Electric car conversion: Project ForkenSwift

[kdmy0]

This is just plain awesome. Excellent work guys

[jakemacd]

MPaulHolmes

Check out ebikes.ca for a really thorough site on e-bikes.

Thanks Paul for the tip. I will certainly do that!
Wannabe

Do you mean like a pedal bike or a motor bike Jake?

At this stage Wannabe, I'm going for the pedal bike. Might graduate eventually tho.

I'm looking forward to the future of ForkenSwift, Darin, and anything else you might be into.

[MetroMPG]

Used the ForkenSwift today - first time in probably a month. 17.x km from a fresh charge, had to feather it lightly up the last hill in first gear (which means it was pretty deeply discharged). Didn't get much over 45 km/h over that entire distance (mostly driving style to maximize range), yet managed to choose a route & time lights so as not to obstruct anybody on the way to/from the city's "big box" retail district.

If the weather cooperates, I'm going to switch battery packs this week - that is, switch to what we think is the "A" pack. Thanks to our LED battery pack gauge however, we know which batts in the current "B" pack are the best, so once we have a better idea of the health of the individual A pack floodies we'll be ready to undertake a mix-n-match operation and put together the "A+" pack.

[MetroMPG]

Just for fun, how long would it take to hot swap the car's battery pack?

YouTube - #7) Project ForkenSwift electric car: battery pack hot swap!

Not bad! I guess that's one of the "benefits" of a small pack.

In reality, not terribly practical, though it could be simplified with some engineering if hot swapping really was a goal... (which it isn't!)

A nice little workout: lifted 16 batteries @ 65 lbs, or 1040 lbs.

I envision a pit crew doing regular drills to get the time below 3 minutes.

---

Current project:

Now that the supposed "A" pack is back in the car, my current project will be to use the LED battery pack gauge to rank the batteries from best to worst by cycling the pack a few times & keeping a close eye on it while driving.

Once I've figured that out, I'll evict the worst batts from this pack, swap in the best from the "B" pack (which has already been ranked), and voila, "A+ pack". That's the theory anyway.

[MetroMPG]

So I've cycled the "A pack" 4 times since putting it in the car yesterday, and it seems to be waking up:

cycle 1 = 12.7 km before running out of steam;

cycle 2 = 21.8 km of "hard" non-stop high speed (50-60 km/h) driving @ between 100-150 amps; limped up the last hill feathering in 1st gear to keep weakest batt above 5.25v

cycle 3 = 21.8 km of hard-core suburban hyperwatting (low amp <70A accel; DWB); same exact distance of previous run, but had lots of juice left on last hill - full throttle in 1st gear & no batts in danger of falling below 5.25v.

cycle 4 = 25.1 km - now that's more like it!! This is after swapping out two of the weakest batts for the 2 best batts from the B pack (which turned out to be the 2 strongest batteries period). Moderately hyperwatted. Lots of snot left at the last hill - went up in 2nd gear floored, with all batts > 5.25v.

My best "B pack" distance was 19.4 km. Average range over the last 12 B pack cycles was 14.8 km.

I'm going to swap a couple more batteries tomorrow. I think the A+ pack is going to have a solid 20-25 km range, 30 in a pinch.

[MetroMPG]

Woo! Just did the calcs, and cycle #3 was a personal best: 146.9 MPGe, or 228.4 Wh/mile.

#4 is recharging as I type. It'll be good too, I think. Find out in the AM. Then I'll put these in the fuel log.

[bennelson]

Great to hear those battery calculations!

I am shooting for 150 eMPG on my Electro-Metro project. I think that what you just showed means that it's a reasonable goal.

Love the video. For just a second there, the suspension bounces up and down to the beat of the music!

[davidbr13]

Darin, out of curiosity, how do you do your fuel log entries here?

I had a personal best with the electric squirrel this morning at 236 Wh/mile over my 9.5 mile trip (missed most of the lights), and would like to start entering data in the log, but wasn't sure how to go about that. A place to enter Wh per mile or km in the form for EV's would be great, instead of having to convert it first!

On a side note, I've found several different factors for BTU per gallon of gas (125000 and 115000). Is there any consensus on which one is right to use for the conversion?

[MetroMPG]

Ack - David - just saw your post. Sorry for the tardy reply. I didn't even see you register. That's what I get for disappearing for most of Sept to go sailing.

Looks like you've got the fuel log figured out OK.

As for the BTU differences, I've seen the difference explained as "summer" and "winter" blends (winter blend has less energy content).

----

ForkenSwift miscellany...

• So I haven't updated this thread since late Aug., and that's because until this week I hadn't used the car since then. Bicycle weather, and being away for a while will do that. Fortunately Ivan uses the car and keeps the pack exercised.
  
  I typically use the car more in the winter because I'm really a 3.5 season cyclist. When it gets truly cold or nasty, I drive it for local trips. But it looks like I'm going to move to the east coast this winter, and I'll be leaving the ForkenSwift in Ivan's capable... driveway. We've been talking about taking it off the road this winter.
  
  If he IS going to keep it on the road this winter, we need to prep it: patch a couple more rusty bits in the floor, and undercoat/oil the whole thing. Don't want it turning to swiss cheese on us.
  .
• Also, it's dripping a fair amount of oil from the transaxle in a most ironic fashion - I think an axle seal is gone.
  .
• People are still interested in it: I just gave an interview today to a student magazine at Algonquin College in Ottawa. If it goes online, I'll post the link.
  .
• Oh - and I was at the EV club meeting in Ottawa on Monday evening and Allan donated another dead floodie to the cause. I put it in the car on Wednesday and have run it through one cycle so far. Too soon to say whether it's going to be a keeper or not. It was discharged when I got it, and it might take a few cycles to equalize it with the others.

[Intrigued]

Well, Drat! I finally get around to joining ecomodder, to join in the fray over the ForkenSwift, and you're talking of moving! My luck...

Anyway...does anybody have the scoop on the Poulson Hybrid add-on? I stumbled on to it a couple of weeks back, and have been trying to find out more. It sounds like a great way to increase mileage, but I can't decide how they've tied in to the throttle - sounds like on and off by a switch. Details, anyone???

Intrigued