EV Digest 4633
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Re: Transmissions...
by "Rich Rudman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Re: driving habits
by "Rich Rudman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) RE: New Here
by "john.s.winters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) RE: New Here
by "john.s.winters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Re: Seattle area EV-savvy mechanics?
by Lee Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) Re: e-meter type gadget wish list wanted.
by Lee Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7) Re: Safety - AC/DC, voltage, current
by Danny Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8) war E-Meter, Ah counters , who needs 'em?when to charge
by "STEVE CLUNN" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9) Re: Safety - AC/DC, voltage, current
by "David Roden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10) RE: e-meter type gadget wish list wanted.
by "Jake Oshins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11) Re: Safety - AC/DC, voltage, current
by Ryan Stotts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12) Re: Safety - AC/DC, voltage, current
by Danny Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13) Curtis 1221 upgraded to high amps
by "Lawrence Rhodes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14) Re: Safety - AC/DC, voltage, current
by Danny Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15) Re: New Here
by James Massey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16) Re: Safety - AC/DC, voltage, current
by James Massey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17) Re: New Here
by Cwarman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18) Re: war E-Meter, Ah counters , who needs 'em?when to charge
by "Roland Wiench" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--- Begin Message ---
IT will be with Exide Orbitals, and it will be this week.
One way or the other.....
Rich Rudman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Smalley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: Transmissions...
> There is a pack of Exide Orbitals on the test bench being exercised before
> installation.
>
> There was one runt in the litter.
>
> Installation date has not been set.
>
> Joe Smalley
> Rural Kitsap County WA
> Fiesta 48 volts
> NEDRA 48 volt street conversion record holder
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ryan Stotts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 11:52 AM
> Subject: Re: Transmissions...
>
>
> > Rich Rudman wrote:
> >
> > >soft and tired Optimas.
> >
> > I'm just curious. If you ever replace your pack, will it be with the
> > same model Optima, or maybe the Deka AGM or Exide?
> >
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Lee and others
Keep in mind the data is 27 to 40 years old...
Many driving styles and ranges have changed dramaticly in that time frame.
Rich Rudman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Hart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: driving habits
> Ken Olum wrote:
> > Could someone point me to the study from which one draws such
> > conclusions as "x% of all car trips are less than 40 miles"?
>
> I have a couple of old books that have extensive data on this. One is
> "Electric Automobiles" by William Hamilton ISBN 0-07-025735-3; it has
> data from a dozen scientific reports from 1959-1976.
>
> The second is "State of the Art Assessment of Electric and Hybrid
> Vehicles" by NASA's Lewis Research Center HCP/M1011-01. It has data from
> fifteen scientific reports from 1965-1978.
>
> There's an overwhelming amount of data here; hundreds of pages of text,
> graphs, charts, etc. You have to summarize to make any sense of it; but
> then you lose much of the detail. For example, there are considerable
> differences in driving patterns in different cities; between urban,
> suburban, and rural drivers; for different age and income groups; and
> whether you include commercial driving (trucks, taxis); commuting
> to/from work, shopping; or pleasure/vacation driving.
>
> To give you a flavor for it, here's a "summary of the summaries" for
> lone commuters to/from work in two major cities; Washington DC (at the
> low end of daily miles driven) and Los Angeles (at the high end of daily
> miles driven).
>
> Percentage of drivers going that many miles or less:
> in Washington DC 40% 70% 95% 99%
> in Los Angeles CA 32% 55% 85% 93% 99%
> Total daily miles driven: 12 25 60 100 200
>
> For Washington DC, 50% of the drivers go 30 miles or less per day.
> For Los Angeles, 50% of the drivers go 40 miles or less per day.
> --
> Never doubt that the work of a small group of thoughtful, committed
> citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever
> has! -- Margaret Mead
> --
> Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Thank you! I will order the book on my next payday. How many batteries do
you figure it will take? I can drive a manual trannie I grew up in Iowa and
have used them most of my life.
John S. Winters
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-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Bob Bath
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 11:43 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: New Here
Hi John, and welcome to the list!
Two suggestions:
1) Read Mike Brown's "Convert It". Best $20-25 you
ever spent on EV materials.
