July, 2008

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Battery Racks, Continued

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I did some more work on the battery racks over the past few days. The biggest challenge is getting everything to fit properly without hitting any blockages. At this point, I think I have all of the metal pieces cut, but I don't have the bolt holes drilled. Note: the following descriptions are a bit verbose because I'm trying to keep track of all the detailed measurements as I go.

Batteries 150
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Turn My Big RV Into a Plug-In Hybrid?

Electric Cars are for Girls

I've got a 31 Ft RV that gets 8.5 mpg. Would an AC electric motor or 2 in conjunction with the 8.1 liter gas engine increase the gas mileage in an.

Plug-in 164
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Conference confirms plug-in fever

Plugs and Cars

Once again, a conference on plug-in cars. Coming on the heels of the Google/Brookings event in Washington, D.C., Plug-in 2008 in San Jose, California witnessed a noon-time address by new heavy-weight convert, Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel. Grove brings some needed high-profile gravitas to the community of electrification advocates. One week earlier, former Vice President Al Gore issued his well-received challenge to make the American grid 100% renewable in ten years.

Plug-in 100
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Barak Obama or John McCain - Which Candidate will Revive the Electric Car?

DIY Electric Car

Big news! U.S. presidential candidates Barak Obama and John McCain are talking about EVs. Finally, American politicians, corporate executives and grassroots advocates all seem to agree that powering cars from clean, affordable and domestic electricity makes sense. However, politicians have talked about electric vehicles before and in the past, the talk did not translate into government support for practical technologies.

Obama 100
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How serious is Norway about climate change? So much that its streetlights self-dim

emissions global warming Norway climate change carbon dioxide youtube lighting

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The 80-20 Rule

Plug In Partners

O ften when I talk about Plug-Ins , I say that PHEV's are a perfect embodiment of the 80-20 rule. There are a lot of versions of the rule and it has been written about a lot. But in the case of the PHEV , the logic goes something like this: Roughly 80% of our daily trips are under 35 miles. And the remaining 20% are longer trips. So why carry around five times more battery storage and weight for that 20 %?

EPRI 100
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Bleeding the brakes

Honda S2000 EV Conversion

I finished bleeding the brakes today and wanted to share a few new things I learned this time around. I've always done brakes in the past as a two man job. One guy pushing in on the pedal while the other guy is releasing the pressure at the caliper. The wife was with the baby and my neightbor was on vacation so I decided to purchase a brake bleeding kit.

Kits 40

More Trending

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EV Batteries and Battery Meter Required

Electric Cars are for Girls

Two questions, the first about batteries, the second about the battery meter: (1) How many batteries would you estimate would be required for an.

Batteries 102
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Al Gore Joins Call for Electric Cars

Plugs and Cars

Buried in Al Gore's challenge today calling for a 100% renewable electric grid within ten years is a call for plug-in electric cars. This represents a big change in his thinking, and will hopefully quickly push political and environmental leadership to coalesce around policies to push plug-in cars into the market as quickly as possible. We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric

Al Gore 100
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Electric Cars are the way of the Future

DIY Electric Car

Major news keeps buzzing about Hydrogen, Flex-fuel, E85/Ethanol, Bio-Diesel and other alternative energies but when it comes down to it, I believe that only the least common denominator will be able to survive in a world of constantly changing energy sources and that thing is called electricity. Does anyone remember natural gas lighting in houses? How about oil?

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Visiting Synkromotive and Learning about Deka 9A31s

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I visted Synkromotive two days ago to look into becoming a Beta tester of their new motor controller. It handles 600 amps and has a really nice user interface through a laptop to configure several controller parameters like the DMOC445 that I have on the AC 914EV. Other than the Zilla, I haven't seen a controller out there with this much programmable flexibility.

Oregon 100
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Faurecia and Accenture partner on products and services for connected and autonomous vehicles

Brief

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Processing the Engine Wire Harness

Open Source Civic EV Kit

This evening, I took apart the engine harness that we looked at back here. After taking the harness apart, I'm left with a bunch of rotten electrical tape (top center in picture), the leftover wires (on the right) and what I really care about (on the left). The white wire is the alternator wire to the main battery, so I'll probably use that with the DC-DC converter to drive the main battery.

Engine 100
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Doing Sketchup of the Adapter

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I took a few hours last night to learn more about Google Sketchup. It's quite a powerful tool for visualization, but I realize now that, unless you buy the expensive "Pro" edition, don't bother trying to export any valuable information from it. I took the adapter plate into a precision measurement shop to get all the hole locations for the Civic transmission bell housing.

Google 100
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Reusing the Power Steering Reservoir

Open Source Civic EV Kit

Remember how we talked about making the power-steering into manual awhile ago? We still have some hydraulic tubes coming out of the power steering valve that need something done with them. Based on my internet research, it's best to have a closed system where the output power steering fluid tubes feed back into the input fluid tube, but with a reservoir in between to handle expansion from heat.

Power 100
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Finishing the Firewall Rack Base

Open Source Civic EV Kit

Of all the battery racks, the firewall rack is the most complex with the most interferences. I'm going to try and capture all the problems I ran into today while trying to get the firewall rack base installed. I re-installed the transmission while ago to make sure that I would get the proper spacing with the firewall rack. Since the mounts for the transmission are rubber, they flex, so I needed to use a floor jack to raise the transmission back to its working height to get the proper spacing.

