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Since John McCain recently mistook Barack Obama for Paris Hilton (hey, that could happen to anybody, not just the elderly), Paris assures America that she is "totally ready to lead.". Me, I'm totally ready to be your VP, girlfriend. (Call me.) Okay, if you're asking yourself, what's that got to do with electric cars? it's in Candidate Hilton's energy policy; she advocates tax incentives to build hybrids and electrics, among other things.
Many people don't realize that the Honda crankshaft going into the transmission actually turns clockwise for the forward direction, as opposed to counter-clockwise for the vast majority of cars. As such, most EV motors have advanced timing on the brushes to optimize counter-clockwise rotation. Since we have a Honda Civic, we're going to rotate the brushes on the Netgain Warp9 motor so that they have optimal advanced timing for the clockwise direction.
The DIY website has been going under some pretty impressive changes and has included some pretty interesting threads over the past few months, but with over 3000 members and an average of 400 new threads a week there is a lot of content to go over. So I thought it would be helpful to pick out some of the highlights of what I have found to be the most interesting threads and developments of DIYelectriccar over the past few weeks: Tags: Editorials highlights forums wiki garage.
A s the political conventions take the stage, it's encouraging to see that both candidates support PHEVs and the development of electric fuel in the transportation sector. Here's part of Obama's plan thanks to Politico : Obama calls for 'clean energy' nation By MIKE ALLEN Sen. Barack Obama on Monday called reducing the nation’s energy consumption “the great test of our time” and proposed billions of dollars in subsidies for business and consumers to encourage a “ clean energy “ future.
The FB 1-4001 from Advanced DC motors is far from having all the bells and whistles you'd hope for. In fact the only sensor it has is an on/off over heat sensor that is open until the temperature has risen too high in which case the circuit closes. This is great for a dummy light or buzzer but for those of us who want real numbers all the time you'll have to make your own.
In the process of removing the engine from the transmission and selling it off, I lost one of the critical alignment dowels that mates the adapter plate to the transmission housing. Apparently, you can see if local Honda dealers have these parts in stock by browsing the catalog at [link] My local dealer had three of of the alignment dowels. Part number is 94301-14200 and the dimensions are 14mm dia by 20mm long.
Given the limited space and mounting locations in the engine compartment, I tried to pick a 12V accessory battery that would be the most optimal. The original 12V battery from the Civic was just too big to fit anywhere useful. I ended up deciding on the YIX30L battery from Yuasa. This is a standard size motorcycle battery that has similar amp-hours to the original Civic battery.
Given the limited space and mounting locations in the engine compartment, I tried to pick a 12V accessory battery that would be the most optimal. The original 12V battery from the Civic was just too big to fit anywhere useful. I ended up deciding on the YIX30L battery from Yuasa. This is a standard size motorcycle battery that has similar amp-hours to the original Civic battery.
Last Thursday I received a FedEx package from Belktronix. It looks like the controller, contactor, potbox and integrator unit all showed up. Here's the pile of parts that I received. I'm not entirely sure what the roll of black padded foam is just to the right of the main motor driver. The contactor is in the upper center with the potbox to the lower right and the integrator unit to the upper right.
Yesterday, I took a road-trip to Bellevue (near Seattle) to pick up the rest of my major EV parts from Carlo at EV-Supply. Most of the EV garages that I've been to have been a hodge podge of parts and people scurrying around like bees to get things done. This garage was no exception. Here's a crate full of Netgain Warp9 motors. Mine was originally scheduled to be shipped back on July 2nd, but Netgain has been swamped with orders for motors, so their production backlogged.
Well, as many of you have noticed, there haven't been many blog entries lately. The weather has been good, so I've been out hiking on the weekends. I also had to put my cat down on Friday due to kidney failure and I took the weekend to bury him and recover. On the much brighter side, I received the Belktronix controller last Thursday via FedEx (pictures soon).
T he Plug in 2008 National PHEV Conference in San Jose by most accounts was a big success. Here's one of the announcements that came out of the conference : EPRI, GM, 34 Utilities Collaborate to Advance Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles PALO ALTO, Calif. – July 22, 2008; The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) announced today a research and development collaboration with General Motors and 34 top utilities to facilitate integration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles ( PHEVs ) into the grid,
Now we'll build a sensor for detecting the RPM of the motor. This number is important for safety of the motor, efficient when driving, and most importantly my power steering needs this value. Sure I could just spoof a number to make it happy but would much rather have the real value and display it on the original tachometer. First off the sensor we will be using is a Melexis 90217 Hall-Effect Sensor.
After unpacking the motor I found a few things that EV America put in there for me. First was a document with a few warnings and guidelines. One that caught my eye was that motor can't be run in CW rotation unless ADC or a representative has modified the motor. The motor comes ready for CCW rotation which is good for most vehicles, except Honda as they run in CW rotation.
I've added a list of EV related links on the right side of this blog. These are by far not all the sites out there but I find I use them the most for obtaining information, comparing prices and just passing time when I'm bored and planning things for the conversion.
As I mentioned before I wasn't sure which route I was going to take on getting the plate and coupler made. For my setup it turns out I need six pieces machined total. The coupler which mates the motor output shaft to the original flywheel. The flywheel has the clutch attached to it which then slides over the input shaft to the transmission. The adapter plate is the second piece.
I finally got some long awaited parts in this week. Below is the box the motor was shipped in. I'm going with an Advanced DC FB1-4001A. This is a dual shaft motor that can operate from 72 volts up to 144 volts. My goal is run it at 144 (room for batteries permitting). This thing was really well packed. Here is picture of the motor with my hand as a reference for the size.
So after doing some research on why the EPS light would come on it's exactly like a check engine light. There are a set of codes that can be displayed to help diagnose problems with the system. The bad part is you can't use your standard cheap OBDII tool to read and clear these codes. The only scanners that will work for sure are from Honda and you can't buy them.
I finally got the new handheld oscilloscope in to try and figure out what I was doing wrong in creating the RPM signal for my gauge and to enable the electronic power steering to work. The scope is a Velleman HPS10 and I picked it up new on ebay for $140 shipped. I didn't know what to expect never using a scope before but looking at the features I was pretty sure it would do what I needed.
Ok here is probably the first EV part of the build I've done. I was going to wait on the vacuum system because you typically don't want to start planning where to place components until the motor is mounted. Overall from that point it's probably best to consider the larger items and work smaller to make sure you have room for everything. However, you may recall a spot in the far front left corner of the car where there was an emissions pump of sorts and I removed that.
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