[Hondo]

As some of you know, last year Paul Holmes built an Open Revolt controller for me that I put in my electric Fiero. I made the mistake of mounting it directly to the transmission via a metal plate (don't do this). It might have been ok but I hadn't mounted my flywheel properly to my motor and I had a vibration problem. It wasn't too bad at low rpms but at about 3000 it sounded like a semi was on my back bumper. The controller worked great, but after several weeks of this beating, it failed. I sent the controller back to Paul and he fixed what I had broken. Instead of having him send it back to me, I had him send it to someone (who will remain nameless) who needed a controller for a test vehicle for a prototype charger he was working on. I haven't heard back from him since then and was in need of a new controller for my Fiero. Paul, I know you are going to read this so, first off, I want to say thank you so much for all you did for me, and all the other diy guys out there. After all I put you through, I didn't have the heart to bother you with building another controller for me. I thought about building one myself but, a man has to know his own limitations, and my soldering and electronic skills suck. So, I went shopping. I was going to get a Logisystems cntroller until I found out that they are no longer making the hi-amp controllers for cars and are focusing on the NEV market. Then I went to Cloud Electric's site. There I found a Kelly 800 amp controller for only $1,198. It was the best deal I could find, I know Kelly has had some troubles in the past but the guy at Cloud said that their new controllers were a lot better. So I sent them a certified bank check on a Friday, and I had the controller on the next Thursday. I installed the controller over the week end and backed the Fiero out of the garage. It took off great, until I got to around 200 amps and that was it. It would only go about 30 mph and nothing I did could get it to pull any more amps. As you can guess, I was very disapointed. Then I remembered that while programming the controller through the included cable(it was REALLY easy with the program they have), I had set the low volt shut down at 99 volts (I have a 108 volt system). I had forgotten how much the volts go down when you start drawing higher amps. I reprogrammed the controller to have a low volt shut down of 76 volts. What a difference. I can now pull 800 amps and the thing accelerates like a rocket. Well ok not a rocket, but at least no one is honking at me for going too slow. I drove it 10 miles to work this morning and the battery cables weren't even warm and the controller was just barely warm to the touch. Time will tell how good this controller is (I fixed the vibration problem and mounted the controller to the body via an aluminum plate) but in the mean time I am very happy with it. Paul, my hat goes off to you and all you other guys who can actually build your own controller. But for the skill challenged people like myself, $1200 is a lot better than $2k for an 800 amp unit.

Hondo