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Electro-Willys conversion

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m38mike View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Apr. 2009 at 3:19pm
John, what a great idea!  A dial indicator!  And here I was using a piece of string looped around the shaft with a mark where the housing should be! Cry Wink
 
Thanks Gale and Richard.  I'm working with Westach to see what it would cost to have a 240 degree sweep tach made.  They have a 90 degree tach already made that would work, but I like the look of a wide sweep tach.  I'm amazed at all the different gauges they make.  If you haven't seen them yet, take a look at www.westach.com   You could get a triple gauge in one 2 inch housing.  Just amazing. 
 
Moab was great, a bit chilly, but great.  Although driving along the top edge of a 500 foot cliff on an outsloped road not much wider than my ATV was a bit "un-nerving" for a guy who's afraid of hights! Shocked Pinch
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Apr. 2009 at 4:10am
I've been talking with Pete at Westach for the last few days, and he's agreed to custom make the tach that I want for this project. It'll have a black face and bezel, white markings, and a white pointer with orange tip. It'll be a 3/4 sweep on a 0-5000 scale, so it should be easy to pick the rpm to the nearest hundred. His price was only about $20 more than their stock tach, which I thought was a good deal. The stock tack has a 90 degree sweep. I much prefer the 270 degree sweep.

Not to be procrastinators, but we're just finishing up our taxes for last year. If you haven't heard, there is now a federal tax credit for electric vehicle conversions. It amounts to 10% of the cost of the conversion. Not much but not bad. I really like the Colorado state income tax credit. They will credit me for 85% of the cost of conversion against my state income tax. And if I can't get it all in the first year, they give me 5 years to collect the rest. Can't beat that with a baseball bat!! Bottom line on this is that if you're in Colorado and you convert a vehicle to electricity, you can get 95% of it paid for in tax credits. And if you junk the gas engine, or sell it out of state, you can get another 15% on the state tax credit. I guess I should have sold the F-head that was in it to someone out of state.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr. 2009 at 4:58am
My next mystery to solve in this electronic puzzle is how to automatically shut off the motor if it spins out of control.  One of the electrical wizzards on another forum in gave me an idea.  He told me about RPM sensing switches.  I did a little research and discovered that some of these are able to use the pulse from a tachometer sensor.  Then at a user-set RPM the switch turns on the power to a normally closed relay.  That relay then opens, and shuts off the power to the main relay that passes the power to the motor.   That way if the accelerator sticks, and I use the clutch to disconnect the motor from the tranny, when the motor starts spinning too fast this switch will shut it off until I can shut off the breaker.  It'll also keep me from spinning the motor too fast when I'm in 1st gear, especially since I can't hear the the motor spinning.  This will also protect the motor from someone else driving that doesn't understand what's happening. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RichardD Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr. 2009 at 5:11am
Hey again Mike, really enjoying following your build thread and thought process on this, keep up the great work!
 
Great idea, and good backup to "watching the tach". The motor is too expensive to "send into orbit" for sure.
 
Be well,
Richard
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote trader_reed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr. 2009 at 9:27am

The new Autolite make a tach with what they call a shift light, it's for drag racers not to over revv their engine during a race. I'm sure you could adopt it to open a switch instead of turning on a light. Just a thought, they have delivery trucks here in Ireland that can go 200 miles without a recharge. I forget the name but can find out the info if you'd like.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr. 2009 at 3:35pm
There are quite a few 3.5 inch tachs that have a shift light circuit included.  You're thinking along the same line I was.  I thought about using that shift light circuit to power up the 12v relay but I've already committed to Westach to have them build me a 2 inch tach that will fit in my gauge cluster.  I'm not keen on the idea of a 3.5 inch tach hanging out somewhere.  I asked Westach if they could include a shift light circuit in the 2 inch tach.  They said no.  Too small. 
 
So I think I'm back to using a programable RPM actuated switch to control a 12v relay on the low power line to my 180v relay.  The nice thing about this setup is that once it's wired, I can install it somewhere out of sight and forget that it's there.  It'll all work automatically to protect that expensive motor from spinning itself into a thousand pieces.
 
Yes, I'd be interested in learning more about these Irish delivery trucks.  Especially the battery packs they use.  If I could go 200 miles on one charge, then I could take E-W on the fall color tour! 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote trader_reed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr. 2009 at 9:37pm
Sorry i was wrong it only goes 100 miles but is still really cool.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote John 46-2a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Apr. 2009 at 2:25am
Mike,An electronic tac or speedometer both have an electronic pick-up that pick the pulses from a set of teeth flywheel etc. that pulse is actually an AC signal which you might use to your advantage. Your throttle is it now a reostat to control throttle?Could You not govern that plus use a diode and a LED light to indicate overspeeding?Could You put a cut off switch in line?John
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Apr. 2009 at 4:43pm
Trader_reed, thanks for providing the link.  I could see the Modec being a really good vehicle for use in European cities.  They didn't say much about their battery pack though. 
 
John, my tach will have a Hall effect sensor to pulse 12v DC back to the tach.  If the RPM actuated switch is designed to use Hall effect sensors, then I can simply tap into the tach wires to feed a sensor pulse to the switch.  Then the switch does what the tach does, monitors the rpm.  When the RPM gets to the limit that I set, then the RPM switch turns on the power to a closed relay and opens it.  I like your idea of adding an LED light in the switch circuit to indicate that the RPM limit has been reached and the limiting switch is what has shut off the motor.  Good idea!  Thanks. 
 
