MOWING LAWN IN SHORTS

There was rain in Columbus, OH off and on all week and the grass went from brown, to green, to almost too tall to mow, in just a few days. Friday upon returning home after work, the garden tractor was fired up and the first mowing of the season was done, just in time. The lawn was still a little wet and the motor on the mower bogged down in a couple areas of the yard but fortunately, chopped the grass up pretty good and did not leave any clumps of clippings.

FRESHLY CUT GRASS  - SPRING IS HERE!

Saturday morning started with charging the Fiero and heading off to Baltimore Ohio, to have some lunch at J. Gumbo's and show the car to the owner, Fred Baughman. Unfortunately, Fred wasn't in but I still had lunch and a couple glasses of craft beer, as they have one of the most extensive selections around. The car ran well and made the 16 mile trip with ease. The shifter is still not shifting correctly but will go into 4th gear and reverse, so for now, that will work.

J. GUMBO'S BALTIMORE, OH

The Fiero has been in the garage all winter, with the interior and wiring being worked on, so Sunday, another drive was taken to shake out any problems. For some reason, the Dell Venue tablet, would not bring up the number pad, when trying to log on and it took several minutes to finally get it to pop up and log in. I hate to take off without having access to the motor controller, as I have had the controller fail to start in the past and had to reset the throttle, to get it to restart. As fate would have it, after stopping at a store, the car would not move. After turning the key off and starting the controller several times, the car finally moved. Also, the parking brake has been sticking and this is a problem, as if it is not noticed, draws quite a few more amps and could reduce the range enough to strand me. Also, the brakes are a bit spongy after sitting in the garage all winter, so the car will be taken to a mechanic in Kirkersville, OH, near the house to power bleed the brakes and adjust the parking brake so it will release. Because the lead acid batteries used in the original build were so heavy, the original converter used spring spacers to raise the front of the car. With the vast reduction of weight with the LiMn2O4 battery modules, the front end is now sitting higher than it should, possibly causing extra drag when the car is up to highway speed.  All in all, the 16 mile drive went well and used about 40 amp hours at a nominal 120 volts for roughly 300 watt hours/mile. That is a little higher that what I had last year but the tire pressure probably needs checked and as I said, I believe the parking brake is still dragging a little.

Upon returning home, another charge was initiated and more tweaking was done at the end of the charge. The charger is tapering down to 3 amps but still is not shutting off before it reaches 137.6 volts. After I finally get the charger to shut down, it will be installed back in the car and a contactor will be connected to the 220 volt AC input, controlled by the relays on the  EPM-5740TVR volt meter, that was picked up from Light Objects. This will be a good safety back up should the Zivan charger decide not to shut down.

Finally, a bracket was made for the Hella, UP28 rotary vane vacuum pump that is going to be tried out on the car. My current vacuum pump is really loud and has bothered me since the first time I went for a ride, even before buying the car. Also pictured below with the vacuum pump are the new seat adjustment mechanism covers, from The Fiero Store.

VACUUM PUMP BRACKET

It was really good getting the shorts out and enjoying the great day on Saturday and Sunday but as always, the weekend went way to fast! Not a lot of actual work was done on the car  but a lot of looking, measuring, and trying to come up with a plan to mount the other two battery modules.

Until next time,

Randy

METERS, METERS.....AND MORE METERS!

The 12 volt system Volt/Amp Meter was hooked up and was reading current and voltage just fine, so I decided to hook up the traction pack meter. The 12 volt system meter was hooked up to the isolated side of the 12 volt dc-dc isolation converter, so it was disconnected and hooked up to the un-isolated side. The meter came on and read voltage just fine but read zero amps. It seems that both meters will need to run off of an isolation 12 volt dc-dc converter, so another one was ordered from Light Object. I am afraid if I try to run both meters off of just 1 isolation converter, the high voltage will get back to 12 volts on the isolated side and blow the dc-dc converter. I know the traction pack side will work because that was the first meter that was hooked up before I found out that they were not isolated meters and smoked them when hooking up the low voltage side originally.

