Fathers Day was a good day for the lemon! My wife took the kiddo and headed off to the in-laws, leaving me alone to work on the car all day.
I invited Daniel Busby over to help. Daniel is another EV nutc... uhm, enthusiast, who's just starting out on his own conversion. Here's a picture of his intended victim, a 65 Triumph Spitfire.
65 Triumph Spitfire
Cutting Edge (get it?)
This is the wiring board for the controller. It takes care of pre-charge, main contactor driver, key switch and fault latching.
So my birthday came and went and there was no electric car test drive, or at least not a fully electric one. My Camry, affectionately know as the Peter beater, finally had the good sense to die. As you may have guessed by now, I'm a bit of a greenie so this was the last excuse I needed to go buy a Prius!!
It's Partially Electric!
The good news is that I've been making far more progress on the car than this website.
My goal is to take the car on a controlled test drive before my birthday, April 25th. Before I test drive it, there are a few things I absolutely need to get working. Brakes are obviously the most important part.
Rebuilt Rear Brake
This weekend I dragged home a few more battery modules to figure out the rear battery box layout and other issues.
Battery Wiring
I am very happy to introduce you to the ultimate killer of the electric car.
Ronja: 5 minutes old
My daughter was born two weeks ago and life will never be the same, spare time is suddenly very rare.
I went to the EVS23 show in Anaheim this weekend. It was very interesting; the turnout was very good according to people who have gone to previous EVS shows.
Here are some photos I snapped:
Sunset
The fires here in southern California have brought lots of misery but also absolutely gorgeous sunsets.
Progress on the car has not stopped however. I've installed a conduit under the car for running the high voltage cables through.
It is considered a big nono to run high voltage cables inside the passenger compartment for obvious safety reasons. Dangling them under the car unprotected is also not a good idea.
This is the story of my friend Anil and his two year long effort to convert a Solectria Force EV to NiMH batteries. Anil embodies the generous and giving spirit of the EV community. Rather than sell his priceless spare NiMH module for a significant sum of money (they do have a price on ebay) he donated them to a fellow budding EV'er, me! In return I've tried to help him as much as possible in constructing a cooling system for his rear battery box.
Press read more for Anil's own words:
