Help with curtis controller

[Duke of Earl]

hey, new here, i got an 8 hp dc electric motor, a curtis 36 volt speed controller but I don't have the Pot thing. Potentiator? Got out bid at the last second on E-bay. Now the controller had four large lugs comeing out of the end, two on top laying horizontal, two on bottom standing vertical, then there are three small lugs on the left side, setting horizontal, stacked, 1,2,3. I know the large lugs are the power in from batterys to motor, and I know the three small lugs are for the potentiator. Since the Pots that I have priced from EZ-GO are in the range of $187, I wonder can I use a Pot, like one of those knob switches that you turn to the right and it goes faster, left and it goes slower, I saw one at Radio Shack. It is like $5. it has three pins on it also, Question???? Which way do I wire it up? I am putting this all in a 1986 Toyota MR2. I will use the transmition but not the clutch. I know that 8 h.p. electric is different than gasoline. They say it only takes 12 h.p. to push a aireodynamic car 55 m.p.h. so I think I will have enough power. I have a ten horsepower gasoline engine which will sit up front and drive a 14 volt alternator at a constant speed to keep putting power in the 6, six volt batterys. I just don't know how to wire the pot up. I know how to build a pot, from my old toy race car sets, I took apart the speed controllers and saw they were just a long winding of copper wire with the side that the wiper contacted with insulation free. The wiper was the positive , and the slidder was the negative, that made two wires I don't know about the third wire, that is what messes with me building one for this curtis controller. Any Ideas? Like I sed I am new to this forum but I have been building stuff along time, I have a brown gas generator that puts out two liter per min. I built a resonating jet engine, non valved, it screams so loud it makes your ears hurt. I have a scooter made from this and that, powered by an old McCuloch chain saw motor and a swinn three speed transmition, it runs about fifty and gets bochoo gas mileage. Course I blew up a few things also, but that is just part of all this I guess, gotta blow something up once in a while or it ain't no fun. Any help?

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Duke of Earl

hey, new here, i got an 8 hp dc electric motor, a curtis 36 volt speed controller but I don't have the Pot thing. Potentiator? Got out bid at the last second on E-bay. Now the controller had four large lugs comeing out of the end, two on top laying horizontal, two on bottom standing vertical, then there are three small lugs on the left side, setting horizontal, stacked, 1,2,3. I know the large lugs are the power in from batterys to motor, and I know the three small lugs are for the potentiator. Since the Pots that I have priced from EZ-GO are in the range of $187, I wonder can I use a Pot, like one of those knob switches that you turn to the right and it goes faster, left and it goes slower, I saw one at Radio Shack. It is like $5. it has three pins on it also, Question???? Which way do I wire it up? I am putting this all in a 1986 Toyota MR2. I will use the transmition but not the clutch. I know that 8 h.p. electric is different than gasoline. They say it only takes 12 h.p. to push a aireodynamic car 55 m.p.h. so I think I will have enough power. I have a ten horsepower gasoline engine which will sit up front and drive a 14 volt alternator at a constant speed to keep putting power in the 6, six volt batterys. I just don't know how to wire the pot up. I know how to build a pot, from my old toy race car sets, I took apart the speed controllers and saw they were just a long winding of copper wire with the side that the wiper contacted with insulation free. The wiper was the positive , and the slidder was the negative, that made two wires I don't know about the third wire, that is what messes with me building one for this curtis controller. Any Ideas? Like I sed I am new to this forum but I have been building stuff along time, I have a brown gas generator that puts out two liter per min. I built a resonating jet engine, non valved, it screams so loud it makes your ears hurt. I have a scooter made from this and that, powered by an old McCuloch chain saw motor and a swinn three speed transmition, it runs about fifty and gets bochoo gas mileage. Course I blew up a few things also, but that is just part of all this I guess, gotta blow something up once in a while or it ain't no fun. Any help?

What exactly do you use a brown's gas generator for? Have you found any prove-able MPG gains with it? (I know what the claims of uses and increases are... I want to know what you got.)

[Christ]

Paul - I'm in for the drag/weenie switch - for sure LOL.

I kinda was thinking about setting up my CR-X this way so I'd have power to show off the car, but still have reliable range enough to get to another place to charge it back up.

[Intrigued]

Originally Posted by Duke of Earl

hey, new here, i got an 8 hp dc electric motor, a curtis 36 volt speed controller

Which way do I wire it up? I am putting this all in a 1986 Toyota MR2.

6, six volt batterys.

Course I blew up a few things also, but that is just part of all this I guess, gotta blow something up once in a while or it ain't no fun. Any help?

You should take the time to go through the Forkenswift thread. 48 volts is the least I've seen for a car conversion, and highway speeds are hard to reach at that. 12 hp may hold a highway speed, but you'll need more than that to GET to that speed! It's easy enough to overvolt a DC motor, but the controller usually won't handle more than what it's rated for.

We all blow stuff up once in a while, but you'll sure want to put a pre-charge resistor in with the controller. Otherwise, you'll likely blow IT up.

Also, 6 6volt batteries won't give you much range. 12-15 miles maybe, and there better not be an uphill drive back to the house!

There's lots of learning on the Forkenswift and MPaul's VW and bennelson's Metro threads. They're all in the Fossil Fuel Free section. It'll take a couple of days, but there's lots of info there - even about controllers!

