Update on project

Greeting!

the project has not changed since the last post mostly due my participation in the formula hybrid project.

Except that the adaptor  in the picture bellow will be replaced by something more solid!

Don’t worry!  this project will be finish and will roll on the street. Street that have now welcomed Leafs and Volts !

I tried the Leaf last week and I am speechless.

The car is very powerful:forget the Versa , there is nothing comparable! If you remove the traction control , you’ll have to buy a new set of tire pretty fast!

Handling is pretty good as well considering the higher mass – 23 Kwh batteries pack is heavy ! and Lithium air battery are not expected for a couple of year!

The user interface is excellent : SOC , SOH , remaining distance, radius of autonomy displayed on GPS.

Get one!  it is unbelievable. ~32000$ and never a drop of gas again!

 

Still

I plan to test all my powertrain system on the Veon, but I might change vehicle. The 1999 Neon has been stored for more than 2 year now. There were no rust at the beginning , but now all the braking system must be changed.

there is more investment to do in the car than changing it.

I will be looking for a new vehicle later on , but I would like RWD car .  BMWs , Mustang , S2000 , Soltice , miata , S10 … anyway

 

some new stuff to buy soon :

Tyco contactor,

Delphi DC-DC converter … or Vicor  might do the job as well

Current way , brusa , or charger

aerovironment or clipper creek   EVSE

oh and battery ; apparently, it might help for a bev…!

I spotted many supplier of lifepo4 battery. normally about 1000$ /kwh  BMS included.

I’ll do my own bms so I might save big on this.

 

 

 

Transmission adapter

Hello,

It’s been a while once again.

Were are currently doing great with the Formula SAE Hybrid project. I am learning a lot  on different aspect of EV .

Since this week was spring break, I had some spare time to work on the VEON.

I did the motor to transmission adapter  using a 1” nipple and a 1” circular adapter.  Both intern diameter fit perfectly with the motor shaft.

The only thing left is to do a male 1/4” thread to insert a 1/4” diameter  screw to secure the adapter to the shaft.

Here a picture of the adapter so far

Enjoy…

EDIT : this part will be custom made later on. it is not strong enough … but it is still nice for a <5$ part !!! It gives me a good idea of the part.

Moving away

Since I have to go back to my apartment , i decided to bring the motor transmission and controller to work on them at home. I have 6 12V battery to test up to 72V with  low Amp.  I’ll see what I can do with that.

However, I installed all the stuff in the basement,

Here is a picture of my new setup and of my aluminium adaptor plate. I only found 3/8 plate instead of 1/2 … I’m pretty sure it is strong enough.  the stuff cost me  about 75$.

Rust on project

Hi,

I’m back from vacation. so here are the latest news

when I looked back to my pictures and compare them to pictures of other EV conversion, mine were full of rust everywhere.  Picture of last post especially contain a lot of rust on the transmission and flywheel.

To solve the problem, I remembered my highschool chemistry class. ( + google )

Therefore, to remove most of the rush on the flywheel, I make a Vinegar bath in an aluminum container.

Result ? after 2 hours, i finish the job with a steel brush on a Dremel. Most of the rust is gone.

Photo to come tomorrow, I forgot my cellphone …

EDIT : … tadam…

Oh  and I did my fist cable  that link the A2 and B2 terminal of the motor.

Photo to come as well

EDIT: … picture

adaptor plate 2

Today was the first day M. transmission met M. EV motor. although the motor still weight 150+pounds, it went well. By comparing both part, I could figure exactly what i need.

Forget about my nice CAD drawing. I will get to basic with this project” KISS!”. first, I will use a 15”x15′ x1/2” aluminum plate  (about 35$) to cover my transmission. Then i will use  9” tubbing as a spacer between the motor and the transmission. the length of the space need to be precisely measure but it will be around 1 ”to 1.125 ”. I rather aluminium tubing to steel for weight . and  corrosion resistance. But I dont think i will have a lot of choice.

I need to order that tomorrow. The last piece needed is actually the most important: the adaptor piece that will fit the key way to the flywheel that has 8 bolt. I want to see if i can use the part on my motor instead of making it all over.

The flywheel and the clutch need to be align. I will visite a garage near to my house to align that.

