on the first lug, it split down the side. By fortune, there was a tire shop right next to the carryout that had the air pump. I had bought the tire at another Tire Store and had road hazard insurance on it, so asked them to just put on the spare. It was near the end of the day and they said they would not be able to put the spare on until the next day, so I called my son Shane. His girlfriend Vanessa was working in Pickerington and picked ue up to wait at her work until Shane got there to take me home. The next day he came back over and took me to pick up the car. Mr Tire put my spare tire on for no charge, so I would recommend this business as they were willing to help out someone in need and did not try to take advantage of me.

899 Refugee Rd

Pickerington, OH

(614) 863-2444

I took the tire to the tire shop where I bought it and they had to order a new tire, so dropped it off. I took my wife's car to work on Monday and the temperature had plummeted into the teens, so after work I walked out into the cold parking garage looking forward to going home but when the key was turned, nothing happened. I turned the lights on and they seemed to be working fine but I called security and ask them if they could come down and try and give me a jump. When they arrived, we hooked up the jumpers but the starter still would not crank. My son gets off work about the same time as me, so I called him and he picked me up on his way home to take me to my house. It is a strange feeling because it is usually me helping my son and his girlfriend keep their cars going and coming to pick them up, so I could tell it made him feel good, to finally get to bail me out of a jam.

Now the only car I had that would make it to work from my house was my Miata with the small spare tire. It was still really cold out and the spare is probably 34 years old, so I kept my speed to under 60 miles per hour on the way to work. I decided to take a half day off to go and pick up the new tire and again, kept the speed under 60 all the way to the tire shop. The tire replacement was free and I got a new key socket, so if I have another flat, I will be able to change it. I would recommend Tire Discounters because they honored their warranty, no questions asked.

1041 Hebron Rd,

Heath, OH 43056

(740) 281-3611

tirediscounters.com

OK, one problem solved but I still had a car in a parking garage in Columbus, OH. I tried to start the car a couple more times but the starter just would not turn over. Friday night I got on the internet and found a tow company that said they would come and pick me up on Saturday. Early Saturday morning, there was an ice storm in Central Ohio, so the wrecker company emailed to inform me they were not releasing any of their trucks until the temperature came up and the ice had been cleared. About 10:00 am, I headed to my son's house in Columbus and upon arriving, called the wrecker driver again. We agreed to meet at the parking garage in 45 minutes, so my son and I went to the garage and pushed the car to get it ready to push out of the exit, when the wrecker arrived. The driver backed up to the exit and we were able to push the car close enough to the truck for him go get it hooked up. We met the driver at a downtown repair shop and I paid the driver $75 for the tow. I would highly recommend Buddy's Towing!

BUDDY'S TOWING

Telephone:+1 614-496-0802

E-mail: buddy@buddysrpm.com

As always, the repair shop said the car would not be done until Monday, so my son and I went to the Tip Top on Gay Street in Columbus and had a craft beer and lunch. While we were eating, the shop called to happily inform me they had found the problem and for the small price of $450 would gladly repair the car. Now I know how much a starter costs and I know how long it takes to put one in, especially if you have a lift, so was quite put out. To get it home would have been a couple hundred dollars and there was no way I could have changed it in the parking garage, so guess I will just have to accept the highway robbery. I would not recommend taking your car to Grismer Tire and Auto!

DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR HERE

Ok, so with all of that, I still was able to do a little work on the Fiero EV build. I went out to set up the Powerlab6 and the cables that went to the 12 volt battery were dangling over the side of the table. When I went to pick them up, the clamps that were on one of the half cells of the module came off the terminals, and there was a dreaded popping noise. Now I am not very hopeful of any help from Revolectrix in honoring their warranty, as I am sure that they are going to somehow say I misused the product. It wasn't even connected to a 12 volt power supply so even if the connectors came of of the cell, should not have blown the charger.

Anyway, I am hooking up a JLD404 with a small dc adapter to charge the cells back up to 3 volts and have ordered a cheap battery balance machine to use, once it get here. I bought this charger for the price of shipping the Powerlab6 back to Revolectrix and it has a USB port so it can be controlled from a computer. Hopefully, they don't put all of the restrictions on the setup as the Powerlab6 and I can charge and discharge without having to hook anything up to a 12 volt battery.

With everything going on, I still did not get the table if the front of the garage broken down so I can get the fiero in but tomorrow when my son helps me bring the car home from the shop, I am going to have him help me carry the table down to the basement.

