05.23.11
Posted in Aquisition, Assembly, Body and Fender at 11:48 pm by Administrator
Last week at the EAA meeting we had a suprise visitor… By that I mean he wasn’t there for the meeting, he was there to go to a different place in the same strip mall area. Apparently he saw my car in front of our meeting place (Lamp Post Pizza, West Main St, Turlock CA Third Thursday of each month) and ask me if it was electric. Then he said “I’ve got one”, I asked “Where?” to which he replied “In the parking lot. Want to see it?” So we walked out to the parking lot and he showed me a Honda Civic which had been converted and to which he converted the conversion to LiFePo4 batteries. It was beautiful! I asked what the difference in performance is and he said “Hop in, I will show you…” and he did. The first thing I noticed was the noise the tires made as we went from Zero to screeeeech. then I saw that the battery voltage was barely sagging. It turns out that he is heavily invested in the electric car industry and was happy to have bumped into us. We have something to offer each other mutually.
The next thing which happened this week is the universe provided the passenger side window I have been wishing for. Actually it was provided by Larry and his wife Jeanie who came out to CA for Larry to do an install for his computer business and he brought me the window for which I traded him an extra windshield I had. What these pictures depict are the present luan which is the passenger side window fog simulator of an excuse for a window. The other pics show the new window uninstalled and the drivers side window which is original. All in all it was a very productive week.
Did I mention Dave and I retrieved my cars from Stockton? I now have Three of the four 914’s I bought sitting in my driveway? But that is a title page story…
www.electricar.us
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05.02.11
Posted in Accessories, Batteries, Design, Heater, High Voltage System, Low Voltage System at 3:38 pm by Administrator
Yesterday I met with Chad and we bench tested the heater for my car. It was a hack job in that we twisted wires together and set the elements in front of the blower assembly and powered the blower with a battery charger. We powered the elements from the 144VDC main pack. The results were pretty impressive we took measurements and calculated the amperage draw. When Chad left I started building my heater assembly. I had to cut, grind, and fit the elements into place but the result is worth the effort. The accompanying photos show what I mean.
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04.22.11
Posted in Accessories, Design, Heater, Low Voltage System at 3:13 pm by Administrator
Today I am sitting in a hotel room at the Historic Sonora Inn. My room faces Washington Street and I can hear every car and motorcycle which drives by. I am trying to imagine what it would sound like if all of the cars and bikes were electric. I’ll bet I would be able to hear the birds.
Last night I chaired a meeting for Ca Central Valley Chapter of the Electric Automobile Association. We welcomed another new member and it seems we are getting one new member per meeting. I believe this number will grow exponentially with the price of gas. EV1E is is also growing exponentially. This week I added side rear view mirrors and got to test my windshield wipers in a real time wet environment and I might add they worked perfectly. Still working on the heater. My Idea is to have three circuits. The first one will will operate the blower motor the next one will operate the heater elements and the third one will be for an airflow sensing switch. The blower switch will be an ON OFF ON switch where the top will be high speed and the bottom will be low speed. Of course the center position will be off. The element circuit will be a switch which is connected to a contactor. The contactor activates the element circuit thus allowing 144VDC to go through the ceramic elements. The third circuit is for protection and prevention of meltdown. The airflow sensing device will detect if there is airflow in the duct and if there isn’t will shut the contactor off.
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04.13.11
Posted in Aquisition, Lights, Low Voltage System, Teardown at 1:15 am by Administrator
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On my way home from work I decided to stop by Little Dave’s place and see if I could salvage a switch off of the Bradley. I started to carefully remove the connectors from the switches only to discover that the switches fell apart. I gathered up all of the pieces and put them in my pocket. Then It occurred to me that The whole Instrument panel is held on by four screws. So I removed the instrument panel. I thought maybe I should get some connectors in case I needed them, instead I wound up carefully removing the entire wiring harness…and I didn’t have to cut one wire. Then I while I was under the back of the car removing the wiring harness I noticed the rear deck lid had the bracket and air cylinder I needed so I removed them as well. The rear deck lid stuff is now happily residing on EV1E and the panel is on my bench. The wiring harness is going in EV1E someday…maybe or maybe it will go in the Bradley it came from but for now it is out of the weather and safe in my shop.
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04.09.11
Posted in Accessories, Aquisition, Assembly, Low Voltage System, Wipers at 1:59 pm by Administrator
I found the proper windshield wiper arms for the Bradley. They were on a 1980 VW Rabbit in a wrecking yard. The cost…10.00 for the pair. Since VW doesn’t make these anymore I felt I got a bargain. Then it was off to the auto parts store for a pair of new blades I assembled everything installed them on the car and tested them… they worked! Then I tested to see if they would park… they do but, the opposite way I want them too. So instead of parking in the down position they park in the up position. I tried moving the arms so that they are in the parked position on the opposite side but the offset of the position of the wiper assembly is such that the arms do not fit properly in that direction. Therefore instead of having one speed windshield wipers that park, I have wired them to be two speeds and I have to park them myself by turning them off at the right moment. The switch is another story. They are no longer manufactured. I have one original Hazard switch and a full set of Bradley switches in a Bradley Body which was meticulously assembled, given to me and that I am keeping for a spare body unless I get a great offer. I have a blue illuminated switch which may work.
I have also discovered where I left my long lost camera. It is in a glove box in a pickup truck which belongs to my friend Jeff. Unfortunately Jeff just moved to San Diego. So I wont get my camera until the 18th when Jeff comes back up to the Central Valley. In the meantime there is still plenty to be done on EV1E.
