electricar's blog

1 December 08 It Runs!

2008-12-01T22:55:00-08:00

Friday I installed the control board and began installing the components while the girls went shopping for the after Thanksgiving sales. I did most of the wiring to the controller and potbox. Wired more of the power cables only to find I didn't have enough to finish and couldn't find any as everyone was close thus I couldn't take my mom for a spin. I had planned to take her on her first trip in an EV. She's 78 and lives 4 hours away so she may never get to do it as she and my sister departed for home this morning. She has Alzheimers and it has gotten pretty bad so she likely may never be back to my house. She was restless and hardly slept most nights. Sorry to get off topic but I'm in not too good of spirits after seeing her condition and it's a little consuming right now.

Anyway today I picked up the cable and finally got things in shape enough to drive. I did a couple of preliminary things like check the pot to see if it were telling the controller to go or not and it checked ok as did the DC-DC converter. Put the rear axle on jack stands turned the ignition on. The wheels turned when I put it in gear and stepped on the pedal. I ran it up to maybe 25mph on the jack stands. We then lowered it to the floor and put the hood back on. Eased it forward towards the door, backed up a bit then threw in the song "Lowrider" by War and off we went! Absolutely awesome to see this thing work! It was unreal to push the pedal and see this thing start to move and it's nearly silent! An employee and I drove it around the block getting briefly on the interstate then finally made out way back to the shop. Took about 6-7 miles to complete.

Before coming back we visited the local Advanced Auto parts store where we've been buying parts for this thing for several months to let them see it. This thing draws people like you wouldn't believe. We had 5-10 people standing around asking questions and taking photos for several minutes until we had to go.

Don't recall if I mentioned but I've had a heck of a time with the vacuum system. I decided to just replace the entire rubber hose section as it appeared to have a manufacturing flaw that I figured was likely the source of the leak, which is what it was doing and I couldn't stop it! Started it again after replacing the hose and that issue was solved. Hooray!!! I've spent more time trying to get that up and running than it took me to fab, paint and install the front battery rack and probably cut out and prep the controller board!

Didn't take any photos as it's not very photogenic at the moment, the engine compartment that is. After I tidy everything up I'll post more photos.

Next on the list is to get the spring leafs added this week. I had not really thought about how low this thing was riding and upon getting on the interstate we hit a bump and the drive shaft yoke hit one of the racks edges causing a freak out moment until I remembered it really wasn't road ready without the spring additions! After the butt lift I'll replace the old wheels and tires with new ones I've bought. I may wait on the paint job a few weeks so I can go ahead and start getting some of my money back. I'm currently saving errands up so I can use my newfound money saving machine!

26 November Update

2008-11-26T22:59:00-08:00

Got the front battery rack built and installed and the control board metal in place. This took a little noggin scratchin' as I'm an electrician, not a metal fab man. I couldn't find any photos of others fab work so I imagineered my own. Here's some photos showing where I welded angle iron to the frame rails to which I bolted the aluminum tubing to form the control rack.

Also got the Zivan NG5 charger installed behind the seat, wired up, receptacle installed and the pack charged for the first time! It's on the drivers side which is best as that is where your gas cap is on the S10. There's room there also to mount a DC-DC converter beside it. In the photo you're seeing the sub amp beside it. I didn't think to put the DC converter in there. If you install it here it frees up room under the hood to keep the control board uncluttered. It also keeps it out of any water under the hood.

Figured out the mystery of making the bed tilt. This was another task for my fab-challenged abilities. Had to do a lot of evalbum searching to come up with something workable. I used two 90lb 24" stroke Gas Strut's from Surpluscenter.com but I just checked and they're not selling them anymore but they do have a lot of useful stuff there and cheap!

We're almost DRIVING now! The control board is installed and the wiring about half finished. Had to stop tonight to go do the family thing. My 78yo mom is here from out of state and I hope to get it driveable on Friday so I can take her for a spin.

12 November 08 Update

2008-11-12T22:08:00-08:00

More goodies installed since October update:

PakTrakr system to monitor the batteries. This is a very cool system if you're not aware of it. It monitors each battery and alerts you of several issues that may develop. Cost for my 24 battery pack was about $400 including a current sensor to monitor pack or motor amp draw, your choice but only one sensor.

Important notes for this system if you go that route. The remote units wired to the batteries tie to the display unit and contain a fuse for protection. The fuse is a "pico" 1 amp and is located at the ring terminal end of the black wire under the shrink wrap. It's there to protect the remote from idiots who might decide to cut the data cable while the unit is energized. I won't name names here but...

