EV Digest 5478
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) TdS Report #34: Photos - rEVolutionride
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2) TdS Report #33: Team Profile: rEVolutionride
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) Re: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
4) Re: Vacuum courtesy of the mercedes-diesel list.
by James Massey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Re: Contactor for 192 V and Zilla, Cableform A1200 questions
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
6) Re: DC-DC converters
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
7) Re: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
by john bart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8) RE: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
by "Don Cameron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9) Re: When it rains build rainbows
by "Ryan Stotts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10) Re: Comparison
by Ralph Merwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11) Re: Orbital 34DC-36 and 34DC-48, differences and where to buy?
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
12) Re: Allan Lichtman for senate Maryland (looking for EV community attention)
by Neon John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13) Re: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
14) Re: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
15) TdS Report #35: Photos - Green Grand Prix June 2, 2006
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
16) Re: [irrelevant senate Maryland] looking for EV community
attention
by James Massey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17) Re: Help with Lawn Mower Conversion
by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Brad Baylor)
18) TdS Report #36: Team Profile: Viking32
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
19) TdS Report #37: Photos - Viking32
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
20) Re: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
by Ralph Merwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21) Re: Vacuum courtesy of the mercedes-diesel list.
by Danny Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--- Begin Message ---
TdS Report #34: Photos - rEVolutionride
Photographs from the Tour de Sol:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006/photos_015.html
rEVolutionride
When electricity is 30 cents a kiloWatt-hour and gasoline even more expensive
on your island, what do you do?
You run your van on sunlight!
Notice the small solar panel on the roof.
The bulk of the solar recharging current comes from the 5.2 kiloWatt panel on
the school's roof.
Putting the batteries under the bench seats makes lots of sense.
The weight is closer to the center of gravity of the vehicle,
and yet getting to and working on the batteries is simple.
Here is the extra battery box, with its two extra batteries and a secret
feminine touch.
This too is easy to get at.
The co-conspirators.
- - - -
The complete set of Tour de Sol Reports for 2006 can be found at:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006
The complete set of past Tour de Sol Reports can be found at:
http://www.FovealSystems.com/Tour_de_Sol_Reports.html
- - - -
The above is Copyright 2006 by Michael H. Bianchi.
Permission to copy is granted provided the entire article is presented
without modification and this notice remains attached.
For other arrangements, contact me at +1-973-822-2085 .
- - - -
For more on the NESEA Tour de Sol, see the web page at
http://www.TourdeSol.org
- - - -
Official NESEA Tour de Sol information is available from the sponsor,
the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) at
413 774-6051 , and 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 , and
[EMAIL PROTECTED] . All media enquiries should be addressed to ...
Stef Komorowski
Classic Communications
508-698-6810
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
TdS Report #33: Team Profile: rEVolutionride
This Volkswagen Vanagon Syncro was turned into a battery-electric van in 2002
by the students on North Haven Island off the coast of Maine. It has been in
daily service since then, meeting the boat and driving around the island.
I asked Natalie Jones, Ben Lovell and Ian Hopkins what has been done to it
recently.
"We made it a completely green vehicle. It now charges off the solar panels on
the roof of our school, North Haven Community School. The PV array on the
school is 5.2 kiloWatts, which is enough to completely recharge this vehicle.
When not recharging the van, the power is fed into the electric grid under a
net-metering arrangement. If the power goes out on the island, the PV array
can run through the emergency panel to keep the telephones, computer server,
and some other things."
The cost of electricity on the island is 30 cents per kiloWatt-hour.
"The put in a new cable under the ocean from the mainland. They buried it this
time. The old cables were just laying on the bottom and would get damaged.
That should improve reliability. They also added a fiber optic cable to bring
cable TV to the island."
"Last year we installed new batteries. Plus we added two additional batteries,
upping the voltage to 120 Volts."
They also make their own biodiesel fuel. "We have a generator that we have
been running off biodiesel. We are in the process of converting it to run WVO
(Waste Vegetable Oil). We brought our own biodiesel generator with us to the
Tour and all our tools have been running off of that."
Natalie and her friend Amelia Campbell were the ones responsible for putting in
an extra two batteries into the van. "We wanted to change from 108 Volts to
120 Volts, for more power during the Tour for more range, and it really helped
on the hill climb. On island we only need 108 Volts to get around. So we
installed two more 6 Volt batteries and connected it to the main battery system
that is under the bench seats. So we made the extra battery box, epoxied it,
painted it, and over the past week we added all the extra wiring.
"We also put the sparkles on. Amelia and I are the only girls on the team
right now, and we like sparkles, but the guys didn't really like that. So they
agreed that we could put sparkles inside the box but had to leave the outside
black. When they take the batteries out next time ..."
