Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 29, 2008

I tried installing the Zolox sensor mounting ring for the Warp9 motor from EVsource today. It looks like the holes on the mounting ring don't line up properly. The holes for the Warp9 casing don't match, so I had to drill them a bit larger so the bolts would go in. Here I've placed the spinning magnet onto the end of the tailshaft with a short 1/4 bolt to properly center it.

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Installation Supplies Motor Motors 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 19, 2008

It's still pretty cold in the garage, but I motivated myself to get out to TAP plastics (10 blocks away) and pick up some ABS plastic for the improved splash guard. Here's the 3/16" thick piece of ABS lying on top of the existing splash guard. I got a piece 36" x 18" which is way too big, but I didn't know what would be needed. In the final directions, I'll probably list a smaller piece to acquire.

Kits 100

Kits Cleaner Installation Motor 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 18, 2008

This is a cool day(And not just because it's freezing outside). The package with the custom tachometer from SpeedHut arrived. Although I received the 2-hole pillar pod last Friday, I wanted to show it here since I ordered both items from Speedhut. The wiring harness is nice and long. The small module in the lower left of the photo is the dash light interface which allows a variable dash light brightness to control the tach brightness as well.

Light 100

Light Standards Batteries Battery 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 14, 2008

I received the fixed charger parts back from Belktronix on Friday and installed them with no problems. After going through a full charge cycle, I did find another Batmon board that was activating the shunt resistor at 13.5 volts instead of the expected 14.6 volts. I'll look into that early this week or send it back for repairs. After fixing up the charging system, I took a quick test drive with my friend Jonathan for about 7 miles and the car behaved well.

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Parts Miles Charging Volt 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 11, 2008

I got some fun stuff today. The plastic boxes for the BatMons and the Zolox speed sensor with Warp9 mounting hardware came in. Here's a pile of 2x2" plastic boxes 1/2" high that fit the BatMon boards quite well. If I cut off one side, I should have at least some protection from splash and other grit that enters the engine compartment. Here's the Zolox speed sensor from EVSource.

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Connect Connected Green Motor 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 8, 2008

After a suggestion I received from Bryan Belk (of Belktronix), I decided to go with a different tachometer than the cheap Shucks one: [link] This tach is only $96 and comes with a customizable face. I was even able to add the text "Civic EV" for free! The other cool thing is that it has an LED driver on the back for a particular shift point. This could easily be set and tied into the LVP (low-voltage-protection) circuit on the controller to prevent over-revving the motor.

Cheap 100

Cheap Kits Motor Motors 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 8, 2008

I always wondered how much this kit really cost me, aside from tools, so I assembled a total parts price list and uploaded it to the Civic-EV Google Group here: [link] I'm a bit surprised I came out below $10K (barely). For those of you who have done conversions, please check my spreadsheet and let me know what I missed. One of the high-wants for the kit was that it would cost Cheers, Tim.

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Price Kits Google Conversion 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 8, 2008

While I wait for the charging components to get fixed, I did some research on gauges to monitor the state of the system. My goal is to use as much of the existing dashboard as possible and then add low-cost gauges in order to prevent any motor problems and detect faults. The list I came up with: Mount a Link-10 E-meter in a pillar pod to monitor current and state-of-charge Mount a tachometer in a pillar pod to monitor RPM and use the sensor as an over-rev protection device Make a circuit to driv

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DC Light Oil Low Cost 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 6, 2008

After working with Bryan from Belktronix yesterday, I found out that I had blown some components in the IsoBatMon, the Charge Detector and one of the BatMon boards. Those went off in the mail this morning back for repairs. I'll try the system again when the parts come back. In the meantime, it looks like the speedomter is working again. I also purchased a new headlamp to fix a burned out right hi-beam.

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Clean Cleaning DC Purchase 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 4, 2008

During the test drive, I noticed that the speedometer wasn't working. It had worked fine before I removed the engine. After researching the Helms manual, I needed to get at the speed-sensor on the transmission to figure out what was going wrong. Fortunately I hadn't yet wired up all the BatMon boards, so removing the firewall batteries to get at the sensor only took a few minutes.

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Volt DC Engine Batteries 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 5, 2008

Okay, it's time to get your wiring spaghetti on. I spent part of last evening (after fixing the speedo) and all of this morning wiring up the Batmon boards. In the process I blew the OVP channel on the IsoBatMon unit. Here I'm crimping yellow 3/8" ring terminals on all the blade fuse holders that will hold the 7.5A fuses. I tried to do as much as I could on a workbench instead of in the cramped quarters of the car.

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Plug-in Plug Supplies Connect 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

Whew! I finally got my internet connection back up at home. This is the first of ten entries that will attempt to show many of the tasks I performed over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend. First up, we need to beef up the rear suspension to handle the extra 420 pounds of batteries in the trunk. As you may remember, I swapped out the front springs with beefier ones.

