Fathers Day

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

It kind of reminds me of the lemon when I first bought it.

As soon as he came over we started working on the lemons brakes. As usual nothing went our way but eventually we got the brakes working with the help of one of Daniels friends who came over to ooh and aaw over my handiwork ;).

After putting a 12V battery in the car to power the accessories it was time for the big moment, the first un-tethered test drive. I've previously driven the car back and forth in my driveway, as far as the extension cord powering the DCDC converter would reach. With a 12V battery and working brakes I felt confident enough to take it for a longer spin!

The compressor like sound you hear when I first turn the key is the vacuum pump filling up the vacuum reservoir, or draining it as it may be.

After that, we have a failed start. For some reason the main contactor didn't latch on the first time I turned the key. I think I may have accidentally turned it off for a brief moment. You can hear the Curtis trying to move the car through the pre-charge resistor.

Now, we finally get moving. Daniel is filming standing in the back seat holding on for dear life. His friend is sitting where the passenger seat would normally be, I'm driving.

The car is currently powered by 7 12V modules that are mostly discharged so it's touch and go for a while on the far side of the tree. I was also being very light on the throttle.

You can clearly hear the loud high pitched squeal that the Curtis controller makes at low speed. When it comes out of this mode it seems to loose some power, which puts it back into squealing mode when heavily loaded, rinse and repeat. I suspect some more throttle and a fully charged battery pack will make that problem go away.

-Enjoy