- - - -
The complete set of Tour de Sol Reports for 2006 can be found at:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006
The complete set of past Tour de Sol Reports can be found at:
http://www.FovealSystems.com/Tour_de_Sol_Reports.html
- - - -
The above is Copyright 2006 by Michael H. Bianchi.
Permission to copy is granted provided the entire article is presented
without modification and this notice remains attached.
For other arrangements, contact me at +1-973-822-2085 .
- - - -
For more on the NESEA Tour de Sol, see the web page at
http://www.TourdeSol.org
- - - -
Official NESEA Tour de Sol information is available from the sponsor,
the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) at
413 774-6051 , and 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 , and
[EMAIL PROTECTED] . All media enquiries should be addressed to ...
Stef Komorowski
Classic Communications
508-698-6810
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Thanks everyone for the feedback! :)
The KR-4400D sags to about a volt at 62 amps and capacity drops in
half. You wouldn't want to pull that amount for more than a few
seconds because of heating. I am also considering the high-rate
N-4000DRL, that despite the higher cost might be a better choice, as
capacity decreases much less and less heating occurs at high rate
discharge (calculator says 89 A at 1 V, 196 A at .7). And life is
exponentially inversely proportional to heat. Both are much stiffer
than Safts and per weight the fast rate cells are about the same max
power as Orbitals.
Yeah about parallel strings... I have the same concerns about load
sharing, which could limit the total max current and overly stress the
strong strings, but it may not be an issue for this application.
Single cells in parallel I could see having major load sharing issues,
but much with higher voltage strings before paralleling occurs, with
fairly linear resistors (interconnects and cabling) in series on each
string, and overkill cooling keeping all the cells about the same
temperature, I would think they should share roughly equally. And
there's enough cells in series that high and low cells should roughly
balance out. Worst case I can tweak by using resistors or more diodes
in series with the strong strings. Or even add/remove cells, varying
the total number in each string, but that might cause other issues.. I
think this is only a potential issue at high rate discharge, and the
load should tend to balance during the low rate periods (which is most
of the time during discharge). I can't find anything to prove this, so
I guess I'll be the test case. :)
Risk management. Well I don't have a garage, so the car get's charged
outside away from the house. The strings will be individually fused
and I'll have a thermal cutoff (possibly a smoke detector cut off too
:), but if there's a wreck sufficient to short a bunch of cells, I'll
try to contain the damage with a fire extinguisher and run if
necessary...
Safts looked pretty interesting, even with the watering hassles, until
I saw several posts that said 250 A is the max for long life. And also
was pointed out by someone familiar with their use in European
electrics, that 1500 cycles life was typical at 80% DOD, not the 3000
claimed by Saft. Either way that's better than Sanyos at 80% DOD, but
a moot point because of the 250 A limit.
There's nothing wrong with slow charging using a series resistor
dropping a higher voltage, forming a quasi-constant current source.
I've done it for many years with no issues. It's on page 35 of Sanyo's
nicad technical manual. Mike- I think I must have misused the term
Badboy. I'm not fast charging, just Badboy in the sense that there's
no transformer. Apologies for the confustion.
My labor and dollar figures reflect my inexperience with most of the
aspects of lead-acid, modifying the car to handle weight, finding the
necessary components, buying ones that don't fit and trying again,
welding equipment and learning to weld, paying an electrician to
install a circuit (I'm not one and my insurance company would agree),
etc.. I'll be over the max weight on the plate with lead-acid with no
one in the car (this is the heavier Jetta GL model), and I still want
decent braking and handling. So yeah upgrades are necessary.
Deka's own manual has strict max voltage/temp guidelines for charging.
Deviate from those and you'll get less life (even less than the
already crappy life if you do it perfect). I admit, I'm biased against
lead-acid. I've had nothing but bad experience with them over the
years, never getting close to a reasonable amount of cycles. Yeah I've
never tried them with an electric car before, but every time I look at
the charts and graphs and read other's experiences of various
lead-acid batteries, the word "sucks" is constantly running through my
mind. :)
Nicads other hand are very familiar to me and I shouldn't need as many
tools, and will require mostly patience dealing with. Now that I
think about it, my original estimate of 2 minutes per cell is probably
not realistic. Maybe 5 minutes per cell for 200 hours cell assembly
time? Considering my inexperience with lead-acid and all the
associated stuff, seems the way to go (for me). Plus I've never worn
out a Sanyo under normal use, which a car's typical loads will be
(yeah, I've killed them in RC before, but 40C discharges and cells too
hot to touch and will do that).
How do you find a bad cell? First isolate the string by noting a
change in output over time on the string voltage/current/AH monitor.