2) Consider where you will stick 14-16 batteries in
the Windstar. Unfortunately, battery technology
(while improving rapidly) is still poor for the budget
EV. So after putting say, 7 under hood in the van,
you'd give up the back seat & cargo area for the
remainder. Ouch. On the other hand, there are several
Chrysler minivans that have been retrofitted, so it
can be done! (;-p
Another side note that we use manual trannies, not
automatic, unless you weld up the torque converter or
somesuch. (Sorry, not my area of expertise).
Best to you, and enjoy the incredible expertise you're
about to encounter!
Sincerely,
--- "john.s.winters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Hello All!
>
> I'm new to this forum & EV's. I saw "Sucking Amp's"
> on the Discovery Channel
> (least I THINK it was the Discovery Channel) and
> I've been thinking of
> converting my 1998 Ford Windstar to an EV. ANY
> suggestions would VERY MUCH
> appreciated.
>
> Thank you!
>
> John S. Winters
>
> Confidentiality Notice: This email message,
> including any attachments,
> contains or may contain confidential information
> intended only for the
> addressee. If you are not an intended recipient of
> this message, be advised
> that any reading, dissemination, forwarding,
> printing, copying or other use
> of this message or its attachments is strictly
> prohibited. If you have
> received this message in error, please notify the
> sender immediately by
> reply message and delete this email message and any
> attachments from your
> system.
>
>
'92 Honda Civic sedan, 144V (video or DVD available)!
www.budget.net/~bbath/CivicWithACord.html
____
__/__|__\ __
=D-------/ - - \
'O'-----'O'-'
Would you still drive your car if the tailpipe came out of the steering
wheel? Are you saving any gas for your kids?
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Thank you!!! I have about 50 questions so let me write them down first. Do
you have a direct e-mail address?
John S. Winters
Confidentiality Notice: This email message, including any attachments,
contains or may contain confidential information intended only for the
addressee. If you are not an intended recipient of this message, be advised
that any reading, dissemination, forwarding, printing, copying or other use
of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have
received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by
reply message and delete this email message and any attachments from your
system.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Rich Rudman
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 11:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: New Here
Team member Madman here.
Rod lurks
So does FT and Otmar is always around.
So we are here.
PLEASE don't use belt drives!
I have a client that did a Windstar. Get the older mechanical Automatic
tranny. The computer controlled ones are really had to shift.
Get a Zilla 2K... they are a heavy EV.. and you will need to stuff about
2000 lbs of lead on board for range.
Of course get a Manzanita PFC charger... A bit biased here of course....
Rich Rudman
Manzanita Micro
----- Original Message -----
From: "john.s.winters" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 8:28 PM
Subject: New Here
> Hello All!
>
> I'm new to this forum & EV's. I saw "Sucking Amp's" on the Discovery
Channel
> (least I THINK it was the Discovery Channel) and I've been thinking of
> converting my 1998 Ford Windstar to an EV. ANY suggestions would VERY MUCH
> appreciated.
>
> Thank you!
>
> John S. Winters
>
> Confidentiality Notice: This email message, including any attachments,
> contains or may contain confidential information intended only for the
> addressee. If you are not an intended recipient of this message, be
advised
> that any reading, dissemination, forwarding, printing, copying or other
use
> of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have
> received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by
> reply message and delete this email message and any attachments from your
> system.
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Patrick Clarke wrote:
> Anyone know of (or happen to be) a EV-savvy mechanic/shop in the
> Seattle area...
(Seattle Washington, I assume...)
You might call Eric Sundin at EVsNW at 110 N 36th, Seattle WA 98103,
206-547-4621. They don't do EV conversions any more (last I heard they
were into electric bikes), but are great folks. If they can't help, I'll
bet they can direct you to someone who can!
--
Never doubt that the work of a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever
has! -- Margaret Mead
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Jake Oshins wrote:
> This is worth seconding. And it is, by the way, what the batteries
> in your laptop computer do. There is a microcontroller embedded in
> the battery package that watches the battery while it drains, with
> various other factors like the current temperature. Then it builds
> a set of tables (pre-populated at the factory, of course) that
> describe the current behavior of that particular battery. This
> allows more accurate guesses about when the moment will pass when
> voltage will drop too low to power the computer.
Yes, exactly. It *sounds* like a wonderful system that should be very
accurate. Yet as any of us with a laptop knows, it doesn't in fact work
very well. A laptop's battery indicator is woefully inaccurate at
predicting when the battery will go dead.
