Don Gibson's Electric Geo Metro "Geo 'Lectro"
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
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
Friday, September 14, 2012
9 months later...
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..."
Saturday, January 14, 2012
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".
Monday, January 2, 2012
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.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
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:
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Long time no posts!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
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...