On to fastening down the loom in the engine compartment. The wiring runs were straightened out and fastened to the brackets and firewall. I will need to disconnect an inline fuse wire and the tachometer lead to reroute them but other that that, the wiring harness is done. 

WIRING RUNS COMPLETED

Then measurements were taken again and some figuring was done to determine if the battery pack will fit in the space between the motor/transaxle and front firewall. If the pack is placed to the passenger side of the engine compartment, it will fit. the rear passenger side of the car is sitting higher, so it appears that I need some additional weight on that side anyway. I am considering adding cells to both modules to increase the voltage anyway, so will make a smaller module that can go on the driver's side to balance the weight in the rear of the car. A cardboard template was made and it appears it is going to be quite a challenge to get the pack in that space without dissembling it.

I am still working on getting all of the Better Place module cells to hold  under 2.7 volts so I can try charging up to get them all to the same voltage level. The module had been discharged until the lowest cell is 2.5 volts several times but some of the cells have still drifted back to above 2.7 volts.

The speedometer wires from the VSS were connected to the wiring harness in the cabin so once the USB cable is finished, the center console can be installed.

SPEEDOMETER WIRES CONNECTED

To finish the interior, the door panels need removed to be painted and to install new outside window seals, so this was as good of a day as any to start.

DOOR PANEL AND ARM REST REMOVED

The temperature in Ohio has been getting close to 90 deg by afternoon, so it has been quite miserable working on the car, even though a lot of little things have been getting finished. We are going to dinner with my Son and his Fiance, so had to knock off a little early but will continue tomorrow.

Randy

WIRING DUAL AMP VOLT METERS

After getting back to work from the Holiday, my work load was light and the weather outside was great, so ended up taking a day and a half off to work on the Fiero.

By Wednesday evening one of the duel meters was working, so I did a short video.

PACK DUEL METER WORKING 

Later on Wednesday evening, I started putting the LED lights in the instrument panel. The lowest wattage bulbs were not bright enough, so had to go with higher wattage LED bulbs. Then I blew a fuse while trying to get one of the bulbs in, so will need to go get some fuses.

Thursday morning I called Hebron Scrap and confirmed that they were open. The said they were, so the car was loaded up and off I went to unload some junk. Surprisingly, I got $63.00 for the pile that had accumulated in the Better Place shipping crate, so I put it in my fund to buy new leather seat covers.

Then a shunt was placed on the negative side of the 12 volt battery and connections were made to the lower duel meter in the instrument pane. While trying to remove the drivers side, front blinker light socket, my arm touched the battery pack and chassis ground, giving me a little jolt. Great! All I need is a battery leak to ground. When I was hooking up the low voltage duel meters, I hooked the red wire to 12 volt positive. This was a mistake because actually the red wire hooked to the pack 120 positive side of the shunt, and I fear with the ground leak, blew the high voltage meter 12 volt power supply. Anyway, only the lower meter is working now, so I ordered another meter from EBAY. When the proper wires were hooked up on the 12 volt meter, It read 13.8 volts but I could not get a current reading. Not sure if power is feeding through the dc-dc converter ground and not actually going from the battery, but I will need to do a little more work to try and get a reading of some kind from the 100 amp shunt on the 12 volt system. 

Hopefully I can get the meter that is probably blown out of the instrument pod by removing the face, as I am not thrilled about the possibility of taking the instrument pod out again.

The right angle micro a/b USB arrived today, so I will also need to work on getting the USB wire run to power up the Dell Venue 8 Pro.

MICRO A/B RIGHT ANGLE USB CABLE

A refurbished Powerlab 6 was ordered and should be here in a couple of days to do the second bottom balance of the Better Place module. All of the cells have been brought down below 2.8 volts but have drifted back to 2.85 or so. The Powerlab 6 will allow me to set a much tighter voltage range and I can let it set and cycle at a low amperage drain to try an being them all in line. I have a multi cell cable but am not sure if that will allow me to bottom balance 6 at a time, so will need to play with the Cellpro for awhile to see if that will work. If any of you have used a Cellpro with the multi cell connector to bottom balance, shoot me an email at randy@cz-ev.com

Thanks for stopping by,

Randy