After running a bit to put a load on the cells, pull the string and
feel each cell. The warmest one is likely your bad cell. To confirm,
put the string under load and compare the voltage of the warm one to
the cool ones. I used that method for years on the RC planes with good
success. The loads a car will put on these cells is nothing compared
to the abuse a RC app inflicts, and I really don't expect to see many
failures.
It'll take me months before I'm ready for the battery and charger part
of this project, and I'm out of money, so I have a while to think
about all this.
Brad Baylor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
At 02:36 PM 13/05/06 -0700, you wrote:
Might this idea work for EV's? LR........
old dead refrigerators
G'day Lawrence
As long as you have a big enough vacuum tank to hold enough vacuum to
provide full braking during your driving pattern, it does not matter how
small your vacuum pump is as long as it can keep enough vacuum in the tank
at all times.
To use a small 'fridge' compressor you will need an inverter at least 5x
the nominal wattage to run it. [I had the opportunity to evaluate one a
couple of years ago for a RE system, the unit was a small 'fridge', 60W
nominal, we looked at 'hacking' the wiring to run the thermostat to the
control switch of the inverter. A 250W inverter struggled to start it -
about one in ten starts it failed. A 350W inverter seemed to go OK, but the
cost to do the modification became unviable at this point - they just let
the big inverter "fire up" on each fridge start or door opening (the inside
light)].
In addition, you will need to remember to oil the pump intake, which is
attached to the vacuum reservoir, so is not so easy to do, and the pump
outlet will be spraying that oil out somewhere and making a mess. This
holds for any vacuum pump requiring lubrication to work - pumps off diesel
ICEs are another example.
So the answer is yes, you could use a 'frige' pump to provide brake vacuum
for an EV, but is it worth the hassle?
My take is that it is another on the list of "yes it can be made to work
for an EV, but how practical is it?"
There are lots of other alternatives for brake vacuum, that with a little
care, thought, or [my favorite method] skilled "scrounging" can be used to
a better result.
My pump for my EV-in-progress is a Thomas vacuum pump for refrigerant
recovery - although it is rated 120VAC, it has a permanent magnet brush
motor, so is for DC and must have had a rectifier in its' original
application. Cost me $70Aus (about $50US) surplus, unused old stock.
Regards
[Technik] James
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I got the quote back. $424.48 plus shipping. Not bad if it lasts the
life of the car and cheaper then 4 Albrights in series/parallel. Takes
up less space too. :)
Brad Baylor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
One not mentioned is the Meanwell/Astrodyne power supplies that Jameco
carries for a reasonable price. I just bought the PSP-500-15 and it is
a brute of a convertor. 33 A, nice steel case, good interconnects,
13.5 to 18 V variable pot adjusted output, remote voltage sense,
remote turn on, power factor corrected (AC apps), and tests good on my
bench. I bought it to test for my multicharger idea (thinking about
buying 25 at ~ $130 each). Keep in mind it is designed for 90 to 240
VAC, 127 to 370 VDC, and is derated below 180VAC or 254 VDC to as low
as 70% of max (I don't have a (working) variac and didn't test low
cutoff). Since I've currently flopped to a nicad idea, the
multicharger may not happen, but since this one is designed to be
gangable (up to 4), 4 together would make an awesome 1400 to 2000 watt
DC-DC for about $650 including shipping. Beat that!
http://jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&productId=202121&pa=202121PS
http://jameco.com/wcsstore/Jameco/Products/ProdDS/202121.pdf
Brad Baylor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I'm not sure why you are even bothering with these cells, their very old
technology for batteries. Why not go with the ib4200 cells, their cheaper,
lighter, smaller, and have a lower resistance per cell.
According to sanyo's spec sheet on the KR-4400D cells they have a resistance of
3.8 and weigh 145 grams per cell. From Tower Hobbies the cost of this cell is
8.99 per cell, there may be somewhere cheaper that i dont know of however.
The ib4200 from http://www.battlepack.com/loosecells.asp lists the price as
4.85 and weighs 66 grams per cell and have a resistance ranging from 2-5, i've
typically seen them labeled in the 2 range however from various other sites
http://www.e-seiki.co.jp/dyna/image/IB4200-d.pdf.
>From this it looks as though you may be able to save yourself some money and
>weight on the packs, along with the size of the packs. Charging will still be
>somewhat of an issue with this many cells in use.
Brad Baylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Thanks everyone for the feedback! :)
The KR-4400D sags to about a volt at 62 amps and capacity drops in
half. You wouldn't want to pull that amount for more than a few
seconds because of heating. I am also considering the high-rate
N-4000DRL, that despite the higher cost might be a better choice, as
capacity decreases much less and less heating occurs at high rate
discharge (calculator says 89 A at 1 V, 196 A at .7). And life is
exponentially inversely proportional to heat. Both are much stiffer
than Safts and per weight the fast rate cells are about the same max
power as Orbitals.
