How to Build an Electric Car DVDs for sale!
 

Do I have your attention?

Good!

A while back, I looked around for any videos for sale on electric car construction. I was only able to find one, which was a rather disappointing. It was just a couple of hand-held videos of guys showing the basics of their cars to each other - really NOT a "How To" at all.

So, that got me thinking.

A) I built an electric car.
B) I have a video camera.

Perhaps I should make my own video on how to build an electric car. OK - How I built my electric car. Sort of a "here's how I did it" video.

Ideally, I could spend some time to make it a high-quality, very watchable video. I know a few people who could create music and graphics for it. I would combine on-screen of me talking about the car with video of the car parts, lots of the old video that I shot as I built the car, and I suppose I would even include all my little YouTube videos.

If you were to BUY a DVD on how to build an electric car:
How much would you be willing to pay?
How long should the video be?
What do you expect in the video appearence? Would it have to be shot in a studio, or is a driveway OK?
What would you like covered in the video?
How technical would it have to be?
What other questions should I be asking you?

If I make a "How To" video, it could be the first of many. My friend Tom is building an AC car, and my friend Rich is going to build a from-scratch three-wheeler. Both those projects would make excellent how-to videos as well.

Please let me know what you think.

-Ben


(EDIT)
Summer of 2010 I made the instructional DVD.
Jan, 2011, I finally bothered to make a promotional ad for it. You can see that below.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stWGuqJYYLc

I think it's a great idea Ben!

Here's what I think about the DVD...

If you were to BUY a DVD on how to build an electric car:
How much would you be willing to pay?
Depends on how much info. you are going to put in it. If someone can buy the video and use the info. to build an EV from start to finish then that is a pretty valuable DVD you have there...maybe $39. Think how many hours and hours of research you did to build yours...you would be saving someone alot of time. If it's only an overview of your car and how you built it then the price would probably have to be lower...maybe $19.

How long should the video be?
See #1. All-inclusive video could be loooong to cover all the bases. If just about your car...maybe an hour.

What do you expect in the video appearence? Would it have to be shot in a studio, or is a driveway OK?
I think it's ok to shoot in the driveway. Anyone interested in your project most likely would be building it in their driveway too.

What would you like covered in the video?
Everything...soup to nuts.

How technical would it have to be?
I would expect it to be on the high end from a technical point of view but put into laymans terms to be easily understood. Think of what you would want to see and hear when you got into your project.

What other questions should I be asking you?
I think someone looking for this type of DVD would be looking for the easiest possible way to build an EV for the least possible cost. If they wanted an EV without the hassle and they had enough money...they would just go out and buy one. I think your DVD should really focus on the DIY aspect and how it can be done by anyone.

bennelson -

$20 is the yuppy buck and $19.99 is the pricepoint for ASOTV. The higher the price, the more people will just copy it.

I would shoot for the kind of quality that this dude puts into making videos :

http://www.youtube.com/user/richpin06a

CarloSW2

ev build videos
 

Hi, Ben. Sounds like a good idea. Gav Shoebridge (Kiwi EV) did a bunch of you tube videos, and compiled all of them into dvd form. He would send them anywhere for $15.00. He filmed them in his garage, and wherever he was(after he had it running.) That may be a good way to start. Good luck with the project. Watt:D

Gav's videos are definately the best of the bunch when it comes to YouTube EV build videos. Glad to hear he did a compilation.

I would shoot for 20 to make it affordable, though I dont think copying will be an issue in such a small market.

For example, paterek prices his lugged framebuilding video set at 70 bucks, so that seems a high price someone might just rip off. But it hasnt happened because the audience is too small, too uninterested in bit torrent, and couldnt support a sustained attempt anyway.

:thumbup:

How about Open Source EV building videos to match the Open Source Motor Controller? With free distribution (maybe through bittorrent?) there could be a much wider audience and maybe more people would try an EV for themselves.

Gav's $15 only covered his expenses for the DVD and shipping; he can't have got much change after he sent my copy airmail to the UK.

The Open Source approach would help spread the EV bug, but wouldn't help cover your expenses at all. And $15-$20 would still not cover very much, especially with a small audience, unless you were to somehow get people into the idea elsewhere. That means ads/promoting things...I like the Open Source idea, but hurts your production budget...also, if you did it in a studio, it just wouldn't be right...cars don't go in studios, electric or otherwise lol.

I would pay $20-25 for a DVD if it was good.
I would want basically a full tour of the car, an over view of the tools used and the proses to convert that car, along with a few others, some interviews with the people you had to work with to make parts and the challenges they faces with your project, I wouldn't want a DVD of fluff of how great it is, I want to know what kind of a project it is going to be, the parts that you cursed at and how to avoid them, or work with those problems.

What Ryland just said is pretty much what I was shooting for.

I thought I would get an interview with the two guys who did the machining work on the car.

