Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 4, 2008

I still haven't found a donor vehicle, but I've been swamped with preparing for EV-awareness day since I'm the chairperson of the Oregon Electric Vehicle Club. One person in Longview was gracious enough to take my vehicle back home to Portland on a trailer so I didn't have to sleep in the charging station parking lot to get a charge.

Portland 100

Portland Seattle Oregon DC 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 15, 2008

I consider this a good baseline for comparison with the final electric vehicle. He might be willing to show his vehicle at the OEVA EV-awareness day coming up in Portland on July 5th. I'm sure many other folks could do better than this, but I wouldn't want to push the car much further. You can see his cars at MilnerMotors.

Portland 100

Portland Electric Vehicles Cars Vehicles 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 7, 2008

With the huge jump in oil prices yesterday, I received a call from the local KEX radio to ask about electric vehicles and how they could be part of the solution. It will be great to have an actual vehicle to take measurements on and hack into instead of heading out to the wrecking yard in the rain to work on a trashed Civic.

Oil Prices 100

Oil Prices Conversion Cars Oil 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

MARCH 7, 2009

It contains several searching features for this blog as well as many other blogs related to electric vehicles. EV Driven is a group of folks trying to spread the word about EVs and are behind the upcoming movie Revenge of the Electric Car. Please check it out when you get the chance. Cheers, Tim.

Electric Cars 100

Electric Cars Electric Vehicles Cars Electric 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 13, 2008

Over the past few days, I've been compiling a list of tools and supplies needed to do an effective electric vehicle conversion. After getting valuable feedback from several people on the Civic-EV Google Group, I came up with the following list: [link] tools-needed If anyone has additional comments, I welcome the feedback.

Supplies 100

Supplies Google Conversion Electric Vehicles 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

MAY 31, 2008

By using the beefy motor mount angle bracket from the original Civic vehicle, you can support quite a bit of weight. Big thanks to Rob Connelly for providing pictures and CAD drawings of a possible "banjo plate" to support the motor. Thanks, Rob! Cheers, Tim.

DC 100

DC Connect Connected Motor 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 22, 2008

I created an EV-parts library so that I could draw up schematics specific to electric vehicles. I spent a few hours over the past days playing with Kicad. It has some quirks, but overall it's a great freeware schematic CAD package. I've posted the current ev-parts library to the files section of the Civic-EV Google Group here.

Google 100

Google Parts Electric Vehicles Vehicles 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JANUARY 24, 2009

If you choose to implement this circuit in your own vehicle, make sure you set the brightness on the tach for the LED for its brightest setting. Since I have an electric vehicle, I'd like to remove as much friction as possible in the transmission. This is the first drive that I took with the Link-10 E-meter hooked up.

Honda 100

Honda Miles Light Dealers 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 18, 2009

Several events have happened with the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association (of which I'm the Chair) and I also went on vacation. It's been over a month since I've blogged about the Civic and people have started to ask where I've been. I'm still commuting (even with a blown charge detector) and the car has 1500 miles on it.

Oregon 100

Oregon Miles Charging All-Electric 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 31, 2008

While I'm still sticking with group-31 batteries, I'm going to have to re-open the battery decision since I don't want to invest $2000 every 12 months in the electric vehicle. Hopefully this information will help others using group 31 batteries as well.

Oregon 100

Oregon Portland Re-Charge 2000 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 11, 2008

I really appreciate working on electric vehicles due to the lack of fluids and other dirt. I ran the meeting for the Oregon Electric Vehicles Association last night and several people seemed interested in the open-source EV kit. I haven't been this dirty since I worked on the Porsche 914 transmission for my existing EV.

Kits 100

Kits Oregon Google Porsche 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 12, 2009

After talking about electric vehicles to people all day in the sun, I was rather fried at the end of the day. I gave a press event with the Mayor Sam Adams and two VPs from local power companies (PGE and Pacific Power). Probably one of the coolest things about the show is that a Tesla Roadster showed up unexpectedly!

Portland 113

Portland All-Electric Tesla Power 113

Open Source Civic EV Kit

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Every battery dealer I chat with is glad that I'm converting an electric vehicle, but they all tend to say that you have to choose between bad batteries and worse batteries. The spreadsheet above is also available in the Files section of the Civic-EV Google Group as the file BatteryAnalysis.xls. It's funny.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Google Dealers 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 11, 2008

Before I do too much with the vehicle, I wanted to take some measurements so that they wouldn't get lost after I remove the engine. I have to prepare for the Oregon Electric Vehicles Association meeting tomorrow night, but Friday, I plan to weigh the car at a local truck stop.

Oregon 100

Oregon Gasoline-Electric Clean Cleaning 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

It makes shifting much easier and makes the car feel like a regular vehicle Choosing AGM batteries was a great idea. You get to talk directly with the designer and don't have to escalate issues to get someone who knows how the system works The vehicle Integrator module is great at telling you the status of the system through LEDs.

Kits 100

Kits Batteries Battery Parts 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

MARCH 12, 2009

A few days ago, something funny happened to the vehicle. I drove home and my LVP light came on earlier than I expected. When I got home, the front battery was rather lower than the others in the pack. I attributed this to being just behind the front grille where a lot of cold air is blowing in.

Charging 100

Charging Light Plug-in Batteries 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 6, 2008

Theoretically, I could drive the vehicle now, but charging would get very tricky as I don't have a charge monitoring system. The Belktronix system calls for a 60A fuse between the DC-DC and the main battery. I utilized the existing alternator input for the DC-DC output and replaced the factory 80A fuse with 60A equivalent.