Mark Weisheimer programmed the Pic chip that I bought for the Zivan charger, so I want to run the batteries on the Fiero down a little to try it out. We set it at 18 amps to charge and to shut off at 137.6 volts with no constant current charge at the end. I am going to need to watch the first charge and probably adjust the voltage pot to shut off at the correct voltage. The contacts on the JLD404 will also be set up to stop the charge a little before it gets to the 137.6 volts, so there will be two shut off mechanisms. Mark is really busy with the Lear Charger and Chevy Volt DC-DC converter development, not to mention the traveling he does in his day job, so I really appreciate his taking the time to help out a fellow EV converter.

Well, next week has to be better, because there isn't much room for it to get much worse, so I guess what doesn't kill you, just makes you stronger! Looking forward to next week!

Randy

I NEED A TRACTOR

Over the last several weeks, I have been tearing the garage apart in search of the battery connectors for the third Better Place Module and it finally dawned on me, did I ever remove the connectors from the plastic holder that was used to hold the connectors and the BMS connections on the module. I opened the carrier case that the Better Place Module was shipped in and sure enough, they were still in the plastic holder. I had taken the connectors off of a module when I first disassembled the pack but bottom balanced a different module to put in the rear of the car and used the connectors that were already removed. I am not sure why I thought I had a bag of connectors.

BATTERY CONNECTION HOLDER

BATTERY CONNECTORS

I had a friend once ask me if I wanted to buy a tractor. With a puzzled look, I asked him, why would I need a tractor and he replied; "To pull your head out of your Ass." Guess this isn't the first time I have found myself feeling a little stupid.

Last week the half cells were all drained down to 2.6 volts again and I have been watching the voltage come back up each day since then. This morning, the highest cell was back up to 2.911 so if it stays under 3 volts, I may try to charge each half cell back up to 3 volts. After a charge, the batteries stop drifting up and will drop in voltage if anything.

CURRENT HALF CELL VOLTAGE

The weather has turned cold in Ohio, so my next project will be getting the table in the front of the garage cleared off , broken down and stored out of the way. I really need to get the instrumentation and tablet connections completed, the center console back in and complete the interior. Then I can focus mounting the other two battery modules.

Until next time,

Randy

IF MY HEAD WASN'T ATTACHED..........

Over the last several weeks I have been rearranging the garage to get the Fiero back in, so work can continue when the weather gets cold again. It was time to start bottom balancing the other two Better Place modules, so I made some jumper wires and needed another connector to connect the center two cells that originally had external connections going to them. I remember the bag of connectors being in the trunk of the Fiero when I made up the connections on the first module and remember moving it around, all the time thinking, I need to put these somewhere I can find them again when needed. I finally found the bolts in the shipping crate but the connectors were no where to be found. So all of the work I did rearranging the garage will need to be moved back out until the connectors are found.

Not to worry, the show must go on and I can still look for the connectors while the second module is being bottom balanced. I am using two 150 watt quartz lights for the initial drain and just putting a volt meter on the lowest half cell to monitor the voltage.

QUARTZ LIGHT FOR RESISTERS

After the voltage on the lowest half cell gets down to 2.8 volts or so, a smaller light is hooked up to keep a constant drain at a lower amp draw.

40 WATT LIGHT FOR RESISTER

Finally, after the lowest cell settles below 3 volts, I hook up a small night light to try and drain the battery at close to the same rate as it is trying to recover at.

SMALL NIGHT LIGHT FOR RESISTER

Once the small night light is connected, I take readings on all of the half cells and keep draining until the highest cell will settle at under 3 volts.

The final step is to use the Powerlab and charge all of the cells back to 3 volts. The LiMn2O4 cells seem to work at a higher voltage that the LiFePO4 cells and are charged to 4.2 volts before settling back to around 2.9 volts and at 3 volts are pretty much done when pulling higher amps when driving, so 3 volts as the bottom balance voltage should be fine.

The shifting is still not correct so I pulled the shifter so I could give it a good inspection for wear.

SHIFTER

After an inspection of the shifter, I could not find anything wrong, so put it back in the car and and attempted to readjust the shift cables. It seems that the select arm keeps changing when the adjustments are done, almost like something is not returning to the same position inside the transaxle so my next step is to try and remove the pin holding the select pivot to put now bushings in it. If that doesn't work, I am afraid the transaxle is goint to need to be pulled and sent to a transmission shop to be gone over. 

