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

LED HEADLAMPS

The seal beam replacements and H4 LED headlights arrived this week so last night, they were installed after work. I didn't realize that the standard seal beam plugs are the same as the H4 plugs, so did not need the adapters I had ordered. Getting the new LED lights to fit in the new housing was a challenge, as it was a really tight fit but I finally got them installed and the whole assembly back in the headlight socket. The sockets had to be plugged in and unplugged several times to get the lights to make good contact but finally made good electrical connection. The original low beams appeared to be adjusted too low, so I will mess around with aiming them so they are not in on coming driver's eyes but still project a little further down the road.

After the LEDs were installed, the car was taken down the road for a test drive.

LED HEADLAMP TEST DRIVE

Once again, the controller tripped when I shifted to 4 gear so I am going to need to evaluate the log files to see what happened but I did notice the acceleration seemed a little more sluggish, so maybe the batteries just need recharges. The last charge was back in December and although I have not driven that many miles, I have done quote a bit of revving the motor and leaving the headlights on. I have the dc-dc plugged into 120 when the car is not in use, so have not run them down from that.

More to come,

Randy

BLAIR WITCH TEST DRIVE

A couple of weeks ago, my son and I took the Fiero for a test drive after dark. The drive started out with only the low beams but part way through the drive the high beams were switched on. I asked Shane to get some video of the voltage reading on the JLD404 and of the Synkromotive user interface but forgot to tell him to make sure to include plenty of video of the road. About a half mile from home the controller contactor tripped and this time the log file caught the 12 volt system dropping to 10.7 volts right before the trip.

NIGHT TEST DRIVE

I was off work today so dug up the instructions to disassemble the instrument cluster and spent some time searching for led instrument lights. The JLD404 has blue LEDs so I am not sure if I want to go with white, or blue LEDs to match the digital meters.

It has been below zero the last couple of days and tonight the news said my county was 18 below. The wind was under 3 mph, so that was not the wind chill factor but the actual temperature. It is supposed to get up into the 30s this weekend, so the garage should be at least 55 deg or so but warm enough to get some work done. I have a propane heater but it is expensive to operate and gives me a headache, so I don't like to use it.

More this weekend,

Randy 

LIGHTING THE WAY

I have been having problems with the 12 volt system dropping too low during acceleration when the headlights are on, so this week I ordered a pair of  7" x 6" sealed beam rectangular headlight housings with glass lens on EBAY that will allow me to use an H4 LED headlamp.

6054 SEAL BEAM TO H4 HOUSINGS

Then I found a pair of high power white LED H4 headlight low beam 80W Cree XB-D headlamp bulbs that were also ordered from EBAY. They are 1360 lumen, so will be about the same as the stock Fiero low beam output.

H4 LED HEADLAMP

To hook up the LED headlamps, a couple of H4 headlamp socket headlight plug connector extensions were ordered, again from EBAY. I read on some of the LED headlamp listings that a load resister may be required, so if any of you have any experience with LED lighting, I welcome your input.

H4 CONNECTORS

Also, the jumper will be installed on the IOTA DLS-50, DC-DC converter, that will increase the voltage output from 13.6 to 14.2 volts. The IOTA is listed as having a range from 108 volts to 132 volts, so when the pack drops below 90 volts under acceleration, there is a chance the output voltage will drop to the 10.7 volts where the Synkromotive main contactor trips.

IOTA 14.2 VOLT JUMPER

It has become apparent that the HiPower LiFePo4 cells that are being used are not going to be sufficient to power the EV Fiero effectively. I am not out anything, as the plan is to set up the Synkromotive controller as a fast charger and I will need a battery pack for that. A couple of fellow builders are working on this for their builds, so if you want to follow their progress, below are the links to their blogs.

A 240Z becomes an EV

Saturdays & EV's

The temperature in Ohio was in the teens all of last week, so I didn't do anything on the Fiero, except order headlight parts. Over this weekend we got several inches of snow, so no test drives either.

WINTER IN OHIO

Spring is just around the corner and I am ready for it! January has been a productive month, with a couple of test drives, allowing me to work out the bugs in the 12 volt system and the Synkromotive tripping problem. I also got the tachometer and speedometer working.

After hooking up the new headlights, the next project will be the interior, instrumentation, cleaning up the dash wiring, and hooking up the heater control circuit.

Thanks for visiting the EV Fiero Blog,

Randy

LONGEST TEST DRIVE TO DATE

My Son came over this evening and we decided to take the car out for a test drive. Sure enough, the speedometer and tachometer worked flawlessly. This was the longest test drive so far and about 1/4 mile from home, the controller tripped again. After turning the ignition switch off and back on a couple times, resetting the controller, it came back to life and we pulled back into the garage without having to push the car home.

We were logging the drive and upon returning home, and upon examining the file, found that the 12 volt system dropped to 10.7 volts, tripping the Synkromotive contactor but the main contactor remained latched. I have the IOTA DC-DC converter set to the lower 13.8 setting from when I had the Ballistic LiFePo4 battery installed but with a lead acid battery installed now, can put the jumper back on to bump the voltage up to 14.2 volts. I had the high beams on and was accelerating, so the 12 volt system was probably drawing quite a few amps.

Even though this is a minor set back, I feel that progress is being made and am confident I will be able to correct the controller tripping problem soon by adjusting the controller settings and adding more batteries to the traction pack.

SPEEDOMETER WIREING

After going back to the original builder's website and finding that he ran new wires for the speedometer, I started looking for them. There was a group of wires that I thought originally went to the stereo amplifier and noticed that two of them went into a connector that looked like the one that went into the VSS for the speedometer. Also, there were some wires protruding out of the lower corner of the instrument pod, and sure enough. there was a red and green wire.

WIRES COMING FROM INSTRUMENT POD

The instrument pod is going to need to be removed to fix the current and amp meters, so the wiring will be cleaned up also. The C-200 connector at the rear of the center console has these wires in it, so it would be best to connect the wires back and make up a new connector to plug in to tidy everything back up.

WIRES EXITING FROM INTERIOR

With the correct connector plugged back into the VSS, the speedometer should work again. Since it snowed last night, I don't want to take the car out to test it but am fairly certain this will correct the problem.

CONNECTOR PLUGGED INTO THE VSS

The next project will be the interior as the instrumentation needs installed and the heater control need to be worked out. The headliner, sun visors, voltage and current meters, all need redone. The carpet is pretty good but the center console has a rip in it and the door panels are badly soiled. There is a lot to do but it shouldn't be that expensive as I may already have some headliner material left over from another project, and the rest is mostly cleaning.

Thanks for stopping by,

Randy