Here are many pictures…enjoy

2/0 welding cable arrives tomorrow and I will prepare at least one cable on the motor. I spend about 2 hour on the phone and on internet to find a 12 V pump that can pass more that 2 GAL/min in my controller.  I might finally use one on 120V ac  since there are more cheaper.

bad news are ok!

I was happy to see today that there was no nest in the ventilation system. In fact , I assume that because I could smell it in the car. BUT! there were no nest since the odor was from the trunk. Since the trunk carpet was removed, I simply wash the trunk and problem was solve! I assume that mice could have been trapped for a while by the spare tire lower section.

I removed the back seat to see what kind of space i could have bought putting battery below it.  It look just fine for a series of 12V battery so I will have to consider battery height.   However, I rather not have people sit directly above batteries for vapor that can emanate from the batteries. more over, these batteries would be more vulnerable to anything below the car.

I need the check this again but here a picture of the back seat removed. I found actually 1.35$ in spare change below the back seat… and poker chip but anyway!

good and bad news

Today was a good day for the project except the last 10 min.

I find a place to buy welding 2/0 cable for a very good price. tomorrow I will order about 40 feet with the appropriate lugs and heatshrink.

However, I did discover a mouse’s nest in the ventilation system of the car. I am very disappointed but I was expecting it since another car store at the same place had a nest too.

Therefore tomorrow morning’s plan have change a little. I little disassemble the dash  and remove and clean the ventilation system.

i will also disassemble the rear seat. I saw a similar conversion on a Neon and the space below the rear seat was used for battery. I like this idea since battery mass will be more centered. However, I want rear seatbelt to ensure proper protection so I will not cut anywhere near of them.

I now have 5 x12 V car battery. i need to find one more to test motor on 72 V. If  documentation is right, I can have about 70 ft-pound of torque on 72V… using 334 A.  I will not test this since battery won’t provide 334 A !

Serial connection to Zilla

Hello

School is over and i have few days to work on Veon.This was a pretty loaded semester and most of my free time was invest on the hybrid project.

But still ; today was communication day with the zilla. Communication is ensure with RS-232. Since I did not have any usb to serial adaptor that worked on win 7 , I could not communicate.

fortunately, my roommate gave me his old laptop that was not working properly ( mostly because of the keyboard!) and guess what: it has a good old serial port !

Therefore today I set the Zilla via the hairball interface considering all the limit on the motor such as limit voltage. the Zilla was set as “full power”, which set the 1000 A limit of the drive by default . The Warp 9 can take no more than 400A continuous.

i jointed some picture of the setup and the result on the hyperterminal. Yes; I did not use print screen. i rather the hard way!

now i,m looking for a pump for the cooling system of the power box of the zilla. I will try to order one on 12 v. I only find some on 120 v ac . Low power inverter are only 9.99$ this week  but I rather avoid another possible sources of noise. I will see what i can find tomorrow.

with this I am ready for higher voltage test!

Adaptator plate

Hello.

It’s been a while ( once again) … since I did some work on the VEon.

I’ve been working a lot on another projet , which is the SAE hybrid. here is the web site . :  www.hybridesherbrooke.com

The last work that was made on the car was to take some measurement to do an adaptor plate for the motor to the manual transmission.

Here is a little sketch on CAD.  I will finish the drawing later , I basically needed the rought draft . Quote are in dm … YES ! I did a terrible code 13 mistake. I stated the drawing on an imperial template…  I will obviously change that ASAP.

Next step include serial programing of the Zilla controller. 

Gentleman; start your engine!

Today I finally stated to Warp 9. It is my second attempt.  Last time ( january 2010) , my battery was not charged enough. This time; the motor started right away. The motor can take up to 30 ~ 50 A to start  on 12V.   I finally ear the beautiful sound the warp Very

satisfy.

with this event, I decided to put a little bit more time on the project.

If you have been following the Veon activity; you may have seen low ( NO) activity since late november. The reason is because I jointed another Electric project.

Few friends of university and I stated a project with mechanical engineering student on a conception of a hybrid race formula . here is the link to the site :

www.hybridesherbrooke.com

This project take lot of my time  but I learn many thing that I apply on the Veon.

Other news: I meet other people that convert car to EV in Quebec. It may be more complicated than I expected to make the Veon “street Legal” since collision simulation are expected and many other

important verification.