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04.05.11
Posted in Accessories, Low Voltage System, Wipers at 10:48 pm by Administrator
Today I installed the wiper wiring and have only to hook them up to a switch. Tomorrow I am going switch hunting. Perhaps I’ll call Larry.
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04.04.11
Posted in Accessories, Lights, Low Voltage System at 11:40 pm by Administrator
Today I did a safety check on my wiring harness. Then I connected the rest of my interior dash lights and my turn signal indicator lights and tested the system. I must say that I am a musician and appreciate a good rhythm. EV1E has rhythm! When the directional lights are engaged she sounds like a metronome. Next I will secure the wire harness and hook up my windshield wipers.
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03.31.11
Posted in Accessories, Gauges, Lights, Low Voltage System at 9:01 pm by Administrator
Today I set out to accomplish two main goals. The first goal is to set up a central ground terminal so I have ground within reach of my fiberglass dashboard. The second goal is to hook up the dash lights. Both goals were accomplished. The ground terminal I found is the same kind you would use for your house wiring. By installing this terminal I have already eliminated a number of wires. I hooked up the dash lights to the light switch and they work. This I am thrilled about because I have had to use my cell phone at night to see how fast I was going. While I was in wiring mode… I decided to hook up my last gauge, the volt meter which tells me the status of my 12 Volt accessory battery and my DC to DC converter. I found a wire coming from my fuse panel titled “Gauges” and used that for my hot lead. everything worked flawlessly until I attempted to tuck some wires to close the instrument panel. That is when the main headlight connector shook hands with the small ground wire I used for the tiny incandescent lights in the dash. The result as you might guess was all of the smoke that was previously contained in the little ground wire was released like a Genie out of a bottle the wire turned bright orange. There was no damage to the big headlight wire. I fixed the damaged ground wire, tested the system and all is bright for EV1E’s future.
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03.26.11
Posted in Lights, Low Voltage System at 1:23 am by Administrator
So there I was with a complete assembled headlight circuit outside of the car, trying to see if I had hooked something up wrong. The moment of truth. I had the directional light going on the left side and now I was going to turn on the headlights to see if the directional lights would quit flashing AGAIN! For the last year this has been a problem. Not a huge problem since I didn’t drive at night much, never the less an ahem…. opportunity to see what kind of a trouble shooter I was. And now I was about to find out. Just flip the switch and… no wait there is no switch. Just touch the wire to the battery and… Looking over my shoulder towards the back of the car I could see the reflection of the corvette style LED tail lights we custom installed. One flash and… steady red light… the same thing on the right side. Just like when the headlight circuit is actually installed in the car. Good news! I didn’t hook up the lights wrong.
I kept going back to the flasher. I bought an electronic one for the LED’s. Finally I called my friend Little Dave. We went over every step I had taken and since Little Dave and I (mostly him) hooked up my signal stat we had common ground to converse and bounce ideas. Finally he came to the same conclusion I had. It must be the flasher, but why? Dave said, before you go out and get another flasher try putting a small incandecent light in the signal circuit. so I did… AND IT WORKED! So now the little incandecent bulbs in my indicator lights are what make the circuit work. LED’s don’t draw very much current that is why you have to use an electronic flasher. What I didn’t know however is electronic flashers require a certain amount of current to activate. There just wasn’t enough resistance in the circuit. It only took a very small incandecent light bulb but it does show how LED’s are very efficient as a light source.
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03.13.11
Posted in Aquisition, Time Off at 1:34 pm by Administrator
Hello, Today’s quiz is “What is the deal with that title?”, “A Little late and a little early?” You see earlier I stated I would try to write every week. Well I am a little late… although it is technically the next week it is Sunday and I stated that on a Wed or Thur (I can’t remember). This week was eventful. I drove down to Maricopa CA, two weeks “early” to retrieve the Electric LUV. She is sitting in my driveway as I write this. I am having a difficult time with EV1E. Or I should say with EV1E’s brake lights. I will resolve the issue today though. I put a new sliding window on the passenger’s side so that more air can circulate. I still haven’t found the passenger side door window so I modified a piece of clear Lexon for the window. I will post pictures so that you can see the progress. I am still block sanding the paint. as there were quite a few fish eyes in it. In the meantime now is a great time to drive her.
I heard some sobering news on NPR. Scientist are now saying that global warming is here and we are past the point of no return. I believe we are in for a very hot future. There are people though who don’t believe what scientist have been telling them for the last 40 or so years, why would they believe them now? Even as they watch in disbelief the fertile valley’s turn to deserts and the seven seas rise and the populations become displaced… are you listening now Rush BFFI mouthpiece for lunatics and haters Limbaugh? Hey GM, how about an electric vehicle which doesn’t require GAS! Nissan, Tesla, Your the tops! If we really want to change the way of thinking about transportation though, we need to get butts in seats of electric vehicles. We need to have an economy electric vehicle. It is possible, Hell I built one using retail parts for $17,000. Surely the major manufacturer’s can come up with a economical solution with all of there contacts and previous experience for much less money. Maybe they can come up with a hover craft to replace the mommy van so that we can take our kids to school in the new climate which they don’t believe is here. OK, maybe it isn’t as bad as all that… call me a cockeyed optomist, but I think we could at least try to change our ways. If we don’t we are sure to parish. If we do… who knows, maybe we can reverse it. We may still parish, but at least we tried!!
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