David's 2001 Civic EV (80-100 mile range; 65+ MPH; 8 second 0-60)

[TheSGC]

Originally Posted by mechman600

Are you going to charge each individual cell with a small charger before the first "big" charge? The guys on diyelectriccar.com seem to recommend this.

Nope, it's not practical with my pack, it's too large. It would take me 169 days to charge up all the cells with the chargers I have access too. So my plan I am going to charge up then if they are "out of balance" I will finish them up with my small power supply.

[TheSGC]

It drives! I'll make a video tomorrow, it's too dark now to show anything.

I did have a problem with my Elcon charger, it was giving an error that said "repair battery". I found out it was on the wrong setting so I changed it but now the red LED doesnt seem to work, like the forgot to program it into this program slot. It does seem to charge and tomorrow I am going to make sure it completes a charge cycle.

This thing has real power to it! I have my Zilla set to 520 motor AMPs and 360 battery AMPS and it flies! I'll make a video of it tomorrow, then I am going to work on getting the heater controls wired up. I drove it a bit tonight but it's so damp out that it was hard to defog the windshield without heat.

So far I am extremely happy, it runs really well, I just need to finish the little things.

[MetroMPG]

Congratulations!

[Daox]

Woohoo, very nice.

[TheSGC]

And here is what everyone has been waiting for:

[Daox]

Very nice Dave! I take it the noise we hear is the fan on the motor? Or, is it more from the transmission gears?

[TheSGC]

Originally Posted by Daox

Very nice Dave! I take it the noise we hear is the fan on the motor? Or, is it more from the transmission gears?

It's both, but mainly the transmission gears. Everything seems balanced, just a noisy transmission. I've had them up to 3800 RPM without any problem, and my Zilla is limiting my motor to 4800 RPMs for safety.

I need a problem KWh meter, but my guess on yesterdays abusive drives was 305 wh/mi from the wall. It was about 2.5 hours on 220v 2.2KW Elcon, so I am just guessing. That was 18 miles of the worst hills I could find, punching it on every acceleration, and basically doing every non-eco friendly driving thing I could think of, with 2 passengers. Most of the drive was 35-45 MPH showing off what the car can do.

Now I am getting the heater to function, I just found out which connector from the Honda Heater Control Unit I am going to use and now I'm working on a simple comparator circuit to turn the heater + pump on when the Temp Control is set to Full Heat.

[sheepdog 44]

Is it possible to hypermile an EV? Does pulse and glide still work.

[TheSGC]

Originally Posted by sheepdog 44

Is it possible to hyper-mile an EV? Does pulse and glide still work.

Hyper-miling an EV is quite different, Pulse and Glide doesn't work, you want constant current draw and just glide whenever possible. Accelerating is where you loose your efficiency the most. You also want high RPMs, 3500-4500 RPMs if possible because this is where the motor is most efficient with the least current draw and the internal fan running the best.

[TheSGC]

I installed my charging socket on the EV today and I figured out how to wire up the heater controls to the existing Honda heater control panel.


I am hoping to get my new EV plates tomorrow and try to get commuting next week. I want the heat running before I start commuting because the weather is getting much colder now and I don't like fogged windows.