So as the batteries are draining, the search continues for the lost connectors. As I said in the title; If my head wasn't attached, well you know the rest of the story.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

WHAT HOURS?

After weighing the Fiero yesterday, I decided to take if for a test drive to see if my watt hours decreased. As  274 pounds of batteries were taken out of the front of the car, I was expecting the watt hours per mile to decrease around 27.4 from the 288 to around 261 watt hours per mile. To my surprise, the watt hours per mile came down to 228, using 120 volts as the average. 

When I removed the batteries, not only was the weight reduced but the front of the car came up a couple of inches, possibly changing the aerodynamics of the car. Additionally, the belly pan was removed. The other issue is what do you use as voltage when figuring how many watts you used? Before I started the drive, the voltage was around 135 volts and as the drive progressed, the voltage was slowly declining. Below is a graph that illustrates the difference in watt hours depending on what you use as the voltage.

TEST DRIVE WATT HOUR TABLE

Another factor is that the entire test drive today was in forth gear, as the shift cables are out of adjustment again. As stated above, I was expecting the watt hours per mile to decrease by around 27 watt hours but it dropped anywhere from 31 to 60, depending on the voltage I plugged in. I can see a real need for a good watt hour meter that counts up and down and gives an average watt hour reading based on samples of current and voltage.

I thought I had a log file of the drive but when I opened it, there was nothing but zeros in the accelerator voltages, so I must have actually turned it when I was sitting in the driveway.

The garage is cleared out and ready to pull the car in when the weather turns cold this weekend and I have started getting contactors and wiring ready to bottom balance the other two packs.

Thanks for dripping by,

Randy

GUESS YOUR WEIGHT

Last week, in response to Jack Rickard's comment on the EVTV Blog that, 1 watt hour per mile per each 10 pounds of weigh was a rough estimate of how large of a pack you will need, I posted that my car was using 288 watt hours per mile, so the car must weigh 2880 pounds. I went on to post that I would really like to weigh the car, to see how heavy it actually is. A few days later, Brian Couchene  emailed and offered to let me use his scales. This Friday we made arrangements and I drove out to Brian's house to pick up the scales.

As always, I had a very informative visit, with a demonstration of the Lear Charger and the software that was operating it. Brian has a UI set up to change the voltages and turn off the charger. He is now working on trying to get the charger's 12 volt capabilities to work. The Coda, which these particular chargers were used on, did not use the 12 volt system in the charger but the EVTV team working on reverse engineering the CAN programming, is hoping it can be enabled. Brian has the engine and transmission out of the S10 he is converting and we went outside where it was parked,  to talk about how he was going to install the E-Drive transmission and Siemens Motor. As always, it is quite enjoyable getting to spend an evening with a fellow EV converter, talking about electric cars and in the case of Brian, hybrid and battery powered switch locomotives.

Late Saturday morning, the scales were hooked up and zeroed, then the car jacked up, and the scales placed under each wheel.

PROFORM LCD INTERFACE

SCALES UNDER WHEELS

Weight measurements were taken with the HighPower cells still in the front of the car, with them removed, and with them removed and me in the dirver's seat.

WEIGHT OF CAR

With the HighPower cells still in the front of the car and adding 199 pounds for my weight, the car would have been at 2825 pounds, so pretty close to the 1 watt hour per 10 pounds per mile.I will do some test drives with 274 pounds less than before and it will be interesting to see if I drop down close to 260 watt hours per mile.

By now, I was on a roll, so started taking the belly pan off the front underneath of the car. I was actually able to get all of the screws out without jacking up the car as the front of the car had come up several inches when the HiPower cells were removed. With the belly pan now out of the way, I started removing the heavy angle iron battery racks that were designed to hold lead acid batteries. I didn't have the car on jacks, so had to cut off one of the brackets to finally get the rack to drop out of the bottom of the car but finally it was out!

BATTERIES AND RACKS REMOVED

I was finished by 5 PM but was totally wiped out from crawling around on the driveway all day, so it was time for a little rest to get ready for the Buckeye game against Penn State tonight.

Thanks again to Brian Couchene  for the use of the scales!

Until Next Time,

Randy

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DOLLAR... WELL ALMOST!

After taking the car on the 20 mile interstate test drive, the voltage had settled around 119.5 volts and even though, there should be another 9 watt hours in the pack, according the the JLD404, I  decided to go ahead and charge. At $0.15 per kilowatt hour, it cost me $1.04 to put 6.786 KWH into the pack.

