Friday, November 30, 2007

Ordered gauges

I wanted to get a state of charge rather than a volt meter. I think it would be easier to see what % of charge is left rather than having to know what voltage was 80% State of Charge (SOC) or 50% SOC. None of the suppliers I found offered a state of charge for 156 volt system. Took some time, but I found the www.westach.com site – these are the suppliers of the gauges to Electo Automotive and EVparts – and they were happy to make a custom gauge for me. The Optima helpdesk questions@optimabatteries.com provided the numbers for 50% and 100% for their yellow top batteries, but unfortunately, the numbers aren’t linear, so the gauge would need to be set for the 0%, 50% and 100% voltage. Westach explained that they can only set 0% and 100%. After some thought, I went with the 50% SOC number for 0% (you shouldn’t go below 50% if you want to your batteries to last anyway). So the gauge will show the *useful* state of charge rather than actual. 80% SOC now shows as 40% - a little confusing, but I think I can live with it.
I ordered a 1000 amp gauge and, since the gauges will look different than stock, a matching temp gauge for the controller. I plan to put the 3 gauges in the stock instrument cluster.

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