How to Build an Electric Car DVDs for sale!

[Ryland]

It's pretty simple right? plop a motor in, drop some batteries in, a controller, some wire, some more wire.
But is it really that easy?
An interview with the people who you worked with, with them talking about what they needed from you to make their part of the job work, maybe some tips from them on how to stay on their good side.
Info on how you became set on your design, showing how some of the less common tools that were needed were used.
If you do it with a CD rom then info on motor specs or voltage specs and how it can make a size of car like a metro perform, I bought the book "build your own electric motorcycle" and it's lacking in specs on the machine they built "can go highway speeds" but nothing about exact top speed or what allows it to reach that, their motor controller section is so vague I got worried that I wasn't able to focus enough to retain info, so don't be afraid to say "this is what this can do" and "this is why".

[ExplodingDinosaurs]

www.GrassRootsEV.com has some really good conversion tutortial videos.

My humble suggestions:

• Price ~$15
• Moving cars and parts! I like the YouTube videos that show the car moving right away, rather than making you wait through minutes of slow motion pans for a 10 second drive at the end.
• Make it snappy and talk quickly. Around 3 seconds for a scene and you have the point, move to the next thing. Title and ending credits can be short (someone really interested in copying the URL at the end can pause).
• No need to show every step. Just one bolt, just one cable, etc. is fine, the viewer can assume you finished the rest.
• Safety as #1. No standing in front of spinning wheels, safety glasses on when working on batteries, etc.
• It's fun to change scenes on music drumbeats, particularly if going through a series of stills.
• Many cameras have automatic sound gain, so the volume gets turned up until the faint EV noises seem to be loud. You can edit down the sound volume in the video, or have some background music on the radio, or be talking to show how quiet an electric is.
• Talk up the good points, like can't stall the motor, how easy it is to refuel (10 seconds to plug in).
• Zoom in on acceleration and zoom out on braking to give a better sense of motion. Tach and speedo shots are neat, too.

[The Toecutter]

I think showing the viewer the process by which you design the motor mounts, battery boxes, and adapter plate, and any other custom parts necessary to allowing it to function as an EV, would be very beneficial. Show them what measurements they need to take on the transmission and motor, for instance, in order that the necessary parts be designed.

And if you have the space and time, perhaps a section of the video showing them how to make the car more efficient would help; if it takes too much videospace for things like aeromods and the like, perhaps the DVD could be made with an interactive menu with sections containing photos; with the permission of the member here it pertains to, you could get pictures of the process by which many of the DIY aeromods were built on this site, so that the viewer could flip through the photos with the DVD player and read a description of each picture.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by ExplodingDinosaurs

[*]Many cameras have automatic sound gain, so the volume gets turned up until the faint EV noises seem to be loud. ..........
.....Tach and speedo shots are neat, too.[/LIST]

I would be using a wireless lavalier microphone and manual audio gain for recording me on camera.

Recording all sorts of little shots in the interior gets a little trickier, and the little cameras that work well for that don't have manual audio, or even microphone inputs, but I could edit together video from little car-mounted cameras with audio from the fancy camera.

Might be cool to do a "ride-along" clip with a camera on the car pointed forward, one on me talking, one on the speedometer, one on the ammeter, one on the stick-shift. The edited video would show what I do while driving, how to shift when, how fast I am going and how much power is used. (I would have to borrow a few more cameras!


My car doesn't have a Tach!

[vpoppv]

One thing I see a lot of in videos, and you would have an advantage here, is they say "next, I took my electric motor and transmission to the machine shop" and the next part is installing the result in the car! It's like "hold on, you farmed out 90% of the work??" Adapter plate and transmission adaptor should be a big hunk of any "How To" video on EV's IMHO. I think also showing different options could be helpful. If you could get a hold of different batteries, controllers, and motors to briefly discuss, it could be a big plus. Maybe you could spend a little time about donor vehicle selection. I had someone ask me if I could convert a big lifted 4x4. Sure, how many feet do you need to go?? :P

[jackbauer]

Agreed. The whole adapter plate / motor coupler is a large unknown. I had to find out the hard way. Couple videos on my website show the result of wrong coupler choice.

[MPaulHolmes]

I still have nightmares about the stupid coupler/adapter plate. Horrible horrible horrible. I would like to see something like that too. Even if you take it to a machine shop to have it done, it would be nice to see how they do it back there, those sneaky little buggers.

[bennelson]

OK Guys, I started making the video.

Since I already had the controller out, to do some weatherproofing on it, I thought I may as well film that.

I plopped it on my kitchen table, with a lazy susan to rotate it, and pointed out all the parts and features.



My plan is to shoot some rolling footage of the car this weekend (beautiful weather right now!) and then all of the stand-ups and car details this next week. I want to have this finished in time for the MREA Energy Fair, which is WAY too soon!

I really don't think of my car as "Camera-Ready". Too many wires running around, cables that aren't at quite the right length.

But if I waited until the car was perfect to make the video, it would never get done!

[bennelson]

MURPHY'S LAW ATTACKS!!!!!!

I just announced, what, like an hour ago? That I would make an instructional video starting now!

Just just started hand-washing the car, and saw that the windshield is cracked!!!!!!!

GRRRR@#$%@^#^&$*!!!!!!

This does not bode well!

[MPaulHolmes]

Ben, never give up, never surrender! I can't wait to buy a copy when you are done. I don't know anyone with the video editing skills that you have. It's going to help a lot of people.