David's 2001 Civic EV (80-100 mile range; 65+ MPH; 8 second 0-60) - Page 17 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

Daox · 12-16-2012, 10:29 PM

Woops, yeah you're right CALB is 4C, everyone else seems to be 3C. Also, are you limiting battery amps or is that motor amps?

TheSGC · 12-17-2012, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daox

Woops, yeah you're right CALB is 4C, everyone else seems to be 3C. Also, are you limiting battery amps or is that motor amps?

I have my motor amps limited to 600A and my battery limited to 360A. Right now I only have a 250A breaker and I am not sure how well it would handle 540A on its on. I am going to get another 250A breaker to parallel with it, then I can set my controller to 540A and see what fun that does.

My breaker hasn't tripped on 360A so maybe it can handle 540A for a short time. It's an Airpax 125v 250A single pole breaker I bought years ago on eBay for $19, I should have bought a bunch cause now they are $100+ used...

TheSGC · 12-17-2012, 03:16 PM

I just picked up another Airpax 250A for $67 shipped, so once that gets here I can set it up for 540A fun.

I am really glad I have working heat, today was 1/4" of ice on my EV so I have to heat it up and scrap it off.

Yesterday my 41+ mile shopping trip with heat running constantly (1.5 hours round trip) I pulled 17.74 KWh from the wall. So that is basically that is 16.3 KWh back into the pack since my Elcon is at max 92% efficient.

So with heat running its 433 WH/Mi from the wall and 398 WH/Mi from the batteries with full ~2.5 KW heater running. That means I have a safe 52 mile winter range and a 80+ range in the summer. I'm a happy camper!

mechman600 · 12-17-2012, 03:41 PM

Maybe you need to stop posting updates because you are making all the "low budget EVers" extremely jealous.

Daox · 12-17-2012, 04:12 PM

Thanks for posting that hard winter low wh/mile stat! I've always wondered what number to use for a 'worst case' scenario and I've always estimated around 400-500 Wh/mile. Looks like I was pretty close.

TheSGC · 12-17-2012, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mechman600

Maybe you need to stop posting updates because you are making all the "low budget EVers" extremely jealous.

Don't worry, in 5 years your "low budget EV" will be upgraded in no time to all of your dreams. When I built my first EV everything from surplus and eBay and it was running with under $2k in parts, mostly it was a new battery pack and the donor.

I'm just loving the fact that I am getting better winter performance than a Nissan Leaf. People around here are getting 40-45 miles of winter range, and I have a solid 52 miles down to 20% state of charge. I am going to get the J1772 connection this winter and I also have a 6.6 KW Solectria charger than I had from a bunch of parts I was given years ago that I need to reprogram, the only reason why I have never used it is because it only works on 220v.

Daox · 01-03-2013, 03:19 PM

Any updates on the winter Wh/Mile? I don't know about you, but here its been a lot colder than mid December was. Do you have any form of pack heater?

fb_bf · 01-03-2013, 04:37 PM

On my Midget I think I'm seeing about a 30% drop in range with the cold weather. I have a heater that is using about 1100 watts at max heat. I don't have any heat on my packs. I have an insulated garage that keeps the temperature around 40 deg F overnight. My problems show up when the car has been outside and the temperature is down to 10 deg F. I've had low cell voltage reported by my BMS when under a 300 amp load, and the BMS also de-rates the maximum amps I'm allowed to use based on the battery temperatures. One evening when the temperature was around 10 degrees, the BMS set the fault for using too high an amperage, even with me only using 200 amps or so. That was tricky, because it took a while for everything to reset. I was sitting on the side of the road at 10 degrees about 2 miles from my house. I’m still not completely sure what happened that night.

TheSGC · 01-03-2013, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daox

Any updates on the winter Wh/Mile? I don't know about you, but here its been a lot colder than mid December was. Do you have any form of pack heater?

It has been wicked cold here, it was a high of 25F these past few days with it being 2F at night. My batteries really don't like it that low because I have to insulate them. I can't charge them if they are below 32F, so I have been warming them up with a space heater in the trunk for 3-4 hours before charging them and it has worked out. I am going to Home Depot this weekend and get some insulation to do my trunk and battery pack.

TheSGC · 01-07-2013, 02:18 PM

Since I built my EV I have had a slight transmission noise, which has now gotten louder. I have decided to rebuild my transmission so I ordered up a rebuild kit and I am going to take out the whole setup while the weather is decent and do a full rebuild of the bearings.

I am also going to clean some things up and properly insulate the heater system.

I still have two weeks before my last semester of college starts, so that should be plenty of time to finish the rebuild and install insulation for my batteries.