THE HOLE IN WINTER

Last week the weather turned with temperatures in the 40 - 60 degree range and Saturday is supposed to get up to 50 degrees; So I am going to use this opportunity to get some more cleaning done on the garage and work done on the car.

My garage had become cluttered with components boxes and parts removed from the Fiero, so it was past due to clean it up before  starting to remove the interior. The main reason for cleaning though, was because I couldn't find the hood bolts and the hood was taking up quite a bit of room, so wanted to put it back on the car. After about an hour, sure enough, they turned up in a screw package sitting on the back of the work bench.

FRONT BATTERY PACK

HOOD INSTALLED IN CLEANED UP GARAGE

So on to moving the car out into the driveway but when I turned the key to activate the controller, the fan would ramp up, go off then ramp up again. I had unhooked the computer and it seems the controller lost the pot calibration but as soon as I re-calibrated, everything was back to normal. I pulled the car out into the driveway and proceeded to put the hood back on. When I was testing the pop-up lights, the JLD404 suddenly started blinking and finally shut off. I had plugged the DC-DC converter into the battery pack but forgot, the key has to be turned on to operate the contactor, or the converter does not get any pack voltage. Operating the pop-lights a couple of times had run the battery down enough that there was not enough power now to operate the contactor, so I had to plug it back into 120 ac to charge it back up.

It was good to sort and inventory all of the part I have collected that will be needed down the road and after a trash can full of clutter and and disposing of all the empty boxes in the fire pit out back, was finally able to pull the car back into the garage feeling ready to tackle the interior dis-assembly.

The amp meter for the 12 volt system arrived Saturday, so today I started to clean up the pod and mount the meters. I wanted to get it completely done before posting but didn't quite make it. It was done enough to put it together and get a picture though.

INSTRUMENT POD WITH DIGITAL GAUGES

Winter returns tomorrow but it felt good to get some work done on the Fiero the last couple days.

Until next time,

Randy

RELOADING

The LED lights that were ordered from Ebay arrived this week and I am gearing up to start on the interior and instrumentation. Did some garage rearranging to make some room for the panels and dash when they are removed and cleaned out the clutter on the passenger seat and floor of the car.

All of the battery connections were checked and I was surprised to find loose connections on about 1/3 of them. After all of the connections were checked and tightened, the pack was topped off again. I had the charger pretty close but it is drifting up to 137 volts which is close to 3.7 per cell, so I am going to need to lower the voltage a little the next time I charge. The cells are settling at 3.36 volts after setting overnight after the charge.

My wife finally got to take a ride and was impressed with the LED headlights. The car ran pretty smooth but is going to need more batteries to fix the voltage sag problem. There are some lithium packs coming on the market that are going to be offered at a good price, so I may just try to pick up one of them to fix the battery sag problem.

EVTV did a live webcast test on YouTube tonight and I was lucky enough to tune into the last couple hours of it. It looks like Jack may try to do live webcasts on Sunday afternoons to discuss the Friday show each week.

Randy

METER

This week I have been working on getting current and amp meters for the 12 volt system. Awhile back, I got a 3-1/2 inch voltage/current meter so dug it out of hiding to test. The instructions are a little vague but I was able to get the voltage hooked up.

TESTING VOLT PANEL METER

I also purchased a separate current meter on EBAY, so there will be one for voltage and one for current.

100A 3 ½ BLUE CURRENT METER

The pod that goes above the dash will be a good location to mount the 12 volt system meters and will allow me to look at both the current and voltage simultaneously without having to select between views with only one meter.

GT BATTERY VOLTAGE AND OIL PRESURE POD

The interior is next, so I spent some time this weekend reading instructions on the best way to remove the instrument panel and dash. I want to mount a micro switch on the heater controls to operate the solid state relay that will be used to turn on the heater and will need to get to the wires under the dash to do so. Hopefully I will be able to do this with out disabling the car just in case I need to move it.

Until next time,

Randy

COMPONENT WARRANTIES

 The Ballistic 12 volt LiFePo4 battery I purchased last spring does not want to hold a charge. When the battery arrived, it was around 11.5 volts. When measuring the individual cells through the balancing port, three of the cells were in the 3.2 volt range and one cell was around 2.5 volts. Using a JLD404 and a small light bulb as a load, all of the cells were taken down to 2.7 volt, then the battery was charged to 13.6 volts. Everything seem to work fine all summer but when fall arrived and I was not working on the car every weekend, the battery seemed to start loosing capacity. When the DC-DC converter was turned on, the battery would go to the 13.2 volts but as soon as it would turn off, would start dropping until finally leveling off at 11.5 volts. After the initial charge the battery would light all of the interior lights and operate the traction pack contactor after setting for a week or so but now it would not.