Yeah about parallel strings... I have the same concerns about load
sharing, which could limit the total max current and overly stress the
strong strings, but it may not be an issue for this application.
Single cells in parallel I could see having major load sharing issues,
but much with higher voltage strings before paralleling occurs, with
fairly linear resistors (interconnects and cabling) in series on each
string, and overkill cooling keeping all the cells about the same
temperature, I would think they should share roughly equally. And
there's enough cells in series that high and low cells should roughly
balance out. Worst case I can tweak by using resistors or more diodes
in series with the strong strings. Or even add/remove cells, varying
the total number in each string, but that might cause other issues.. I
think this is only a potential issue at high rate discharge, and the
load should tend to balance during the low rate periods (which is most
of the time during discharge). I can't find anything to prove this, so
I guess I'll be the test case. :)
Risk management. Well I don't have a garage, so the car get's charged
outside away from the house. The strings will be individually fused
and I'll have a thermal cutoff (possibly a smoke detector cut off too
:), but if there's a wreck sufficient to short a bunch of cells, I'll
try to contain the damage with a fire extinguisher and run if
necessary...
Safts looked pretty interesting, even with the watering hassles, until
I saw several posts that said 250 A is the max for long life. And also
was pointed out by someone familiar with their use in European
electrics, that 1500 cycles life was typical at 80% DOD, not the 3000
claimed by Saft. Either way that's better than Sanyos at 80% DOD, but
a moot point because of the 250 A limit.
There's nothing wrong with slow charging using a series resistor
dropping a higher voltage, forming a quasi-constant current source.
I've done it for many years with no issues. It's on page 35 of Sanyo's
nicad technical manual. Mike- I think I must have misused the term
Badboy. I'm not fast charging, just Badboy in the sense that there's
no transformer. Apologies for the confustion.
My labor and dollar figures reflect my inexperience with most of the
aspects of lead-acid, modifying the car to handle weight, finding the
necessary components, buying ones that don't fit and trying again,
welding equipment and learning to weld, paying an electrician to
install a circuit (I'm not one and my insurance company would agree),
etc.. I'll be over the max weight on the plate with lead-acid with no
one in the car (this is the heavier Jetta GL model), and I still want
decent braking and handling. So yeah upgrades are necessary.
Deka's own manual has strict max voltage/temp guidelines for charging.
Deviate from those and you'll get less life (even less than the
already crappy life if you do it perfect). I admit, I'm biased against
lead-acid. I've had nothing but bad experience with them over the
years, never getting close to a reasonable amount of cycles. Yeah I've
never tried them with an electric car before, but every time I look at
the charts and graphs and read other's experiences of various
lead-acid batteries, the word "sucks" is constantly running through my
mind. :)
Nicads other hand are very familiar to me and I shouldn't need as many
tools, and will require mostly patience dealing with. Now that I
think about it, my original estimate of 2 minutes per cell is probably
not realistic. Maybe 5 minutes per cell for 200 hours cell assembly
time? Considering my inexperience with lead-acid and all the
associated stuff, seems the way to go (for me). Plus I've never worn
out a Sanyo under normal use, which a car's typical loads will be
(yeah, I've killed them in RC before, but 40C discharges and cells too
hot to touch and will do that).
How do you find a bad cell? First isolate the string by noting a
change in output over time on the string voltage/current/AH monitor.
After running a bit to put a load on the cells, pull the string and
feel each cell. The warmest one is likely your bad cell. To confirm,
put the string under load and compare the voltage of the warm one to
the cool ones. I used that method for years on the RC planes with good
success. The loads a car will put on these cells is nothing compared
to the abuse a RC app inflicts, and I really don't expect to see many
failures.
It'll take me months before I'm ready for the battery and charger part
of this project, and I'm out of money, so I have a while to think
about all this.
Brad Baylor
---------------------------------
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates
starting at 1¢/min.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Brad, I am looking forward to you progress with this type of pack - it will
be a first of this size for the list! I hope you will be sharing you
experiences on a web site.
Don
Don Cameron, Victoria, BC, Canada
see the New Beetle EV project www.cameronsoftware.com/ev
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Brad Baylor
Sent: May 13, 2006 3:28 PM
To: ev@listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: Deka AGM vs. Sanyo D nicad
Thanks everyone for the feedback! :)
The KR-4400D sags to about a volt at 62 amps and capacity drops in half. You
wouldn't want to pull that amount for more than a few seconds because of
heating. I am also considering the high-rate N-4000DRL, that despite the
higher cost might be a better choice, as capacity decreases much less and
less heating occurs at high rate discharge (calculator says 89 A at 1 V, 196
A at .7). And life is exponentially inversely proportional to heat. Both are
much stiffer than Safts and per weight the fast rate cells are about the
same max power as Orbitals.
