Electric car conversion: Project ForkenSwift

[MetroMPG]

Agreed. If I were building a proper EV with a pile of cash invested in a new set of balanced batteries, I think I'd also go the individual charger route. Soneil comes to mind. Otherwise I'd get balancers/charge regulators. Unfortunately, 8 soneils cost more than the total invested in the project.

The 24/10 charger appears to have worked (aside from being slow). I'm going to check with the company this week, but I believe it uses a proper 3-step charging sequence.

The 36v charger we have is dumb, and will cook batteries.

And I just figured out that my 12v dumb car charger doesn't provide enough voltage to fully charge 2 floodies.

[MetroMPG]

I just took the ForkenSwift for a spin around the block - fresh off the charger - and achieved a new milestone: I have now officially broken the speed limit with it.

Where the previous highest seen was 49 km/h (29 mph), I just saw 55 km/h indicated, and there was still some pedal left . Speed limit is 50 km/h.

Since the tires on the car are 6.7% bigger than stock, I was actually going 58.7 km/h (36.5 mph) - assuming the speedo is correct. Woo!

[MetroMPG]

SVOboy:

Pretty sweet, what's your timeline for this thing going into actual use and what % of gas-powered miles do you think it will be able to offset?

I don't do project timeline estimates any more

It's actually bound to offset very little of my ICE driving, because I bike everywhere local, unless it's raining. I can only think of 2 trips in the past couple of weeks where I would have used the FS. It's far more likely that I'll be driving it because it's so cool to drive. (I feel so dirty.)

Ivan, on the other hand, drives more. So it'll offset more of his ICE use when he has it.

[MetroMPG]

Correction: I will be offsetting other people's ICE driving. Forgot about this.

I'm pretty sure I'll be volunteering to chauffeur my family & friends around, where they would otherwise be using their ICE vehicle. EG my mom typically drives her Camry around 20 km a day for errands. I bet I'll be showing up to take her to the grocery store...

I mentioned this to her and she said: "why can't I just drive it myself?"

[MetroMPG]

Ben, commenting on my driving-people-around idea:

Do you ever actually work?

Funny... my customers keep asking me that too.

[MetroMPG]

Chicken coup! A hen in the fox den?
Canada's most widely read auto publication is the Toronto Star's weekend "Wheels" section. They just launched a new web site with a "reader's wheels" photo gallery.

Care to guess what's been added to the gallery among the high power muscle cars & blingmobiles?

http://wheels.ca/photos - and click the "My Wheels" gallery icon

or this may work directly: http://wheels.ca/photoPlayer/27561

(To be fair, there are sort of 2 hens in the fox den: there's also a Smart ForTwo.)

[MetroMPG]

Publicity comments...

Dude yer famous now!

Your name is spelled incorrectly, Mr. Corgrove!

[MetroMPG]

Well, the Vulcan 24/10 charger isn't quite as smart as I thought it was. I wrote to the company (just down the highway in Toronto) and got this reply:

Quote:
The EA24/10 does not use a 3-stage charging
algorithm. It is a simple taper type charger
meaning that as the battery voltage rises the
charging current drops off. When the battery
voltage reaches about 29.2V an electronic finish
timer is activated, and after 3 hours the
charger will shut down. If the charger is
sized appropriately for the batteries to be
recharged then the batteries will finish
properly during the gassing phase.
---

In other news, started work on the front battery racks this evening. Nothing special to report yet, but I'll take pics when I've got something to show.

[MetroMPG]

Tinkered a little more with the front racks on Saturday. Still nothing photo-worthy though. This week. Maybe I'll slack off tomorrow afternoon and do some more work on it.

I've been eBaying for a proper welding mask too, since there's going to be a need for that at this stage of the game.

[MetroMPG]

Funny comment:

Wow, the Forkenswift looks great.

Sometimes I pretend that I'm driving an EV Metro when I do ICE off coasting in my car.