Sadly, nothing new to report other than the fact that there's nothing new to report.
It's rather interesting how mood can influence tone of writing. I sounded rather excited and overly emotional in my last post, likely due to the fact that I was just starting my first relationship (yeah, building stuff like electric cars during your high school career will postpone that until college)... That came and went and now I'm just sitting here in far different circumstances.
The car has been sitting out the winter, Lead Acid batteries just can't take the cold and nor can I when there's only a tiny amount of heat available to pump into the cabin. Hopefully some new and more interesting stuff will come up this summer! I'm currently looking at finishing my old wind turbine and starting a new and larger (yes, larger than a car) project to build an 'Earthship'. We'll see how that goes and I'll throw a link to a new blog for it when it starts on here.
Anyway, that's about it really. Stay tuned for the upcoming updates this summer when I get out of college!
-Don

9 months later...

No, not *That*, silly! It's just been nine months since my last post! I'm in college now, so I haven't got as much time as I would like to have. In fact, I need to go grab breakfast and head to class ASAP... But I wanted to update this first.

The car has been mildly upgraded since the last 120 volt video to the full 144 volts (12 batteries) and I soon intend to switch over to lithium! 50 70 amp hour cells in fact (170 volts O.o)... I'm about half way there monetarily... $2k out of ~$4k. So it will be a few more months unless the project gets an unexpected money transfusion.

There's another video on youtube as well!

Nothing really special, just driving the fully volted up car.

I'm dragging it out on a tow-dolly this weekend to impress the Missouri S&T admissions people who are coming out this Thursday...

Also, I helped a friend on her chemistry homework last night... Couldn't solve those pesky isotopic percent in nature problems... Percentages make things very confusing sometimes... >.<

P.S. If anyone has any mad scientist symbol memes, let me know. <.<     >.>    *shrugs*

The best of luck to anyone visiting this old relic! Even though it was updated today...
Bah, whatever. I'm off to go eat! "Omnomnom..."

Photo-Op with a turbine on the seventh (1/14/2012)

Here are a few of the better pictures taken last weekend when we drove down to the nearest wind-farm about forty miles away. Sadly the car was not driven but instead put on a car dolly for the ride (I really wish I could afford those LIFEPO4 batteries... Could've done the journey without external help. Oh well, some other year I guess.

And of course some humor, if you don't get the reference you should watch the movie "Wind".

Thoughts (1/2/2012)

Update from yesterday, I got a few makeshift blades on the wind turbine gen, works well, getting 8 volts with really really crappy blades.

So, I think I'm going to reconnect the motor differently to be parallel wound rather than series wound. no idea how well the idea will work, but in theory it should double the RPM of the motor and double the possible amp draw (not an issue at this point seeing as I've never seen it get past 125 amps on the meter).

No idea when I will be able to get to the lugs to change things around, hopefully soonish.

Up and runng, sort of. (1/1/2012)

Hello again.

The car is in running condition, however it still has some more work to be done to it still. Firstly I have recently painted it for the most part, some more work still to be done there, but it's close. Secondly I officially hate regular lead acid batteries, the four in the front are calling ti quites on me and I've had several others die for no reason I could find. Thirdly I am going to start another smaller side project, a small electric assist recumbent bicycle, just because I like the simplicity and the looks.

I have had the car running on 144 volts before but my battery situation prevented that from lasting.

Here is a video of the car on 120 volts and some pics of the paint:

Long time no posts!

I'm still here, if it matters to anyone or not yet I do not know.

The car is up and running mostly, everything on the previous list is accounted for and installed, pretty much...

The main pack voltage is 108 volts right now however one of the main batteries is iffy to say the least. I am getting the car painted next week or the week after, a bright metal flake blue, should be fun.

It is street legal and currently (Pun intended) draws 40-60 amps at its top speed of 50 MPH. With another three batteries and some modification to the speed controller programming to give me a little more control, I should be able to hit 60 MPH and be drawing 50 amps on the flats. hills like to pull a bit more than that...

I sold the old Geo engine for $150, a rather nice chap who also shares my last name car to pick up up in what else... A 1990 Geo Metro with 500,000 miles on it. Very interesting encounter.