Yeah about parallel strings... I have the same concerns about load sharing,
which could limit the total max current and overly stress the strong
strings, but it may not be an issue for this application.
Single cells in parallel I could see having major load sharing issues, but
much with higher voltage strings before paralleling occurs, with fairly
linear resistors (interconnects and cabling) in series on each string, and
overkill cooling keeping all the cells about the same temperature, I would
think they should share roughly equally. And there's enough cells in series
that high and low cells should roughly balance out. Worst case I can tweak
by using resistors or more diodes in series with the strong strings. Or even
add/remove cells, varying the total number in each string, but that might
cause other issues.. I think this is only a potential issue at high rate
discharge, and the load should tend to balance during the low rate periods
(which is most of the time during discharge). I can't find anything to prove
this, so I guess I'll be the test case. :)
Risk management. Well I don't have a garage, so the car get's charged
outside away from the house. The strings will be individually fused and I'll
have a thermal cutoff (possibly a smoke detector cut off too :), but if
there's a wreck sufficient to short a bunch of cells, I'll try to contain
the damage with a fire extinguisher and run if necessary...
Safts looked pretty interesting, even with the watering hassles, until I saw
several posts that said 250 A is the max for long life. And also was pointed
out by someone familiar with their use in European electrics, that 1500
cycles life was typical at 80% DOD, not the 3000 claimed by Saft. Either way
that's better than Sanyos at 80% DOD, but a moot point because of the 250 A
limit.
There's nothing wrong with slow charging using a series resistor dropping a
higher voltage, forming a quasi-constant current source.
I've done it for many years with no issues. It's on page 35 of Sanyo's nicad
technical manual. Mike- I think I must have misused the term Badboy. I'm not
fast charging, just Badboy in the sense that there's no transformer.
Apologies for the confustion.
My labor and dollar figures reflect my inexperience with most of the aspects
of lead-acid, modifying the car to handle weight, finding the necessary
components, buying ones that don't fit and trying again, welding equipment
and learning to weld, paying an electrician to install a circuit (I'm not
one and my insurance company would agree), etc.. I'll be over the max weight
on the plate with lead-acid with no one in the car (this is the heavier
Jetta GL model), and I still want decent braking and handling. So yeah
upgrades are necessary.
Deka's own manual has strict max voltage/temp guidelines for charging.
Deviate from those and you'll get less life (even less than the already
crappy life if you do it perfect). I admit, I'm biased against lead-acid.
I've had nothing but bad experience with them over the years, never getting
close to a reasonable amount of cycles. Yeah I've never tried them with an
electric car before, but every time I look at the charts and graphs and read
other's experiences of various lead-acid batteries, the word "sucks" is
constantly running through my mind. :)
Nicads other hand are very familiar to me and I shouldn't need as many
tools, and will require mostly patience dealing with. Now that I think about
it, my original estimate of 2 minutes per cell is probably not realistic.
Maybe 5 minutes per cell for 200 hours cell assembly time? Considering my
inexperience with lead-acid and all the associated stuff, seems the way to
go (for me). Plus I've never worn out a Sanyo under normal use, which a
car's typical loads will be (yeah, I've killed them in RC before, but 40C
discharges and cells too hot to touch and will do that).
How do you find a bad cell? First isolate the string by noting a change in
output over time on the string voltage/current/AH monitor.
After running a bit to put a load on the cells, pull the string and feel
each cell. The warmest one is likely your bad cell. To confirm, put the
string under load and compare the voltage of the warm one to the cool ones.
I used that method for years on the RC planes with good success. The loads a
car will put on these cells is nothing compared to the abuse a RC app
inflicts, and I really don't expect to see many failures.
It'll take me months before I'm ready for the battery and charger part of
this project, and I'm out of money, so I have a while to think about all
this.
Brad Baylor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Roderick Wilde wrote:
They are in the process of figuring out where to go race.
If a particular track is normally closed on Sunday's, pool money
together and rent the track for the day..(or take Monday off and rent
a track then..).
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I've found that when people ask about cost, they pretty much want to know
how much it costs to recharge the car vs how much it would cost to refill
it with gas. When I tell them that I drive about 35 miles a day (or about
750 miles a month) and that the electricity costs about $15 per month,
their eyes pop out of their head...
Ralph
David McWethy writes:
>
> I find when I am talking with people, they look at the wrong things when
> comparing. I figured this out from my own use. I do all 1 mile round trips
> in a conversion. They want to know range and how it compares with gas cost.