Anyway, the cable had to be cut to extend it as it was a little too short. I didn't think it would hurt the thing but be warned! It's a sort of sickening feeling when you whack the cable and the blinking status led goes out and won't come back on! To kill the power to the unit you don't have to disconnect all of the 9 leads on an 8 battery remote. Just remove the black lead and you can whack away!

LED turn signal/tail lamps and side marker lamps replaced old energy hog incandescent lamps! Don't know how much this will help but free power is a bonus in my mind however you look at it. Since it is being built for city driving the turn/brake lights will be on often. When the original 1157 lamps are on high as in braking or turning, they consumed 2.6A each for a total of 5.2A total. The LED's reduced that to 0.4A total, saving 4.8A at 13.5V or so which is roughly 65 watts. An LED tidbit: On this truck the side markers are #194 and the LED'S I bought were polarity sensitive meaning when I installed them one way they wouldn't work. They can plug in two ways so I had to reverse them if they didn't come on right away.

Once I replaced the last of 4 tail lamps, they went dim and stopped flashing. This problem is due to the small current flow of the new lamps. To fix this requires two Tridon EL-12 2-wire flashers be replaced with 3 wire electronic ones, Tridon #EP34 available at Advance Auto. The 3rd wire is to the battery - connection. Two units are needed as one is for the emergency flashers and the other for the turn signal operation.

I made wire leads with terminals to plug in the socket of the old units with the black - wire ran to the chassis. No need to buy a socket, just 6 male spade lugs and 6 females and some wire. Plug it in and tie wrap it up neatly out ot the way.

Upgraded the cassette stereo system which was nearly 20 years old to a new Sony Xplod unit. Speakers are Memphis Audio with an Alpine 10" sub run off a Memphis amp. Not bad for an old man and it sounds really good! Pops likes his music sometimes.

Replaced the old carpet It was old, faded and had to go. While we had it out we lined the floor pan with double sided radiant barrier.

This stuff works great at keeping heat in or out. Wherever it is, this stuff works to keep it there. I've used it for a few years now and have it in the home and office building.

Installed Fuse Block for the 12V stuff on the fire wall. As an electrician, I didn't like the idea of a cable ran direct from the battery with no fuse protection. That's how stuff catches fire! Make sure you fuse any wiring coming off the +12 of the battery or should something fail it could cause the wire to overheat and flame up! This is NOT what you want, particularly if you've got a ton of time in your project.

11 November 08 Ceramic 1500 Watt Heater Install

2008-11-11T22:40:00-08:00

We now have the electric heater installed. Not a bad job getting it swapped out. Very good tip for you here--> Go to Autozone to get instructions on removing it. They have a computer you can use to print instructions on how to do stuff with drawings or photos. Sorry I didn't take any photos. My bad but I'll attempt to "picture" it for you.

The "kit" is essentially a block of white (polyethylene?) plastic about 12" square, a ceramic heater element common to many $25 120volt electric 1500watt heaters, 20A fuse and holder, a few screws, Anderson connector to kill the power for servicing, some rather vague instructions and a DC contactor rated for at least 20amps with a 12V coil. The heater element is about 4.5" square and 1.5" thick.

Cut the plastic to fit over the space where the old heater core was, then cut out a hole for the air to blow through the element and bolt the element to the plastic plate. We made two brackets to go from side to side using the two holes in the top and bottom for the old heater core straps as the new screw holes for the straps. These straps will hole the element and plate in place. It took a while for us to figure out a means to secure the plate to the housing!

For wiring there are 5 terminals. We opted to use high temp appliance wire available from our local appliance repair parts dealer. We used crimp terminals for the connections but I suppose you could solder the wires to the terminals and cover with shrink wrap. You'll connect the two end terminals along with the middle one together. Then connect the other two together. One of those connections goes to the - side of your pack and the other comes off the pack + through the heater contactor.

They recommend the control wiring only allow the heater contactor to be energized when the ignition is on and the fan is on high. I read somewhere however that the heater element is somehow self regulating and the fan need not be on high. They tested theirs with the fan on all speeds and found the more air blowing across it the more current it used thus the more heat it produced. I'll have to verify that of course at some point as I haven't wired the contactor just yet. I really don't want to have to keep switching the fan on and off at full blast to control the heat!

Caution: Be sure if your contactor has the two power terminals exposed that you enclose it inside a box or such. When the contactor is off you will have pack voltage across those two terminals! 120V DC can be LETHAL, much more so than AC and will explosively melt metal if the terminals are accidentally shorted!

Good luck with your and hope this helps. It's beginning to get cold!

15 October 08 Update

2008-10-15T12:46:00-08:00

We've been busy with the truck but just now getting around to updating the blog. Found out the emergency brake problem was only needing an adjustment so that's fixed now.