1992 Civic with 400HP  b18 turbocharged with NOS are allowed  but EV seem to be too dangerous… i’m joking.  Obviously there are many important safety issue to concern including HV inside the vehicle  and the weight that will change

Here is the setup for the motor test.   Enjoy.

T

tasks on fallbreak

I had few days to work on the Veon this week. In fact, two friend of mine came to help me  on these few task that needed to be done. The transmission was remove once again ans is ready to receive the adaptor, the separating plate and the electric motor.  I also have a little problem: since i remove the transmission oil, i need to replace it! there are two types of oil for manual transmission on  99 Plymouth Neon and both are only available at Chrysler dealer.  I’ll have to check that this week , it look like it will be more expensive than expected!

The VEon was set also to be moved on another garage: the break were set back in place and the direction rod was set in place as well thank to Justin.

The trunk was skinned from its fabric and the ECU unit was removed as well for a little session of reverse  engineering -tanks to Olivier.

I need to figure out what will happens with the air bag system. Since I plan to have a legal VEon on the road, I need this  system to be functional. My fist idea is to use the ECU only for the airbag. I’ll have to tweak all the motor sensors but the others might not need any changes. I also need these modification to be certified. In other words, it might be easier to change the Neon for another car with no ABS ans no airbags.

However, I would really appreciate having functional airbag, since it would probably be one of the first legal in Qc.

Next work session planned on the VEon ?

        probably around christmas time and/or after. In between, I’ll need to understand the ECU,  how to programs the Zilla  and do some tests on the motors.

Hold on…

I got to realize, after 1 month without a post, that I don’t have a lot of time to think about this project. I don’t have time has planned on the week-ends Anyway, I’ll have few days in two weeks since it will be spring break! well, “autonm break” in fact.

I may move the project from the warehouse to my parent’s garage for the winter. Since they offer me theirs garage heated, I accepted right away!. However, everything depends on where I’ll do my internship on next semester.

I

Motor and controler bought!

There are not just bought, i got them too!

The whole ordering process was a little bit modified. I send a email to Netgain motor contact in Canada -Mr Richard Lane- to have some infos on the warp 9.

He gives me all the infos I needed and a contact of someone who had to quit his conversion project. He had a Warp 9 for about a year an a zilla 1k-Lv controller.

It take normaly 10 days for the motor delivery  and for a zilla controler; it’s just terrible. You can’t buy one from café electric now since there is a huge waiting list to get there part. It took 11 months before he could received it.

I bought he warp 9 and his controller-skipping all the waiting list. Moreover, the motor has its full 1 year warranty and the controller too.

Last Wednesday, a friend and I did a 2h trip  to meet Mr Jensen. The motor and the controller could easily stay on my backseat. However, the 150 pounds motor was not easy to manipulate.

here are some picture of the motor and the controler. There are Mr Jensen’s picture too. I put a pencil next to the controller to let you you its dimensions. The smaller controller part is the Hairball2, the interface unit that allow all the control and all the settings.

 

School out for summer

Good old song.

Unfortunately, it’s not summer anymore… if we can call that “summer”. School is back and with it almost no time to work on the VEon. I’m living about 150 km from the project while I’m at school. The only work I can do here  is thinking about the project. I hope I’ll have some time in about three weeks to go back. However, I cannot continue the project without the major pieces as the motor.

One other thins I can do here is modelising. I found 2 3d model of the 99 Neon. One on  Solid work and one on google steckup. The one on solid work is more complete and is a 2 doors model ( as the VEon). However, I have to pay to download it. The neon model on google steckup is a 4 doors model but is enterely free. Since I just want to modelise what’s under the hood hand whats does on the trunk this model work perfectly fine. I need to do lot of modification to this model but here are some picture of how it is right now. Normally, the 3D model is much smoother  and much nicer. I needed to separated much part so al the line appear now.  The last picture is an inside view. I have to work on that.

 

Grocery list

here are some parts that i’ll need that I haven’t look at. Hope I’ll not have a big bill after ordering all of these!

• heat sinks ( for controller and maybe for the batteries)
• Instrument : ampmeter( 0 to 500 A), voltmeter ( X to XXX as long that it has to 60 -144V range and other
• electric vacuum pump for brake
• electric pump for powerstreering
• Fuses(a LOT) and fuses holder
• Heater for winter
• Power Cables (about 20 ft of red and black)
• connectors, lugs and heatshrink

I think everything is in there.

