| 10/29/01
Well, the TEVan found a new home and I was able to scrounge up enough functional Delphi batteries to make the Civic go for a bit longer. Unfortunately they have finally failed completely so I have picked up 15 Dynasty UPS batteries, model UPS12-370. These are 74 pound group 31 100 AH batteries. My favorite battery shop, Wholesale Battery of Kansas City, KS was able to find me 15 of these that had recently been removed from a UPS system for only $20 each. I am currently load testing them, but so far with 7 tested all are able to deliver more than their rated capacity. To accommodate the "new" batteries the Civic will have to be completely rebuilt as they are shaped nothing like the Delphis. So far it looks like 4 batteries under the hood with the remaining nine in the rear "well". Also a few other things are going to be changed including:
|
|
| 01/06/02
It has been a busy few weeks. . The Dynasty batteries are in, but everything is not as I would have hoped. 13 of the batteries tested with over 100% of their rated capacity. One was just at capacity, and one only managed about 40%. I installed the 13 best ones, but one of those slowly started loosing charge. It was then replaced by the one that just met specs. On the first test drive, one of the batteries shorted internally and failed after only 3 miles. Since I no longer have enough batteries for 156 volts, so I bypassed the bad one and switched to 144 volts on a temporary basis. I can't use the NG5 charger, but I turned don the "Fair Radio" a couple of notches to handle the reduced voltage. Hopefully I will be able to locate more batteries. Somehow I managed to mis-wire the Auburn Kodiak controller when re-installing it. When your talking about voltages and currents high enough to weld with it should come as no surprise that controller vaporized as soon as it was turned on. It too was sent off for repairs. In the process it was upgraded to the MPC version. This required further rewiring to add the updated pre-charge circuit, but also added the reduced power reverse circuit and the economy power mode switch. |
|
 |
The new Thomas vacuum pump required a vacuum tank, so I fabricated one from 4" ABS pipe. The only place I had left to mount it was the location of the original muffler in the ICE. Here you can see it hanging under the rear of the car. I think I made it too big. |
 |
The Avcon charge port was a real pain to install, but it is finally in. It sure is easy to use. To insure access to 220 charging without the Avcon I moved the original inlet to behind the rear license plate. The front charge port for 120 VAC was installed in the front bumper rather than behind the front license plate due to space issues. I guess I need to make a new sticker for the door, it still says "unleaded fuel only". |
 |
The Avcon charging station was an easy unit to mount on the wall, but rather than hard wire it in, I simply equipped it with a cord plugged into my existing NEMA 14-50 outlet. It will be hard wired eventually, with the power meter in the circuit. |
 |
Here is the latest revision of the rear compartment. The Dynasty
batteries can be seen in their on end mounting configuration. On
the near end of the tie down rack is the PowerCheq Equalizers. These
have now been rewired with individual fuses leads to each battery.
Also visible is the gray box containing the rear contactor. To the
left of that is the control box for the FR charger and the small white
object is the interior pre-heater control timer. Unfortunately, it
turned out to be a single event timer so I will probably replace it shortly
with a multiple event timer. I found a 12 volt unit at a renewable
energy supplier.
I relocated the Todd DC/DC converter to the rear compartment, but apparently not soon enough. The unit stopped working, and careful inspection revealed evidence of possible moisture inside. It has been sent off for repairs, meanwhile a second one has been ordered. The plan is to have dual units for 60 amps of 12 volt power. For now I am running a total loss system, with one of the original Delphi batteries wired in parallel with the original U-1 wheelchair battery, which I left under the hood. |
 |
Here is the revised under hood view. To accommodate the Dynasty
batteries all the battery racks had to be rebuilt and the controller and
auxiliary battery relocated. Notice the battery warming blankets
around the batteries.
