Ben Nelson's Electro-Metro Build thread

[bennelson]

I talked to a friend/neighbor of my father today.

He is currently building a kayak from scratch and is talking about building an electric car too!

Apparently he has skills in electric, machining, and designing. In the five minutes that I talked to him, he was mostly commenting on his ideas to design a simple/inexpensive Alternating Current motor controller.

Maybe my next car can be an AC sports car!

Gotta keep my eye on this guy.

How many other EV people can I find locally in one weekend!?!?!

[yellowbkpk]

Have you looked in to what WisDOT wants you to do to make your EV street legal and registered? How about insurance? Have you talked to your insurance folks yet about what they might do for it?

[bennelson]

Take a look at my motorcycle thread in terms of street-legality, title, insurance, etc.

Basically the state doesn't care what makes the vehicle go, as long as they get their fees and forms filled out.

This is a conversion, so the original cars have already been crash tested, have proper safety equipment, etc. If it were a "home-built vehicle" that would be a different story.

All I am technically doing is swapping engines.

My only real concern was emissions testing, how do I get out of it!? I found the form that lets you lists why you need an exception. Fill it out and put "other" in there.

[WaxyChicken]

In my state, you can get any vehicle to be excluded from emissions so long as you pay the $50-something fee for an inspection and the inspector comes back and says
"yes, it's safe. Yes it's emission free."

other than that an EV would flunk emissions simply for not having a tail pipe.

So don't be surprised if they come back to you and say "You need to get it inspected" or something of that sort.
Insurance carriers are usually satisfied with the state inspection.

BenN., I know you probably didn't select your battery type yet (so you don't yet have measurements), but where are you considering storing the packs? Will you be using trying to use the Feul Tank space for packs or the electronics? (controller, charger)

Also, in your introductory post for this build thread you didn't specify if you have a target range and/or speed. I'd like to hear what is the bare minimum for you to be happy using this as a daily car.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by WaxyChicken

So don't be surprised if they come back to you and say "You need to get it inspected" or something of that sort.

I talked to another WI EV converter who said that he just used the "other" check box on a particular form and then had to take the vehicle to the emissions test station and show them - "look, batteries! Motor! No Tailpipe!"

This project is still just one huge work in progress and learn as I go.

There should be room for 2 or 3 batteries under the hood, with the rest going in back. The back batteries will be in a custom made box of some sort, either in the cargo area/Backseat, or possibly cutting a whole in the floor in the back and sink them into the spare tire well and fuel tank area.

I don't need huge range and speed on the finished vehicle, but I am leaning towards a 72V system right now as it should have ok speed and reasonable range.

If I could go 20 miles with a 35 mph top speed, I would be happy with that.

[MetroMPG]

There's actually room for 5 golf cart size 6v batts under the hood. Which is good, since there's room for 7 in the hatch back, meaning you preserve your rear seat & keep the f/r weight distribution relatively balanced.

20 miles and 35 mph @ 72v will be a piece of cake! In the summer, I was able to squeeze about 30 km (~18 mi.) from the ForkenSwift's tired, used 48v pack (that's best case, not avg.), and can hit 60 km/h (~40 mph) with enough road.

FYI: http://www.evalbum.com/564 - 72v Metro convertible for comparison (though he's using 12 x 12v batts in 6 buddy pairs).

I'd expect you could hit 55-60 mph fresh off the charger with enough road.

[bennelson]

Last Friday I bought ANOTHER forklift motor.
(Glove in photo for scale)

This was from a guy I met through CraigsList a while back with my "looking for parts" ad.

He had a Nissan forklift (a full-size sit down one!) with the hydraulics stripped off it sitting in his garage.

He had the smaller motors pulled off it, but they were too small for EV use. He also had a Miata for sale, which would make a cool conversion, but it needed way too much paint and body work to look nice.

At that time, the main traction motor was still bolted into the thing and there wasn't any way to see an ID plate on it.

This last week, I got an e-mail from him saying he got it off. I went over there and bought it. The main reason is that it has a REAL DRIVE SHAFT!!! A three inch long, one inch diameter drive shaft!!!!

This motor is huge and filthy. It needs major cleaning! It weighs more than I can lift.

It's a 10 inch diameter, do it should fit fine on the Metro transmission without getting in the way of the passenger wheel drive shaft.

The thing on the tail end of it is some sort of parking brake, which will of course be removed. There must be a tail shaft in there that could maybe be modified for a tachometer or some other use.

The motor is 10 diameter, 14 inches long (not including the parking brake section at the end) and weighs more than I can lift.


Yep, collecting forklift motors, another sure sign of insanity.

More photos at this link

[Daox]

Very nice! That sounds like it would get a Metro moving quite quickly.

[MetroMPG]

Don't worry - you're not alone in your insanity. Apparently, I collect motor controllers (up to five now!).

Of course, that motor's way overkill for a Metro, but the shaft will save you some headaches, and I can see why you'd be interested in it. Does it turn freely? Had a chance to look inside yet? (Brushes configuration, commutator condition?)

You could theoretically run an alternator off the tailshaft, and set up a kind of rudimentary regenerative braking (by modifying the voltage regulator).

I'm curious how much it cost... Feel like sharing?

[bennelson]

I spent $50 on it.

It is about as big a motor as would fit in a Metro. It does turn freely. I put a 12 volt emergency jump starter pack on it with a little spare battery cable from the motorcycle connecting two of the four power connectors on the motor. It made the motor spin.

I like the idea of some sort of regenerative braking. I will have to contact some other EVers and see what would be needed to make that work. It's a really interesting idea.

I have not had this motor open yet. I will need to de-grease it and pull the end off to take a look at the brushes and everything.

I know a lot of these old forklifts were highly abused, but were very well built.

The main problem is that I can't even lift this thing. It must be 150 lbs easy.
I should be able to roll it around my garage and take some bolts out of it.

I am really busy this next week, I may not get to work on this motor for a while - too many other projects going on right now!