> Range doesn't matter, because 2 mile trips are not a challenge. Comparison
> of gas cost is not the issue of cost. The real cost in my case is wear and
> tear on an ICE engine. I have gone 900 miles since November, which means
> almost 900 times I didn't start my ICE and run one mile, never warming it
> up. What proportion of a car's life is in 900 cold starts/cold runs? That
> is the real cost issue. Because of that, the EV is a terrific economic
> success for me.
>
> Dave
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
For the record, I never heard back from King Solar. I called them back
and the operator said the sales dept was out and would call back.
Brad Baylor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Fri, 12 May 2006 16:03:14 -0400, "Marc Breitman"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Dear EV Community,
>
>I write to you as an 18 year old student, EV builder and enthusiast; but
>also, as a supporter of Allan Lichtman for US Senate (MARYLAND). I will
>skip to the point to keep this brief (well, sorta). Upon my own ambitions, I
>am looking for a way to show Allan's support for every fuel *except* fossil
>fuels.
Ain't these little human puppies cute? So serious. So sincere. So
silly.
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
Don't let your schooling interfere with your education-Mark Twain
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On Sat, 13 May 2006 17:12:27 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
>I'm not sure why you are even bothering with these cells, their very old
>technology for batteries. Why not go with the ib4200 cells, their cheaper,
>lighter, smaller, and have a lower resistance per cell.
>
>According to sanyo's spec sheet on the KR-4400D cells they have a resistance
>of 3.8 and weigh 145 grams per cell. From Tower Hobbies the cost of this cell
>is 8.99 per cell, there may be somewhere cheaper that i dont know of however.
>
>The ib4200 from http://www.battlepack.com/loosecells.asp lists the price as
>4.85 and weighs 66 grams per cell and have a resistance ranging from 2-5, i've
>typically seen them labeled in the 2 range however from various other sites
>http://www.e-seiki.co.jp/dyna/image/IB4200-d.pdf.
>
>>From this it looks as though you may be able to save yourself some money and
>>weight on the packs, along with the size of the packs. Charging will still
>>be somewhat of an issue with this many cells in use.
The goal of the project is to have a quick capable car and lower cost
per mile and PIA factor than AGMs. These NiMH cells look interesting
and awesome for RC use, but that data sheet doesn't have anything
about cycle life at various DODs. And so far my searching has found
that in real world use, NiMH tends to have a life about half that of
Nicad. I tried looking around Seiki's site but the non-english thing
make it a little difficult. Are they the manufacture? :)
Yeah the Sanyos are ancient, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I
very much believe the 2100 to 3700 cycles at 40% DOD ratings and while
I haven't found calendar life data, I still have Sanyos from the late
80s that are going strong. That they use these for power in satellites
says lots to me. I chuckle when I think that with all the years since
I first used Sanyos nicads, that I should come back to them for a
project like this.
Tower's prices are very high for the KR-4400D. I've found them as low
as $5 in singles.
I appreciate your comments and links though! :)
Brad Baylor
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On Sat, 13 May 2006 17:13:27 -0700, you wrote:
>Brad, I am looking forward to you progress with this type of pack - it will
>be a first of this size for the list! I hope you will be sharing you
>experiences on a web site.
>
>Don
Yup it'll be on a web page, the good the bad the ugly! I'll post a
link in a few weeks.
Brad Baylor
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TdS Report #35: Photos - Green Grand Prix June 2, 2006
Photographs from the Tour de Sol:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006/photos_016.html
Green Grand Prix June 2, 2006
This is not part of the Tour de Sol, but is co-sponsored by NESEA.
The photo of the poster tells the story, and the details are at
http://glenspeed.com/2006_greengrandprix.html
The Second Annual Green Grand Prix will be held in Watkins Glen, NY on June 2,
2006. The Green Grand Prix features a road rally of Hybrid and Alternative
Fueled Vehicles (AFV) held on an 84-mile course following the perimeter of
beautiful Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The road
rally will bring together Hybrid and AFV owners for a fun and exciting
educational event emphasizing fuel economy. By holding The Green Grand Prix
rally the same weekend as the Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix; we hope to increase
public awareness of environmentally friendly vehicles and to offer another
activity for visitors coming to the area for the race.
- - - -
The complete set of Tour de Sol Reports for 2006 can be found at:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006
The complete set of past Tour de Sol Reports can be found at:
http://www.FovealSystems.com/Tour_de_Sol_Reports.html
- - - -
The above is Copyright 2006 by Michael H. Bianchi.
Permission to copy is granted provided the entire article is presented
without modification and this notice remains attached.
For other arrangements, contact me at +1-973-822-2085 .
