EV parts collecting has officially begun
 

We'll call this thread the interim thread before the actual build on a vehicle I may not even own yet - sort of a continuation of my http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...o-19830-2.html thread.

The reason for a new thread is I'm going to convert something to electric, just not necessarily my old Volvo. But I have officially started my EV parts collection. I am up to 7 free batteries, highlighted at the end of the thread linked above.

Today I changed my mind from converting a car to converting a motorcycle. Obviously my mind isn't made up (and it will more than likely change back and forth a million times before I actually go through with it), so I will continue scrounging for free battery cores at work that withstand my deadly carbon pile load tests.

THE [CURRENT] NEW PLAN [THAT WILL NO DOUBT CHANGE]:

-Find a sport bike with a blown engine for almost nothing
-60V/72V pack of free floodies
-Alltrax 7234/Mars ME0709 combination
-Parallel charge the pack with 12V off-board charger

That last one is interesting. I will use my 40/10/2A regular old charger at home, and the one at work when I am there. Today I came up with a cool way to do it without spending lots of money on a ton of contactors and relays/switches. I'll get to that later...if I actually go the motorcycle route, that is.

Question #1: how much current can a 4/0 anderson connecter handle continuous and peak?

Question #2: A cheap motor solution for car conversions is the forklift motor route. Do the same rules apply with motorcycles but with smaller motors, or do people rarely use cheap forklift motors in motorcycles? I guess at $485 for a new ME0709, it may be hardly worth the trouble scrounging for a motor.

Motor Brand: Mars is the EValbums search for Mars Motor so you can see what others have done, to me that motor seems like it's about as small as I would dare go with.
Forklifts tend to have a hand full of motors on them, some of the smaller pump motors might be a better fit for a motorcycle, my motorcycle is using a golf cart motor because they are $100 used from golf cart shops, but they have their own issues, like not having a drive shaft that extends out of the motor or a support bearing on the drive end of the motor, some of the fork lift motors have odd issues like that as well so make sure you buy something that you have seen in person, some of them have their way of connecting to the fork lift so the motor can be pulled and serviced more easily.
It's great that you are collecting parts already but things like batteries age over time and degrade if not taken care of, so make sure that you keep them charged up, full of water and I've had a number of people tell me that lead acid batteries do not like sitting on cold floors, so at least setting them up on a sheet of wood or foam is a good idea, I wire my stored batteries all together so they are one big 12v battery (6v in my case) that way I can use a single small trickle charger to keep them all topped off without boiling them.

The SB350 is rated for 350A continuous with the right conductor size.

-Adam

I agree. I think for my 45 mph requirement, it should suffice. Some guys get 60 mph with 72V.

Excellent. Then here is my potential charging schematic:
http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...2VCharging.jpg

More batteries and connectors
 

Today I revived two more AGM batteries at work, so I have three in total. Not sure if I will be able to keep them or not, but here's hoping. All three had been discharged to the trucks's 10.5V cutoff and left that way.

All I have at work is a dumb charger. It has three settings: low, medium and high. All three seem to be constant amperage. I charged and load tested each battery individually to get an idea of their health. I have never charged AGMs before and I found it interesting how they acted. At first they wouldn't eat current. They sat at 14.0V and took about 8A, which I thought meant murdered batteries. After about 10 minutes, the voltage suddenly fell to 12.5V and the current went up to 15A, as if they suddenly woke up. I jacked the charger up to the high setting which meant 13.8V and 50A for about 2 hours. I monitored the temp with an IR gun and they only got to about 80F, well below the danger zone. As the voltage finally climbed to 14.5V, I lowered the charging speed until finally on low they were at 14.5V, drawing 5A. Again, I did this to each battery individually.
http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...30121449PM.jpg
I tortured them all on the carbon pile with 350A for 15 seconds and none sagged below 10V.

I also found a good solution for my "10-pin Charging Connector" in the drawing above, if I end up going that way. It actually has 12 pins in case I need more. Note the fancy Caterpillar yellow paint. It's bits from a Cat 15L engine harness.
http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...0/c0208783.jpg
http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...0/54e56760.jpg
It even has mounting holes!

New donor car and more free EV bits
 

Good news! Yesterday I was offered a Mazda MX-3 (Precidia) 4-cyl manual for $400. Amazing what gets thrown at your way when you have enough people looking out for parts for you! "What are you using as a donor car? A Volvo? That's no good. I have just the car for you!" I immediately put the Volvo on Craigslist, and someone is coming to look at it tomorrow morning with about 3 more emailers in queue.

The MX-3 will probably need an emissions test but even if it fails I can insure it for 4 months with repair - just long enough to gather enough parts to convert it to electric. It's about 640 lbs lighter than the Volvo and about 1000 times as aerodynamic.

On another front, today I visited a local forklift dealership and talked to the service manager there. I told him where I work (we do some business with this forklift company) and what I am after - a motor about 8-11" in diameter and 100 lbs. He figures a 24 volt motor will be the ticket. Works for me. He didn't have any now, but the next time they scrap a forklift with one of these motors he will give me a call. All I have to do is remove the motor from it's current home and it's mine for free! WOO HOO!

Wow, you're finding some great deals! Good luck and I look forward to more updates.

My newest favorite thing in the world
 

I love when Craigslisters don't show up. "Yeah I'll be there at 10:30 tomorrow morning." Right. Then you try to phone them a few times and email them.

Why not just let me know that you're not interested anymore? Would that be so hard?

Oh well. I have another dude scheduled to look at the Volvo tomorrow morning. He is coming from far away, so the chances of a sale are high. If he shows up, that is.

That is why when you are buying stuff from craigslist you have bargaining power, after all you are there with cash! when selling stuff never take the ad down until it's sold, I always tell people that it's not the first person who calls who has dibs but the first person who shows up with cash in hand.

So true! Unless of course you have something in high demand. In my case, a running car with a valid AirCare. Speaking of which, dude #2 actually showed up this morning and bought it for my asking price, $550. So I made $150 on the car. This week I get the "new" car. It needs to be AirCared, so hopefully it passes.