CarBEN EV5 Full Sized Prototype Construction - 5 Seat Electric Car From Scratch

[NeilBlanchard]

Okay, sections F11-F13 now have sections F2-F10 glued on top, totaling 2'-0" for this section:



The glue still is not dry more than 24 hours later -- it rained all day and all night and is now still very humid. This makes three 2'-0" pieces so far! I'll take pictures after things dry out.

I have just one more section (F1) cut and ready to stack, and I probably will add it to this piece. And then I will crank up the PhlatPrinter 3 and put on my ear protection and start cutting more sheets...

You can see the top of the windshield and most of the forward side window, and the four battery bays in the floor.

[Smurf]

Great job Neil!

A man can wander the internet for days and not find a step-by-step build up of a fiberglass over foam body like you're doing. And we're privileged enough to watch it unfold

Very impressive, can't wait to see the full body!

[WD40]

Absolutely awesome .. can't wait to see more progress

[NeilBlanchard]

I now have three big pieces totaling 6'-2" long, and the time has come to glue two of them together!



When I placed the firewall piece on the driver's piece, I discovered what could have been a major problem: the driver's piece is warped (about 1/2-3/4") but since it still had not fully dried, I was able to use some plywood and a strap to clamp it together, along with some weights (including a 60 pound bag of cement and a large bucket of sand) and I managed to closed the gap enough -- whew!



I'm going to have to build a platform and place it nose down and stack the layers on individually from now on, so that they will all be flat. I also figured out an issue I had with figuring on the actual cutting bit size in the g-code -- it was rounding up so there ending up being "extra" material all around the piece.

I *thought* this would be a good thing to allow for some errors, but what I did not anticipate is that the jigsaw joints don't fit together very well, and the outer piece gets spread apart and it opens up the surfaces. I'll have to glue them later -- and all the sheets I cut from now on will have proper fitting jigsaw joints.

And my neighbors can now see what I've been working on.

[HyperMileQC]

Can you describe more about what is gonna be in the engine bay. Like the motor, the transmission, what kind of tire, all other electric or motor accessories etc...

Thanks

[NeilBlanchard]

I am planning on twin motor direct drive; so they sit "back to back" under the driver's feet and have drive shafts straight out the the front wheels. The motors I was using in the model are 12" in diameter and about 10" long. There would be the controller and the the charger also in the motor bay. All the batteries are in the floor.

Initially, I will use 15" 175 or 185 tires on steel wheels with the holes in the rim sealed over. There will be full skirts front and back -- the front ones are hinged and they get pushed out by rods attached to the steering rack. Eventually I was hoping the use something like the ERW (Energy Return Wheel) which are much lower rolling resistance and are not inflated. If they could be made much stiffer than "normal" tires, then I could use regenerative shock absorbers similar to those made by Levant Power.

The underside between the front wheels is about 6" above the ground, and the rear bumper is about 11" above the ground. The rear track is about 7" narrower than the front track.

Front suspension will probably be typical lower 'A' arms with struts; but the rear suspension will likely be dual trailing arm with a lateral link into the center of the floor between the wheels. There will need to be front and rear subframes to "cradle" the fiberglass foam composite sandwich chassis.

[NeilBlanchard]

I think I've figured out a way to continue the gluing process and avoid this warping issue: I will construct a level platform to have the main piece sit on it's "nose", which may have to include a support for the windshield. I'll glue the layers onto that one by one -- it will "grow" to be almost 12 feet tall by the end of the gluing process. Two people can tip it down to its "normal" position and carry it back into the garage.

[NeilBlanchard]

I cut 12 more sheets today two copies each of R1-R6, which start the taper down behind the high point of the roof. The hinge for the hatch door is about a foot back from this point. I'll glue more tomorrow if it doesn't rain; because I have to do it outside, or I will have to very soon.

I now know what a dull bit does in XPS foam -- it melts it and flings it off in all directions! I had to pick the bigger bits out, and I think the piece it happened to be cutting will still be usable.

[NeilBlanchard]

A small update -- yesterday I cut 12 more sheets of foam (as I mentioned above), and today I put together a sturdy, level platform, and then glued 4" more to the big piece making the total length 6'-6". I'm going to be gluing as much as the weather allows (it is outside now) and I have to do some drafting work (for pay!) for the rest of this week.

[Tango Charlie]

This is incredible to watch unfold. Or should I say...stack up.
Do you have a heated space to continue work through the winter?