Preperations for First True Public Showing!

Saturday, April 25, 2009 was the date that The Great Vehicle Adventure Show (GVA) was held here in the Toronto Area, at the Toronto congress Centre, Dixon Road & Highway # 27, in the North Building, A friend of mine suggested I bring and show my Electric Car there. So, finally, on Thursday, 2 days before the show, I called the Organizer, and she was happy to have me add my EV to the list of different vehicles to present there!

So - since I am not sure of the condition of my batteries right now - I decided to tow it there behind my Dodge Dakota Truck with the AeroCap on it.
The Bumper Ball I had, unfortunately had a 1" Shank and I had to run out and buy one with a 3/4" Shank to fit my bumper point. Also - the height of the bumper was higher than the pickup point on the cars front - so the triangle tow bar was slanted way up, giving me a bit of a concern, as I understood that it should be level, to allow the most variation in movement while traveling over dips and hills, etc., but it actually worked out OK.

My Wife (Lily) & I towed the electricfly over to the Toronto Congress Centre (TCC) Thursday night, so after work friday, I just had to go over and bring it inside. We dropped it off in the south parking, where security could keep an eye on it.

A Touch of Spring Cleaning

Well, after a long period of Silence here, I felt it time to add some news!

The car has been parked for most of the winter - not just because of what it does to Lead Acit Batteries, but because the Landlord - while pushing snow in the parking lot - took off the front plate and holder! Just Caught it with the Blade on the Pickup, and ripped it right off - putting a bad 'Z' wringle into them both, plate and holder! I just got them straightened and reinstalled today. I had Danny at Pat's Automotive Service help me out with it, although as he was working on it - I realized I could probably have taken it to work and straightened it out there!

Oh Well - It only cost me $10 to get it fixed up reasonable, and re-mounted on the Front Bumber, but we had to mount it lower to get some grip for the screws, and I would likely need a new bumber to do it right, and get a new Plate - $97 for one Custom replacement!

I also decided to put a bit of charge into the pack, as it said 91% SOC on the Woodward Display when I started out today, and about 69% when I got back home. I think the Batteries are a bit tired, but still - I had them on the charger for 3 hours and 39 minutes before I checked up on them, and they only took 1.02 kWh, or 13.2 Cents worth of Electricity (Including: Electricity Taxes, Delivery & Ontario Hydro 'Debt Retirement Charge!')

Not so bad for a total of about 5.5 Km on the Trip meter, between the last drive and this one - that would be under 200 Watt Hours per Kilometer. Interesting - I was just reading an old post on the EEStor EESU (Electrical Energy Storage Unit), 52 kWh for under 340 lbs (I think it was 336 lbs), so that would be about 60 lbs less than my current pack, and enough energy to push it along for about 250 Km or better!

I have Been looking at the options of Lithium Choices in the mean time, with my general interest leaning towards ThunderSky TS-LFP160AHA Cells. 32 of them give me over a 100V Nominal at about 102.4V, sot 102V x 160Ah = about 16,000 Wh. Using 80% Depth of Discharge gives a usable energy of about 12.8 kWh. If my average power use is 5 Km per kWh - then I can get about 60 - 65 kms on such a pack. However - my basic calculation is about 135 - 140 Wh per Km - sot that would get me about 90+ Km range. That would be enough to cover just about all the local city driving needs, including some trips out to Pickering and Oshawa (might need a bit of a charge while there, but it would still be doable!)

Other thoughts go towards the A12326650M1 Cells, of Which I have already got 24, enough for a 4S6P Pack - or 13.2V x 13.8 Ah, in a really small pack, for a weight of only about 1.68 Kg for the cells + a bit for joining bars and whatever Cell Protection Cicuitry or BMS System might be added with it.

More Lately - I have started thinking more towards Tesla Motors Style of thinking - Lithium-Ion (Cobalt firecrackers) with critical BMS and Thermal management, due to the lighter total mass for a given available energy storage level. Using a Cell limit of 2C means I would need a minimum of about 120 Ah worth of storage for a safe load of 240 amps continuous, but such a pack would be quite a bit less than my current 400 lb lead-acid pack!

Example - the 3.7V 2600 mAh Samsung Li-Ion 18650 Battery: weighs just 46.5 gms or 1.64 oz per cell. Making a 130 Ah Pack at 103.6V would have a Cell weight of just 143.22 lbs, so even doubling that weight for BMS, Cell Protection Cicuits, and Thermal Management, is still just 286.44 lbs, or 113.56 Lbs Less than my current pack, but give a total energy of 13.47 kWh, with an 80% DOD still gives 10.77 kWh usable and about a 54 - 77 Km Range! (Some 2X - 5X my current range!)