The problem is that the engineers who wrote the software and built the
hardware didn't really understand how batteries work. You can't program
a computer (or build hardware) to do something you don't understand
yourself.
--
Never doubt that the work of a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever
has! -- Margaret Mead
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Yet there is no mention of the dramatic effect of frequency here. Above
15KHz-20KHz, pain and muscle control nerves do not respond to current,
which is the primary reason why streamers from a Tesla coil can be
carried through the body without harm. It is likely that any inductive
(or capacitive) coupling system would use at least this high a
frequency. Of course it is still quite possible to harm a person with
high enough currents at this frequency through simply cooking them, and
an EV charging system would be quite capable of such currents.
Danny
Mark McCurdy wrote:
Low voltage alternating current (AC) electrocution is three times more
dangerous than DC current at the same voltage. The lowest frequency
for electrical current in the United States is 60 Hertz (Hz) because
this is the lowest frequency at which an incandescent light functions.
With AC electrocution, continuous muscle contractions (tetany) may
occur, since the muscle fibers are stimulated at between 40 to 110
times per second. With tetany, the victim tends to hold on to the
source of current output, thereby increasing the duration of contact
and worsening the injury.[2]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
From: "Roland Wiench"
With my E-meter, I program it for AH. My batteries are 260 AH. I first
enter 260 AH which then counts down to about 120 AH which is normally my
charge point which is about 50% charged.
I've heard this is good for ev's with large packs that don't get driven far
,. one of my lawn custermors , a school teacher is going to be driving
my toyota torecell conversion , and she may only be putting 5 miles a day on
it , . The car has 18 golf cart bats so it can go pretty far , uses 100 amps
at 50 mph , So charging it up everyday would not be as good for the
batteries as doing somthing like what your doing / where you charge it when
its 50% discharged , which very well might be once a week. With the extra
batteries I have in this conversion I;m driving now (25 golf cart) and all
the places I found where i can plug in mamy times I come home , having used
just 35 ah. as I had charged at my last lawn before driving the 8 miles
home. . I wonder if it would be better for my batteies if I only charged
them full once a week but never let the get below 50 % . , I would have to
charge to 90% 1 to 3 times a day depending where I go .
steve clunn .
Later I enter 200 AH and charge it when its get down to 100 AH.
I find that I used about 100 AH out of the batteries before I charged so:
Now I used 100 AH and fill it up at 0 AH. Think as it is 100% to 0% gage.
Nice thing about this, I could go to
minus (-50) on the E-meter and still go.
Now when I charge the batteries, I watch the AH counter going from 0 to
100. When its at 100, than I stop charging which is normally 15 volts per
12 volt battery or 7.5 per 6 volt battery.
Roland
----- Original Message -----
From: STEVE CLUNN<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 8:08 AM
Subject: Re: E-Meter, Ah counters, who needs 'em?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Weathers" >
> What I want is not an amp-hour counter but a fuel gauge.
I hear this for allot of people who have not driven an ev with e meter
for 6
months , " All I want is something that will tell me how much juice I
have
not allot of numbers " . This is pretty easy to make and you can use old
rpm meters , or any plane meter that masseuses milla amps . most analog
meters when you strip everything away will do. I'm going to talk about
on
for 12v battery but could be used for any voltage . first you need some
zenor diodes a 9v ,10v and a 10.5v ( there cheep so even though you
won't
be using both , get the to play with) . then some resistors , ( a 1k
resistor will drop 1v on a meter that takes 1 ma full scale ) . what you
want is the meter to read 0 at 10.5 volts and full scale at 15 v . Now
hook
the ziner and to start 10 k and the meter all in series , getting the +'s
and -'s right . a variable power supply is needed also. Then as you turn
up
the supply ,also hooked to a militia meter so you can see what voltage
your measuring . watch what you analog meter is doing and adjust it buy
adding different resistors or adding some plane diodes to raise the
voltage
that the meter will read 0 at . . it takes some playing aroung to get it
to
do just what you want , I would rather have a plan dmm and read numbers
like
11.54 , but thats me.