- - - -
For more on the NESEA Tour de Sol, see the web page at
http://www.TourdeSol.org
- - - -
Official NESEA Tour de Sol information is available from the sponsor,
the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) at
413 774-6051 , and 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 , and
[EMAIL PROTECTED] . All media enquiries should be addressed to ...
Stef Komorowski
Classic Communications
508-698-6810
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
G'day all
"Marc Breitman" wrote:
Dear EV Community,
I write to you as an 18 year old student, EV builder and enthusiast;
Marc, tell us about your EV? What are you building and how is it going?
Those things are what this list is about, out of 1000 or so listees from
around the world, maybe 1 might be slightly interested in politics in
maryland where maybe 3 listees may live.
So tell us about your EV!
Regards
James - in Australia
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The Briggs and Stratton Etek is ideal for this. It's 48 V, 6 HP cont,
15 HP max, about 90% efficient, and because it's permanent magnet,
self regulates to about 3300 RPM. The same speed as a lawnmower gas
engine. It looks like that was their intended market when they
designed it. Unfortunately a month or two ago I read here that they
discontinued it and that day ordered one for my own conversion. There
may still be a few places that have it.
I'd like to get 45 minutes mowing time, and from reading here, the
Etek will need about 60 to 70 A average with 150 A peaks. 4 Deka 9A31s
would do it, but additional weight up front would be about 200 lbs,
which might be a bit much. Plus I think they're too big for the
available space. 4 34DC-36 Orbitals could do it if I do a charge
session in between. I've entertained the thought of 880 Sanyo D
nicads, but the payback would never happen, using it only 30 or so
times a year.
BB600s would be ideal and you should use those. If I could get those,
I'd use 80 in two 40 cell strings, hooked in parallel. Charge
separately, and hook together for discharge (use diodes to isolate for
safety).
You need to limit the startup current on the motor, so perhaps a
resistor briefly switched into the circuit would work. You could also
rig a switch to apply partial power to the motor from say half the
batteries (briefly only or else you'll unbalance the pack). Or if
you're handy with electronics, fashion a PWM controller.
There are a few other pancake motors like the Etek, one is made by
Perm Motor, the PMG 132, but the speed-torque curves aren't quite
drop-in for 48 V like the Etek. It would work great on 72 V though,
and with a single string of BB600s should give decent runtime.
Brad Baylor
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TdS Report #36: Team Profile: Viking32
Western Washington University has a long standing Vehicle Research Institute
that keeps cranking out interesting takes on the concept of "vehicle". And
even when we have seen a vehicle like Viking32 before, it keeps becoming
something new. It returns as a biomethane vehicle. I spoke with Calvin Liu
and Sean Aylward.
Why biomethane? Natural gas, the fossil fuel, is methane (CH4), so they are
taking methane created by biological processes and using it to fuel the car.
"Our biomethane is about 85% of the energy content of natural gas. This gives
us a little bit less power and range, but not that noticeable an amount."
The team brought canisters of fuel with them, created at WWU using diary farm
manure. "They have an anaerobic digester at the farm, and collect the gas for
us. We then filter the gas, taking out hydrogen sulfide and CO2, to purify it
to just biomethane. Ideally, it would be 100% biomethane, but "we didn't have
the time to pump it up to 3600 pounds per square inch (psi) at the rate were
able to filter it and with the type of pump we have. With a better pump and
more time we could get up to 3600 psi and have 90% biomethane." Because they
couldn't, they brought fuel that is 50% biomethane and 50% Compressed Natural
Gas (CNG).
"Normally the methane would just be vented to the atmosphere. Instead we use
it in the car." The resulting exhaust is mostly CO2. This also helps with the
problem of manure runoff.
What's new with the car? "We have doubled the power in the battery pack. It
was originally designed for that, and now we have finally found a way to put
them in. We now have 5.3 kiloWatt-hours on board. We hope to see 70 miles of
electric range. The methane tank is 770 standard cubic feet. With the tank
and electrics together should be around 250 to 300 miles."
Last year they had problems that shut them down. "We had a Honda Continuously
Variable Transmission (CVT) that had problems with the clutch. We thought we
had figured it out but it took us a while to really understand it." Dealers
don't repair CVTs; they ship them to Honda. "We couldn't get any help from
them."
- - - -
The complete set of Tour de Sol Reports for 2006 can be found at:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006
The complete set of past Tour de Sol Reports can be found at:
http://www.FovealSystems.com/Tour_de_Sol_Reports.html
- - - -
The above is Copyright 2006 by Michael H. Bianchi.
Permission to copy is granted provided the entire article is presented
without modification and this notice remains attached.
For other arrangements, contact me at +1-973-822-2085 .
