AC Dodge Neon Electric Conversion Videos

[bennelson]

Yes, it's regenerative braking on an AC drive system.

The motor always tries to spin at the speed the throttle is at. If you let off the throttle suddenly, it tries to slow down fairly quick.

One time that I drove with him, I noticed that the regen did MOST of the braking coming to a traffic light. He only used the service brake after being significantly slowed down, and to hold the car once it was stopped.

[bennelson]

Breaking news!

I just got an e-mail from Tom:

"I took it on the Freeway!

A short stretch to test - and had it up to 65mph

Drove home from work (about 9 miles) at 60 mph!

Tom"

[bennelson]

Yesterday was another "EV Build Day" of the Milwaukee Electric Car Club.

I had to work in the afternoon, but I wanted to at least stop by briefly to see about taking a ride out on the interstate in the Neon.

When I got there, most of Tom's dashboard was torn out. He was taking it apart to install an electric heater in place of the original heater.

Which just makes it look that much more interesting in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic49M8F8hwc

[mrbigh]

Nice update on Tom's conversion. Does it meen "no more VFD tweeking"?
Is he's getting the regen circuit operational?

[bennelson]

Regen works fine.

As a passenger in the car, the braking is completely not noticeable. It is completely seemless now between the regen braking and the friction service brakes. (I think driver skill is a big part of it though.)

There was mention a while back of setting the brake lights to kick on during regen braking. That hasn't been worked on yet, but is still part of the plan.

One of the biggest differences between this time and last time that I rode in the car is that Tom tweeked the motor controller for power. Acceleration away from a stop sign is pretty good. It's about what you would expect on any car. It's only up on the higher speeds that acceleration drops off. At low speed it's still pretty good.

[bennelson]

Tom has been running the car a fair amount now with no problems other than there is a little bit of grinding between two of the gears.

He did a process of elimination to figure out that it had to be a direct mechanical problem inside the transmission itself. That means it's time for a new transmission! (This problem seemed to exist from the time Tom got the transmission in the very first place and NOT something CAUSED by the EV conversion)

He got a replacement tranny, and is now working on swapping out the old, and in with the new!

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYCjRPb8Xj0

[Christ]

He might have been able to fix that grinding by just changing the fluid and putting in some GM of Pennzoil Synchromesh.

It's probably the synchronizers being worn from too many ricer-shifts in its past life.

[bennelson]

Individual chargers are working fine.

Tom did upgrade to a little better AC drive a while back.

I should do another video with him sometime as an overview to the whole project.