I want to be
> able to glance at the dashboard and get an instant picture of my state
of
> charge, like in a ICE car.
for now , thats what you want but later ? I can get in a car with a e
meter
and if I know the type of batteries , can tell how far at what speed , I
can
go and be only 5 % off , with the empty full ,empty gaigage it would take
me
weeks of driving to get a feel and still not realy know . s
It doesn't have to be exact, just
> informative enough to know when to turn around or start looking for an
> outlet.
>
when I have my 2nd ev I did a 90 mile trip in it and had never done more
that 30 miles before that , my e meter said I could and I did. I knew
what
speed to drive and how could adjust my speed to make it and I did. could
not
have done it with just a volt meter or fuel gauge . the amp hour meter
also
helps you know how your batteries and doing as they age . lots of info
about
the batteries .
> Fancy computers that give me detailed specs on energy consumption are a
> secondary need. I will probably only want this information once in a
> great while, and it can be calculated pretty simply by hand when needed
if
> you have an ammeter, a voltmeter, and a stopwatch.
>
> I keep coming back to Mark Brueggemann's cross-needle analog fuel
gauge.
> More info here:
>
>
http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html<http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html>
>
This meter is better that the one I just decribed but you need a 2 meter
meter , I use old rpm meters that are easy to find.
> As I understand it, this scheme compares pack voltage to current under
> load, and plots this point on a 2D graph drawn with reference to your
> pack's impedance at different states of charge. The color of the
region
> of the graph that this point lands on gives you a rough estimate of
SOC.
> Mark has figured out an extremely elegant way to do this with analog
> hardware.
>
yes , if I ever find a 2 needel meter I'd make one ,
> My problems with this specific design is that the meter isn't designed
for
> use in a vehicle, and it doesn't work when you're not moving, and it's
> hard to calibrate.
you make it the same way as the one I described and just play with the
resistores till it dose what you want .
> There must be some reason why an EV fuel gauge based on comparing volts
> and amps under load isn't already in production by someone, but I can't
> think offhand what it might be. What have I missed?
>
There are alot of little things that people can make for ev's that have
not
been marked , what would you pay for somthing like this .
steve clunn > --
> Doug Weathers
> Bend, OR, USA
>
http://learn-something.blogsite.org<http://learn-something.blogsite.org/>
>
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
> I'm not an engineer ...
OK, this is more complicated than I thought. Good thing I put that
disclaimer in. <g>
So, I stand corrected. Ignore the first part of my previous post. The
later part about how well insulated different drive systems are should still
be valid though.
David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EV List Assistant Administrator
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--- Begin Message ---
Well, I take issue with that, as I had a hand in writing a lot of the
power management software in Windows... One of the guys who I worked
with tried to put up a user interface that would actually give truthful
data. The usability people told him that he wasn't allowed to put the
word "watt" in front of the user. He argued with them and they
bottom-lined him by saying that they had focus-grouped the word watt and
found out that it means something different to everybody and very few
people actually knew what it really meant. Consequently, any user
interface that used it would mislead most of the users. This is,
honest-to-god, how usability engineers think.
As you probably know, accurately predicting the amount of usable energy
in a battery is hard, but not unsolvable. However, what most people
want to know is how many minutes are going to pass before they have to
stop using their computers. Predicting this is a matter of guessing
what the user will do with the computer in the near future and
determining when the voltage will drop below the minimum required level,
where that value fluctuates depending on what the user will be doing at
the time. Since these two are essentially unpredictable, every layer in
the system adds some buffer to the data that it passes back. The
batteries give conservative data to the laptop embedded controller,
which reduces the numbers when it passes them off to the operating
system, which then makes conservative calculations to show to the user.
All of this happens because the consequences of being wrong are high.
The user will lose his or her data. (Turn off the emergency shutdown
alarms on your laptop and you'll see. It will run another ten or twenty
percent beyond its prediction before the machine crashes.) EVs are a
different situation. If your calculations are wrong, the result is less
abrupt. Furthermore, most of the drivers of EVs, certainly including
those who are currently in this discussion, would rather be given
relatively raw data that is accurate, rather than a post-processed vague
statement of "fullness" for the batteries.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that laptop batteries don't last as
long as they should was what inspired me to write in the first place.