- - - -
For more on the NESEA Tour de Sol, see the web page at
http://www.TourdeSol.org
- - - -
Official NESEA Tour de Sol information is available from the sponsor,
the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) at
413 774-6051 , and 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 , and
[EMAIL PROTECTED] . All media enquiries should be addressed to ...
Stef Komorowski
Classic Communications
508-698-6810
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
TdS Report #37: Photos - Viking32
Photographs from the Tour de Sol:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006/photos_017.html
Viking32
Another in the long line of Viking research vehicles from Western Washington
University.
Starting up the hill climb.
Explaining the biomethane filtering process to the press.
The fuel tank and engine are seen in the rear. The engine drives the rear
wheels.
The electric drive is on the front wheels.
The parallel lines are the tops of hexagonal carbon fiber tubing that is part
of the crash energy absorbing system in the front of the car.
Note that the door is hinged at the rear.
- - - -
The complete set of Tour de Sol Reports for 2006 can be found at:
http://www.AutoAuditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006
The complete set of past Tour de Sol Reports can be found at:
http://www.FovealSystems.com/Tour_de_Sol_Reports.html
- - - -
The above is Copyright 2006 by Michael H. Bianchi.
Permission to copy is granted provided the entire article is presented
without modification and this notice remains attached.
For other arrangements, contact me at +1-973-822-2085 .
- - - -
For more on the NESEA Tour de Sol, see the web page at
http://www.TourdeSol.org
- - - -
Official NESEA Tour de Sol information is available from the sponsor,
the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) at
413 774-6051 , and 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 , and
[EMAIL PROTECTED] . All media enquiries should be addressed to ...
Stef Komorowski
Classic Communications
508-698-6810
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- End Message ---
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Brad Baylor writes:
>
> Safts looked pretty interesting, even with the watering hassles, until
> I saw several posts that said 250 A is the max for long life. And also
> was pointed out by someone familiar with their use in European
> electrics, that 1500 cycles life was typical at 80% DOD, not the 3000
> claimed by Saft. Either way that's better than Sanyos at 80% DOD, but
> a moot point because of the 250 A limit.
"Wattering hassles"? Once every three months or so you connect a pipe
to the inlet of the pack and pump water in until it comes out the other
end. Takes maybe 20 minutes and a few gallons of distilled water.
The 250 amp limit is no problem if you have a higher voltage pack. Using
a smaller sedan or a Rabbit or a Porsche 914 with something like a 180v
pack and a Zilla-Z1K you'd have a freeway capable vehicle with very nice
range (maybe 40-50 miles). Paul Wallace uses a 144v pack of the 180AH
SAFTS in his S10 truck and gets about 50-60 miles range.
SAFT claims 2000 cycles if properly maintained. The trick seems to be to
water them more often than the SAFT spec though.
Ralph
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There's something called a "Super Boost Hard Starting Capacitor" that
does seem to be very effective.
I have an a/c unit in my camper van rated I think 700W and an EU1000i
inverter generator rated for 900W continuous, 1000W surge. And that's
basically accurate, an inverter generator has no energy storage capacity
and little momentum in the tiny crankshaft thus very poor surge
capacity. It stops really suddenly if you load down a circular saw too
hard. And it could not start that a/c unit.
I modified that a/c unit with that Super Boost cap and sure enough the
gen starts it up just fine. In fact I can run the gen on "Eco
Throttle", which lets it throttle down to a low rpm when not loaded.
Using that feature greatly reduces its sudden surge capability since it
takes like a second to throttle back up. But with the cap I can use it
reliably.
I'm not really sure how that cap works, it's not a stiffening cap like
you would use in a DC system. It has its own relay built into it and
puts itself in series with the motor during the starting phase. I guess
it adds so much reactive impedance that it lowers the current draw to a
tolerable level while still providing enough current to make enough
torque to start the motor. But like I say I'm unclear on the matter. I
assume shifting the current over towards the leading side is also part
of it. I thought that's what a normal starting cap does, I'm not sure
what this adds to it. But I can vouch that it does work on the inverter
genny and I believe it will have similar value helping a DC-AC inverter
start a motor.
Danny
James Massey wrote:
To use a small 'fridge' compressor you will need an inverter at least
5x the nominal wattage to run it. [I had the opportunity to evaluate
one a couple of years ago for a RE system, the unit was a small
'fridge', 60W nominal, we looked at 'hacking' the wiring to run the
thermostat to the control switch of the inverter. A 250W inverter
struggled to start it - about one in ten starts it failed. A 350W
inverter seemed to go OK, but the cost to do the modification became
unviable at this point - they just let the big inverter "fire up" on
each fridge start or door opening (the inside light)].
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