Well, I have been lurking a good while now... So I'm finally starting to collect the parts for converting a car to DC...
I'd just though I'd run my ideas by you to see if I got things straight...
I have been reading a lot here especially about the "Electro-Metro", the "Forkenswift" and the Cougar motor controller...
I like the idea's and the commitment here to DIY with a small wallet approach... My conversion will defintely be on a tight budget... It's in the beg, borrow and *beeep*, and if that fails,
then you buy stuff category as far as budget planning goes...
Unfortunately I won't be able to use the Cougar to start with... To have even the slightest chance of getting the car through inspection here in Sweden every large part needs to be CE certified... Ie a DIY controller is out of the question for inspection...
So the plan is to get the car set up for 8 batteries, run them in buddy pairs for 48V and run either a Curtis or Alltrax controller for inspection and then switch to 96V and a Cougar...
Hopefully at that time I will be able to re-sell the controller and make most of my money from that back...
I will need to have some monitoring system for both engine and battery pack as I will be starting with used batteries... I was thinking the LED stacks from Forkenswift would be good, along with an Amperemeter for the batterypack and one for the engine... Would it be redundant to have a voltmeter on the total battery voltage as well? Is there any other instrumentation that would be useful?
Setting up the tacho to give me engine RPM is easy enough, and it seems like usefull information to get me in right gear for optimal engine RPM...
So far the car I'm looking at is a VW Polo, or similar... should come in around 2200 lbs finished which is close to stock weigth...
Should be able to make a battery tray where the fuel tank was for 4-6 batteries and then stick at least 2 batteries in the front where the radiator was, then depending on how many fits in the rearbox the remaining will have to share space under the hood with the rest of the stuff... It's kind of vital that I'm able to keep all the seats and the cargo space... I might be running into trouble getting 4 fullsize (and weight) adult in the car, but two adults and two kids should work fine...
For the motor, right now I have two leads for two forklifts that I can get for free if I haul them of the premises for the prevoius owners, so one of those motors should be good to use... (And I have access to a flatbed and a loader so it should be easy...)
I have 36 used 12V/75Ah marine GEL batteries in unknown condition... The previous owner said some 4-5 of them are basicly dead and that atleast 10 of them had been used less than 12h but he didn't know which one's where which... My price...? Get them and the rest of the junk out of his storage space... Took me 2 hours of sweating... But it beats paying for new...
For charging I haven't really been able to figure out a defintive answer as any charger I buy for a 48V system becomes useless for 96V (or any other voltage) and getting an onboard 48V charger that is CE marked is beyond my budget even to begin with... Five small 12V chargers, one for each buddy pair and one for the 12V battery should work for the initial 48V setup... But 9 of them? there has to be a better solution... Especially since I really need to run this of a 240V 16A fuse, or worst case two of them...
Now I welcome you all to poke holes in my plan and help me improve it...
Yeesh, long post, hope somebody bothers to read it...