Most people use their computers running on batteries for only a short
time and then they plug them in again. When a battery ages without
having been run to a low state of charge, the microcontroller in the
battery won't be able to accurately predict when the voltage will drop
too low. So it starts returning numbers that are extraordinarily
conservative. If you just (by turning off the alarms) force the machine
to run fully out of power and then let it fully recharge, then the
microcontroller can watch a full cycle and it will often start returning
much more accurate information. With some battery technologies, it
takes two cycles, some one and a half, etc.
Again, EVs are a different animal. They aren't so sensitive to a single
point on the voltage curve. But it would be nice if we had a device
available to us that could dynamically calculate the battery string's
capabilities by watching it over time.
By the way, the battery microcontrollers that are used in laptops are
connected via an I2C (I-squared-C) bus, which is a two- or three-wire
bus used in very low power computer applications. The protocol that
they use is called "SMBus" or "System Management Bus." You might be
able to find cheap usable parts for a BMS that were intended for the
laptop market.
Victor, I'll probably buy the device you produce regardless of whether
it can collect this sort of data. But I'd love to see you incorporate
these features. If you need programming help, I could probably lend a
hand.
- Jake Oshins
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Lee Hart
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 12:12 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: e-meter type gadget wish list wanted.
Jake Oshins wrote:
> This is worth seconding. And it is, by the way, what the batteries
> in your laptop computer do. There is a microcontroller embedded in
> the battery package that watches the battery while it drains, with
> various other factors like the current temperature. Then it builds
> a set of tables (pre-populated at the factory, of course) that
> describe the current behavior of that particular battery. This
> allows more accurate guesses about when the moment will pass when
> voltage will drop too low to power the computer.
Yes, exactly. It *sounds* like a wonderful system that should be very
accurate. Yet as any of us with a laptop knows, it doesn't in fact work
very well. A laptop's battery indicator is woefully inaccurate at
predicting when the battery will go dead.
The problem is that the engineers who wrote the software and built the
hardware didn't really understand how batteries work. You can't program
a computer (or build hardware) to do something you don't understand
yourself.
--
Never doubt that the work of a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever
has! -- Margaret Mead
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
ark McCurdy wrote:
> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410681_3
>The lowest frequency for electrical current in the United States is
60 Hertz (Hz) >because this is the lowest frequency at which an
incandescent light functions.
Is that so? I thought they used 50 Hz in Europe? What types of light
are they using..?
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Incandescent works perfectly fine on DC. Like check a flashlight.
Danny
Ryan Stotts wrote:
ark McCurdy wrote:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410681_3
The lowest frequency for electrical current in the United States is
60 Hertz (Hz) >because this is the lowest frequency at which an
incandescent light functions.
Is that so? I thought they used 50 Hz in Europe? What types of light
are they using..?
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I talked to Jim at LogiSystems and he said my Curtis was running over 1000
amps. He said he is sending it out at 700 amps. From my experience with
the heavy Aspire.(30 42 poound batteries)was at even 400 amps it just
wouldn't use the extra amps. 200/400 no difference. From what I have been
told all I'll get is heat which makes sense according to Ohm's Law. First
thing I've got to get a 700 to 1000 amp meter. Second would advancing the
timing on my 8" ADC help use the higher amps more effectively? Got more
amps more volts and less weight. (500 pounds less only 18 batteries) What
should I do for optimum efficiency?
Lawrence Rhodes
Bassoon/Contrabassoon
Reedmaker
Book 4/5 doubler
Electric Vehicle & Solar Power Advocate
415-821-3519
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
OK, you got me curious, Wikipedia mentioned:
"It is generally accepted that Nikola Tesla chose 60 Hertz as the lowest
frequency that would not cause street lighting to flicker visibly."
I'm curious though why the lowest possible frequency was chosen.
Transformers and magnetic devices in general see increased power
capabilities with increased frequency. Hysteresis losses do increase
but I thought they are not normally very significant at such low freq.
Perhaps the decision was made when more primative construction methods
and materials were lossy at even such low frequencies? Maybe the
transmission line leakage would be higher, I don't know about that area
either.
Danny
Danny Miller wrote:
Incandescent works perfectly fine on DC. Like check a flashlight.
Danny
Ryan Stotts wrote:
ark McCurdy wrote:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/410681_3
The lowest frequency for electrical current in the United States is
60 Hertz (Hz) >because this is the lowest frequency at which an
incandescent light functions.
Is that so? I thought they used 50 Hz in Europe? What types of light
are they using..?