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Google IDEA Batteries Battery 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

The next step involved preparing all the mounting hardware for the BatMon boards that sit on top of each battery. These boards monitor the voltage on each battery and signal back to the charger or the controller if there is an undervoltage ( The Belktronix kit comes with a bag of tie-wrap mounting pads and instructions to cut the pads in half to hold the BatMon boards to each battery.

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Kits Installation Batteries Battery 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

At some point, I guess we have to charge this thing. Most people like to be clever and put the charging outlet under the gas tank cover. I don't like this because it's near the back of the car, away from most charging station outlets at parking spaces. It also requires more routing of wire to get to the charger. Instead, I chose to simply cut a hole in the side of the front bumper and use a charging outlet from a boating store.

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Installation Charging Store Mariner 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

One of the major tasks during construction of an EV is properly crimping all the heavy duty battery cables together. Here's the process that I used. I measured the distance between the terminals that I needed to connect, subtracted 1/2" and then cut a piece of 2/0 gauge welding cable for that distance. Welding cable is much more flexible than typical 2/0 gauge wire, allowing it to snake around various car parts.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Connect Connected 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

In order to shunt current around each fully charged battery, the BatMon boards use an external 3 ohm resistor. Since mounting these resistors involves drilling holes in metal, I wanted to mount them before mounting the BatMon boards to prevent metal shavings from sprinkling into the electronics. Here are two pictures in the rear trunk showing the drilled holes for the resistor mounting bolts.

Installation 100

Installation Batteries Battery Charging 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

One of my goals for this kit was to utilize as much of the existing infrastructure of the car as possible in terms of fuses, relays and wires. To properly wire up the Gast vacuum pump, I wanted a fuse for safety and ideally a relay to protect the pressure switch from arcing too much. Fortunately, the Civic had the features readily available for this in the form of the radiator fan circuit.

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Kits Connect Connected Power 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

Not surprisingly, we need to connect the batteries in back with the batteries in front and also include the main circuit breaker under the parking brake. These lines are typically routed under the car in the trough left by the exhaust system. Many people use pool tubing to protect the battery cables from road dirt. After looking at the tubing selection at the local hardware store, I opted to use reinforced radiator hose tubes (outside diameter 1", inside diameter 3/4").

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Neighborhood Exhaust Store Connect 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

Much of my time was spent wiring up the controller, charger and integrator box from the Belktronix kit. I had to unbolt the charger in order to get access to the fast-on connectors on the side of the main motor controller. The Belktronix instructions come with a checklist of things to do before powering up the system. I had my handy Fluke meter out to find any problems.

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DC Connect Connected Kits 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

In addition to the thick, high-current battery cables, we need to route the OVP (over-voltage protection) and LVP (low-voltage protection) wires from the rear BatMon boards to the front BatMon boards. The instructions say to route these away from the high-current cables and away from each other to prevent noise. I decided to route these through the rubber plug that the fuel tank wires go through.

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Plug-in Plug Fuel Connect 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

Even though all the BatMon boards are not wired up, I was itching for a quick test drive. It was time for me to get the wheels on the car and take it for a short spin. This is the picture of my front hallway closet. I had originally stored the tires from the Civic in the front hall, but my cats licked the brake dust off the inside, so I had to put them in the closet.

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Installation Store All-Electric Batteries 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 1, 2008

Well, my home internet connection is still down, so I uploaded a few videos here for your viewing pleasure and to prove that I'm not just blowing smoke :) Thanks to my friend Rick for capturing these on my small camera. These are unedited and Rick tended to rotate the camera a bit. I'll probably make something more refined later. Here is a quick tour of the major components under the hood.

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Connect Connected 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 30, 2008

Okay, the cat is out of the bag. I've been working many hours a day over this four-day weekend to try and get the Civic running. As luck would have it, my internet connection went down Thursday morning and is still not back up (I'm typing this from work). I'll post all the progress and pictures when my connection comes back. Suffice it to say, I'm exhausted, but the wheels are spinning as of 12:15pm yesterday(Saturday).

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Exhaust Connect Connected 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 26, 2008

The next step was to figure out where to put all the control electronics under the front hood to minimize wiring. The Belktronix system comes with velcro attached to the underside of most of its components. I was able to fit the Integrator and Charge Controller in the passenger-side nook, next to the main charging unit. I attached the IsoBatMon circuit to the top of the closest AGM battery (right side of photo) to minimize cable runs.

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Re-Charge DC Convert Connect 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 21, 2008

I spent last night visualizing how I could most effectively connect all the traction batteries with the least amount of welding cable and the shortest distance to the controller and motor. This morning I took some thick rope to serve as a fake battery cable and used it to measure the long cable lengths needed to connect the front and rear batteries.