Overall, the video would focus on the individual steps needed for a conversion, with a overview of how each of those things is done generally on EVs, and then the specifics, how, and why it was done on my car.

The disc would also contain a ROM portion with a DXF file of the Metro transmission adapter plate, and the YouTube videos that were created during the building of the car. Likely, it would also contain the open source info for the ReVolt; materials list, instructions, etc, but would have to link to the Wiki for the latest versions.

Any other suggestions on this project?

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".

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12750668190001

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!

MURPHY'S LAW ATTACKS!!!!!! :mad::(:mad::(

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@#$%@^#^&$*!!!!!! :eek: :mad:

This does not bode well!

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.

Are you kidding? Paul's getting a complimentary copy as a thanks for all the controller help he's done for me! :thumbup:

I already was planning on getting some driving shots tomorrow - you if you guys get a copy of the video, and notice the windshield cracked on all the driving shots, only you will know why!

Ryland, I am hoping to have copies available at the MREA.

I'm doing some filming today.

Already, I have shot SAFETY, HOW TO PICK A CAR, and ELECTRIC MOTORS 101 sections.

Hopefully it doesn't rain the rest of the day!!!!

PS - This whole video is being shot in HD!

This is so exciting! Yahoo Ben!

Gal darn it!

Now my neighbor is weed-wacking!

With noisy gasoline power!

I know I've watched several of your youtube vignettes and found them interesting.

I would interject clever seperations of the chapters for quick reference would be ideal.

And maybe a section on diagnosis of faults would be in order.

Make it interesting like your vignettes and you should be doing good!

On the DVD, it will all be short chapters, divided up with graphics.

You will be able to jump to any section instantly using the DVD menu.

I made it through recording a fair number of sections today. It's still going to be LOTS of work editing it all!!!!!!

I'll have to work on a blooper reel just for you guys.

I look forward to it! I want to get me an electric car pretty bad. Especially if I could also afford some solar panels (not likely) or some windmills (doubt it) but I'd love to get an electric riding mower first. Tomorrow would be great :D

Today, I recorded video segments on batteries, cables, and chargers.

I took a lunch break, and realized only after recording a new section that my mike was still off!

DOh! Oh well, second time is the charm!

This afternoon, I will record the sections on driving the car, shifting without a clutch, and maybe get some beauty shots of the car.

I thought everone knew shifting without a clutch....NOT! Lol, I love to scare passengers when I shift clutchless (you're gonna kill the tranny!!!)

I even taught my wife how to shift without the clutch. Comes in handy if the clutch cable breaks, i know that for a fact!

I think the controller can help speed up the shifting though, by monitoring vehicle speed and motor rpm, and given the vehicles gear ratios, it can quickly set the motor to the next or previous gears synch rpm with the press of an upshift or downshift button, perhaps with a couple LEDs to indicate what gear it is speed synching to (or a fancy array of gate switches that tells it what gear you want).

I like the thinking of dcb. why should shifting be difficult? There are high end sports cars that do that, and it shouldn't be a difficult calculation for a computer on the fly. The only requirement would be some switches to tell the computer the intended gear (easily done if you place the shifter in the right spot and wait for the synchros to do their thing...much faster if the computer would help out!)

I just finished sorting out over 300 high-resolution still photographs that I took during my electric car construction.

All the photos are separated into catagories such as "Adapter Plate", "Motor", "Coupler", "Batteries, etc, for easy searching.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I have often found that high-res still images can often be as much or more useful than video.

All the photos will be included in the ROM portion of the DVD for easy viewing on your PC or Mac computer.

High res pics are definitely worth a lot, especially if you get it onto the computer and start zooming in. Glad to hear you're still working on it!

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12766517210001

Wow. I just realized I have a lot of green in my life..... (Note shirt, wall color, and DVD case...)

Anyways, I tricked my sister into designing a really slick DVD cover for the project. Now I just need to print a pile of those and start exercising my paper-cutters!

That is one GREAT looking DVD cover. Wow.

http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...12767841690001
(My graphic designer slaves over the paper cutter and shows off finished DVD cases.)

Real busy cranking away on these discs now.

I still don't have all the sections I wanted on the disc, but it's already a TWO-DISC collection!

One disc is a two-hour instructional DVD of me showing how to build an electric car. The other disc is 50 original YouTube videos of the project, over 600 digital stills (mostly 12MP files), web links to EV resources and information on building your own Open Revolt Controller.

I really wanted these discs to be ready for the MREA Energy Fair - which I am leaving for in about two hours.

I am bringing 25 copies with - I have no idea what kind of interest there will or won't be in these discs, but I really feel that there is a need for this sort of thing to get out to people.

When do you plan to have them for sale?

LOL even your lovely graphic designer is wearing a green shirt!

You should see her matching green shoes and socks!

I will be selling discs this weekend.

To sell them mail order, I still need to get a Paypal shopping cart up and running and a few other web details taken care of first.

Should be no more than a couple of weeks.

-Ben