Daox's 1997 Paseo Build Thread

[mwebb]

..."I am still thinking how I'll revamp the kill switch.
Killing the ignition is a good idea. However, for now it is working fine. It immediately goes back into closed loop when I restart the engine."...

no it isn't
because fuel will still be going and Mr 02 sensor will see lean condition and command even more fuel , which will drip down past the rings and into the oil
OR
even worse ,flow out the exhaust and burn in the very hot cat converter .

much better to interrupt 12 volt positive supply to the injectors
with a bosch relay as done by another to a Geo Metro in a thread about that very topic .

[Automcdonough]

i like that DC-DC converter, great idea for running the motor w/o alternator

[Daox]

I purchased two 60W dc to dc converters off ebay a while ago. They were for use as a laptop power supply. As mentioned, I never tried them. The thought was to use one for the fuel pump and one for the ignition system.

I have an extra alternator from another Paseo engine. It pulls ~1A @ 12V to energize the field.

[Daox]

This morning I ordered some preheating components.

First on the list is a 1000W Kat's circulating tank heater. I went with the 1000W for quick heat up. I figure my warm up times will be slightly worse than what Darin saw on his warm up tests (my engine is larger and heater is slightly less power than his test) with the two block heaters on his Metro.




With the quick warm up times, I decided to not go with a timer, but instead a remote control switch. According to the chart, even 30 minutes of preheating should give me a very respectable warm up.


To top it all off, I purchased a Kat's 80W battery warmer to preheat the battery as well. This is in attempt to allow me to use the alternator delete over winter. However, its quite underpowered when compared to the 1000W heater and I don't know how much it will really help. I might have to do something in addition to it. My calculations show it will only heat the battery ~13 degrees F in an hour, and I am only planning on running the block heater for 45 minutes to an hour.

More on that here: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post190856

[Daox]

More info on my onboard charger. I recently had it die (lemon unit, it overheated, new one runs much cooler) and the supplier replaced it. This gave me a bit more time to test the comparison between the Schumacher and Soneil (onboard) chargers. The conclusion is that the Soneil is WAY more efficient!

Average overnight kWh used:
Schumacher - .95
Soneil - .35

Thats right, the Soneil uses 1/3rd the power to recharge my battery! In the bulk charge stage, the Schumacher (10A charge) pulls just under 200W and the Soneil (7A charge) pulls just over 100W. In the final stage of charge (just keeping the battery topped off), the Soneil pulls only 3-5W where the Schumacher pulls 23W constantly. So, I'm becomming a huge fan of the Soneil chargers and would highly recommend them to others. They've also been working great on my electric lawn mower.

[Automcdonough]

Yeah most small car battery chargers are notoriously inefficient, half the time it's just a step-down transformer and linear regulator! A lot of them don't even have a cap to smooth out the output, they just expect the battery to deal with it. Simple, cheap, and reliable but when it comes to efficiency it's the worst.

[RobertSmalls]

I used a KaW on the input side and a DVOM on the output side to record the efficiency of my chargers. I had a Schumacher at ~60% efficient (iirc) during bulk charging, and a MeanWell PSU at 84% efficient.

I never would have expected the Schumacher to take three times as much energy to do the job. That has to be due to more than just power conversion efficiency. It must be running a higher float current than necessary, or something.

[Daox]

That could be. I haven't monitored the operation of the Soneil. I'd imagine it pretty much totally shuts off until voltage drops below some value.

[Piwoslaw]

How is the Soneil working? After reading about how efficient it is, and having the engine cough a few times before starting after a -20°C night, I started looking for one.

BTW: Will charging the battery also warm it? My battery is 5.5 years old and until last year did quite well, now it seems to be getting worse with all the engine OFF/ON I do at red lights, and cold nights don't help.

[Daox]

Actually, I've had a lot of problems with my charger. The Soneil distributor has been very good at taking care of things, but I burnt up two of their 7A chargers. I'm not sure what the deal was. In the end, I ended up going with their 5A charger which has a much more robust design (metal vs plastic case & better innards) and is incredibly reliable according to the distributor (who is an EV owner btw). Its actually a more expensive charger despite the lower amperage. I didn't really want to go to a lower amperage charger, but the distributor gave me the 'free' upgrade to the more expensive 5A charger after all my problems.

I haven't actually used the 5A charger yet as my car still has the front fender off from a deer accident a month or so ago. I haven't gotten the paint work done yet and the car is sitting in the garage ATM.

Despite all this, I still LOVE the Soneil chargers (I use them on my electric riding mower too). They work great and are fully automatic, just plug in and forget about it.

Charging the battery will warm it. However, at 5-7A its not going to warm it that much at all. If you want to warm the battery significantly I'd suggest a battery heater.