The alternator for the wind turbine is operational, I just need to have the tower I bought last year hauled up here and make some blades and a hub, shouldn't be too much trouble.

Well, it's probably about time I get some sleep, lots to do tomorrow.

-Donovan Gibson

Things to buy... August 20th, 2011.

There's now just a small list of things to buy.

Vacuum reservoir.

Vacuum switch.

Vacuum tubing.

Hubcaps.

0-150 volt meter.

8 15 volt 6 amp power supplies to use as chargers (tested one, works like a charm).

And last but probably not least would be the paint and paint-job for the whole car, I'm thinking about a blue and silver pattern...

July 31st update: It moves!

A short youtube video of myself and my mom in the car driving it down the road at 36 volts.

Update: July 29. Lots new, lots of work...

Well, after a few days of unbearable weather my family finally got an AC unit, however, we pushed on and continued working outside on the car. After a week of dodging heat strokes the progress has been amazing. Here are the pics.The motor and transmission fully mounted in the engine bay. This was probably the most labor intensive aspect of the entire project so far. Burned up or shattered about four drill bits. Man I hate drilling through steel.
This is a Curtis 1205-117, it's not powerful enough for road driving but it made a nice test controller for the motor, it runs smoothly but 36 volts and 400 amps just won't be enough for this project I don't think.
Here is the engine wiring harness dangling from the side of the car, I'm kind of tempted to find someone to airbrush a slightly larger series of wires coming from the hood of the car, kind of a roundabout symbol of "Hey! I don't even need all this extra crap connected, I'm electric!" for the car.
Here's just a picture of the front of the car, quite sad looking right now, but it will be better soon.

Just two days ago we rolled the car to the bottom of the hill in our driveway and then hooked it to 24 volts and had it pull itself back up the hill. Fun fun.

I am not certain that I will be making the controller, I'm looking at Paul and Sabrina's open source controller, it seems like it would be a nice setup for what I'm doing.

I sure hope this weather quits being so radical, it's raining here for the first time in a long time, so it's better than the 105 degrees all day long that we were having just yesterday.

Long time and not much new, but things look promising.

Well, only a couple things to report, the adapter and spacer plates are complete, the clutch assembly is working (Mostly, still have a minor issue somewhere which is causing the flywheel to grind on a few bolt heads). I have taken it upon myself to build my own controller from scratch and I have had a bit of success with that, the logic board is complete and the next part is designing the main MOSFET and heat-sink system, that should be interesting.

MOSFETs for driving the motor, each one is rated for 1.5 KW.
Logic board for the controller, it's rather shoddy looking but it works surprisingly well.
And of course the motor and transmission assembly, the motor is a bit on the heavy side.

Update

Not too much to report, but the vehicle is coming together, slowly. 

I have bought a tower for he wind turbine for recharging the car, and am hoping to be able to test the fit of the motor tomorrow, heat permitting. (It has been an EXTREMELY hot summer.)

Update July 2

Well, today was somewhat eventful. The exhaust system has been removed, and the cars electronics still work without the engine harness attached.

New pics, new parts!

Here is the quick overview of what's going on with the project, well, more an overview of the components. All I can say is, if you are going to do an EV conversion, be prepared to spend a couple grand in the process.

The "new" electric motor, from an old Baker forklift, rebuilt and was sold on Ebay, I picked it up for around $400 plus shipping. Shipping was rather expensive, due to it being a 210 pound hunk of cast iron and copper.

The engine bay of the Geo, it's a rather small space to work with, but I think it's manageable. I picked up the Geo locally for around $500, still in running condition, but when driving it home the hood decided to unlatch and fly into the windshield, leaving the glass cracked and the hood ruined.

The old gas engine, hoping to sell it on Ebay, any money is better than nothing, there's a chance of getting a couple hundred dollars for it.
The new motor to transmission spline coupler, it cost $150 to get it machined so I really hope it doesn't snap under the load.

More to come!

First Post

No pictures right this moment, but there will be soon.

Current Progress: Motor is out of the Geo, car has been named, I have gotten the new motor, the adapter plate and coupler are being made, and I have about half the expenses covered.

Next: putting the motor in the metro, hopefully that will go smoothly.