This weekend I dragged home a few more battery modules to figure out the rear battery box layout and other issues.

Battery Wiring

The little one is starting to sleep more regularly, so I get about an hour or two everyday for other things, like the car!

Before the wee one arrived I did get some work done that I have not yet documented, so here it is!

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:

Today was a big day. First I tested the motor and transmission in the car for the first time.

I used a single EV-95 NiMH module to power the motor. Power was controlled using the arcy-sparky method of touching two pieces of metal together.

Since the previous update the following has happened:

I reassembled the drive line with new U-joint spiders and center support bearing.
Drive Line
I also managed to partially install it in the car. Some time between taking it appart and putting it together I seem to have misplaced some of the nylock nuts for the donut coupling. New nuts are on the way from McMaster.

While working on this conversion I've learned that every task takes at least twice as long as I would expect it to. Take the battery box for example. How hard could it be? Bend some metal, cut some fiberglass drill a few holes and screw it all together. I thought I'd finish it in a day and a half; well it took more like three days.

After attending Paul MacCreadys memorial on Saturday I set about mounting the controller and making a front battery box for the lemon.

New Radiator?