Electric car conversion: Project ForkenSwift

[MetroMPG]

Hybernation is almost over.

I'm going to call to reactivate the insurance on the car tomorrow.

[bennelson]

Yea! One more EV back on the road!

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

You DO have an eye for spotting that number, Denis. Not sure what that means!

It's from Revelations, the last book of the Bible at the end of the New Testament. "Everyone" on the internet thinks it's Lucifer's number therefore they think it's evil. But it's man's number too. It doesn't have anything to do with S&M either BTW. I haven't met anyone who really understands what it means. The meaning probably got lost in the Greek->English translation. Since the original was written in Greek, you'd have to know Greek to understand it's true meaning.

Ignore this if you just meant that you didn't know if that was a good or bad sign. I thought you might be referring to the number combination.

[MetroMPG]

Hi Allch Chcar - FYI, I wasn't asking about the meaning of the number, but rather what it meant that Denis seemed highly attuned to spotting it when it appeared randomly around him.

[MetroMPG]

So, glad to have the car back on the road. Drove it on Firday when it was raining and I didn't want to use either the bicycle or the gas car to do my errand.

Aside from rusty brake rotors from sitting outside all winter, doesn't seem any worse for wear.

Ben reminded me in the Electro Metro thread this winter that the controller in the ForkenSwift has potentiometers on it for "tuning" a couple of parameters. I'm planning to check the "current limit" and "acceleration" settings tomorrow. I'm hoping to discover that both are set low, so there's room for improvement

I can't wait to hammer those batteries with 400A!! Wham! I don't think I've ever actually seen more than about 250A on the gauge. I want to peg it at 400.

(OK, OK, I know it's bad for the batteries to hit them with those kinds of currents for any length of time...)

[MetroMPG]

More power, better acceleration. How easy is that? Remove two little hex head bolts, turn two potentiometers.

Both pots have a range of approximately 10:30 to 7:30 (with 12:00 being towards the connector end), and the ACC (acceleration) pot was set at about 2:30. The CL (current limit) pot was set at 2:00.

So they weren't even half way to the FULL-ON-MELT-SOME-CABLES-HAMMER-THE-BATTERIES setting.

Hmm. What to do, what to do...

Well, I turned it up to eleven, as the kids say. And guess what? The car has more power!

But It may be kind of academic: before the adjustment, I was able to pull 300A max on a cold controller with my foot on the floor in 4th gear accelerating up a moderate hill. This pulled the battery voltages to just above DANGER! (5.25v/batt).

After the power adjustment, I saw about 340A on the same hill, same conditions, but the voltage was IN danger territory. So I had to back off.

That was with a cold controller though. It'll be more interesting to see if the "warm" current limit is effectively upped (the controller cuts back peak current as it heats up to protect its innards). If that limit is higher, it'll be more useful for the times I need to accelerate above my usual glacial rate of 50-100A, but run up against, say, a 200A limit.

We shall see.

[bennelson]

Pretty cool to gain more power just by turning a little dial. Try THAT on a gas vehicle.

I am guessing that the batteries are still the limiting factor on the Forkenswift. The car will be much more fun straight off a fresh charge though!

[MetroMPG]

Yikes. Efficiency of the first full drive/charge cycle of 2009 certainly wasn't stellar:

- 23 km / 4.57 kWh
- equals 319 Wh/mi or 105 mpg (US) equivalent

Hopefully the batteries just need a few cycles - a little exercise to wake up to last year's effiency levels. Also, it was a little chilly this week (around 5C).

For comparison, the previous four cycles last fall (late Oct/early Nov) were all better than 250 Wh/mi and over 134 mpge.

[MetroMPG]

Batteries are waking up. Next cycle was 30ish km, 5 kWh and around 140 mpge.

[MetroMPG]

1) Owning an electric car powered by "guilt free" renewable energy makes you lazy. It sometimes removes a disincentive to, say, riding your bike instead.

OK, OK, it makes ME lazy.

The last time I realized a motor vehicle (250cc motorcycle) was competing with my bicycle, I sold it. Are the ForkenSwift's days numbered???

2) It's hot here today - 29 C. Normally I don't charge the car in peak hours, but I am today, because the pack is really low and I didn't want it to sit, depleted, in hot weather.

I saw the charger enter "thermal shutdown". So I plugged in a fan to blow on it, and that made it happier. It's so smart that when it cools down, it starts working again, automatically. When I stop working, I'm much harder than that to get working again.

3) While looking at the charger, I realized it's capable of accepting 220v input. I wonder if its output or efficiency increases on 220v...