BALASTIC LIFEPO4 12 V BATTERY

I tried to contact the ebay seller who sold me the battery but it appeared they were no longer an EBAY member, so wrote Ballistic Battery to initiate a warranty claim. After several months and many emails, they finally replied to inform me that their warranty only covered the battery being used as a starter battery in an ATV and that using it to power up the interior lights and operating the traction pack contactor, was not covered. Seems like my application would put a lot less stress on the battery. I did try to use it a couple times to start a 10 hp John Deere garden tractor but it did not do a very good job at that.

Several month ago I sent my Powerlab 8 back to REVO after it quit working only to be told that the damage was from misuse and was not only covered under warranty but was not repairable under their repair program. Their only offer was a 10% Black Friday discount that they were giving everyone anyway, so really, no warranty and not help in replacing the broken unit.

POWERLAB 8

When looking at controllers, I almost eliminated the Synkromotive because they only offered a 30 day warranty. The controller has been trouble free and what I consider one of my better component purchases. Had I bought a more expensive controller with a lower amp rating and 1 year warranty, I would have ended up with a more expensive controller with less features and if something had gone wrong, would probably not have been covered under warranty any way because of something I did wrong.

I guess the bottom line is, don't put too much hope into getting any warranty claim honored when purchasing your components, and you won't get disappointed, put more time in researching the product and find out if other users have bee having any problems.

Randy

FINALLY,,,, A GOOD TEST DRIVE!

Yesterday, my son and I were able to get a good video of the car going down the road and after plugging in the jumper that raises the voltage to 14.2 volts, I can not get the Synkromotive controller to trip. I was on very narrow country roads, so have still not been able to get the car up to 60 mph but the controller is limiting the battery pack voltage to 90 volts, so is not putting out the power it is capable of.

ANOTHER TEST DRIVE 

There are currently 37 100 AH cells in the front of the car and the pack settled to around 123.6 volts after the last charge I gave it, over the weekend. Under heavy acceleration, the pack drops to the 90 volt limit I have the Synkromotive controller set at and the 12 volt system voltage drops sometimes all the way down to 10.9 volts. The Synkromotive controller seems to trip when the 12 volt system gets down to 10.7 volts, so I am going to need add some more cell to the rear of the car so the pack voltage will stay above the 106 volt lower limit of the IOTA DC-DC converter. Above 100 pack voltage, the DC-DC converter seems to hold the 12 volt system in the 13 volt range.

After the drive yesterday, I forgot to plug the IOTA DC-DC (AC-DC) converter into 110 volts but was happy to find that the small 12 volt battery had enough juice to supply the JLD404, Synkromotive controller stand-by mode, a 12 volt dc to 100 volt ac inverter, and a 15 inch laptop that was plugged into it for 24 hours. It's good to know that the car can be parked for several hour without worrying about draining down the 12 volt battery.

It is good to be making some progress on keeping the controller from tripping and to have some ideas to try to make the car perform even better.

Thank for visiting,

Randy

ALMOST READY TO TEST (CONTINUED)

We had snow in Ohio this week and the temperature was in the 20s so I decided to take my time and try to wait for a little warmer weather before taking the Fiero out on the street for a test drive.

BATTERY LEADS CONNECTED

A regular 110 volt plug was used in the original conversion for the DC-DC converter and I really do not like the way it looks but decided to keep it for now, so wired a 110 volt female plug to pack voltage. This way I can plug the IOTA DC-DC (AC-DC) charger into an outlet to keep the battery charged. There is a drain, probably from the radio, and  the Synkromotive controller has a lead that is hooked to 12 volts all the time.

 

110 VOLT PLUG FOR DC-DC CONVERTER

 I am going to email Synkromotive to find out if I can just have the hot lead energizedwhen the ignition is turned on or if it is needed to save the settings.

The charger cover was still hanging below the car, so I removed the grommet so the wires could be pulled free of the cover. I am going to leave the charger out of the car until I get the voltage set properly and am certain it will shut off without overcharging any of the batteries.

