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Old 11-12-2008, 02:24 PM   #661 (permalink)
Deadly Efficient
 
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That was a lot faster and easier to read than this 650+ POST THREAD !

Ooh,ooh...where's groar? Number 666 is comin' up!

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Old 11-12-2008, 02:29 PM   #662 (permalink)
EV test pilot
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tango Charlie View Post
That was a lot faster and easier to read than this 650+ POST THREAD !
Yes, but you don't get the full effect of being in my head for about a year, and face every trial as the project progresses!

Actually, in some ways, this Instructable was a response to MetroMPG threatening to make an "index" to the Forkenswift thread!
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Old 11-12-2008, 04:48 PM   #663 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bennelson View Post
Trebuchet, YOU'RE the guy secretly working for Instructables?

Thanks! Pretty cool to see it go straight to the front page like that!
No, I don't secretly work for instructables I did, however, intern there a couple summers ago Then I interned for another company that was in the same building - so I was still exposed to the shenanigans

Now I'm one of the ninja feature team members to make sure only good stuff, and not crap, floats to the top
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Old 11-14-2008, 07:23 PM   #664 (permalink)
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race

I just realized you are really just in a thread count race against the ForkenSwift.....admit it.
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Old 11-14-2008, 10:53 PM   #665 (permalink)
EV test pilot
 
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Electric Cycle - '81 Kawasaki KZ440
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90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

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Quote:
Originally Posted by nelsonway View Post
I just realized you are really just in a thread count race against the ForkenSwift.....admit it.
That's a lie! If it were true, I would intentionally.....
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Old 11-14-2008, 10:54 PM   #666 (permalink)
EV test pilot
 
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90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

The Wife's Car - Plug-in Prius - '04 Toyota Prius
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...break up replies to artificially make more posts!!!

Why I would sell my soul to get more views than the Forkenswift!


Wait a minute....How many messages in this thread so far?





Hey Wayne, I was wondering when you would show up here!
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Old 11-15-2008, 12:07 AM   #667 (permalink)
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I just had to post to break the EVIL!!!

Hello! How are you all? I am fine. Blah blah, electric car, blah blah.

(667! disaster averted!)
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Old 11-15-2008, 03:59 PM   #668 (permalink)
Losing the MISinformation
 
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Groar better hurry. Gettin' too far away from his magic number...

Loved the time lapse video earlier. Wished things went that fast normally. Knowing me, I'd end up running through a wall or something... SMACK!!!

Maybe we could get Spock to calculate us a time warp continuum where we could go back and help ourselves every couple of hours. It'd sure beat trying to explain what you're doing to someone else, and would sure save a lot of time on mistakes!!!

PLEEEZE Beam Me Up, Scotty!
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Old 11-16-2008, 09:34 PM   #669 (permalink)
EV test pilot
 
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Electric Cycle - '81 Kawasaki KZ440
90 day: 334.6 mpg (US)

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90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

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Metro Towing!



My car moved farther today than it has the entire time I have owned it. How?

By towing it to South Milwaukee and back for for the EV Build Day.

Yesterday, I finished off the towing setup. I cut (mangled) the guppy mouth to fit the tow bar through. Then I did a test-tow around the neighborhood.





I made sure the parking brake on the car was off and the key was at the first click, which unlocks the steering, without turning the car on. The Metro towed well. Of course, I had terrible acceleration with the 4 cylinder, 2.2l Chevy S10, but I love the good fuel economy the rest of the time!

The idea of the tow bar is two-fold. In the short-term, I need to be able to take the car to the emissions test station. In the long-term, I plan to be able to take the car to the MREA energy fair's alternative car show, and other EVents. I have also hear from other EVers that there will be some point when you screw up and discharge the batteries, mess up the controller, or for some other reason, disable the vehicle.



May as well have a tow bar on there right away. I wasn't able to get over to the emissions test station (they close at 1 pm on Saturdays.) I will have to take it in this next weekend.

The other reason to have the tow bar was to drag the car an hours' drive away to the EV build day. I much prefer to be able to work indoors, with good tools, surrounded by people who know much more about cars than me.

I wanted to be able to add brake and turn signals to the car in a "tow mode". When I tow it, the brake and turn signals from the truck will make the car do the same thing.

We pulled the tail assemblies off. Inside the taillight are several bulbs; turn, tail, brake, backup, and marker lights.



We drilled a hole and added another bulb holder. The one I bought has a dedicated connection for ground, needed because we are mounting the lamp socket in plastic.



We ran trailer wire harness with a standard 4-pin connection from the front of the car, through the firewall, inside the body panels, to the back of the car. Rich was able to pop off body panels and stuff wire in there in about five minutes. By myself, it would have taken all afternoon, and I would have broken something.



Once the wiring was all the way to the back, we wired the harness to the lights, and then jumpered the connection in front to the battery to test the lights.


(In the above photo, I am pointing to the additional lamp socket we added. Note that it has a separate, dedicated spade connection for the ground)

After we were done with that, we took a look at the rear battery mount.

Originally, I ran two pieces of bedframe left to right, across the top of the spare tire well. the one closer the the rear was drilled through, and attached into the frame with bolts on either end. The front bracket was left loose, because there wasn't any great place to weld to, and I added some angle metal over the front-top edge of the batteries, back to the back bottom bracket, with threaded rod.

Unfortunately, the metal was thin and bent funny when it was tightened down. That let the batteries slip, and one of them half-fell into the well.

We took the batteries out and discussed different ways of mounting the batteries, including adding more batteries, cutting the bottom out of the car, and all sorts of wild ideas.

For now, I just need the batteries to not slide around back there!

We tried using some large, self-tapping screws through the front angle, into the frame, to pin that down. I snapped both, and we had to pull them back out with vice grips and try again. It went better the second time.

After that, I ran a section of threaded rod vertically right through the center of the spare tire well - directly into the threaded center where the bolt went in to hold the spare tire in place. The rod goes straight up, between the two center batteries.

I drilled a hold in the center of another piece of angle iron (more scrap bed frame) and laid that over the top of the batteries. The rod goes through the hole and is pinned down by a washer and nut.

Now the batteries can't go anywhere! By holding the batteries down from the top, and in from the front and back, it leaves room around the sides of the batteries for me to add a battery warmer and rigid foam insulation.

I also got an enclosure box from Tom. It's roughly one foot square plastic with three holes in the bottom designed for conduit to connect directly to.

The next thing to do on the car is clean up under the hood: install the project box and put fuses, relays and things in there, bolt down the controller and 12v vacuum pump, and install a new throttle.
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Old 11-17-2008, 08:45 PM   #670 (permalink)
EV test pilot
 
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Join Date: Jan 2008
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Electric Cycle - '81 Kawasaki KZ440
90 day: 334.6 mpg (US)

S10 - '95 Chevy S10
90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

The Wife's Car - Plug-in Prius - '04 Toyota Prius
90 day: 78.16 mpg (US)
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Electric HEAT

I played around a little bit with an electric oil-filled radiator in the Electro-Metro.

I put the heater in the car (Not touching any seats, etc.) and let it run on high for an hour.

When I checked back, it was really nice and warm in the car. An electric oil heater will also hold the heat for a while, while I drive with it now unplugged.

Yes, I do know how much electricity the heater uses, in fact, it's real easy to calculate. 1500 watts x 1 hour = 1.5 KWhrs = Toasty car!

I will experiment with it some more later and see what the minumum amount of energy to use that still gets to decent temperatures is.

Anyways, it seems like a potential practical way for a little heat.

I'll let you know more as I experiment later.

-Ben

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