Friday, May 23, 2008

Progress Update

Ok, so I have some more progress. I have made the modifications to my controller and added the connection panel so I can connect the throttle and power to the controller. I am in need of a new battery to do anymore testing, but using small motors and power sources everything seemed to work. It also has this safety feature that if the current sensing fails, the controller stops the motor. It will probably always be a work in progress, but this should get the car moving. I also bumped it up from 250 amps to the full 500 amps. So now its a 24 to 156 volt 500 AMP controller.




I have also started my templates and hope to bring them to a shop next week and see what they can do. This is really a concept template because I don't have the tools to properly make them, and the shop will use its own equipment and scan in the measurements to a computer and CNC mill out the plate. I do have the designs for the coupling done and will be bringing those along as well. My 7/8 taper hub piece should help make the coupler real simple since last time I went over there we spent about an hour trying to figure out the coupler because they didn't have the machine to make the key way and all the lovejoy couplers out there didn't have enough strength to survive the torque of the motor.



I will not be working on the car this weekend since I will be spending it in the middle of nowhere fishing on a well earned vacation trip.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Almost Time to Get Serious!

I have a day left of finals, then I can make haste on this project. Gas is up to $3.85 as of yesterday and I done my last fill up of the semester. The past two weeks have been all school related, end of the year stuff so I have virtually no time to work on the car. I have, however, made a few changes to my controller design and next week I hope to make up the new board and test it. So here is my list of things to do before I start tearing apart:

- Finish adapter plate and coupler templates
- Get adapter plate and coupler machined (Bring motor, transmission tempates to the shop)
- Make final modifications to controller
- Create wiring diagrams
- Clean the interior and wash the car

Once I recieve my adapter plate and coupler from the machine shop, I will start the remove all the ICE parts and sell them. I am hoping that selling the engine and other gas related parts will buy a good chunk of my battery pack.

Friday, May 2, 2008

The Key to It All


I finally got the key piece to making my motor coupling. It's a 7/8 inch hub that has the all important keyway and a taper so I can crimp it to the motor shaft. I now have all the materials I need to have a machine shop build this. I am going to finish up my own AutoCad designs so they can have a baseline on how I want it done. It should also save money since I did the designing.