Electric Starion EV – Electric Car Conversion – Part 4

Most of the hard part of cabling through the sub-frame has now been done. The car’s been pretty well stripped to the bone but all this work should be worth it. While a lot of EV builders get their cabling to run under the car, protecting it in the sub-frame is my preferred option and this has been checked by the road-legal engineer and so far so good. Metal saddles are used to clamp the conduit flex where exposed, so nothing is loose. The main issue has been space in the engine bay, making sure the batteries sit comfortably under the hood and trying to fit the ancillary stuff. With the laser-cut mounting plate for the AC air-con and pwr steer driver motor etc, orientation had to be decided upon, and the battery placement largely dictated this, so its placement may appear odd at first, but will be very secure when completed. Battery balancing was also performed prior to installation and now we’re on the road to re-assembling everything, dash, final wiring etc. I bought some Electrolube DCA200H conformal silicon spray for the BMS PCBs but we’ll install and test everything first. Some BMS modules such as the TS-90 have all components protected in a resin block and maybe BEV who build the modules in Australia will integrate moisture protection in a future version. Nathan has done an excellent job welding up the supports for the ancillary drive components and the pulley part I supplied (which I happened upon by chance in my big box of junk in the shed) should do the job well …

Electric Starion – Electric Car Conversion – Part 6

After successfully testing the drivability, it’s back to the workshop to get stuff removed to paint the battery racks and sort the best place for the charger and finally add the tacho sender to the gearbox adaptor plate. The fuel port assembly is done now also; I cleaned up the inner rubber mount and gasket-sealed the hole with a rubber bung where the original fuel inlet was, and Nathan cut out the new hole for the power through to a new fascia plate where the 20A connector will be mounted. A shut-off switch is added which is essential when ‘filling up’; some folks use micro switches like the ones in arcade machines in their EV fuel ports but we’re using a brake switch which will be more durable and it’s long thread allows us to fine-adjust the profile of the switch so that it triggers properly when the fuel door is opened/closed. An annoying short had to be traced under the dash (oops, I forgot to ground a 5W resistor), and you’ll meet our little helpers at the end of the video. Cuuuute…

Electric Starion EV – Electric Car Conversion – Part 7

Getting seasonal obligations out of the way, this video should be near the last we’re doing as the car approaches completion. There’s a brakes and air-con/pwr steering test, Nathan talks about water boilers used to cool engine bays in cold climate countries that could be used for cabin heating in an EV, I talk a bit about IGBTs and Nathan does a tacho send test using an IGBT. Sooner or later there may be motor speed controllers custom designed for EVs that use IGBTs. These things have freewheeling diodes, and from my limited understanding that means they’re there to stop reverse current voltage spikes across the inductive load. When the current flow to an inductor is suddenly interrupted, the inductor attempts to maintain the current by reversing polarity and ramping up the voltage to maintain the flyback. Without the diode the voltage can go high enough to damage the IGBT. The diode allows the reverse current to flow through it and dissipate. IGBTs could be cool things to use for ‘electric boost’ -just like a turbo boost. From the video you can also see the BMS installed – these will be sprayed with conformal coating for protection. Most of the scenes in all the videos have been shot on a Nokia N93 which has been very handy. Thanks to Nathan, Linda and Christina for the filming. And sorry about the seasonal sillyness.

Electric Starion EV – Electric Car Conversion – Part 3

Welcome to the third installment. It’s taken a bit of preparation time, which is essential rather than diving in to find something we’ve done is not quite right – both Nathan and I have been guilty in the past of making stuff only to discover a better way of doing it. But parts availability has been the biggest issue; delivery time has been long delayed for many reasons too complicated to discuss here. In this video we re-assess engine bay mounting; most of the battery racks are welded up now and the battery management has arrived (except the master unit, d’oh!). We discuss battery management, the most efficient use of space in the engine bay, as well as the AC motor we received that will drive the air-con/power steering. (btw, the AC motor and BMS come from www.bev.com.au where they are custom-made). Also an older previously unused segment stripped in about removing weight, as this is crucial in gaining mileage. Oh, and a mention of power cabling which we will try to get through some of the sub-frame rather than running under the vehicle or lumping under the carpet (as the power cable sits inside a plastic flex conduit roughly an inch diameter), so long as it’s legal which we’ll check with someone who knows (guessing it’s something like 600mm distance between u-clamp affixing). The Zivan will sit in trunk/hatch area to the left near the charging ‘fuel’ port; not sure about tire placement yet, but it looks like we’ll keep our back seat which is good thing (and did you …

Electric Starion – Electric Car Conversion – Part 2

It’s been a long wait, but the Thundersky lithium 144v 160Ah batteries finally arrived! Now we have to set about determining the best configuration for the batteries in the engine bay and rear tank. A bit annoying the BMS modules haven’t arrived yet as a confirmation measurement of the height of these would help in determining the battery rack height dimension. We could arrange the engine bay battery racks as a typical square-finish configuration, or perhaps angled around the motor for a cool effect, and then as Nathan suggests place plastic clear Perspex sheets over the top for a neat finish, and tinted perspex surrounding the Curtis terminals too perhaps – we want a neat engine bay! Nathan mentioned someone who had Thunderskies mounted on their edges (sides) but the efficiency was greatly deteriorated and batteries leaked! I don’t know if those were the LiCoO2 (we’re using LiFePO4), either way we’ll install close to vertical anyway and a crude animation is included to show possible mounting. Another ‘fun’ part in this video was removing the dash so we could access the ventilation system box and put in the heater core (I know, could have gone with a water micro boiler unit but budget is getting tight; maybe later); biggish job but not too hard for two people working on it (Stephanie did it once, alone, and it was a pig of a job she said). I’ll help Nathan get it back together later as he moves on to the charging setup and we’ll the need the BMS master unit as well (which …