VOTE! February modification of the month
 

Vote for your favourite modification from February. In no particular order they are:

• Paul & Sabrina's open source electric motor controller
• Ben Nelson's Electro-Metro
  
• Tim's Arduino controlled actuated grill block
• Binger's LED tail light conversion
• sepp's nissan kingcab aerocap
• captainslug's "NEMO" - <$1k DIY Neighborhood Electric Motorcycle
• ncs' smooth front undertray

(Here's the January winner, in case you missed it.)

Winner gets either a free EcoModder t-shirt (if we have your size), or $20 off an official pre-assembled MPGuino.

Don't see a project that you think should be in the list? Is yours missing? Well, tough luck! You need to nominate it to have it included. Feel free to suggest projects for next month. (See the nomination thread for this round, here: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ions-7136.html)

Any project that was either started or had a significant development in Feb qualified to be included.

I voted strategically this time...

And my vote went to Binger's LED tail light project.

I like it because:

- lots of pics
- lots of how-to information
- includes info about the before/after impact (electrical load)
- it's finished!

Too bad the car died shortly after he finished that thread!

I know I'll have a chance to vote again for some of the other as yet unfinished projects - that was the strategic part of my decision.

Open Source electric motor controller looks pretty dang good... :)

MetroMPG -

Two votes for Binger!

CarloSW2

Motor controller here too. Bringing higher voltage to the masses, invaluable!

What happened to Binger's Mirage?

I think the transmission died. Probably Harikiri out of shame because he started this thread, planning ahead for his next car: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-tdi-7158.html

PS - poll closes Sunday afternoon.

I voted for the NEMO. I like how well it is documented including the price of parts.

I hope the motor controller wins, and I hope it is a huge success.

I think that us tinkerers can easily come by or work our way around everything but the motor controllers quite easily (Batteries? No problem. Motors? Who do you think we are? We have been pulling apart motors from childhood. But accurate and safe power controls are very hard to come by.)

It took some consideration on my part... lots of it, actually.

I wanted to make a non-partisan choice, something that would be "the best good", regardless of whether it was finished or not, as yet.

I'm not sure if my choice is actually "the best good", but I know that trucks are notorious for not getting good gas mileage under "normal" circumstances, and given some thinking, with the number of trucks that are on the road, something that could be built to appeal to all those truck-people who just can't be bothered to save fuel, but just might go for something if it was aesthetically "cool", would qualify, IMO, as "the best good".

That said, I had to vote for the AeroCap. While I love all of the other projects on the forum, even the ones not included on this poll, this one appeals to me the most at this particular juncture.

If I could vote for everyone, I would, because every single project that is started, finished, or otherwise even thought about on this forum is a step in the right direction, and I want everyone to stop and think about the impact we're making, even if it is small, remember that your actions affect the way others perceive the things around them. One little mod you do may raise a question, and that question may be the question that sparks the next big breakthrough in energy efficiency.

I voted for the motor controller because I want a free t-shirt! That would be so dang awesome! If I wasn't so greedy about the shirt, I would vote for Ben's electro-metro. He isn't afraid to make big changes and does really high quality work. Also, he has awesome, professional documentation of his progress. I love it!

I just checked, and we're out of t-shirts and MPGuino discounts.

The new prize will be a year's subscription to "O" magazine.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, Stedman (her former life-partner) magazine... That would be awesome.

FORMER LIFE PARTNER?

Why am I always the last one to hear about these things?

If it's any consolation, Oprah's fingers and toes don't know it yet either... signals travel slower through an object as density increases, and such...

I vote for sepp's nissan kingcab aerocap

No hard feelings to anyone that isn't sepp... I could only pick one!

So many good mods! Had to rep the truck crowd and voted for the aeroshell.

Ooo... so looks like it's stacking up to be the truck crowd against the EV crowd. :D

Voted for Paul & Wifey

Good voter turn out this month :)

I voted for the AeroCap.
I have actually considered buying a truck just so I could make an AeroCap.
But the wife would kill me and dis-assemble my body into small unrecognizable parts , and feed me to the animals at the zoo should I bring another vehicle to this driveway.

"Another" or "additional"? :)

Trucks VS EVs'!?

No!

Trucks + EVs = :D

http://static.huddler.com/imgrepo/th...x-LL-s10ev.jpg

I had to vote for sepp. I'm partial to the Nissan.

Ya! Put one of those awesome aerocaps on an EV truck! That aerocap really is an awesome idea, though. There are so many trucks in the U.S., and if there was a quick way to put one of those on the back if you weren't hauling tons of stuff, there would be a pretty dramatic decrease in gas usage!

bennelson -

Hmmmmmm, I think the truck has a different POV :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1236410970

CarloSW2

.

You got me.
How 'bout?

Another additional vehicle.

Right now there are two Metrii, in various states of dis-repair. Mine is on loan to the owner of these.
Subframe
This thread has details. (I still haven't learned how to do the text over link thing)
One Buick, still waiting on its bottom end build.
In storage is another Buick that begs for a new motor.
And an old friend wants me to have his Tercel.
Which I want because its free, and runs, and was hit in the rear, and begs to be cut with a "SawzAll" and aerodynamically modified with sheet metal and lexan, and LED lights, and...

Well lets not go there right now.

I voted for the aero cap. I'm all for pushing the limits of the gas guzzlers. We all know someone out there is always going to want one. So why not push them as hard as we can. Besides going from 10-11MPG's is a bigger savings then going from 100-200MPG's.

Question?
Would it be possible to link the choices some how to the project pages? I had a hell of a time tracking down some of the choices.

The links are all in the first post. :)

Wow, totally missed that. Thanks daox.

Schultz: checked your thread on Mulletchat. :D Nice job on that frame resto! Holy cow. That's a first.

Wow! Do it do it do it! (Sorry Barb.)

So, looks like Paul & Sabrina's DIY affordable motor controller held the lead it developed pretty early on.

Paul, you want that O subscription mailed to your home or work?

OK, OK, or would you rather have a t-shirt? Or have EcoModder adopt some mosfets? Discount on an official MPGuino? Your choice.

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Congrats to everyone involved, and thanks for all the votes. If your favourite project didn't take the crown this month, the good news is we'll surely be seeing some of them again - the on-going projects.

They'll have to go up against Aerocivic though :) - basjoos did a few more mods last week.

Congrats to Paul & wife. You guys have done a great job (and we look forward to more)! :)

Mosfet adoption? I think I'll go with that! There's this one street-mosfet in Nairobi that sniffs glue all the time, and he needs a good home. His name is "IRFk4553304032"

Another mosfet steered to a better future. I'm glad you said he wasn't smoking anything. If he was, he'd better not exhale or he'll be no good to you.

The March Nomination thread is now up. If you didn't see your favorite project on the list this past month make sure to nominate it this month!

FYI: nominations open for this month:

April 2009 Modification of the Month nominations