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Buy Batteries Battery Portland 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

I installed the remaining hold-downs for the 12V auxiliary battery and the extra battery in the rear trunk this evening. I hadn't designed these hold-downs before I sent all the pieces off to powder-coat, so I'll have to paint them with POR-15 protectant before I finish. Here's a picture of the 12V aux battery hold-down. The battery is a smaller motorcycle battery.

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Motorcycles Batteries Battery Design 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

Today involved trying to mount the major electrical components to the car. Before covering up the transmission, I thought it would be a good idea to fill it with transmission fluid. The Honda Civic specifies 10w-30 oil for the transmission. Since the fill hole is really hard to access, I used a funnel attached to a plastic hose to get the oil in. Before mounting the plastic panel to mount the EV components on, I drilled two 3/16" holes, 6 3/4" apart on the passenger side battery support.

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Installation Re-Charge Oil All-Electric 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 14, 2008

With all the components under the firewall rack installed, I put the four remaining batteries in the rack and started figuring out the placement of parts on the control board. Here is the tentative placement of charger and controller. The contactor is off to the far right. I purchased a piece of black "UHMW" plastic (28" long x 8 1/2" wide by 1/2" thick) to mount the components on.

DC 100

DC Installation Convert Purchase 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 15, 2008

The Belktronix system instructions call for attaching all the Batmon boards with twisted pairs of wires. I couldn't find a spool of twisted wires at the hardware store, but it dawned on me that most desktop computers use twisted wires to connect the motherboard with the switches/LEDs on the front panel. So, I went over to my friend non-profit computer recycler FreeGeek and picked up a handful of twisted wires out of their wire recycling bin for $1.

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Store Connect Connected Available 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 14, 2008

The last piece of equipment from Belktronix arrived today. Here's the charging system from Belktronix. The 1200 watt charger is combined with the DC-DC converter on the right. The small black box on the left is the charge controller box which interfaces with all the Batmon units that monitor the voltage on each battery. I'm psyched that I finally have all the critical pieces and nothing left is holding me back.

DC 100

DC Mariner Store Convert 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 14, 2008

I took some time this morning to finish all the vacuum pump connections and installing the wiring harness discussed a few posts back. Before installing the batteries in the firewall rack, I needed to measure the starter block-off hole to make a cover for where the starter motor used to be. Here's the engine compartment with the engine wiring harness plugged in and tie-wrapped to several locations.

Connect 100

Connect Connected Installation Plug-in 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 9, 2008

Before I can put in the firewall batteries and start hooking things up, I need to finish cleaning up the engine wiring harness. Here's what's left of the wiring harness after I removed all the things I didn't need. In the middle of the harness on the right is a nine-foot long loop of 4-in-1 automotive wire (16 gauge) that I'm going to attach to several wires as an extension so that I can easily route everything to the EV controller board in front of the firewall batteries.

Engine 100

Engine Light Clean Cleaning 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

Remember that huge Airpax circuit breaker that I got in the mail? Well, it's time to install it. I learned how to remove the center console cover by reading the Civic shop manual. Here I've removed the cover and am holding back the driver's seat to show a better view. In hindsight, I had to remove the driver's seat and it would have been a good idea to do it right at the start.

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Installation IDEA Green Cars 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 9, 2008

I installed the Gast vacuum pump and pressure tank next. First, I installed rubber motor mounts underneath the Gast vacuum pump. Since I'm mounting this on uneven pieces of metal, I needed to add two 1/16" thick 1"dia. fender washers to the two feet on the front. The rubber feet serve two purposes: keep the motor vibration from rattling the chassis and raising the pump to clear the supporting angle iron.

Installation 100

Installation Motor Motors Motoring 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

The past two days have been productive. I went to Class Act to pick up the powder-coated angle-iron and installed most of it. Here are the powder-coated pieces all nicely wrapped up to prevent damage. Here are the pieces unwrapped. Yep, all 39 pieces are there and in good condition. I started by installing the rear battery rack. The two cross pieces of angle-iron sit on top of the two square tubes.

Installation 100

Installation All-Electric Batteries Battery 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

The Belktronix system tries to make installing the potbox a no-brainer by allowing the user to put it right under the accelerator pedal. For the Civic, this works out quite well. Here are the heavy-duty Velcro pieces that come with the Belktronix kit. The intent is to put the "hook" side of the Velcro on the rear side of the potbox and simply stick it to the rug under the pedal.

Installation 100

Installation Kits Plug-in Plug 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

I received several more critical items in the mail this past week. Here are several components from the Belktronix battery monitoring system. In the upper left is the "batmon" unit (one for each battery) that monitors each battery. The black/white wire coming out of the top is a temperature sensor which adjusts the final shunt voltage based on the environment.

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Parts Batteries Battery DC 100