I also forgot to mentions, I plan to work on 144 V . I’ll have to double check: someone told me that there are some laws for tension above 50~ something Volt.

 

EDIT: I forgot the charger. No coments on this! it will be choosen with the battery. I also forgot the BMS   ( battery management system). I’ll have to check that as well and probably do it on a simple PIC.

Chosing an electric motor

There are plenty of electric motor. Witch one to chose? AC or DC? How powerful must it be ?

Well, took me time to figure out most of the answer. All depend on how much you want to invest in your project. In my case, I recall that I’m a university student! That reduces the budget a little bit.

Therefore, all the  AC motors are gone. They are too expensive for this project. Moreover, there is a big lost in power in between the DC/AC conversion. AC motors are sure more reliable, more efficient and got more excellent qualities.

However, many DC motor companies specialise in EV motor.  As a guidance I check on www.evalbum.com . Many  conversion use the Netgain Warp 8 or the 9  or the advance DC motor 9 inch too. 

From many EV part site as www.evparts.com or www.evcomponents.com . mentions that the price for botch motor is about the same.

Moreover the two motors have about the same spec.  the specsheets are at the head of this post.

I went on www.go-ev.comwitch is Netgain website. it refer me to Rev consultant in Ontario to have a Netgain motor. I contact Mr Richard Lane who give me a lot of information an the price in Canada for a warp 9. He also tell me that  he didn’t has to change any part within the last 8 years.

What a good selling line! I was scarred that the brushes cause me problems. If it can stand more  5 years, i’m would be more than satisfied.

So the warp 9 is my final choice for a motor here are some picture also. 

Solar taxi presentation

During the semester, Mr Louis Palmer who has the solar taxi gives a seminar at my university. That was very interesting of course. He made a world tour with that car on which he had a lot of solar panel, I can’t remember exactly how many.

He used haft of his panel on a trailer to help powering his car. He installed the other haft at his home. Therefore, he send back electricity in the electric network while he was traveling. He was credited of course for this electricity. Many electricity provider offer credit electricity like  this. I think hydro-Québec offers this opportunity.  Louis Palmer said he was using back the electricity he was giving to the network. It first seems as a weird idea but he compares this process to banking: if you deposit 20$ in a bank in Montréal and withdraw your 20$ in New York. It is obviously not exactly THE 20$ bill that you deposit (obviously) but it’s still your 20$. Get it?

He offers to a group of students who are working on a EV as well to participate to another world tour that he wants to do. This time he wants to do it with other EVs. I think Tesla Motors were in. isn’t cool?  Unfortunately, I don’t think that the VEon would be ready for that…

Here is the solartaxi link : www.solartaxi.com

Bike fails

Well. Turns out that the alternator was burned.  It’s only 30 $ for another (used) one. Unfortunately I’m running out of time. Therefore, I put all the part of the bike together and put it away. May be I’ll come back on this later.

Few days of break

Now that the transmission is back in place, I can see all the remaining support. There are 2 points were it can be hold. I’ll remove it again and clean it when I’ll be back Thursday. I’ll have about 3 days left to work on this project.

 I have another project that I have stated a while ago. I use a stationary bike connected to some gears, connect to the Neon’s alternator connected to  3 12 V batteries connected to an 800 W inverter.

This is an easy way to produce some clean electricity. Yes,lead batteries are not that clean, but they are used from my previous car. There are not powerful enough for a starter, but enough to power  the inverter.

 This little project will need about half a day to finish.

Removal part 2

I skip most of the electric research that i made to post this post. To see it, check in the different categories.

It’s been about 3 months that i haven’t came in the warehouse. Now that the semester is over , i have about 2 weeks before class restart to work on thisé

So I separeted the manual transmission from the motor…  once again I learned something!

you CAN in fact, remove a transmission WITHOUT removing the transmission oil … let’s say I did it intensionaly  to change that fluid…

Still, I pass most of my afternoon on it and I got a stand-alone transmission… a big one. I don’t know how it weight but its probably around 80-100 pounds.  I’m very disappointed, i tough it would be much lighter. Moreover, as you can see in the following picture, it is very big.  I replace it at its appropriate position and i loose lot of space under the hood.   The transmission is hold by 2 stock retaining supports  and by a chain lift.