Got the battery racks finished under the bed except for painting and lining the boxes. My US2200 batteries measure 7x10.25x9.5T plus 1.25T extra for the battery posts. I'm going to use political signs to line the boxes, a good use for them! I managed to get 22 batteries under the bed. 14 batteries straddle the drive shaft and 8 are behind the rear axle. Two on each side of the drive shaft slide under the cab a few inches but that won't be a problem. I'll undercoat the cab to protect it from the acid fumes. I welded an angle iron across the frame under the truck to attach the two racks paralleling the drive shaft. This gives me a total of 132V under the cab. I'm putting two more under the hood to get my 144V.

Be precise in your measurement if you copy my drive shaft racks. The drive shaft is a bit off center and the passenger side is very tight and close to touching the drive shaft. If that becomes a problem, a custom shaft can be made from yours making it an inch or so thinner. Note: In order to carry the weight of 22 batteries under the bed, I replaced the factory 2300lb rated drum brake rear axle with a disc brake unit from a blazer. This unit is rated at 2900 lbs so I'm not in danger of overloading the axle as the pack will weigh about 1500lbs with the steel and cables + 1100Lbs of the curb weight.

Also have the motor/transmission assembly installed and have tested the motor with a battery charger.

Removed the heater core and purchased an electric one from EV-America. These are good people to use. They'll help with your questions and their pricing is very good. You can find things a bit cheaper if you try on most things but it's worth a little more to get all their help.

This is a slow process for me, slower than I want but I have other things that come first...

25 July 08 E-brake installed but won't stop the wheels from turning!

2008-07-26T03:16:00-08:00

Not much done today. Planned to work on it most of today but couldn't get started til about 630. Wow. At this rate a lofty goal may be to get it up and running before the warranty runs out on everything. Not very inspiring. Better days are ahead though, I can feel it!

All I managed to do was get the e-brake cable connected to the brake pedal cable and adjusted to remove any cable slack. When I push the pedal it pulls the levers on the e-brake assembly but it won't stop the rotors from turning when I turn them by hand. That could be a problem, being an electric motor has no compression to keep the truck from rolling. I'll have to figure out something. Hopefully just an adjustment in the rear brake assembly or tighten the cable more. Since my model didn't come with disc on the rear it's not in the manual I bought.

21 July 08

2008-07-21T23:33:00-08:00

Decided to replace the drum brake rear end with a disc brake unit. Here's the deal on that.

1. The disc brake rear on the newer model Blazers and S10's through 2005 models will bolt in place of the old drum rear perfectly.

2. The rear must be from a 2WD if your vehicle is 2WD. Actually you may could use 4WD units, not really sure but they are about 5" wider. The lower shock mounting bracket on the 91 goes right back in place under the leaf springs. Cost from salvage yard, $400 with good rotor, pads and no leaks!

3. The brake cables are totally different on the newer models thus they won't just hook right up. And you HAVE to have a functioning emergency brake on an electric vehicle with a manual transmission since theres no engine compression to stop it from turning. Forget to set the brake and if you're on a slight hill, your car is going for a ride all by itself! We're going to get a compression cable fitting or just use U-bolts to tie the cables together.

One important note to remember, the newer cable operates with a bracket (see last photo) that both cables tie into, sort of like a Y. When the emergency brake is applied it pulls the brake cables toward the front, the bracket pulls the passenger side cable until brake is applied. When those pads contact the rotor, the brake cable of the driver side then pulls as the bracket holding it can't move now. The way it is setup, one inch of travel by the cable from the brake pedal will pull each cable to the brakes only half that amount.

The older cables are tied end to end and loop around a horseshoe type guide. When the pedal cable moves one inch on this one, both cables move one inch. This may be as clear as mud now but before you buy the new one, look at your existing brake cable connection method then look at the newer style setup and you'll see what I mean.

There are codes in your glove box that indicate options such as limited slip and the gear ratio. My code was GU6 which means it has a 3.42 gear. I'll list the other codes below. For hauling all those batteries you want a lower ratio if you can get it which means a higher number such as 3.73 or 4.10. However I haven't found one for this rear end. A critical measurement to keep in mind to make sure you don't get the wrong one is 54.5" That is the distance between the wheel mounting faces. For the 4WD models it is 59" and those may come with lower gears.

Glove Box Codes:

GU4 = 3.08 GEARS, GU6=3.42, GT4=3.73, GT5=4.10 G80=Limited Slip.

I haven't figured out how to label the photo's but the last photo is the above brake cable bracket on the new rear.

19 July 08

2008-07-21T22:40:00-08:00

Finished removing the exhaust and gas tank. Took the drive shaft out and transmission cross-brace out, motor mounts unbolted and engine is ready to come out.