[MPaulHolmes]

Hey Duke! The lower right big lug thing is worthless. It's for plug braking. M- gets connected from the motor. B+ gets connected to the battery pack's + side. B- get's connected to the battery pack's - side. The top little lug thing is where you connect to the battery pack's +. The bottom two little lug things get connected to 2 of the 3 wires from a radio shack pot (the middle pot wire and either side one). I think 36v would top you out at about 25 mph or so. I"m just guessing, though. Welcome to Ecomodder! ya!

[MetroMPG]

Have you tried the Curtis web site? They have manuals & wiring schematics for most models:

Curtis Instruments - Motor Speed Controllers, Programming & Systems Control (Data sheets)

[bennelson]

Another good web page to visit is the Alltrax Document Depot

No only does it have PDF files about their various controllers, it also has some nice "generic" wiring diagrams as well.

Most of what I know about rigging up an electric car comes straight from looking through the Curtis and Alltrax web pages.

Go out, find the information, and DIG into it! That's how I learn anyways....

[Duke of Earl]

Well first of about the Hydrogen generator, I haven't hooked either one of them up to a vehicle yet, I am still experimenting with a few thing on them. I have to come up with a way of cooling the water down, when I really throw the power to it it starts boiling in a couple of minutes. I know it only takes 1.40 volts to actually get it to break apart the molecules, but then you always get limited production, about 1.75 lpm to 2.25 lpm unless you throw more power to it. I have several stainless steel heater coils out of two cars, I plan on running the water thru them, the natural air flow should keep it down to less than boiling. I put 36 volts of dc to my tubed unit and I got more gas than I could measure, the wires running to the unit flamed out and I had to stop but I know the two liter bottle was filled within about 15 seconds. The tube unit is built inside of 18 inches of 3" pvc, the tubes are in sessions, 2 3/4 o.d. 1/8" space 2 5/8 o.d. and so on down to the center tube which is 1/2 o.d. the spaceing is not exactly constant, it is a real job hand forming stainless into tubes using a vice, and asorted pcs. of pipe and other cold roll rounds rods and shorts. It took about two weeks hammering the things out, I am disabled so I have nothing but time and very little money so I spend the time. You may wonder where I got the stainless steel? Went to Wal-Mart, bought a couple sets of those stainless steel deep cooking pots, they are about 30 ga. The tubes are twice negatives than positives, can't remember just how many there are right now and it is too cold to go out side now to open it up and count but I think there is about 9 in all. I use plain water with about 1/10 tea spoon of soap makers lie. Any more than that and it shorts out the power source. I have ran it strait of the six, six volt batteries, and strait off of a 6 1/2 honda running a 14.5 GM alternator. The other unit is made of four hundred stainless steel wires all 16" long streached between two plastic pcs. with 400 holes drilled in each with two spacer pcs. at 1/3 intervals, these wires are all wired positive negative neutral, in that order, I have tested this twice, I can not add any lye to the water at all or else it shorts out the power supply. With just one 12 volt battery I get 1.50 lpm gas outta it. Haven't pushed it any harder yet, it took me two weeks to build it and don't want to short it out. I will use one of these 36 volt controller for it plush a pulse generator. Not that I am convinced that the pulse does anything at all but so many other Browns gas builders say that a pulse with modulator is the way to go, Who knows. I used the one generator and built a torch to see what kind of heat it would generate, I know stainless steel is like cutting butter, and it will melt concrete, that is as far as I got and something happened to the flash back valve and I blew my self outta the front door of my shop. After all the neighbors came running to see if I was ok, it was funny as heck, I couldn't hear a thing they were saying but they were scared I had killed my stupid butt, took about four hours before my hearing came back to normal, well actually my ears are still ringing and it was in August that I did that.
I intend on putting the tubed generator on my old 1948 Chevy truck to see what it does for gas milleage, because it has no computer to mess with, just old time points and a single barrel carburator, and enough room under the hood to put six or seven of the generators in there if I wanted to, plenty of room to add a couple of extra alternators also, of course I will use a one of these Curtis controllers to limit how much power actually goes to the generators.
Thanks for all the info on the controllers and the heads up on the problems I will face with the MR2 conversion. I have studied one page from a guy in california who used an MR2, he put 96 volts worth of batterys in that litttle car, I guess I could go that high but then these curtis controllers pretty much will have to be used for other projects, I got them for a song on E-Bay any way.
Like I say I am new to this stuff, but I am disabled now and have plenty of time on my hands to study all the links you gave me, and so far my wife hasn't complained about the explosions in the shop. You guys really aught to hear that Pulse Jet engine of mine scream, man you gotta have ear plugs in your head or you will damage your ears. Gets red hot too, don't know how much thrust it makes, I only made it to see if I could. I used to be an engineer before this disease hit me. So now I just get to play.
One of us is gonna make a car go 125 miles per gallon yet, just keep blowing up stuff, that is what daVinchi or what ever his name was. Desperation is the mother of invention. An after last year at $5.00 a gallon I know I heard a bunch of desperate people. Hey I am outta here. Again thanks for the tips on the 36 volts being too weak to mess with. I'll go with 96 volts like the dude in california.

[Vekke]

I have one customer that has Sanifer electric car and its speed limiter is set up to 60 km/h. He would like to go faster so Do I need to buy the custis programmer cable?. And how challenging is the job for beginner to do the coding with that cable?

He is using Curtis 1236-6301 72V 300 AMP controller.