Clean 100

Clean Cleaning DC Purchase 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 4, 2008

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.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Portland Oregon 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

SEPTEMBER 21, 2008

If these dowels were not salvageable, order new ones from the dealer for your make of vehicle. NOTE: Even among vehicles that supposedly have the "same" transmission, there are sometimes minor variations. Use the original factory locating dowels. Your adaptor may seem to have "extra" holes that do not match any on your transmssion.

Motor 100

Motor Motors Motoring Purchase 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 1, 2008

This is a bit of a dilemma because I only have a one-car garage and my current electric vehicle (the Porsche 914) is sitting in it, charging up.

Neighborhood 100

Neighborhood Google 2000 Porsche 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 25, 2009

I can barely feel a slight temperature difference between the top of the box and the vehicle chassis. I just started charging with this new circuit about an hour ago. The charge detector box is COLD. Some might think this is overkill. Those folks would be right.

Installation 100

Installation Waste Charging Power 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

Here's a top-down look at the vehicle integrator module all wired up. 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. I've just turned on the ignition key and all the proper LEDs have lit in the integrator module.

DC 100

DC Connect Connected Kits 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 18, 2008

Now I realize that this car may have been in an accident and the front measurements may be off, so I'll have to revisit this when we work on a purchased vehicle. If the group decides to go with a clutch-less system, that will make clearance on the front battery rack better.

Engine 100

Engine Batteries Battery Purchase 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

AUGUST 22, 2009

Other interesting news: I'm resigning as chairperson of the local Oregon Electric Vehicle Association. To solve this problem, I purchased a $300 vacuum pump from Victor over at Metric Mind that is much quieter than the Gast pump and should have much tigher hysteresis on the levels of vacuum in the system.

Dodge 113

Dodge Oregon Kits Installation 113

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 28, 2008

Okay, this is an attempt to document the process I used to remove the Honda Civic engine with manual transmission for conversion to an electric vehicle. So this refers to the harness on the driver side of the vehicle. There will probably be several edits, so bear with me. Here are the three connectors just in front of the driver.

Parts 100

Parts Engine Oil Fuel 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

I could have jacked up the car and lowered the transmission out the bottom, but this is easier for the moment since there are no batteries in the vehicle. I have to remove the transmission to bolt it to the motor, so that involved removing the firewall rack.

Convert 100

Convert All-Electric Purchase Batteries 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

MAY 23, 2009

I don't have the motor RPM sensor hooked up yet, but I wanted to get the system going because there's an electric car show this weekend at PIR (we're demonstrating EVs along side the Electrathon and Human-Powered-Vehicle folks). The Synkromotive controller is fully digital and has a USB port on the side.

Installation 100

Installation Connect Connected All-Electric 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 25, 2008

While I'm still sticking with the Belktronix system for this version of the vehicle, there are many things to ponder for the next version as improvements. The Logisystems controller is a similar form factor to several Curtis and Kelly controllers, making them somewhat interchangeable and upgradeable.

DC 100

DC Personal Convert Parts 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 8, 2008

I'll also be talking with folks at the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association on Thursday, so perhaps I can find some experienced people there to join as well. My next step is to get the structure of the Civic EV Kit Google Group set up and invite several key people in the Civic EV community so we can get this ball rolling.

Google 100

Google Kits Oregon Design 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 9, 2009

We're showing off 30 electric vehicles in Downtown Portland and Mayor Adams is also showing up at our press event to endorse our group. Fortunately, you simply need to toggle the ignition switch and wait four seconds for the precharge circuit to run to re-engage the contactor before driving again.

Re-Charge 100

Re-Charge Portland Cheap Charging 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

DECEMBER 3, 2008

On my previous electric vehicle, I missed putting Noalox on four battery cable connections. It's a good idea to protect your multi-hundred-dollar investment of cable and lugs with a $7 bottle of Noalox. The Noalox will also make your connections better and last much longer in the harsh automotive environment.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Connect Connected 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 7, 2009

This is a really bad time because we have so many electric vehicle events happening now. The Joule chargers also only charge with 6A, which means (despite a bad PFC rating), I might be able to plug in all chargers to a 15 amp AC circuit (The Soneils pull about 18 amps for all 12 chargers). Having a dead EV is not too appealing.

Re-Charge 100

Re-Charge DC Plug-in Plug 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 13, 2008

Here's the front battery rack again, but on the passenger side of the vehicle. Of course, I actually drilled two 3/8" holes in the 10" support piece first 1" from each end, and then used those holes as guides to drill the holes in the bracket that I attached to.

Batteries 150

Batteries Battery DC Engine 150

Open Source Civic EV Kit

APRIL 8, 2008

Perhaps I'll have a field trip with interested members of the OEVA to look at these vehicles to plan the battery racks. To maintain the feel of the original accelerator cable, I'm considering making a circuit that can translate the resistance of the original TPS to the 5K resistor needed by typical EV motor controllers.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Engine Installation 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JULY 8, 2008

For this vehicle, cutting two 1.5" The hole placement is the same for the passenger side, but just mirrored. With the two main supports in, I measured between the edges and took off a little for the curve at the corner of the angle iron. angle iron pieces 34 3/4" long worked quite well.

Batteries 100

Batteries Battery Kits Installation 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

JUNE 25, 2008

Having a gasoline "support vehicle" during the conversion to transport big items is a must. One of my associates named Matthew, took the time to look around and he found a 2-ton hoist at Harbor Freight Tools on sale for $147. He used it to remove the engine from his truck and then he sold it to me.

Buy 100

Buy Engine Seattle Gasoline 100

Open Source Civic EV Kit

AUGUST 17, 2008

You can see the ADC 9" motor bolted to the transmission in the center of the vehicle. I guess that's not a bad problem to have given that I want to see more EVs out there. This Chevy S-10 project is almost done. I wish I had an automotive lift in my single car garage. This is one of his test-fixtures.

Supplies 100

Supplies Seattle Honda Motor 100