The voltage and current were lowered last week at the end of the charge, so this charge dropped from 18 amps to 17 amps. I watched the end of the charge a little closer this week and the charger still is not shutting off as soon as I would like. At 138.2 the average half cell voltage is 4.312 volts or 0.112 volts over the recommended cutoff voltage.

I decided to stay with the Zivan NG3 charger because it only weighs 15 pounds and it fits neatly in the space on the engine side of the trunk, tucked away and barely visible. The drawback is it can not be programmed without sending it in the the manufacture rep in California, paying $75 and hoping they program it the way you want it programmed. Enter DIY Electric car and a thread on putting a PIC chip in the charger that can change the voltage cut off. I got one of the chips but have never programmed it because the original HiPower cells I purchased were never going to work. Now that I have the Better Place modules, it is time to put the Pic chip in the Zivan charger, get it back in the car and hooked back up to the J1772 and 220 volt sockets.

PIC CHIP AND CIRCUIT BOARD

I left the chip with Mark Weisheimer when he worked on the Zivan charger after I blew one of the IGBTs., so contacted him to see if he had ever loaded the code. He has been heavily involved with reverse engineering the CAN commands for the Lear charger, used in several of the OEM electric and hybrid cars, so I was a bit worried he may not have time right now to program it but was relieved to get a reply telling me he would program the chip and help set it up in the charger. He also gave me some good recommendations on setting up a back up system to shut off the charger, just to be safe. I have a JLD404 and a spare contactor, so it is just a matter of wiring it up to shut off the charger if it's programming fails to do so.

A couple of the rollers on my garage door had pulled loose and the door would hardly close, so I made a trip to the hardware store for some new rollers. After working on it for a couple of hours, it is opening and closing just fine now. Also, the garage cleaning continued to try and set up space to charge the other two Better Place modules and still get the car in when it gets cold. Shouldn't be long and I will be able to get the car back inside for winter.

Until next time,

Randy

CRUISING INTERSTATE 70

EVTV's Friday show was downloaded early this morning, so by the time I finished watching, it was after 2:00 AM Sunday morning. I woke up at 7:am but decided to sleep in a little. About 10:00 am, I got moving and went outside to prepare the Fiero to test on the interstate. Having run the car out of juice a couple weeks ago, I was a little nervous, needless to say. Before leaving, the names of a couple of towing companies were written down, the charge cable was disconnected, and voltage, amp hour, and mileage reading were recorded. The shift linkage was inspected to make sure the cable had not pulled out again. The camera was taped to the dash, the laptop booted up and the Synkromotive UI was brought up. Finally before backing up, the JLD404 was reset and the Synkromotive log program started. So finally, I was driving down the road in front of my house toward the entrance to interstate 70 and even with all the planning and preparation, the 12 volt negative lead to the inverter that the laptop was plugged into came out of the terminal. So much for planning, so I decided to drove across the interstate to the Flying J parking lot and re-connect the terminal. Ok, the log program is running again, so off to the interstate entrance ramp. Just when I made the turn, the negative lead came out of the terminal again. Oh well, here we go anyway and at least the camera was working. The car ran great and I cruised along at 60 mph until turning onto the off ramp at Etna and turned into the McDonald's parking lot to try and get the log program back up. This time I taped the negative lead to the inverter so it could not come out and got the log program back up and running. Then back on to Route 70 to continue the test drive. The car was still doing fine so I decided to pass the Rt158 exit and to on up the road to the Route 37 Exit. The shifter was still acting up but I was able to get it into fourth gear when on the interstate. 

INTERSTATE 70 TEST DRIVE MAP

Upon arriving back at the house, the drive was 20.9 miles and 50.5 amp hours were used giving me 2.4 amp hours per mile or 288 watt hours per mile. The controller had not limited amperage and drove normally the whole drive. When the other two modules are installed, I should have a good 60 mile range, that should be sufficient for me to drive to work in downtown Columbus, OH and back with out having to charge. 

Below are the graphs from the Synkromotive log file showing pack and motor voltage, pack and motor current, and all four on the last graph.

PACK AND MOTOR VOLTAGE

PACK AND MOTOR AMPS

PACK AND MOTOR VOLTAGE AND AMPERAGE

The last graph is a little busy but shows that just one module can power the car on the interstate without sagging the pack voltage too much. Also, the 12 volt system did not sag below 11.5 volts and always recovered to at least 13 volts after an acceleration.

