Well, it's official now. Made a ForkenSwift entry in the EV Album:
www.austinev.org/evalbum/1146
---
Had planned to work on the FS today right after installing the thermonuclear 850w engine heater in the Blackfly. Alas that job turned out to be more difficult than changing the camshaft. Go figure. So now I have 2 "disabled" cars in the driveway (until I can get a length of heater hose tomorrow). I hate that!
Plus it's snowing again. Hate that too.
What better to do when you can't play outside than play with Photoshop. Virtual repairs! Did a little pixel paintwork to see what the car would look like with the rust cleaned up, a little fresh blue paint, and a racing stripe (which would also serve to disguise some of the rust repairs & repainted lower edges of the doors).
The stripe is a nod to the 1st gen VW GTI. And also a joke on our 29 mph vehicle.
---
Have also been thinking of ways to achieve our 15km
minimum range goal with used batteries. The idea actually came a comment Peakster left at YouTube: why not parallel 36v? If we had 2 strings of 36v in parallel (ie. 12 batteries instead of the current 8 for 48v), we'd theoretically increase range by about 50% (not exactly - weight penalty + higher Peukert penalty from running @ 36v vs 48v). Let's say we'd be looking at a range of 7.5 km right there, assuming 4 more batteries of equal "quality" (ahem) to the ones we've already got.
To deal with the performance hit, we could set up the system to do 36v on the controller, then a controller bypass at 36v for full battery amps using the "high pedal" microswitch in the potbox. Turbo mode.
We could even theoretically add an even "higher pedal" microswitch to continue bypassing the controller and connect the two 36v strings in series for 72v. Twin-turbo mode. She'd be smoking fast then!
The downside is: 4 more batteries = 250 lbs. The car's going to be riding on its bump stops if we do this. Also, they probably won't all fit in the hatchback, which would mean losing the rear seat. I was hoping to retain a stock appearance - at least maintain the illusion that the car could transport 4 people
The upside is: we could use the 36v forklift charger for the whole pack (no more need to charge the 2 "orphans" individually with a 12v charger with the current 48v setup). Plus, we haven't even started testing/sorting batteries to get the dogs out of the pack. Which tells me this might be do-able...