If the BMS Complete & Thermal Management weighed in a 50% of the Pack's cell only weight, going to a 103.6V x 260 Ah Pack does 2 things - (1) ends up with an energy storage of 26.94 kWh total at a weight of just 30 lbs over my curent pack, but about 26 lbs less than the batteries that were in the car when I bought it! (2) Provides a minimum Range in excess of 100 Km (107), and a possible range in excess of 150 Km (153) at 140 Wh/Km! This is at an 80% DOD yielding just 21.55 kWh usable!

Also - the 260 Ah Pack allows higher current draws for more spectaular acceleration runs - easily allowing the controller to start over powering the motor with 260 Amps (at a battery 1C Load) or even up to 390 Amps (At a battery load of just 1.5C - within the 2C Limit)! this would be quite spectacular I am sure - as I have never drawn over 240 amps, but with Lead Acit - that gives up power because of the large Voltage Sag! At Highway driving - I used to draw about 185 Amps at about 100 Kmh, but my pack voltage sagged to about 75 Volts, so I was only getting about 13.8 kW out of the motor, but - that still gives about 138 Wh/Km!

Anyway - lots to think about while I go forward with this car, and most things get to be a bit expensive, even just adding the desired remaining instruments could cost from $400 to over $2000! Ranging from eMeter or Link-10, to the eVision from Metric Mind, or a complete custom SVGA 800 x 480 Video Display system, with custom screens.

Battery Self Discharge Monitoring

For the last couple weeks, I have had the car charged, and then parked it, monitoring the battery voltages by logging the current voltages after charging, (and making a note in my notebook log, as well as using the SD Card Data Logging function of the enhanced display), and then checking it and logging a few minutes every few days.

Today I moved the car back to the building for a while, to nake a parking spot avaialble while I was working on my aerocap project on the Dodge Dakota Pickup. The pack was showing 100% before moving, and dropped to 95% from the move, so it shows there is some power loss to self distribution over the last couple weeks, because the move was only about 50 feet.

Now that might just be the effect of Battery Number 2, which goes dead first on a driving run, or the cold weather, or both, or the actuall battery state of health. As of yet, State of Health (SOH) is something I don't have and hard monitoring on, just inference from the total or part pack State of Charge (SOC), and individual Battery Voltages at rest or under load, in comparison to the others.

Heater Contactor Relay - Step 1

Today I finally got back to the electricfly's heater relay mounting setup! I cleaned up the bump in the bottom of the box so that the Contator Relay could be mounted, and drilled in 4 holes for power wires. Have to drill in 2 more for the contactor solenoid power wires to operate the pull down / power on to heating element functions.


Also took a moment to see the fit of the box + contactor in it's intended postion, in the right front corner inside the fender, beside the custom charger, and as a support for the PakTrakr front remote.

Still not Started Wiring Heater in!

Been busy with my Dodge Aerocap project, and have been logging data on my batteries and doing other things - so - have not got back to the heater wiring install part of that project.

Between either being tired from work, or having crappy weather to work in, or working on the aerocap - I have not got back to it, but hope to get something done on it by the end of the weekend coming!

Battery #2 must be really sick, today - on the way home from the bank and shopping - the Woodward Display showed battery #2 dipped down below 9 Volts, then a feww seconds later - it went down to about 4.5 Volts!! (Pretty Sad for a 12V Battery) So - when I got home - I put the pack on the chargers right away, even though most of the pack was at 12.6 - 12.8 or 12.9 Volts in one case.

A Few Days back - I did get one of the new Equalizers installed - to switch the one I had in the rear, attached to the hold-down for Battery Number 6, and instead - put the Equalizer on the rear 4 battery hold down on the left side, so as to be able to shorten the wires, and still reach all the last 4 batteries. (Hoping this will improve it's efficency some!)

Still have not installed the third and (as planned) final BattEQ Equalizer, to cover the split btween battery #4 - #5. It has pre-run wires from the back to the front - so as to be able to pick up Battery #3 in the front, and then to Battery #4, #5, & #6 in the rear of the pack, with short wires. I plan to mount it also on the main rear battery hold-down bar, with a polycarbonate plastic plate, the same as the current rear-mounted BattEQ.