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
At 10:28 PM 27/08/05 -0500, John S. Winters wrote:
Hello All!
I'm new to this forum & EV's. I saw "Sucking Amp's" on the Discovery Channel
(least I THINK it was the Discovery Channel) and I've been thinking of
converting my 1998 Ford Windstar to an EV. ANY suggestions would VERY MUCH
appreciated.
Hello John (and all)
Welcome John, before you ask many of the newcomers' questions, could I ask
you to go visit a few web sites - and be prepared to spend a few 10's of
hours getting quite confused. Although you will get confused some, the
basics of what works will be there. Then the questions you will be asking
will be "why did this person use that, but another person did it differently".
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/ is many of the vehicles of past and
present EVDL members (which currently number over 1000 world-wide). No my
truck is not there yet, I'm not going to put it there until it is at least
moving under electric power.
http://www.metricmind.com/ is Victors' web site - he leans toward AC
systems with high-quality components.
http://www.manzanitamicro.com/ is Rich Rudmans' site - chargers and battery
regulation systems.
http://www.cafeelectric.com/ is Otmars' web site - THE choice for on-road
DC motor controllers - well, not the choice - since he offers several.
The point towards these web sites is not the "in front" stuff - but all the
tech pages and other stuff that lies deeper in. There are a bunch of other
sites that also have deeper stuff, and a bunch more that are sales sites.
These ones are mature sites from long-term EVers that know what works and
what is not good enough. And the people who have them are here, on this list.
Just my $0.02
James Massey
Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
1978 Daihatsu 1300kg cab/chassis truck under conversion.
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At 02:35 AM 28/08/05 -0500, Danny wrote:
OK, you got me curious, Wikipedia mentioned:
"It is generally accepted that Nikola Tesla chose 60 Hertz as the lowest
frequency that would not cause street lighting to flicker visibly."
I'm curious though why the lowest possible frequency was chosen.
Transformers and magnetic devices in general see increased power
capabilities with increased frequency. Hysteresis losses do increase but
I thought they are not normally very significant at such low freq.
Perhaps the decision was made when more primative construction methods and
materials were lossy at even such low frequencies? Maybe the transmission
line leakage would be higher, I don't know about that area either.
Hi all
Here in Australia we followed the UK in using 240VAC/50Hz for power supply
to end-users. In Teslas' day street lights were either incandescent or arc
(I'm not sure when fluorescent lights came in). Incandescent takes several
cycles to heat up fully and works fine even on 25Hz with no flicker (of
course on DC there is no flicker either). Arc lights are another matter -
but at 50Hz seems to not be a problem re flicker, but may have been due to
the construction constraints of the materials of teslas' day.
Flourescent lighting has a phosphor that carries through part of the
off-time - but they do extinguish each zero-crossing time and re-ignite -
some people complain of headaches when workingunder 'fluros' from the
flicker (although some people complain of the flicker then find out they
are working under electronically-balasted 'flouros' that produce minimal
flicker).
The main thing is transmission line losses - on AC the transmission lines
radiate more than DC - hence most very long transmission lines (like the
400km one they are putting underwater here) use DC for the transmission,
and convert it each end. The town I live in had one of the earliest
electrical street lights - but the incandescent globes had to have lower
and lower voltage the further away from the generators they were! But that
was probably resistive losses primarily, so may be a phurphy.
The variation in voltage/frequency and availability was something early EVs
had issues with - and was a major contributor to the lack of wide
acceptance of EVs 100 years ago (EV content there!).
James
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Welcome John,
Im pretty new here as well. Good luck on your project. The only advice
i dare give at this point is to order the book "convert it". You can
find it on amazon or even ebay. Check that out asap..
Cwarman
john.s.winters wrote:
Hello All!
I'm new to this forum & EV's. I saw "Sucking Amp's" on the Discovery Channel
(least I THINK it was the Discovery Channel) and I've been thinking of
converting my 1998 Ford Windstar to an EV. ANY suggestions would VERY MUCH
appreciated.
Thank you!
John S. Winters
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Yes, Its best to charge the batteries at 50 percent. This shows as 11.9 volts
no load after the voltage pops up from 10.1 volt at load of about 50 amps per
12 volt batteries.
