EV ( Electric Vehicle ) Conversion 7-29-2007

Today was a lot of fun hard work. A couple of trips to AutoZone and the wiring is pretty much done. As I wasn't sure where to drill holes for the new switches, I used some cardboard to test out that everything worked.

I feel it is now better than before, of course it's not pretty yet, but already the functionality is better. Whereas before, I had separate buttons, one to lift up the headlights, and another to turn them on ; I now have a pull knob that turns on the running lights on at the 1st position from off, pull a little more and both the headlights pop up and they turn on as well. Plus I have much larger LEDs to show me what's going on as well as the light up switches themselves.

All internal 12V wiring is done with switches, relays, and fuses as simply as possible.

Keith's Lightning Bug

I rode the Lightning Bug at June's EVAoSD meeting and almost shat myself.
This thing can go!!!
Here's a video I edited for Keith Vansickle.

...feel free to give out my e-mail
address and refer people to me for information. The lightning bug is a
hopped up Bug Ev from blue sky design in oregon. the original is 48 v
with a smaller motor. mine is 72v right now and when I get a bigger
controller will go to 96 or even 120v I want the thing to be so fast no
one but a kid or a speed freak will drive it full open, just like every
other hi performance motorcycle. I am working on another frame and
slightly different body that will take the bigger motor and higher
speeds.
keith

EV ( Electric Vehicle ) Conversion 7-21-2007

Still working on the 12V wiring.
Between runs for relays and wire spools I've started arranging the Belktronix controller, pack charger+dc/dc doodad, and vehicle integrator. Gotta love bungee cords.


Plus I check to see how the rear will look after I replace the school bus tail lights with the late model Mustang tailights (phase3).


Finally I check how the touchscreen will fit in the dash...

Whoa! Wow! WoooWee! White Zombie

Congrats to PlasmaBoy Racing!

The White Zombie breaks its own world record for a street-legal electric car - 11.466 at 114 MPH.

I hope to one day make it out of the garage in 11 seconds...

To dream...

EV (Electric Vehicle) Conversion 7-14-2007

Here is my draft for the GUI interface for the PakTrakr system.

Link should take you to GoogleVideo.

EV ( Electric Vehicle ) Conversion 7-8-2007

Before

My EV will not need gas nor oil guages. Plus there was a crazy amount of wires hooked up to those old skool fuses. A lot of the wiring led nowhere and had all kinds of offshoots. What I need is Clean and Simple wiring. It will all be labled, so that I know what is what. First I need to take out all the old stuff.

During

Don't know what to say about that. (video link)

Finally! (video link)

After

Now begins the fun part.

• front running lights,
• front turn signals
• motor for popup headlights ,
• head lights,
• horn,
• windshield wipers,
• windshield wash sprayer,
• cabin air blower,
• keyed start/run switch or start button,
• dash indicator lights,
• hookup for touchscreen stereo,
• new guages (may use old speedometer temporarily),
• rear running lights,
• rear brake /turn signal lights,
• reverse lights,
• lic. plate light

EV ( Electric Vehicle ) Conversion 7-01-2007

"If I'm extremely lucky..."
if we are talking about the good kind of lucky, not so much.

Both Belktronix and PakTrakr met their respective deadlines of getting me all the electronical doo-dads in time so that if the next piece of news hadn't happened I may have pulled it off (finishing a running EV in time for the EVAoSD meeting 6-26-2007).

PowerSonic raised their battery prices 30% from one day to the next without warning. They may have warned their distributors, but not me. What that means to me is ...more saving pennies...

It also means I can take my time in finishing Phase 1 (getting the damn thing running). Because of the Escondido heat in in June and July I've been slacking in my Monster Garage impersonations. That doesn't mean I haven't been doing stuff...

The slideshow is of a GUI(graphic user interface) front-end program called RoadRunner for use in a Car-PC the "skin" (3rd party customization) is called DigitalFX2.

The PakTrakr's ability to send once a second bursts of information such as:

• Pack state of charge
• Individual battery voltages
• 30-day logged data
• Amps/Watts
• Battery bay temperature
  as well as Alerts for
• Failing Battery
• Pack Imbalance
• Damaged Battery
• Low State of Charge
• Overcharging

via a serial connection to a PC (or smart device with a serial connection)of your choosing, got me into looking at CarPCs. Especially the following combination:

Of course this may be a bit too much on the car's battery, so I figure just the touchscreen and some kind of small portable battery powered PC to connect to it that I can recharge at home or the office.
Doug, who electrified his Ghia has already done something like this and writes about it in his own blog, er Bloghia .