Steve, I really wanted that car, but the wife drew the line after purchasing the TEVan (at least for BIG purchases ;-). Anyhow, I just went to SAM's club tonight and purchased a motorcycle/ATV jack for $79. I plan on using this to drop all packs under the TEVan this winter to clean an verify connections and water levels. I think this jack would work well with any battery pack that needs to be dropped vertically. It has a long handle to pull it out from under the vehicle and wheels that allow it to be pulled easily. Good luck with the Tropica, I wish it was mine. Rod
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I'm the proud new owner of the Tropica Bruce posted about earlier this week. We were >told by the previous owner that the charger was dead, the batteries were dead and >perhaps one motor wasn't running. We trailered it home to San Jose last night and >took it off the trailer this evening. > > Ok so what have we got here? I got out my DVM to measure the pack voltage. 2.4 >volts. No, I didn't misplace a decimal. Well that's not good. I plugged in the >charger and the voltage started climbing. I thought, hey the charger seems to work >after all. Well no, it put out a whole 4 volts! Fair Radio to the rescue. I hooked >up the "charger" and brought the voltage up slowly watching the current. At about 40 >volts, I was startled by the tail lights comming on. It was dark by now. What >suprised me was that I had the main switch off. A look at the schematic shows that >the main switch only disables the drive system. That probably explains why the >batteries were so dead. The DC-DC was suppling power to the "card cage" for the whole >time the car wasn't getting charged due to the bad charger. I brought it up to >72volts and let it set there for a couple hours pulling very little current. I then >raised it up to about 85 volts and the pack started drawing about 8 amps. I let it go >a co! > uple more hours but that was all the time I had. I'll measure the resting voltage >to see if I made any headway and continue charging tomorrow night. I'm not expecting >much. I fully expect this pack to be more than murdered but maybe I'll get enough >charge to check out the motors or go around the block. While charging, I checked out >the rest of the electrical system and everything seem to work. > > So far it's been very popular in the neighborhood. I got a real kick out of the >number of people asking if they could sit in it! I'll pull the charger out this >weekend after the EV Rally and check it out. > > I need help with two things, so far. Does anyone have info on the battery watering >system? There is a central watering system that is filled from 3 quick disconects in >the front. There apparently was a small tank and pump that was available. I'm also >looking for information on how to build the battery cart for removing the battery >pack from the tunnel. > > > thanks, > Steve > >
