On 2/7/2013 10:55 PM, John Neiswanger wrote:
That is correct Roger. The Tropicas have 2 ea. Prestolite 6.7" series motors with a Curtis controller for each one. Cog belt drive to each rear wheel and no series/parallel switching. The only switching was for electrical reverse and then the original design only used the left motor when in reverse. It is very hard on the motor in that manner. It seemed silly when I first discovered it since the only thing they really saved was part of the cost of the reversing contactor and there is plenty of room for the reversing contactor.
Bob Rice was Bob Beaumont's design engineer for the Citicar. His original "test mule" had two motors, each driving a rear wheel separately, with a series/parallel contactor controller. Rice said it was the perfect way to do it, but Beaumont didn't want the added cost of two motors. Rice's judgement proved correct. The Citicars had problems with the motor overheating, and being unable to accelerate quickly or climb hills.
When Beaumont built the Tropica, he *did* take Rice's advice and used two motors. Rice wanted him to use one controller for both motors, with series/parallel switching. But again, Beaumont chose in favor of economics. The two small Curtis controllers were cheaper than one bigger one and the series/parallel contactors.
-- Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple. -- Charles Mingus -- Lee A. Hart, http://www.sunrise-ev.com/LeesEVs.htm _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