I normally charge every 5 days and sometimes once every 2 weeks to 80-90
percent which is 15 volts per 12 volt battery. Once a month I charge to 15.5
volts which shows as 100 percent charge to 1.275 specific gravity.
My last pack ran from 1985 to 2000 with only four 6 volt 235 AH Exide's
replacement. The pack I have now are Trojan T-145's which are now rated at 260
AH. After three years of running, 26 batteries are in with 0.01 volts of each
other and 4 are 0.02 after each discharge to 50 percent. Water them only once
every 6 months.
The right time of watering the batteries is very important. As the battery
discharges and charges the electrolyte will rise and fall. The larger the
battery of which I had 300 AH at one time, the filling well had a 3 inch space
above the plates. When charging these cells electrolyte would rise 2 INCHES.
When the battery is discharged to 50%, look at the electrolyte level. If its
just above the plates, even its just by 1/4 inch, DO NOT ADD ANY WATER. If its
just below the top of the plates, just add enough water to get just above the
plates.
After you charge to 100 %, than check the level again. It should rise to or
below the filling neck. Lets say that if the level comes up about 1/2 from the
bottom of the fill neck, then record this down on your battery maintenance
chart which you used to record all the past history of the battery.
Now, the next time you discharge to 50 %, add a half inch of electrolyte at
this time. NEVER FILL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE NECK WHEN DISCHARGE. You will find
when you charge the battery, this level will rise to the correct height.
When you over water the battery, you are changing the specific gravity of the
battery to a weaker solution. Its just like making 1.220 SG which has more
water in it than 1.265 SG which has more water.
This is one of the things that cause the batteries to become unbalance. To
correct this, you than must applied a balance charge which bubbles out or cook
it out watching it very closely like Rich said one time.
Another thing about checking the Specific Gravity of a battery, is do not check
it after a battery has been setting over 24 hours. What happens here, is that
the acid, H2S04 settles to the bottom of the cell, making the top of the
electrolyte more diluted with water. If you measure the electrolyte at this
time, you would think this cell is weak.
Its it best to check the Specific Gravity after you have run the EV which will
mix the bottom to top levels of electrolyte or just after charging.
Many times a person will have there battery replace by a battery shop worker
that does not know the science of battery maintenance. Normally they check the
battery and say, ohh yead, you need a new battery, one cell is weak.
Now, if you take it to a battery shop, that does maintenance on industrial
batteries, they will say, first we will tried to balance the batteries. If that
does not work, we will than pull that cell out of the battery, check all the
grids and replace any separators and replace the electrolyte with the same
specific gravity we took out.
NOTE: Do not install electrolyte with a specific gravity of 1.265 into a
battery that had 1.200 sg. This will cause the plates not become fully charge,
or not pulling all the sulfate out of the negative plates.
Doing the correct battery maintenance will extend the life a lot longer than
the average standard life.
Roland
----- Original Message -----
From: STEVE CLUNN<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 11:55 PM
Subject: war E-Meter, Ah counters , who needs 'em?when to charge
From: "Roland Wiench"
>
> With my E-meter, I program it for AH. My batteries are 260 AH. I first
> enter 260 AH which then counts down to about 120 AH which is normally my
> charge point which is about 50% charged.
>
I've heard this is good for ev's with large packs that don't get driven far
,. one of my lawn custermors , a school teacher is going to be driving
my toyota torecell conversion , and she may only be putting 5 miles a day on
it , . The car has 18 golf cart bats so it can go pretty far , uses 100 amps
at 50 mph , So charging it up everyday would not be as good for the
batteries as doing somthing like what your doing / where you charge it when
its 50% discharged , which very well might be once a week. With the extra
batteries I have in this conversion I;m driving now (25 golf cart) and all
the places I found where i can plug in mamy times I come home , having used
just 35 ah. as I had charged at my last lawn before driving the 8 miles
home. . I wonder if it would be better for my batteies if I only charged
them full once a week but never let the get below 50 % . , I would have to
charge to 90% 1 to 3 times a day depending where I go .
steve clunn .
> Later I enter 200 AH and charge it when its get down to 100 AH.
>
> I find that I used about 100 AH out of the batteries before I charged so:
>
> Now I used 100 AH and fill it up at 0 AH. Think as it is 100% to 0% gage.
> Nice thing about this, I could go to
> minus (-50) on the E-meter and still go.