I do have a cut-off switch in line.  In fact I have two.  The primary one is the 12v on-off switch.  The second one is the 160v-250a breaker.  I can reach either one in just a moment if I need to.   Yes, my new throttle is basically a reostat.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Apr. 2009 at 4:30am
After I learned that Jack had passed away this morning I went out to the garage and looked at my jeeps while I thought of Jack, and his jeeps.  I hope he finds some nice ones in Heaven. 

After a while I started puttering on the E-W to get my hands and my head busy.  That always seems to help when I'm feeling sad.  Amazingly I was able to get quite a bit done.  Here's a couple of photos of my work today.  This first one shows the cables bolted up to the controller and the high voltage relay.  The on-board charger is now in place.  I've put almost all the wires into wire looms to protect them.  I've also used different colors of electrical tape to mark each loom so I know where the cable is supposed to go.  The small loom with orange tape has the 3 wires from the potentiometer (accelerator) that connect with the controller.



I've also stripped away most of the wires the shop had attached to the small fuse box.  I'm relocating some of them to the fuse block in the dash.  A couple of them I'm getting rid of since I don't need them with my new wiring scheme.  In the photo below I've pulled all the cables out from under the jeep to get them out of the way while I pull and rework the lite wires used for gauges.  In this photo it's easy to see the color tape I used to identify what the cable connects to.  This makes it very easy to follow one cable when it's bundled with others. 



I've got to get some different sized ring terminals for a couple of my wire ends so I can get rid of a lot of un-needed wire.  Once I've got the gauge wires fixed and in a loom, then I'll zip tie all these cable in their final location.  I noticed on two of the cables that the jackets had been chafed by something.  We didn't drive the vehicle very far yet, and already I found places where the cables could have been shorted if we drove the jeep much farther.  These looms, and a different routing, should take care of that for me. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote John 46-2a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Apr. 2009 at 5:38am
Hi Mike,looks good wish I could help.I went and striped the rear dif. down.It's not like me not to offer free advise on my favorate project so here goes, carefull on the tywraps and loom, we would get trucks in not that old with electrical troubles and found that the trouble was in the loom under a tywrap to tight.The loom would rub through the wires.You can go to a hydraulic shop and get a thick spiral wrap (loom)We use it all the time in high friction areas on equipment, logloaders(my truck)for hoses and electrical you wont have any chafeing with it.Also you probabley know this one ,but if your running a lage group of wires we use 3"pieces of phone cable there's about 12 different coulers and you can double them up.someone should be cutting up a piece of underground cable.Good luck John.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Apr. 2009 at 4:54pm
I found the RPM switch I've been looking for to be able to shut off the motor before it spins too fast and destroys itself.  It's made by MSD Ignitions, model 8969, programable RPM Switch.  Here's a photo of it.
 
 
It has two circuits in it.   One is normally closed (NC), meaning it's on until this switch turns it off.  The other is normally open (NO) until the switch closes it, turning it on.  I will wire the NC circuit to the high voltage relay, and set the RPM limit to 4,500 rpm.  If the motor gets spinning that fast, the switch will kill the power to the HV relay and shut off the motor.  The motor isn't supposed to spin faster than 5,000 rpm for any length of time.
 
I will wire the NO circuit to a warning light, actually a blinking LED, to get my attention and let me know I'm close to the cutoff limit for the motor.  I'll probably set this circuit about 4,000 rpm.  Normally when I'm driving I don't expect to go over about 3,600 rpm.  This way I can't over-rev the motor when I'm in a low gear, or if I accidently mash the accelerator when it's in neutral, or if someone else is driving and they don't know what is going on.  It's cheap insurance for an expensive motor.
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote samcj2a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Apr. 2009 at 5:01pm
Nice solution.  Clap   When do you project the first test?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Apr. 2009 at 3:02pm
Thanks Sam.  I'm still waiting on the motor to get back to me, and then I've got to get an adapter made so I can connect the motor shaft to the flywheel.  I suspect it'll be June before I'm driving it again.  Part of the wait is because I've finally convinced Pete that the 18 golf cart batteries he bought for me in October are not going to meet his contract requirement for a 40 mile driving range at highway speed.  He says he's ordered 25 deep cycle batteries at 6 volt and 245 amphours each.  By my calculations with a 6 volt battery I need 223 amphours, so these new batteries should work.  But I need 24 of them instead of the 18-8v batteries I have now.  Now it's just time to pester Pete and make sure they're coming.  That and the battery heaters, and the cabin heater, and the 144vDC-12vDC converter, among other things. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote John 46-2a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Apr. 2009 at 12:51am
Mike, carefull with the deep cycle batteries most will not take a steady dischage and some do not recover from a total discharge.Gelcell's might be better if you go deep cycle or a marine type. John
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Apr. 2009 at 1:25am
Hi John, The deep cycle batteries we're working with are designed for electric vehicles.  They can take an 80% discharge day after day and keep running.  Of course if you can limit the discharge to 70/60 or 50% you will extend their life.  Marine batteries are usually a cross between a car starter battery and a deep cycle.  Not very well suited for a long distance E-V.  You're right, the gel cells are better than regular deep cycle batts.  Only problem with them is they co$$t more.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote John 46-2a Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Apr. 2009 at 4:15am
Glad to see your on top of this.you are right about the marine of course but better than normal, the B.C. government has a web sight where they sell used asset's like lithiam batteries from repeter stations maybe keep an eye out.John 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote m38mike Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Apr. 2009 at 4:27am
I got some good news today.  George from Netgain said that my motor got shipped back to me yesterday.  That means I should get it by the middle of next week.  Then it's off to the machine shop to have the adapter made that will connect the motor to the flywheel. 

My RPM switch arrived today, so now I can work on figuring out where to put it.  And maybe this weekend I'll get some more of the lights wired.  I sure wish my other two gauges would show up so I can get the dash finished, and get those wires run. 
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