Ben Nelson's Electro-Metro Build thread

[Daox]

How does it move? It makes no noise!?! Aaaaaah... Very nice Ben.

[bennelson]

YouTube - Electro-Metro Extended first test drive, part 1

[MetroMPG]

Good stuff. You'll be (more) famous.

Quick, Paul, post a video!

[MPaulHolmes]

Nice video! Very clear explanations too! You got an amazing deal on that car. It's looking really good.

My favorite part is when you are closing the hood and trunk, and you use your powers of teleportation to quickly go from the front of the car to the back. Do you ever use that to rob banks?

Yo, Forky! It's commin'!!! It's commin forky!

[Tango Charlie]

Black dress socks with Crocs.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by Tango Charlie

Black dress socks with Crocs.

I was waiting for somebody to notice that. They are actually cotton athletic socks. I can wear them with sneakers or dress slacks and shoes. Crocs with socks is a great combination for my sweaty, flat feet.

My wife makes fun of me for it too, but I think white socks would look even worse!

Here's some more video for you, with or without socks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APnErqPRIY

[metroschultz]

hook the fuel gage up to your batteries through a shunt and use it to keep an eye on your state of charge
Then it won't read empty
S

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by metroschultz

hook the fuel gage up to your batteries through a shunt and use it to keep an eye on your state of charge
Then it won't read empty
S

I had thought about that, but when I climbed under the car, where the gas tank used to be, I couldn't find the fuel sending unit wires!

[bennelson]

I got a chance today to drop two more batteries into the car.

I filled them in the "radiator-position".

Checked everything with the volt-meter before plugging it in.

The car rides faster and seemed like it had better acceleration too. Already, there is a few things I know I will need to work on the car.

Gonna need power brakes. I have an idea to use a cheap-o 12V tire inflator to suck instead of blow and create vacuum.

Six batteries also really IS all the car can take without having to modify the suspension. Feels like it's riding pretty low. I can push on the bumper and it doesn't have too many inches of bounce-back.

I am also trying to figure the best way to automatically connect power from the battery pack to the controller and motor by using the key. I have several high-amp contactors, but they are all 36V. I was thinking maybe I could use a key-switched 12v output to activate a 12v relay to activate the 36V contactor to connect the 72V battery pack. What do they call that part on the car that the cable that goes to the distributor connects to? The coil? I noticed that it outputs 12.1V no matter what the battery voltage is. Looks like it's a transformer of some sort.

[baerfoot]

I converted a metro, and I chose the wire by using a light pen ( i'm not sure I have that right. It is a sensor with a light, so when you hit a wire with power the light lights up) Anyhow my issue was that the first wire I chose with a volt meter had 12 volts, but almost no power, so it would not close the contactor.
By the way my blog is here:
electricmetro.blogspot.com ,
I too like the croks n socks http://forum.ecomodder.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
good luck.