>
> Now when I charge the batteries, I watch the AH counter going from 0 to
> 100. When its at 100, than I stop charging which is normally 15 volts per
> 12 volt battery or 7.5 per 6 volt battery.
>
> Roland
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: STEVE CLUNN<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>
> To:
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 8:08 AM
> Subject: Re: E-Meter, Ah counters, who needs 'em?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Weathers" >
> > What I want is not an amp-hour counter but a fuel gauge.
>
> I hear this for allot of people who have not driven an ev with e meter
> for 6
> months , " All I want is something that will tell me how much juice I
> have
> not allot of numbers " . This is pretty easy to make and you can use old
> rpm meters , or any plane meter that masseuses milla amps . most analog
> meters when you strip everything away will do. I'm going to talk about
> on
> for 12v battery but could be used for any voltage . first you need some
> zenor diodes a 9v ,10v and a 10.5v ( there cheep so even though you
> won't
> be using both , get the to play with) . then some resistors , ( a 1k
> resistor will drop 1v on a meter that takes 1 ma full scale ) . what you
> want is the meter to read 0 at 10.5 volts and full scale at 15 v . Now
> hook
> the ziner and to start 10 k and the meter all in series , getting the +'s
> and -'s right . a variable power supply is needed also. Then as you turn
> up
> the supply ,also hooked to a militia meter so you can see what voltage
> your measuring . watch what you analog meter is doing and adjust it buy
> adding different resistors or adding some plane diodes to raise the
> voltage
> that the meter will read 0 at . . it takes some playing aroung to get it
> to
> do just what you want , I would rather have a plan dmm and read numbers
> like
> 11.54 , but thats me.
>
>
>
> I want to be
> > able to glance at the dashboard and get an instant picture of my state
> of
> > charge, like in a ICE car.
>
> for now , thats what you want but later ? I can get in a car with a e
> meter
> and if I know the type of batteries , can tell how far at what speed , I
> can
> go and be only 5 % off , with the empty full ,empty gaigage it would take
> me
> weeks of driving to get a feel and still not realy know . s
>
> It doesn't have to be exact, just
> > informative enough to know when to turn around or start looking for an
> > outlet.
> >
> when I have my 2nd ev I did a 90 mile trip in it and had never done more
> that 30 miles before that , my e meter said I could and I did. I knew
> what
> speed to drive and how could adjust my speed to make it and I did. could
> not
> have done it with just a volt meter or fuel gauge . the amp hour meter
> also
> helps you know how your batteries and doing as they age . lots of info
> about
> the batteries .
>
>
>
> > Fancy computers that give me detailed specs on energy consumption are a
> > secondary need. I will probably only want this information once in a
> > great while, and it can be calculated pretty simply by hand when needed
> if
> > you have an ammeter, a voltmeter, and a stopwatch.
> >
> > I keep coming back to Mark Brueggemann's cross-needle analog fuel
> gauge.
> > More info here:
> >
> >
>
http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html<http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html<http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html<http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html>>
> >
> This meter is better that the one I just decribed but you need a 2 meter
> meter , I use old rpm meters that are easy to find.
>
>
>
> > As I understand it, this scheme compares pack voltage to current under
> > load, and plots this point on a 2D graph drawn with reference to your
> > pack's impedance at different states of charge. The color of the
> region
> > of the graph that this point lands on gives you a rough estimate of
> SOC.
> > Mark has figured out an extremely elegant way to do this with analog
> > hardware.
> >
> yes , if I ever find a 2 needel meter I'd make one ,
>
>
> > My problems with this specific design is that the meter isn't designed
> for
> > use in a vehicle, and it doesn't work when you're not moving, and it's
> > hard to calibrate.
> you make it the same way as the one I described and just play with the
> resistores till it dose what you want .
>
>
> > There must be some reason why an EV fuel gauge based on comparing volts
> > and amps under load isn't already in production by someone, but I can't
> > think offhand what it might be. What have I missed?
> >
> There are alot of little things that people can make for ev's that have
> not
> been marked , what would you pay for somthing like this .
> steve clunn > --
> > Doug Weathers
> > Bend, OR, USA
> >
>
http://learn-something.blogsite.org<http://learn-something.blogsite.org/<http://learn-something.blogsite.org<http://learn-something.blogsite.org/>>
> >
> >
>
>
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