There is a feed store and a granary close to my house with scales, so as soon as the other two modules are installed, I want to have the car weighed. The 288 watt hours per mile is a little higher than expected and may just be a result of the weight of the car. Fieros are notoriously heavy for a two seat car, so that may be the reason for the higher than expected watt hours per mile.

Below is a video of the test drive and I didn't put any music or voice over as I wanted to show just how quite the car is when cruising down the highway.

FIERO EV INTERSTATE 70 - 20 MILE TEST DRIVE

The day ended with a visit from my son Shane, his fiance Vanessa, and their husky, Finn. Shane and I enjoyed a growler of Buckeye Lake Blond draft during dinner and while visiting the rest of the evening.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

TWEAKING IN THE ZIVAN CHARGER

This morning I drove the Fiero another five miles around the neighborhood, to drain the pack down  before charging again. While still not perfect, the gears can be shifted reasonably well now and I was able to go through all four gears without any hang ups. The amp hour reading was down to around 14.5 and the voltage was at 120 volts before starting out.  During the drive the voltage did not dip below 98 volts, under light acceleration and stabilized around 113 volts, when cruising at 40 mph in fourth gear. The car had been driven 19 miles since the last charge and had used 45 amp hours, so it used around 2.4 amp hours per mile or using 120 volts as an average, 284 watt hours per mile. 

When I got back from driving the car, the charger was hooked up and the fourth charge of the Better Place module was started. The voltage had come back to 120 volts and I took readings after charging for one minute, and then every half hour, until the end of the charge, where I tried to document when the charger started cutting back the amperage.

CHARGE GRAPH

This time the module was charged to 136.9 volts or 4.27 volts per cell. The amperage cut back to 2 amps but the voltage did not hold steady and kept climbing. Even after adjusting down the voltage and current pots, the charger still did not shut off so had to be manually shut off again. The pack took 47.71 amp hours and had 14.7 amp hours left in it from the previous charge, so should have 62.41 amp hours or 7489 watt hours in it. Tomorrow I am going to take the Fiero out on the interstate again and have a route that should give me about a 18 mile drive.

PLANNED INTERSTATE 70 - 18 MILE TEST DRIVE

While the module was charging I rearranged the air compressor, shelves, and table, in the front of the garage, so the Fiero can be moved back in. The other two modules will be moved to the front of the garage to bottom balance but there should be room now for the car to be pulled in if the weather turns cold. I moved some items that were on the shelves into a plastic storage box and put it all in the Better Place shipping crate. It has proven to be quite handy to store the unused components from the Better Place packs, like the contactors, cell measuring connections, and BMS. The new location for the table will be much bette, as their is an electric outlet close by and it will be more out of the way now.

My focus is going to turn back to getting the meters, tablet, and interior installed in the car, so I can get the passenger seat back in. The car runs so much better with just one of the three modules, I am excited to take my wife, son and his fiance for a ride. I also have some co-workers asking me about the build, so would like to be able to drive it to work sometime soon.

Until next time,

Randy

HORNY GOAT

The third charge of the pack was was started around 4 PM on Monday but had to be stopped around 6 PM so I could take my wife to the grocery store. The 220 volt breaker was turned off and the power to the JLD404 was unplugged. While the wife was getting groceries, I had a taco and a large glass of Elevator Company Horny Goat at Ziggy's in Pataskala. I really enjoy craft beers but it seems the extra hops sometimes tends to turn me into Sleeping Beauty.

HORNY GOAT

Upon returning home, the charger was started again and the JLD404 was turned on again, so the charge continued. When the charge was started in the afternoon, the temperature was in the 80's and part way into the charge, the thermal cutout kicked in and dropped the amps down to 14 volts from the 18 volts original amperage. The charger had cooled, so again my amperage was back up to 18 volts. I decided this time to take readings every 1/2 hour after the initial voltage readings were taken at the start of the charge. Two more half hour readings were taken and I went inside to watch TV, noting the time when the next reading needed to be taken. Seems as a result of the higher hops IPA, I drifted off into nap time. Frantically waking up, I ran outside and the JLD timer was exactly at 4 hours, so I had completely missed the 3-1/2 hour reading. The voltage was slightly over 139 volts and the amperage had dropped to 3 volts but the module had taken 60 amp hours, just 5 amp hours off of it's rating of 65 amp hours. I went to the engine compartment and did a careful smell test to see if the sweet odor of battery electrolyte was present but there were not traces of it.

