Many people wanted that car. They are beautiful.
For clarity, the tropica pack slides out the front of the car. It doesn't come out the bottom. The usual approach is to jack rollers up under the car and through slots so that they make contact with the battery tray. With the loss of most of the static friction, it can then be easily slid/rolled out the front of the car.
-Thomas
>From: Rod Hower <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: My new Tropica
>Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 20:50:06 -0700
>
>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
>>
>>