The K&W tach sender is in, but will need to be rewired as it is picking up too much noise from the motor and controller and giving erroneous readings. Currently it is too close to the controller in the black plastic box behind and to the left of the controller. Compare the new under hood setup with the Dynasty batteries with the old Delphi powered version. Eventually I will get around to mounting the air conditioning system. Of course now that the daytime high temperature outdoors is having trouble getting above freezing it isn't too much of a priority. |
| 05/23/06
Okay, four YEARS between updates? Sorry, I have been kind of busy. :^) In the past four years I have rescued three more EVs, two Solectria Force's off Ebay and a Ranger conversion on a used car lot. After fixing them up and driving them a few months, all moved on to new owners in California and Washington. Yes, the Civic is still on the road. My office moved closer to my house so now my commute is only 4 miles each way. SWEET! No, I STILL haven't got the air conditioning in, but I have run out of excuses so I think I will try to dig out the bits and get on it this week. Batteries? Late last year I installed a brand new set of Dynasty DCS-100L deep cycle 12 volt batteries. So far they seem to be doing okay, but the range is not what I hopped for, only 25 to 30 miles per charge. I am dreaming of NiMH. The tachometer is still not sorted out, I moved the control box under the dash, but it is still picking up noise. I may go back to my home built one that I never finished. The original Todd DC/DC that died was not repairable, it's replacement died, the company went out of business, and I picked up a larger 50 Amp version on Ebay for $15. That one is working great. I finally started playing with the serial output feed on the E-meter. I wired it up to an old Pentium 75 laptop I got for $5, fitted that with a wireless card, and now I can log every volt and and amp and feed it to my home PC. That was fun for about a week, then it just got kind of stupid. I mean, what do you do with all that data? I still have it in the car but I leave it off. I do have the computer out of a police car I am threatening to install, but I don't have the screen. :( My Zivan charger turned out to be programmed wrong. I shipped it back to California for reprogramming and updating. It went from Version 1 of the software to Version 10. Quite a jump. I added a trailer hitch and recently built a pusher trailer to allow long trips. Pusher trailers are gas powered trailer, in my case made from the front of a '90 Civic sedan, that when towed at highway speeds push the EV down the road. It sounds crazy, but it works great. You can see pictures of my pusher at: http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/753 My major work of late has become my other web site, the EV Album at http://evalbum.com We now have over 750 EVs in the Album from all around the world. If you are interested in EVs, it is hard to imagine a place to find out more. Anyway, the Civic rolls on, and once I make some real upgrades I will post more. |
|
| 03/18/07
Time passes and changes come and go. The new Dynasty batteries proved to be a complete and and expensive disaster. After only 7 months of use they were down to less than 20 Amp/Hours of capacity and the Civic could barely manage 10 miles on a charge. The retailer who sold them to me, Wholesale Battery in Kansas City, Kansas bent over backwards trying to help out. They performed an Alber test on the batteries which showed the internal resistance were all over the map. The manufacturer, C&D Dynasty had them ship back two of the batteries, one for testing and one for tear down and inspection. Dynasty then lost the batteries for a few weeks but finally located them and checked them out. After they initially stated they were sure the problem was caused by chronic under charging, I sent them a copy of the second by second data log I had captured with the old laptop showing the charge and discharge profile. After reviewing that, they decided the batteries were chronically over charged and refused any warranty. I feel they decided not to honor the warranty and then just came up with excuses not to do so. Needless to say, I can't recommend those batteries or any of their other products for EV use. Having had good experiences with Deka gell-cell batteries in my Solectria Forces, I decided to install a set of those. I bought 13 Deka 8G31DT batteries and installed them. They required a different charging algorithm so the charger was shipped back to Zivan yet again to reprogram it a third time. So far the batteries have been in a few weeks and I am breaking them in very gently. Potentially they should give me a range of about 40 miles, but I think I will try to stay well below that to extend their service life. One of our local EVers has them in a Force and after about 6 years they are still going strong. I have had lots of thoughts on what I would do different if I were starting from scratch today. Here is what I have so far: 1. Decide if the real goal is to build an electric car or drive an electric car. I put a lot of work into the Civic conversion and in the end, it is still not as good a car as either of the used Solectria Forces I owned. They were also cheaper over all and since they were less tinkered together they were more worry free. 2. I you are going to build a conversion, don't spare any expense on the car itself. The donor car is one of the cheapest parts of a conversion. If I were doing another one I would move up to a newer car so I would have airbags and side impact door beams. I would also want something with more under hood space. The Civic is extremely limited in that regard. Just swathing up to a 92-96 Civic would have added almost a foot more of length under the hood. Also, give yourself room to grow. The Civic is only a two seater because my wife and I have no kids and had no need for the back seat. Now both our mother's have moved to town and frequently we need to drive with three and sometimes four people in the car. Since the electric only seats two we have to take the gas car. 3. Enclose the batteries in boxes. This keeps them clean, keeps prying fingers safe during displays, and allows much more control of battery temperature. The Forces have the batteries in boxes with heaters and fans to keep them near ideal temperature year round. This really enhances cold weather operation. 4. Add more battery monitoring. What is really needed is an individual battery monitor to warn if one of the batteries is failing long before it stops the car. GM and Ford both included this on their factory electric vehicles and a number of folks have it on their conversions. It would have saved me much grief. 5. The sealed batteries are nice from the maintenance standpoint,
but simple flooded golf cart batteries are more economical and may return
more useable range. The design of the Civic makes conversion to those
type of batteries almost impossible, but with prior planning it might make
a far more suitable option.
|
|
 Back |
|
 |
|