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ExxonMobil announces 6th oil discovery offshore Guyana with Ranger-1; Guyana may move from non-producer to regional powerhouse

Oil

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Strut Compressor Tool

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I called a local suspension shop and asked if they would take the springs off of my strut assemblies. They gave me an estimate of $30 per strut. Against my better judgement, I looke at Harbor Freight and found a strut compressor tool that only cost $33, so I ordered it. Here's what UPS delivered to my door. After opening things up and assembling them, this is the final compressor tool.

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Rob Connelly's Front Battery Racks

Open Source Civic EV Kit

"If I have seen farther than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" Many other people have done Honda Civic EV conversions before this one, which is why my job is so easy. There's not much special about this project other than I'm trying to collect the information together into an open-source kit. I'd like to thank Rob Connelly for providing 3D drawings of his front battery racks so people can see different ways of doing things.

Batteries 100
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Bolting Together the Front Battery Rack

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I'm taking a different strategy from many EV installations in the hopes that people can more easily put together a kit for the Civic at home. Most folks weld together battery racks and then bolt them into the car (or sometimes weld them in). This strategy uses beefy angle iron pieces and 3/8" grade-8 bolts with nylock nuts to hold things together. I'll revisit whether this strategy is a good one or not after trying it out.

Batteries 100
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Setting up KeepOut Areas

Open Source Civic EV Kit

In preparation for designing the front and firewall battery racks, I wanted to make sure the engine compartment had several existing components in it so I could determine clearance more accurately. Here my friend Rick and I are re-installing the transmission so I can properly figure out clearance on the front battery rack and placement for the firewall battery rack.

Batteries 100
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Making Fake Batteries

Open Source Civic EV Kit

Today was a slow day for the Civic, since I'm preparing for EV awareness day tomorrow with the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association. I printed a bunch of flyers and made about 300 business cards for the event. This should be interesting. I did spend a few hours ordering battery lugs and terminal covers as well as the vacuum pump for the power brake assist.

Batteries 100
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Figuring out the Engine Harness

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I spent a few hours looking at the engine wiring harness and all its connectors to see how I could effectively attach signals to drive dashboard lights and gauges. Bob Bath calls this the "snake," but I like to think of it more like a nine-headed Hydra. Here's a photo (click to enlarge) of the wiring harness I removed from my Civic DX. I cut off the C118 connector because the wire to the sensor was too hard to remove.

Engine 100
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Getting Rid of Stuff

Open Source Civic EV Kit

After removing all the gasoline based components from the car, my garage was pretty full of stuff. Here are the leftover fluids from the car. Left is power steering fluid, center is coolant and right is contaminated gasoline with bits of everything in it. Fortunately, Portland has a great city recycling program and they take home hazardous waste for free (up to five gallons).

Portland 100
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Making a Blank Slate

Open Source Civic EV Kit

Today was a bit slower since I didn't get much sleep last night and I helped my friend Andrew diagnose a bad brake drum on his truck this morning. For the most part, today was the last day of removing parts from the car. From now on, it's all about engineering new parts and installing pre-built ones to make the electric car. Here's the engine that we removed yesterday.

Engine 100
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Hoisting Out the Engine

Open Source Civic EV Kit

My buddy Andrew came out this morning to help get the engine out. Here's Drew, happy to use an engine hoist for the first time. To get enough clearance to lift out the engine, you need to open the hood as far as it can go. I've doubled the engine hoist hook back on itself to allow for more lifting space. While following the instructions in the Helms manual, I couldn't get the long rod out of the driver's side front engine mount, so I removed it completely.

Engine 100
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CNN Report - My 3 minutes of fame

Plugs and Cars

[Source: CNN ]. Tags: solar power miles o'brien toyota rav4 ev ev1 cnn solar PV solar electricity energy efficiency solar battery electric car.

EV1 100
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EMIS Hybrid Cars from Giant Gas Hogs

Electric Cars are for Girls

Gas Pain? The EMIS from NetGain converts giant gas guzzlers into parallel hybrid cars!

Gas 135
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EV Motor Won't Run

Electric Cars are for Girls

I just bought an already converted 1986 Chevrolet Sprint EV that just needs new batteries installed. I had a man that has an electric vehicle like.

Motor 89
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English Petrol Prices

Electric Cars are for Girls

I don't mean to sound rude, but English petrol prices are far far worse than American prices at the moment, we are currently paying 1.20 per litre.

Petrol 89
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Why do EVs need batteries?

Electric Cars are for Girls

Why use batteries ? Batteries are heavy, and maintenance hogs. Why not integrate a diesel powered generator, and use an AC motor to power the car?

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Steam Generator Series Electric Hybrid

Electric Cars are for Girls

I am considering creating an alternative fuel vehicle by running a generator off a steam engine to then run a direct drive electric motor. Thus.

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Need an "Electric Car Conversion" Manual

Electric Cars are for Girls

I have a small delivery company and wanna try to convert one of our trucks , a 1997 Ford F150 , into an electric truck. I have a list of what I.

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Best size for electric car motor?

Electric Cars are for Girls

What is the best sized electric car motor? Hi, Martin! A medium sized one. Small is too small, and large is. Okay, just kidding. When you're.

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Dont get mad, get even!

Plugs and Cars

Two guys convert an old VW bug. Tags: conversion electric volkswagen battery electric car.

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Pain at the pump

Plugs and Cars

Tags: opec Big Oil fuel monopoly.

Oil 100
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A small delay

Honda S2000 EV Conversion

Last weekend I started creating a new wiring harness. The original wiring harness had so many extra sensors that I didn't need and didn't want cluttering things up so I decided to take it apart and remove all the connections I wouldn't be using in the conversion. Look at all those wires! I haven't finished the harness yet but will add some pictures of the final product.

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