new member from Ontario
 

Hi, I've been lurking and reading for a while and figured I'd register and contribute.
I live in Ontario, Canada and have been researching building an electric car for a while now.
A few years ago I helped a friend with some build aspects of his '88 ranger ev conversion and since then I've had the bug to build my own.
Just wanted to pop in and introduce myself.

Cheers!
Colin.

Hi Colin - welcome to the forum!

What are your minimum requirements?

Come buy the guts from the ForkenSwift! :D I haven't put it on the road yet this year... and may not. (Rusted out underneath.)

Hey thanks :)

I was just looking at forklift parts actually and saw your site. I'm actually not far away.Caledonia.
I'm looking for a run about and maybe hit up other occasional car show or EV meet.
Ideally if i can get 100km per charge I'd be happy, I'd just need go be able into recharge within say 4-6 hours.
I live in Caledonia and work in Mississauga QEW&Winston Churchill, 74km with some hills, so round up to 100km to account for the extra draw.
If i could pull off the drive to work and plug in when I'm there I'd be extatic.

What would you be looking for, for the parts?

100 km per charge - I assume you're going with a fairly large lithium pack then. 4-6 hr recharge would mean a very beefy charger as well (220v).

Pretty much the only part on the ForkenSwift that you could use (since you'd also be going with much higher voltage) would be the motor.

Does your friend's Ranger have a page on the EV album?

I apparently can't post links until I hit a 5 post count.
Do a quick search for Joel Clemens ford ranger, that should bring it up.
The ev album has the new owner but he still has the first drive video up on youtube.

I'll put the links here with spaces for you to copy/paste/remove the space and see if it works.

www ev album.com/2451]Joel Clemens' 1989 Ford Ranger
www you tube.com/watch?v=DM8N7e6IESI

It got in an accident a few years ago, some guy went the wrong way turning left at a light, into the other left turning lane where he was and went between him and the light pole. It was a cheapo truck and he wanted something new so he sold it off for parts/repair. Now he's a Leaf driver.
Looks like the current owner is having fun with it.

Welcome to the site. Its good to see another person interested in EVs!

I don't think your motor would like that much more voltage. Since I have the twin motor to the Forkenswift's (which I still owe MetroMPG a case of beer for :D), I can tell you that on my 72V/450A setup, peak RPM is at 3600 RPM. Since 5000 RPM is about as high as you would dare to go, simple math makes that 100V max to the motor. At 450A that's 45kW; converting to HP and factoring a theoretical 83% efficiency (about normal for DC motors), that's 50HP.

Of course on many controllers you can program a parameter to limit max motor voltage to whatever you want.

thanks! :D

I've also got an interest in fuel economy and just this week hit a new goal.
I managed to get 570KM/tank from my old 2005 Ford Escape V6 3.0L just by changing my driving habits.
Gave me an 80KM increase in the range per tank.
Pretty pleased with that.

So my immediate plans of starting a build are on hold, wife is now out of work. So it's back to planning and research again for me.

Looking at a spot to charge at home and my garage is just the other side of the laundry room, which is exactly above my hydro panel and I happen to have a double breaker free, so I'm thinking that a 220V charging station in the garage is a very real possibility.

I've also been looking at the Open ReVolt controller, either of you have any experience with it?
I'm not shy to building electronics at all, built a desktop cnc router a few years ago from scratch and did the controller and PSU for that, plus lots of electronics repair.
Just not sure on the open source version vs. a closed product.

Also, Should I move this thread out of introductions to somewhere else or ok to keep here?