THIRD CHARGE

It seems like the voltage was finally starting to spike but I missed documenting the most important end of the charge because of my little unplanned nap. The charger is almost set where it need to be and if I can stay awake the next time the module is charged, I believe just a little lowering of the voltage and current pots will get the charger shutting off before the voltage reaches 140 volts.At 139 volts, the cell average is 4.35 and I am going to do a little research on the breakdown point of the electrolyte to see if 4.35 volts is still under where the electrolyte boils and gasses.

My son's car was finished, so he brought my wife's car that he borrowed, back to the house and we went over to Gary's Place in Kirkersville, OH to pick the car up. Seems the alternator and starter were both bad but the NAPA alternator was still under warranty, so that helped a little. So hopefully tomorrow night I can take a test drive in the Fiero and start doing some range testing.

Thanks for visiting,

Randy

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

I woke up around 7 am on Sunday and made a pot of coffee, then got on the computer to check email. To my surprise, EVTV had loaded the September 28th show on Youtube. This is good because if it is on Youtube, I can watch it on the tv on Chromecast. I can put it on tv from my computer but Chrome cast seems to stream much better when enabled directly from Youtube.

On this weeks Show, Jeff Sotherland was making a heater plenum for Jack's VW Thing. Being a machinist, I can appreciate how useful a tool like that would be when converting an ev but also realize how expensive and how much room a CNC milling machine takes. Since most of us don't have access to those types of tools, we need to find creative ways to sort of black smith the solutions to our problems.

When the end broke on my shifter cable, I tried to cut the nylon end in half, thinking I could slide the bushing off of the cable to allow me to drive a rod in it to make it large enough to get the cable to fully seat inside it again.

NYLON BALL RETAINER CUT IN HALF

As luck would have it, the bushing would not slide off and now I had a shift cable with no end. I clamped a pair of vice grips on the cable and using a hammer, got the cable to almost go back to it's original position in the bushing. Then I put a smaller die on the hydraulic cable terminal crimper and compressed the bushing around the cable sheath wires. After moving the cable assembly to a couple of different locations, I was finally able to position it on top of one of the transaxle bolts and got a couple of pretty good hits on one of the flat spots from the original crimp. Hopefully, that compressed the sleeve enough to hold the sheath cable in place.

CABLE END SHEATH RE-CRIMPED

Then it was time to figure out how to make a new end attachment with out the luxury of a machine shop. After searching around for awhile I found some 1/8 inch aluminum and cut a couple of pieces about 1-1/2 inches long. When comparing the two pieces to the nylon cable end, it was obvious I was going to need more thickness. I thought about going to the hardware store and getting a thicker aluminum bar but decided to make the new cable end a three assembly, so another piece was cut. Then they were clamped together in the vice and holes were drilled and one of the pieces was tapped for a #10 screw. Then a hole, the size of the recessed part of the shift cable end.was drilled and a drill the size of the rod was drilled in about 3/16 of an inch.

SHIFT ROD END PROFILE

A hole, just a little smaller than the connector ball was drilled through all three bars and the ones on the outside were counter sunk with a 1/2 inch drill bit. The the inner bar had a shot put in it so it would slide over the connector ball

CONNECTOR END AND PLATE

Then the new connector was test fitted on the end of the shift cable, and disassembled again to do more fitting from looking at the marks left by the shift cable end in the aluminum bars.

NEW ROD END TEST FITTED

The new shift cable end was then removed and additional adjustments were made to the fit based on the marks the cable end left in the aluminum. After filing, cleaning and greasing the ball socket, the connector was installed.

CONNECTOR FINAL INSTILLATION

Now the gearshift was put in third gear and a pin was inserted in the alignment hole.

SHIFTER ALIGNMENT HOLE

Finally the nuts on the transaxle selectors were tightened and the shifter went through all four gears and reverse smoothly when parked with the motor not running. I was going to take a test drive to test the shifter but noticed the JLD404 was not on. After checking voltage and finding there was none, I checked the fused and found two of them blown. I had moved some wires around when adjusting the shifter and must have shorted one of them. Now that the JLD404 was back on, and the pack voltage was down to 96 volts. Below 90, the dc-dc converter drops down to 10 volts and trips the controller, so I am going to have to recharge. I had the dc-dc converter plugged into the pack all day as I was using the extension cord to operate my power tools all day, so that must have been enough to run down the module.

After working all day to make a new shift rod end connector, I was beat! For September, it sure got hot in the afternoon and I had to stop and go inside to cool down a couple times. Looking forward to charging the pack and taking the Fiero out on the road to test the new shift linkage!

Until next time,

Randy