I started moving the JLD404 inside the cabin so I can monitor voltage and current while testing the car. There wires are hooked up the the traction pack and run inside of the car, so all that is left is to hook up the meter.

The last items that need done is to put the seat back in and hook up the cigarette lighter socket so I can plug in  a 12 volt dc to 120 volt ac inverter to run my laptop. I want to be able to monitor the motor and controller during the test drive.

The weather report is calling for more snow tomorrow so it may be a few days before I am able to take it on the road for a test drive.

Randy

CONNECTING THE CONTROLLER

The Synkromotive controller comes with a pre-wired unterminated assembly that plugs into a 23 position AMPSEAL Connector on the side of the case. It looks like spaghetti and has wires for forward and reversing contactors that are not needed in my build. I considered removing the unused wires but was afraid I would break the connector, so will just hide them in split loom. The placement of wires in the connector do not group the wires going to different components very well causing them to tangle but I believe I finally got all of them straightened out pretty well. 

CONTROLLER WIRING

AMPSEAL CONNECTOR

Hopefully, next weekend I will be able to install the main battery connectors and charge the pack. I have also been working on contactor and fuse placement and am looking for a place to put the shunt, so I can measure pack current. I don't want to cut the battery cables in the engine compartment as battery packs will eventually be installed there and I don't want to have to splice them, so may leave them a little long for now. With the transaxle and motor cradle installed, it is a bit awkward getting to the motor compartment wiring.

Reading the controller manual and prearranging the wires has slowed me down quite a bit but I hope to pick up the pace in the coming weeks.

Until next week,

Randy

SYNKROMOTIVE

Last week ended with problems getting my old laptop to connect to the Synkromotive Controller. I kept getting errors telling me the program could not launch. I went to the event viewer and there was a message that .net framework 2 was not starting, so I tried to remove it from the program menu so I could reinstall it. Both the uninstall and Repair would not work so I decided to just load it again. The Synkromotive control panel still would not work. I tried several procedures from the Microsoft site with no luck. I even tried to restore the computer back to an earlier date and just managed to wipe out the drivers for my wireless internet connection and the link to the Synkromotive Control panel, so I restored it back to the most recent restore point and got everything back, including the inability to open the controller control pane. When I got home from work on Tuesday, the updates ready icon was there and sure enough, it was a .net update. I ran the update and to my surprise, the control panel came up. I had other things to do and was not able to try and connect to the controller, but when I got home Wednesday, 12 volts was hooked up to the controller, control panel was opened, but I still was not able to connect.. After reading the manual and adjusting the port and baud rate, it finally did connect. Still no word on my connectors from CALIB but one menu shows 24 volts as the minimum voltage for the controller, so I may hook up two 12 volt batteries just to test the set-up and make sure everything works when connected to the motor.

SYNKROMOTIVE CONTROL PANEL

 Saturday a new platform was fabricated to mount the controller on top of the Warp9 motor. Two of the three stator bolt holes were used  Two counter sunk bolts were drilled out to 11/32 and the threads cut off to make a counter sunk washer, then a 1/4 inch spacer was made. A plate was made to go on top of the spacers that the controller will bolt to. Button head 5/16 inch stainless steel bolts were used to fasten it all together and hold the stator windings in place. The fan on the Synkromotive Controller was turned to the cabin side of the engine bay, so the wires will be visible from the rear of the car making them a little easier to get to.

 

CONTROLLER RE-MOUNTED 

My wife went with her sister to a class reunion, so after getting the controller mounted, it was off to J.Gumbo's in Baltimore, OH for a bowl of gumbo and a glass of Southern Tier Pumking 2013. Both were very tasty and it was nice talking to Fred and Heather Baughman, the owners.

 

J GUMBO'S BALTIMORE, OH

Sunday, I kind of took a break from the Fiero and went to get a hair cut, them watched the NASCAR NAPCAR, race. I saw the beginning and end but felt pretty refreshed after it was over, so I went out and spliced in the speedometer connector I purchased on EBAY. The old one got tangled when I dropped the cradle and ripped off. The wires on the new connector were a different color so I had to find the diagram to make sure I hooked it up correctly.

 

SPEED SENSOR DIAGRAM 

SPEED SENSOR CONNECTOR 

MOTOR COMPARTMENT 

Until next post,

Randy